Hum! The related post will follow

Since last check on my hive, the bees not only survived the winter but have begun to wax in the opening for more control of the hive's temperature.



A feel of Transylvania in Dallas.

It takes courage and strength, even today, as these words were spoken after the death of Moses as the sign suggest with the Old Testament Book of Joshua 1.

Business Eats Business Eats Business, Then..........

Marketing has always been my thing since my grandfather showed me how to move a box on the counter of his grocery store with a candy bar in it and then watch how customers responded. I was 5. Since then, I have watched marketing  "experts" with amusement. I have seen trends become fads become must-haves and then tank (e.g. the hula hoop and others). I laugh today to hear people talking about a new trend as if it was only "their generation" word.

The key is to learn about cycles. Every thing is in a cycle.  Cycles run day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year. There are some that run bigger cycles like  11 and 13 and 18 year cycles. While the moon cycles every 30 days, the big picture is that the moon actually cycles on 18 years made of many months of 30 day cycles. Marketing is no different. Fashion cycles over time which triggers marketing cycles. So are the cycles of business as they grow, or as they fail.  I happen to like the business of heavy industry from the standpoint of  how it cycles in mergers and mega-mergers that sometimes at first glance do not make a whole lot of sense. It does, however,  takes on the character of art. I'm always looking for examples of heavy industry. That is why you get so many pictures of planes and trains! But those are refined examples.

Several days ago, a couple of pictures came together that could be viewed as chapters in a book  if I had an interest in writing one. The thought has crossed my mind several times, but my driving interest is in the discovery of threads that make up the woven fabric of the story. Like the one that is about to unfold.

This post will be an example of that. It will be a bit more lengthy than most post.

 Not so many years ago,(early 1966) the space program was under way. Later, the shuttle program used ceramic tiles that were made by a company in Waterville, Ohio named Johns Manville. They are an insulation company with a building material division. Martin Marietta is a defense contractor with a building materials division.  It was the first time that such materials were used on a space craft used for re-entry into the earths atmosphere.

At about the same time, (1946) there was a company in Dallas, Texas that made cement and aggregates for construction. They expanded into the two biggest grow states, Texas and California. Building airports and expressways that just fit as a logical source of revenue.

Florida Steel began operations in 1956. Florida Steel not only supplied the state with construction materials such as reinforcing bars and channels and angle bar, as well as ornamental squares and rounds, it exported a great deal to the islands like the Bahamas and others in the greater and lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Islands.

The Rogers family in Texas is well entrenched. Ralph, a long-time friend of St. Mark's School, his son, Robert, a member of the Federal Reserve Board and Jamie, the COO of Texas Industries (TXI).

Somewhere in there the Rogers co-founded Chaparral Steel in Midlothian, Texas. They also built a large cement plant in Midlothian that most in North Texas are familiar with, but may not realize that it is only one of three plants that TXI now owns

In the mid 1970's integrated steel mills in America were beginning to dismantle themselves. The new fad, the trend was heading toward mini mills.. The easiest way to describe a mini mill is instead of an integrated steel mill rolling all products that made up their complete rolling schedules,  a mini mill will take one or two, sometimes three, like products and roll nothing but those products, An integrated mill might schedule bar products for two weeks during the year, one in the spring and one in the fall. That would include round bars, round wire rod by coil  and reinforcing bar. A mini mill would roll only those three items every week throughout the year. The next major change between an integrated mill and a mini mill is its size. It's a much smaller operation under one roof, where an integrated mill would still be under one roof, that roof may stretch for miles. And the final difference is the number of people working in the mill. An integrated mill would have 50,000 employees. A mini mill might have 400 including office staff.

So what does all this mean? It means that marketing people and others, should be paying more attention to how companies morph into monster industries.  In short, a defense contractor buys an aggregates company that  co-founded a steel company that became part of the melt down of American steel companies as we once knew  as the backbone of this country that has consumed nearly every  established mill  in this country from east coast to west coast, Minnesota to Florida. with headquarters in Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

The net results is a company that will own over 400 stone quarries, several distribution yards, mines and plants that includes all but 14 states in the US from the Caribbean Islands to the Arctic Circle. One that makes ballistic missiles, fighter air craft, satellites, Atlas launch vehicles and munitions to name only a few.

