Parking Lot Carnival Is Back In Spite of LBJ's Construction

Looks beautiful but there was a 40 MPH wind blowing!

The Tea Cup Ride still shows up at Carnivals

Part of the main midway

A regional carnival and amusement company is back at a redefined Mall parking lot in spite of the LBJ Construction between Preston Road and North Dallas Tollway segment. The project stretches 11 plus miles from the Dallas High Five to the North South connection to I-35E.

The spot where the carnival usually sets up is covered in steel, pipe,wire,forms,gravel,chunks of torn up pavement and all the orange barrels that goes with such a project. The HOV lanes will be below grade level in the middle with the East West lanes at grade level. When done in 2015, one of the worse congested corridors of traffic will be well ahead of the traffic for the next several decades. When connected to the High Five on the East and the busy I-35E Corridor on the West, new flyways and HOV lanes up in the air along the right and left side of the main traffic lanes going South and North.

However, even with the Valley View Mall about to undergo redevelopment, in the shadows of the Galleria Mall that is less than three or four football fields down the block, the carnival draws a large crowd of families, especially on the weekends,.because of the toll way and  635 LBJ.

 

Looking Backward: New Discoveries

An old rail car going to a museum.



One of the carriage horses that pulls the flower laced carriages in downtown for the visitors and even locals that take the ride.



 

It will soon be time for the annual Dragon Boat Races in Las Colinas

 

 

Looking backwards will always turn up new discoveries. That's why photography really is "a moment in time" because sometimes months will pass before you see an image from an old shoot. Once the image falls behind the shutters, it's still that exact moment when you clicked the shutter. But, the excitement isn't lost. It's still just as exciting as if you had just shot the image only hours ago. Indexing images is very important and I don't always index a shoot like I should. So looking backwards will turn
up lost images. Here are a few examples of a three month period of lost indexes.

Churchill and Napoleon: A Lesson in Two Dogs--Well,Three

The White Rock Boat House c.1934

The French and the English are connected through bloodlines that bind them  for more than two thousand years through  tribes of  Kelt's. Rome tried to conquer England in what? 46 BC by building Roman alters over the Kelt's alters. The Kelt's worshiped at those alters with little difficulty. When the Romans pulled back to Rome, the Kelt's torn down the Roman alters and continued to worship at their own alters as they had done, during and after the Roman occupation. Rome thought they had conquered the Kelt's, but what they had really done was to enforce the power of worship on the Kelt's more than ever before. Had the Kelt's been a race of people, they would have conquered the Romans in battle, spirit and mind. Riding naked on horseback with their long blond hair flowing in the wind, they had prepared for the battle by having days of drunken orgies before riding off into battle. The Druids knew how to prepare their warriors and did so regularly.

During the reign of Napoleon, the little man knew his history well. He prepared and he lead with determination. His determination. Unlike the Kelt's warriors, he dressed impressively, but his determination was none-the-less much the same and he never lost that desire to be bigger in deeds than he was in statue, though some of his statues in bronze are pretty impressive in size.

Churchill, a tenured statesman and Prime Minister, had a statesman attitude and mindset. While Churchill had some American blood, he still was that Englishman's gentleman at nature and cigar's did, indeed, make the man, but it never changed his beliefs.

Growing up, our number 3 and number 4 dogs drew their names from their personalities. Mine was a German red dachshund  named Napoleon and my brothers had a  French brown and white basset hound  named Churchill. To this day, when I see either breed, I recall easily the fun we had with those dogs in names alone. People would just walk away shaking their heads after stopping to talk and asking their names. You could see the fake smiles melt away  as they realized the dogs and the brothers were not kidding. They just didn't know how to respond to such real but shockingly unexpected answers. Their minds were not ready for what they got in honest reply. That's the way my two brothers and I are today. We laugh about it. My nephew thinks I'm hard on his dad I know, but his dad, my youngest brother, just take the banter and quips in stride as we have always done.

So, don't you see, name you dogs with a distinction in modern history A name that is or can be enshrined. I once had a friend who's dad was a big burly man with a deep voice and had that distinction of a boss-- if you know what I mean. One Christmas, she got a little white puddle puppy. When it came time to name the dog, they--the family--named it "Cheers" When asking Guido what he thought of the name---he paused and said:" The neighbors already think I'm crazy. Can't you see them when I open the door and yell out,'Cheers!' ".



 

The First True Sign of Spring

The first true signs of Spring

The basket is about 80 feet in the air

The renewal of life in a trees bloom.

