Interesting Finale

Went exploring this afternoon. After getting gas, leaving the station and heading toward the main drag when an electric wheel chair appeared on the sidewalk catching my attention. It's driver was laying on the sidewalk. Almost immediately,  two women pulled up ahead of me and got to the old man. Others began to stop and with help there, I was satisfied that the old man was alive and had help that apparently knew who he was.

Had they not been there, my phone  was in my hand at the time to call the rescue squad. From there, it was on to the main drag and then down to the next light to turn right. It had occurred to me that  where the street ended--or in high Dallas tradition---what it became on the other side of a light and  intersection was unknown to me. Sometimes  one street can have three, sometimes four, names. It's the craziest thing. Why they don't just let a main drag keep its name from one end to the other has no answer.

Seeing new things and being taken back by the development, still, my curious nature kept me going and gawking at the new sights. Then, things began to look familiar but the road just kept going. And so did my car. Then, the realization hit me that the street name had made the switch and where the change occurred had been missed. At that point it was time to turn the car around and head back to see where the change had occurred. All-in-all, there were two turn arounds, one north and one west.

It was so nice weather-wise today, heading for the barn was delayed as long as possible. Finally, it was time to head inbound. Sure was nice, though.

This is across from University of Texas-Dallas. This was not here a year ago.

A good clean shot of a Vulture. The next picture is what he was really after.Also, you might have to enlarge this one manually. Thanks to Google, I might add.

All the ewe's have had they kids and were out for the first time that I have seen then. Long Horn Sheep.

Another Dallas Police Officer's End of Watch

This is really getting to be all to common. It was only a couple of months ago when I was photographing the memorial patrol car of the Richardson Police Officer killed while answering a call. Now, Dallas, has lost another officer doing the same thing.

He got up and went to work and on a dime, his life was ended for his watch that day.

This time, the memorial car was at the Northeast Patrol Division on Northwest Highway. Having seen the measures underway to protect the job place of work, the division basically has no parking for the public other than a couple or three spaces for visitors under normal circumstances. I parked on the east side of the armory and walked down to the station. There were 16 images that ran on the live news feed and rolled off this morning on the 48 hour cycle.

Since officer Santander's funeral is not until Monday, the memorials have built since the initial images were on the live news feed. I don't like to go back with more images when the kind people were gracious enough to run my images. There is only so much space for the whole world of events happening and I respect that aspect of submitting images, too.

However, I know that there are some of my readers that would like a follow up and I went out again this morning and shot a couple more images just to update the scope of how the community has turned out in support of our officers.

Here is what it looked like today.

The memorial for Officer Santander

The patrol car can hardly be seen.

Part II to Garland and Cowboys

As previously mentioned in our last post, the part of our trip before Heritage Events in downtown Garland, the Cowboys on Tour had been spotted in the parking lot of the Academy Sports store.

Here are those images.

What did we ever do before pop-outs in semi-trailers?

The Five Big Wins for the Cowboys

Had the weather been nicer, the future of football would have been trying out.

All set up for what its like to be auditioning for the Cowboys and the weather slammed them hard.

The Silent Arm of the Cowboys Empire.

Saw this F-350 at Academy Sports in Garland on Sunday. The Cowboys were on tour with the 5 trophys.

Notice the DFW on the sign.That's DFW property devoted to development.

At the corner of Regent Blvd and Trade Ave. sits a little known part of the Cowboys Empire. It's that merchandise with the Blue Star on it. On the right side of this not so small warehouse are rows and rows of  overhead doors. In contrast, receiving has only a couple of hands full of doors. One of the neighbors is Amazon's Fulfillment Center, yet, as massive as they are, I did find a warehouse with 77 dock doors in Grand Prairie across from Lone Star Park at the corner of Wildlife Pkwy and Lion Country Pkwy.  Didn't see a lion but sure saw commerce bursting out of the seams from DFW to Grand Prairie and beyond.Grand Prairie is south of DFW while the merchandise and Amazon neighbor are north of the airport.  Just five years ago a trip like this would have passed empty fields and meadows that stretched for miles. Now, it's a continuous flow of building after building.

Things Happening In Garland Today

Last nights storms stripped the leaves off one of my trees where it beat it up against the bricks. The one restraint came off which allowed the wind to whip the tender new leaves into the bricks.It will recover, but it was a surprise to see the damage. I did measure the new growth on all three trees and they have officially hit 13-inches already for this season in new growth. Amazing.

The wind continued to blow with gust hitting 27 MPH and sub-stained winds of 20 MPH. It was 10:30 this morning when I hit the road. This is the spoke of the wheel that takes me the most far from the house. At the end of the day when I pulled back into the drive at dinner time, 84 miles had been racked up. With gas at $2.44 (and I paid $2.33 for this tank last week). The reports all say that gas will be close to, or hit, $3.00 per gallon this summer. AARGH!!!