While Gerdau, the Brazilian steel maker since 1901, has no connection now with the new Martin Marietta Material, since Chaparral Steel was connected to the Rogers family, it does resemble a propagation of  a business in general that is a world leader. In short, three separate companies cycled into two hugh and separate businesses and the genealogy is all connected.  Who would have thunk!

Rail Cars Being Loaded. Hard to imagine that the new Parent of the parent builds Atlas Launch Vehicles, Radars, Munitions to name a few.

Rail Cars Waiting to be Switched Out of the TXI Aggregates

An engine sits ready to move cars onto a siding that will make up a train. Above, a Southwest flight with landing gear already down, is on a final to Love Field.

edited for correction of omitted text.
edited to clarify  the association of Johns Manville and Martin Marietta. I have visited the JM plant over the years and have seen some of the changes they have been forced to endure. I hold no interest to burden them in any way in this article. JM is now owned by Berkshire Hathaway,

The Character of Nature

On my way to the doctor my phone rang. My appointment was delayed for a couple of hours. It was a beautiful morning. It was a rare mornings look at some old friends that have stood guard over the lake for nearly a hundred years, or more.

The texture of the bark is amazing



One of the Twisted Sisters (Not the song)

See archive for past writings and pictures on this topic

It's Not Whether You Win or Loose, But How You Play the Game.......

The previous post began the trek that let to these pictures. In that post, I wrote about the best bologna sandwich made in Dallas. It had been a while since I had one and while I was at the Parkit Market, I had the deli make one to go. I grabbed a coke from the cooler, got checkout by one of the Todora men, wished Ann a happy 92nd birthday via her son, John, and headed out to "the rock" to eat my lunch in fresh air with a great view of the lake.

After eating my sandwich, I had started home when I spotted a large motor coach in the parking lot of the Filter Building. Taking a detour to check out the bus, it soon came together the reason why the bus was there. It turned out to be an interesting set of images on another activity going on in the metroplex besides the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick's Parade or the totally different spin on being green in the Stockyards in Ft. Worth. This one was more solidly based in character and in building a solid foundation for life. This one is about not whether you win or loose, but how you play the game overall.

When I came around the curve at the filter building heading to the parking lot, the first thing that I saw was a very comfortable driver waiting  for his team charge to finish up for the day so that he could drive them back to their lodging for the night. What one could not readily see was that transporting the Creighton University women's rowing team to the SMU Invite isn't just about chartering a motor coach. It's also the behind the scene logistics of moving multiple rowing vessels that travel with the team; both leading the way and bringing up the rear of such a trip.

The driver had been driving for the team for a decade. He has taken the team as far east as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has been to the west coast's Pacific Northwest, although he says that the team usually flies to those locations now. Never-the-less, getting a team to where it should be is not as simple as a comfortable bus ride down the road. It takes yet, another team of drivers or rowers if you pardon the pun.

I have a hunch that this crew--this Creighton University women's rowing team, is quality and top notch whether they win or loose because they know how to win where it counts; building character and building a solid foundation for life.

SMU swept the event.

Team Spirit Starts with the Driver! 

The BlueJay is Creighton says my niece.

The behind the scene part of the meet; moving vessels 40-50 feet down the road is not an easy task especially in wind.

 

Beer Keg Travels Shoulder-High Via Skateboarder

Yesterday, I had started to go down Greenville Avenue to see my dear friends, Jamal and Ali to get gas and then on to Trader Joe's.The best blackberries are coming into Dallas now and I love them like a bear!  I never made it. Instead, a pony keg shoulder-high moving at the rate of an experienced skateboarder got my attention. This was a story in pictures and as always, I had my camera with me. Although, getting really good shots were hard to get while driving and only being able to get better ones when traffic lights stopped both me and the rolling beer keg. It ended at the best place in Dallas to get a homemade sandwich. For me, its the best bologna sandwich on wheat with lettuce, tomato, mayo and onion, in Dallas, that is the Parkit Market at University and Greenville.