The flowering trees are beginning to bloom. I saw several that were fully in bloom and then I came across this stand that is just now in the initial stages of budding. All in all it just felt good to have the warmth of the sum on my light jacket and to see the opening buds nearly a month early. The other shot is of two men replacing the lights in a medium rise office building's sign on the side of the building. One guy was on the roof handing the front facings to the guy in the basket that had to screw them into the side panels that seemed to have gaskets to keep out the elements.I'm not so sure how that works in Texas Heat, especially when the sun beats down on the metal all day as the sign faces West.The gaskets or caulking has to be able to withstand that heat! The basket was about 80 feet in the air.

The Stand Off!

Click on the picture and the page will open up with all the details.

This image is listed with my agent for posters, framing or canvas wrap. I just love the scene!  Two years ago, while walking the stage route for the Children's Hospital, Nieman-Marcus Christmas Parade in downtown Dallas, these two units of the parade were already in place and were waiting for the parade start. It was something that you couldn't stage, it was just happening and those are the best shots anyway.

Fair Park (Part Two)

As seen on A&E Networks Shipping Wars

One one of the many Art Deco Sculptures at Fair Park

The new Top O'Texas Ride with the Texas Star in the background.

Yesterday, was a great day at Fair Park. The post from  Sunday  was images of the new Top O'Texas ride being built there. While at Winfrey Point later in the afternoon, the tower could be seen from the Point. That's about 8-10 miles from Fair Park and it stands as tall as the KERA tower that it is built next to.  That tower has towered over the landscape for a very long time. Now, it's going to have a neighbor!

This post will continue were yesterdays left off.

In the past, I did a shoot of the "Gas Monkey Garage" featured on A&E network. Dr. Moe, of Texas Storage Wars was at Fair Park yesterday.His gallary store is across town on Riverfront Blvd in the Design District. Hope to shoot over there in the not so distant future. While I couldn't get a shot of him from there,at Fair Park, I was able to get a shot of the Twisted House from the A&E show, "Shipping Wars". If you saw that episode, you will recall that Chris and his partner had hauled the house to within a mile of Fair Park from Portland,Me., when the load shifted. Well, the house is behind the Cotton Bowl currently at Fair Park and there is  a shot of that. Also, while there, I got the image of the famed art deco sculpture that is an amazing piece. And, the Tactical Services Division of the Dallas Police Department that houses the mounted unit and the K-9 unit was discovered along with the Pan American meeting rooms with the auction area at the state fair was also discovered. All in all, there was a lot of discoveries made at Fair Park yesterday.

Howling Winds and 70* F Made for Some Potpourri Shots

A hot and F-a-s-t little remote. I like this car!!

A new attraction to Fair Park! Sweet! Now promote it and keep it open!

Top O' Texas Tower at Fair Park under construction

Days like this I'd buy like peaches: A bushel and a peck! And that's a whole bunch. The docket today called for going to Fair Park.It is one of my favorite places and a grand prize within itself. Having the Texas Star year round is a jewel within a jewel and  you have not even entered any of the museums. The Discovery Gardens are amazing, the Cotton Bowl is a landmark. The Hall of State building, music hall, African American Museum building each have their own history and so much more. Now, the new ride that will be the biggest in Texas will debut  by this years State Fair.

After leaving Fair Park and doing a run-through of Deep Ellum,  it was down Grand Avenue to the Lake. There, I found a guy with one of the most amazing remote control cars. It's just plain F-A-S-T!!
He gave me a demo at the ball diamond parking lot  at Winfrey Point.

Another Post from this trip to Fair Park will be scheduled for tomorrow, Monday,Feb.18
 

Books of Note and People That I Miss

The connection between Books of Note and People That I Miss is that the Ritter's have funded with their wealth,a library in Vermillion, Ohio, where George was born. He took note growing up that Andrew Carneige funded libraries but never put one in Vermillion.   

I just finished re-reading Arthur Gordon's " A Touch of Wonder ". The book was copyrighted in 1974 and it was given to me as a gift in 1991.  Some twenty-two years later, I am still reading it cover-to-cover, although you can read it by chapters in about any order. Yes, it is a book of spiritual inspiration but it's more like sitting on the front porch in a South Carolina beach house listening to a friend of many years telling stories. Gordon grew up in Georgia and that story telling craft  wasn't much different from the South Carolina's way.

My copy is so ear marked and annotated in it's margins that I recognize a particular story by my own markings faster than reading the index. In fact, I have re-indexed it by material. One of my favorite stories is when AG,as a young man, ask Thomas Watson to lunch at the Central Park Zoo. He had no ideal who Watson was but Watson pointed him into the direction of new thinking that: " On the Far Side of Failure ", was success.