The growth just isn't stopping in the Metroplex. Things are changing so much. Green meadows of the past are now black rooftops. Hundreds of them. The realty news reported that there are 37,000 apartments under construction. There are actually more than that as zoning had been re-approved from 3 floors or 4 floors to 5 and in some cases 6. They never report those increases. It's just the initial unit counts on the permits. The reason for the longer trip is that I do an exploration run about ever 6 weeks to 8 weeks. Finding new things, and seeing the changes from past trips. About three years ago, I started in Grapevine and took 121 NE ending up 22 miles beyond McKinney. When I was doing the marketing project for a Fortune 500 I had talked to a developer about how far they were looking at future development at that point in time for the next 10 years forward. He had stated that it would be 25 miles north of McKinney. The datestamp on that was in 2006. He wasn't off by much. And today, I started Greenville Avenue (SR5) and headed north cutting across on F&M 544 to SR78 in Wylie, then south to Sachse. I ended up first, in North Garland,where I stopped to see the Cowboys on Tour set up in the parking lot of a massive Academy Sporting Goods. Then on south on SR78 into Garland downtown to check on Heritage Celebration in the square, then a quick trip around the lake and back home.

I'll do pictures on Garland downtown tonight because of the restrictions, but there are 12 images running on the Live News Feed link on the side bar of this blog. Scroll down to the block black 'a'. There you can follow the instructions to view the images running. Remember that the clock starts on the live news feeds 48 hour cycle the moment that the block of images are released to the feed.

The wind was getting to me at one point and I went back to the car and had my snacks that I had packed.The sun was warm in the car. I can't take cold air that's wind driven. I never could. But it's not good on the heart, either. So I keep it in check without fail.

This couple were eating nuts purchased from one of the vendors dressed up as a drumstick. Kind of neat, actually.

The new grassy area that replaced the old Library and later, arts acting buildings was being set up for the music stage later on tonight. It's going down to 39-degrees. Might want a jacket and a heavy coat!!

The Foosball tables had been moved down to this end of the square and were being reset by the Garland Park and Recreation Workers. Got to have it level. Can't play Foosball with the bubble not in the center!!

Feed Potted Trees Centrum Vitamins Last Fall

My three trees on the porch have already grown over a foot since they leafed out a month ago. It's like they are from the Matrix or something. It's been cold and hot and cold like a roller coaster. Last week we went from 87 to freeze warnings in two days. Luckily we didn't get the freeze save for the heat island effect. Those trees actually had to be restrained during the high wind warnings, too.

 "What's up with your trees. It's like they have grown a foot!" my neighbor ask. When I relayed to him the fact that they had grown a foot already, he ask, "what are you feeding them?" as he chuckled. When I went into more detail that I had given them each a Centrum Vitamin in the fall, his whole expression changed. I think he thought that I was making fun of him. 

Centrum Silver was just sitting on the shelf of my cabinet after my doctor told me that he didn't want me taking them anymore. The bottle had just been repurchased when he told me that. Then, I heard a commercial from a local tree arborist about the things your trees need to be healthy. I got the bottle down from the shelf and started reading the label again. Gee, everything the tree doc said a tree needed to stay healthy was on the label. So, I put three tablets in a milk carton and filled it up with water. Shook the jug pretty hard to help with the digestion in the water. 

 Then, I paused. I wasn't totally sure that this was going to work, but I could always start another pot of trees growing. This wasn't my first growing trees rodeo. One that was planted in 1970 is about 50 feet tall now. The second one had to be removed because I had planted it in the wrong spot and it was going to cause problems with Edison wires coming into the house. And, then, Texas summer and the heat got one on my porch because I get direct afternoon sun. The porch heated up to 140 one summer. I knew something had to be done to cut down on that heat buildup. It was cooking everything including my cooling bill. So, I got some big heavy ceramic pots about eighteen inches deep and a good foot across, stole an acorn from a squirrel for one, dug one up from  along side the house where the lawn service had blown the seed from where it had fallen  into  the flower bed. And, the third one came from seed pods on a red bud tree in the park. 

Now, the darn things are about 12-foot high and growing like a weed. The amazing thing is that the temperature on the porch last summer dropped 15 degrees overall. I can now grab the top of the gate with my hand as I turn the key on the lock. That's when it really hit me about what trees actually can do beside producing shade and tons of leaves in the fall. Now, I'm going to have to talk to the arborist about keeping them cut back so they stay healthy and in the pots that they are in. It has occurred to me that I might need to find someone that is wanting to plant a tree in their yard and rotate them out that way. Start a new one and give one away. These are just into their third spring. The trunks are about the size of  the cap on the Centrum bottle!

The Clock Town on Main Street in downtown Grapevine.

Nat and Willy were late coming out for their daily shoot out. I almost missed them. I did miss the first part.

Blue Bonnets were on a hillside and must stunning.