The skateboarder, Allen, is a local artist. You can see some of his work www.inkbyallen.wordpress.com  Allen, also, is a familiar face on the annual parade route down Greenville Avenue each year riding his skateboard in various types of festive clothing.

Allen going to Market. Parkit Market, that is!

Outside the Todora Family Business. Ann turns 92 on St. Patrick's Day

Still got that little swag and 10 blocks to go!

Canada Readers about Robinson-Ransbottom Garden Pot

Several months ago, I posted about a piece of pottery that had been in the family for a very long time. That piece was a Robinson-Ransbottom 412-11 Garden Pot (c.1930s). The pot had been made in Roseville, Ohio.  I featured it as a post because it was time to let it go so that someone else can enjoy it as much as I have over the years.

When checking a stat page to see what our readers  like to read, there was a question from a Canadian reader that wanted to know where to sell their Robinson-Ransbottom pot.  This post addresses that question.

When I first began to entertain thoughts that I was finally going to let go of the RR PC 412-11, I searched the web. Much to my surprise, I found little. The company had undergone a lot of changes over the years of course. There were many very good companies in that same area in central Ohio also. That compounded the problem. Then with a merger and a very well known business finally ending its history as one of the oldest pottery companies, some of the rare pots were scooped up by antique dealers and private ownership such as mine. But, trying to find someone who wanted to specialize  in the RR PC or someone who actually had specialized just ended in a dead end hunt.

My next step was to talk with a few local antique dealers. Some knew of the pottery pot but didn't seem to be to interested in my pottery pot. They were displaying the high glaze pots that could be set on a side table as part of interior design dealers and furniture companies. A garden pot just didn't seem like it was worth anything to some of these dealers who can be "to close" to their products and miss a lot of what is happening in the market. I learned a long time ago in a marketing class that you never want to get "to close" to design or a fad etc.,etc. An example would be that you sell in your store what YOU like. The problem with that is that you customers don't always like what YOU like. So, you need to stock things that you don't like as well as the things you do like. Many don't follow that advise and end up with things that one, don't sell and two, end up not turning valuable inventory on a timely fashion.

After I listed my pottery pot on this blog, I was getting a lot of hits but no bids were coming in to consider. It was now time to really hit the pavement and find out just what type of industry would be most interested in this pottery pot.  I went to garden centers, I talked to a lot of antique dealers that bought up estate sales and garage sales .

Then, much to my surprise, the thought hit me that there were a lot of new homes that I nicknamed McMansion after custom home builders were buying up "Ugly" homes by twos and then bulldozing the houses making one big lot that they would then build a modern upscale home with movie rooms, 5 or 6 bedrooms with  5 or 6 baths, family rooms, three car garages, pools, garden driveways and the like in established neighborhoods where tall old trees lived.  The link? Architecture Dealers. Big patios need lots of pots. In fact, they need big old pots with character. Rustic, but sturdy that will withstand a storm, heavy rains, hail storms and the like. Once I made that connection, the pot was sold within a week. The sale price did not suffer, either.


See archive for previous pot on this pottery garden pot: July 03, 2013
 edited to change see to sell in paragraph 2.

The Things You See from Afar

Saturday, just before I got so excited about some new technology that was posted earlier, the temperature was the warmest day of the new year. It was 84 F. degrees. That also means a lot of humidity in the air and distance is not as clear even if you do have a 600MM lens.

Almost two years ago, along Harry Hines Boulevard in the Medical District, there was a fair amount of excitement up and down a two mile stretch of Harry Hines. The buzz? It was the announcement that one, Parkland Hospital would build across the street from its historic location a new hospital of some 800 beds. Two, that had hardly had time to sink in when UT Southwestern Medical Center announced that they would be building a new University Hospital at Harry Hines and Mockingbird Lane in the South and West quadrant of the UT Medical School's campus, Medical Center and related care facilities. The hospital would be 400 beds approximately.

In the mean while, construction jobs have hammered out two impressive buildings for Dallas' Medical District . When new buildings go up, there is a faction of people who get excited because they realize sooner than others what a visual impression makes on the success of a new facility.