While the Bill Gates or Michael Dell's of today are interesting people, the men that I grew up with were the real business tycoons that had learned from  people like Tom Watson, Henry and Edsel Ford, even  R.A. Stranahan,Sr. or Mr.George W. Ritter, Vice President and General Counsel of  the former Willy's Overland Motor Company. Today, we still know that company's product as the "Jeep".  Yes, that Jeep.

George Ritter and his wife Mary, were people that just seem to "stay with you" over the years. What I remember of George and Mary would be strange to some but that  encounter with them is something that I have cherished over the years knowing that a very few people have had the opportunity that
was afforded me by the Ritter's. The time frame as I recall was some time between 1965 and 1972. A few years before, they had built a private mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery-- not a mile as the crow flies from that beautiful piece of architecture know as the Headquarters of Willy's Overland. That HQ building has since been imploded to make way for what is now the I-475/ I-75  expressway,although, Chrysler does have a picture from 1948 showing the bottom half of the building with a full lineup of the Jeep products post war era and the grand staircase that marked the entry of the building.

 I was invited to tour the finished mausoleum with it's beautiful stained glass window. The marble was their favorite rose marble because they thought white marble aged dirty. The invitation came following one day when Mary, was trying to describe the rose marble to me and I said to her that I knew what it was because my grandfather (who was two years older than George) had a headstone in rose marble because my grandmother had rejected a white marble for the same reason. Mary smiled widely and didn't say another word. While I was afraid that I had offended her, the call came the following week to tour their mausoleum. The mausoleum is situated on an angle that points directly toward the Willy's Overland Plant from the banks of the stream that flows through the cemetery on the north end of the bridge's bank, almost in a triangle to the R. A. Stranahan mausoleum  and the Edward Drummond Libby mausoleum,guarded by the massive Spitzer mausoleum on the south end of the bridge. To this day, I still think that the Ritter's have the more desirable location for beauty and privacy.

 

A Beautiful Winter's Day

A brown feathered gull

Just a great day

A photographer trying to get closer to a log full of pelicans.

Made my lunch and packed it for a lunch at the lake. Dryfus Club.  It was so peaceful and restful to eat something besides a fast food sandwich. The sun's angle is once again at an angle where the glare on the water can be good and bad. Today, the lake was like a mirror.  After eating and clean up, the next stop was within eye sight from Dryfus,  but it takes a good two miles to get to Sunset Bay.  Once there, both cameras were unpacked and I went to the dock immediately. The birds were being fed by a couple of women. The city advises people not to feed the wildlife but people do anyway. For me, it draws  the ducks,geese, gulls and others away from the pelicans.

Today, I saw more gulls with brown feathers, one with a modeled neck. Last week, my first gull ever with brown feathers was spotted. Now, it seems there are many, many more. Charles Darwin's birthday was yesterday. He would have been going nuts!


 

In Response

The Hand of God

Mariner's at Sea

I Must Release You

 

 

Twenty-seven was to young to die.



For I will not see you grow grey hairs or

Crows feet in the corners of your bright

Eyes.

 

When your sister announced your death,

I cried as a father would, but I knew that

I must release you to go and fulfill your

Better dreams.

 

The canyon of void in my soul is dark and

Empty of your smile,laughs or pondered

Thoughts.

 

So, I released you the day before my

Birthday. I know you are here at times,

For I see whisp of your presence as you

Come and go,checking on me or just to

Be home again. Come and go as you wish

But always know that I loved you so much!

 

 

 

 

Several readers have ask about the poem mentioned in my profile. Above is the poem. It has been published in hardbound and as a beautiful note card  

Texas Sailing

Dropping the Sail

Open Water Headed Inbound

High Up on Winfrey Point Looking Down on the Marinas

Minutes beyond first bell, a loud clap of thunder hit this morning as a squall line moved passed. The sun was out by noon and it was time to get at least some walking in before ending the outing at the grocery.

The temps were in the mid 60s with a breezy southwest wind 10-12 knots. That meant the sailing clubs would be on the lake at White Rock. Beautiful day for a sail.


The shot at Winfrey Point was shot about ten days ago but gives a view looking down over the Marinas  going toward the bike bridge. That day the fog had hung over downtown for most of the day. You can still see the haze in the air.

Perception Is Everything

Perception of U S Marine Corp

Pride

Traveling Corp.

Just when in life, you reach a point where you really don't care what people think, it becomes crystal clear how important perception really plays a part.This point was made  more clear this past week. The example came from the strangest of places with the strangest of  projects. Sometimes it is almost  better to fail than to be seen in the light of  being a "copy cat". There are some who are pulling their hair our by now because of that string of words "better to fail than to be seen". But, of course, they are the very people who miss so much because  common sense is not so common for their world. That doesn't make them ignorant or stupid, but the perception can put the focus in  a different light.

Example 1

There are some interesting people on Twitter. Some, I even follow. A couple of those scholars  sound almost human. Then, I am reminded of an old neighbor who was listed in the "Who's Who" of American Anthropology and was professor in the Anthropology Department of a major University, yet he would come home at night and cut his front lawn by a push-real mower with a taped on flashlight to light his way in the dark of night. The perception was rather odd to many of  his neighbors. The reality of it all was that his brain was working overtime and later on in the semester his published papers would rock the world of Anthropology from those flashlight cuttings. The perception was not the reality and looking back today, I was literally watching thought being generated,then store itself in his grey matter until he released it onto paper.

There is this one account that gives me indulgence because he reminds me of the former neighbor. His perception of me is that I'm odd, I would believe, but as is human nature, that is my perception of how he views me. He is moving up the ladder of academia at another major university. He's blended teaching, family life, writing scholarly articles that are published with being trapped in a world that he thinks he has control over from an academic standpoint to the reality that he too, has reached that point in life with  waining connect to being young and energized with ambition and hopes for the future. My hope is that I live long enough to have him report that he cut his lawn with a flash light taped to the handle of his lawn mower. That's my perception.

Example 2

Never would I draw to conclusion or formed the perception that when Dallas developed, planned and built the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge that the city of Irving would try to copy that with a major bridge building project. People went nuts when Dallas built a $130 million plus cable-stayed bridge over the Trinity River, but really now, Irving building one to identify the City of Irving is a bit much. Hello! You have the Famous Mustangs of Los Colinas, don't you see. You created  Los Colinas. You have Lake Carolyn. You have the canals.You have the gondola boats. You now have your convention center. You have the Orange Line, the Monorail. You have The Four Seasons  at TPC Cottonwood. Carpenter Ranch has been good for Irving.

The perception is that  this blog does not  favor  Irving. This blog has reported several times in the past that Irving is high on my list of places dear to my heart. Across the Carpenter Freeway from Irving's Convention Center at Los Colinas,  is the world headquarters of Exxon Mobil Oil, that is  nestled fairly deep in the woods of their corporate estate and compound.The reality is that this blog  will always be grateful to Exxon Mobil Oil for what they have done in the past, personally.

So, when things seem one way, looking the other way in the opposite direction will usually reset you humanity compass so that you can make adjustments that will align you more to a perception that is in refined focus. Of course, that is only a perception.









 

From Filtration Dock to Winfrey Point

A 1000 miles of wear in under 50 feet.

Never have seen a gull with brown feathers

What better way to enjoy the outdoors.

After running my medical errands this afternoon, it was time to do a little walking, get some fresh air, but the heavy fog over night was still lingering in the mid of afternoon. The air was soupy thick but as any New Yorker will tell ya: "You'll have that from time to time."

Spotted Before Superbowl XLVII

The Famous Tail Number N1DC aka Blue Star Management,aka Mr. Jerry Jones's private plane seen  holding short of Runway 13L at Love Field today just before noon.

 

General Aviation on final approach to 13L

"The Hand of God"

Private Corporate Jet on final to 13R

Sunshine and blue sky with an above average temperatures. Who could ask for anything more? Some of the things  along the way around one half of Bachman Lake.



The cloud image appeared right over the Southwest Airlines Headquarters Maintenance Operations Building. I've seen a lot of cloud formations over the years but never something that could be compared to an Italian painter 500 years ago.










 

American Airlines Should Be Ashamed

Five days ago, I was on Tweeter and one of the groups that I was following sent out a tweet bragging about the new Boeing 777-300ER that would start inaugural service between DFWairport and Sao Paulo,Brazil on January 31,2013.
The fact of the matter is that it isn't inaugural service at all. American has been flying that route for more than a few years. It is, however, the first flight in their new 777-300ER  livery with the new logo and paint job. Already, my dislike of the paint job has been expressed as many others have done,as well. The creator of American's old logo even went public that he didn't like the logo and paint job either.