 As was discovered with the building of the Maggie One (Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge) generally, the public doesn't get excited until they can see something coming out of the ground. When the form of the bridge took shape with the lifting of the final curved fabricated piece completed the arch, people could visualize. The cable stays had not been attached, but that was alright. It was the shape from that people couldn't visualize until it was done. They could then visualize the cable stays in place. With that, they could pass judgment. Now, people use the bridge every day and complain when they can't use it for some reason, like Saturday when the north side lanes were closed for the Trinity Event going on under the bridge as well as up top.

The amazing thing to me was that people were spotting a mystery building seen for the first time from afar. "What is that?", they ask. People were heard saying, "I've never seen that before." or" we need to go check that out". When the event visitors were told that it was the new Parkland Hospital, they were blown away. Some had seen it from the near-by Green Line Dart Station, " but it doesn't look that big from there." one guy said.

Just as the TxDot worker had said to me some four months ago," the people of Dallas are asleep at the wheel".  There is a building sitting out in a field like a white elephant, unmarked and with a very big high rise garage. There probably is not one out of  five hundred people who could correctly identify the building's use let alone find the way in--if you could get that far. Since it's a government facility here in Dallas, I'm not going to be the one to disclose anything else, but the point is.....architecture is important. It establishes landmarks (good or bad) and people should be excited about the city in which they live.

Another example was a city park officials response on Saturday. When ask: "what's all that new concrete about. Is it new trails?"  The man said it's part of the bridge. His rider, came around from in front of the truck with her clipboard and said," No, it's new trails. It's the 4.5 mile Skyline Trail." I then said to her: "so the city really is doing more than what the published reports on the news  are saying, then?" She said, "we let people say what they want to say and in the meanwhile, we just keep moving ahead."

There is no doubt that while Dallas did get caught off-guard with infrastructures after the massive growth following DFW's opening (now some 40 years ago), this is one of the most progressive cities anywhere in the US. It's our city. Be proud of it. Take an interest in what's going on beyond what I call the little distractions of  5K or10K runs.  Did you know that at one time, before the demolition of Texas Stadium, from I-30 and Cockrell Hill from afar, you could see both the old Texas Stadium and the new Cowboy Stadium (now, AT & T Stadium)?

The Massive New Parkland Hospital

The new 4.5 Mile SKYLINE Trail

Didn't know the city had a full size 18 wheeler for "EVENTS"
but on the other hand: How do those stages and risers  get  out side City Hall or in front of Neiman-Marcus for Christmas Parades etc.,etc?

Dos Equis, I need a Stay Thirsty Grant because.......

There are gadgets invented, created (not all equally) and sold every single day of the year. We hear about some of the most promising if not the most exciting. The information overload would be just out of the universe if all of it was paid attention to when it came out.

Once upon a time, I was invited to attend a motivational speaker's presentation because at that time, he ran the hottest direct mail advertising company in the US. For nearly a week I got to pick his brain about how he had made his company one of the most recognizable organizations in the country. I never forgot the pointers that he left with me.  Not that I have been interested of late. I have been running a test experiment for nearly five years now putting into play the new technology that wasn't there when Whitt  did his thing so successfully in the early 70s.

Yesterday, I got to see, talk and observe a demonstration that kept my brain going well into the wee hours of this morning thinking about the possibilities of what this device can and could do from here on out. The problem now is more bifurcated as to what end one would want to be involved. One, do you want to use the technology and device as it is currently and develop it to its fullest, or two, do you want to be on the horizon of where this thing is going?

So, Dos Equis , with a Stay Thirsty Grant,  I'll photograph the Dallas outdoor sidewalk patio's with  the Dos Equis interesting people and blog about them  on my blog, your blog and twitter!!

This is not a toy, it's a work horse for Photographers

Legally, it can fly at an altitude of 400 feet in open terrain.

 

Dos Equis, I need a Stay Thirsty Grant because.......

http://heinekenusa.com/tag/stay-thirsty-grant/

Edited to remove copy and add the copy below.
I just learned, there really is a Stay Thirsty Grant Contest by Heinekenusa and that doesn't change a thing.  I don't need 25k, I just need a video camera and a drone !  The creative juices are already generating a list of uses for photography.