So, when I read the tweet on the 29th, I replied to @dfwairport and ask two questions. You can't ask much in 140 characters per tweet but you can get the point across. My question was: is the plane at DFW or will it be flown in beforehand for the event. The second question was: what time will it push back from the gate?This is information that Logistics knows days in advance generally, especially with a big Public Relations Brew Ha planned. @DFWairport sent me the "fools" reply and  attached a link. Upon opening the link I knew immediately that I was getting the 'blow off". A day later, @DFWairport sent out a tweet to their followers that they had a new instantgram account that had taken flight and wanted every one to submit their photos!. I simply replied "NO" and that was that. Later that day I got an e-mail notice that @DFWairport had responded to my tweet. It said that the plane would leave on January 31. No kidding was my thought in as much as that  was the press release date  the media had been promoting. I replied simply with a" Yes, Thursday is January 31,2013. Bless your Heart."

Today, I had been working with my contacts and was planning on going out to DFW Airport. DFWairport for being a media source to build interest for American was sure shooting people in the tweets today left and right. One guy said he was concerned with the answers he was getting. Other tweeters chimed in on various topics and  some were not happy with @DFWairport's replies. I tweeted that they seemed to be in their own little zone today. That got me a tweet from American. Not wanting to rain on their parade, especially today, I replied with an e-mail address that I if they sent me an e-mail, I would be glad to explain my displeasure with @DFWairport. Quickly, came a reply that it was their mistake that they could not share contact emails with customers and staff.

Since I have never been a customer with American, that pissed me off like a slap in the face. I replied in three tweets numbered 1/3 of 3/3. I Never heard from American again.
In the mean while, my contact came through with some information that would have answered my original questions. On Friday,February 1, American, who had others that had been just as upset with American's sarcastic attitudes showed off their media and communications operation on the 5th floor of the AA headquarters. Also, Southwest opened their media center to the media and I must say that Southwest is so far ahead of American it was almost sad.

What I found out about the 777-300ER
If you know anything about the airline business, you learn quickly that #1, airlines don't usually own their own planes in their fleets and #2 tail numbers are like a birth certificate of an aircraft. A plane without a tail is legally, not an airplane. But when an aircraft gets its tail, the tail number ids that plane forever. Or, at least until the bank sells it to someone else for registration changes or it hits the desert grave yards where the tail is lost/separates when it is scrapped.

I learned that N718AN, a 777-300ER was dispatched from Southern California Logistics (KVCV) Victorville, Ca. as American Flight AAL9708 on January 27,2013 for DFW Airport Dallas (KDFW) and that Wells Fargo Bank Northwest NA Trustee, Salt Lake City, UT owned the craft . It also appears that the plane was flown in under cover of night arriving DFW at 11:24 PM CST on Sunday. Push back time is at 8:35pm tonight at Terminal D,gate D23 with departure as AAL Flight #963. The last I heard the flight was at climbout at 5700 feet and 281 knots headed toward Miami. I'd love to go back to Brazil but it won't be on an American flight 777-300-ER or  anything else American  liveries.

Below, is a link that American Airlines tweeted to me. The airport is the Southern Cal Logistics (KVCV) mentioned above. And, this is the aircraft that was landed at DFW International just before midnight on January 27,2013.

Victorville is in the socal desert just a bit southeast of Edwards Air Force Base, but because this is a Texas blog, its about 5 miles from the Roy Rogers Museum!  And as Roy Rogers and Dale Evans would sing:

Happy Trails to You! 

Credit the link image,below, to American Airline as they sent this to me in a tweet after I had ask them not to insult me further. In the photo, the aircraft appears to be on the ground at KVCV. They have a 150 foot by 15,050 foot runway at Victorville. The military uses it at times for training. You could land almost anything on that runway. If the truth be know, there probably has been some strange landings and sitings there over the years.

The live image that you see (Air Force One)  is owned and copyrighted by dallaspaparasso and is dedicated in the Nota Bene below the image.

http://twitter.com/AmericanAir/status/297088669909647360/photo/1

Air Force One Arriving Love Field  copyright dallaspaparazzo.com

 Nota Bene: The image, Air Force One was inspired by a man that made the documentary," Air Force One: The Planes and the Presidents" that opened at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in 1984. I meet him that same year while attending a pot luck dinner in his home. I still recall the pride and the gleam in his eyes as he talked about a wall in his home filled with pictures,letters and articles about the successful documentary. His wife, had a hand in planning the inaugural of President Richard M. Nixon and had served as the receptionist to Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew. That man was Elliot D. Sluhan and his wife was Maryann Benes Sluhan. Sadly, Mary Ann passed away February,2012; four years to the day of Elliott's passing.
It is, therefore, an honor to dedicate my image, "Air Force One arriving Love FIeld" August,2011, to the memory of Elliott and Maryann Sluhan.

O blest communion, fellowship devine!
We feebly stuggle; they in glory shine,
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
-----William W. How, 1864
For All the Saints, a British Hymn with music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906.

edited and corrected from original post.