Massive KBH Convention Center may soon be under the demolition ball.

 Well, I've seen a lot of convention centers in my time. Dallas has always had one leg up on most other cities. Now, the Hotel Associations thinks they are loosing business. The center has had to cancel bookings because of COVID, (let's not forget that the 23 story, 1001 room convention hotel built in 2009-2011 has a connecting enclosed walkway from the hotel, which is now a landmark).  With its full range light show message board on the West Side, Reunion Tower and the city owned Hotel (managed by Omni Hotels) the multi pads roof top Heliport at the Convention Center also has a car access from street level to the top, makes it easy for celebs and the like to fly in from Love or DFW International. 

BNSF(Burlington Northern Santa Fe)  has rail lines that go under,through and behind the center. Union Pacific also has tracks on the West side,

as well as DART's light rail stop near where Lamar runs through the center. So there seems to be more to the Paul Harvey, "Other Side of the Story" they don't want to tell us. Like, maybe they want to scrap the center so the future Dallas station of the Bullet Train from Houston to Dallas, ( in 1and a half  hours instead of the 5 hours by car) or the Hassle of the airports with today's  security lines, might be more of that hidden agenda than we are being told. After all, the new plans suggested to City Council would put the new Convention Center, right smack dab in the same area where the bullet train stop would be most-likely. 

The big word mentioned  several times at Council today was it will not cost the taxpayers one cent. The money will come from a new Hotel Tax. I had to laugh.  After all, it was the hotels crying  they don't have any revenue from the convention center with it closed because of COVID.  It is laughable that even in business, it seems that history is certain to keep repeating  itself  time and time again. Personal agendas with a vote seems to be like Hollywood has been running crime drams for years. I think they call those votes ratings for money sources.

The cost is estimated at $4Billion. Somewhere, it ain't all coming from the hotel tax. You can believe that. Never  mind Pioneer Cemetery ( a beautiful cemetery sits in front of KBH and the bronze  cattle  statues coming down the hill with cowboys riding watch on the  drive is right there as well. No wonder Europe has such treasures landmarks. They don't tear them down.

Oh well, let's not discuss right now, for the convention centers sake, why the Dallas Stars Hockey Team and the Dallas Mavericks are the only 2 of the 5 pro sports teams in the area. The Cowboys left Dallas for Irving, then to Arlington. The FC Dallas Soccer Team is in Frisco and the Rangers Baseball team is also in Arlington. Irving has a new convention center. Garland has one, and Richardson has one, too. I guess those conventions didn't know that Dallas has one of the best.facilities around. I guess Council had not noticed it begins next door to City Hall and stretches to the I30-I35E horse shoe interchange. That's where the two Maggie bridges, Maggie 1 and Maggie 2, cross the Trinity River. Another possibility is that they want the new DART subway to replace the Dart light light rail station now in the drive through area of Lamar Avenue passes through the center. The point is....there is a lot we are not being told about this project or who wants the maybe vacated land should Council pass the plan's go ahead. 

 

Looking Back, some of the more interesting encounters.

The next 7 days on the National Weather Service Website shows Clear and Sunny through next Sunday. Temps and dew points are all in the range of enjoyable comfort to be outside. Hello, Fall.

 Bicycle Car and MatingPair of Red Shouldered Hawks

 

 

Macaroni in the shape of Texas

Encore!

 Yes, an Encore request from the audience. 

" A group of pastry chefs came together to bake the world a better place."

 

 

Tres Leches Cake  at  Urban Taco SMU/Mockingbird Station And so it was!

 

Cute little humor comments that I have heard people say while out.

Not a hill that I want to die on

I'm only six. You figure it out. TV commercial

Age is just a number and mine is unlisted, TV commercial

Make your bald head itch. 

That cabinet setting on your shoulders.  (referring to your brain)

Chic sophistication

Today is the last Pun in the Series.

 It is to be hoped that y'all enjoyed the pun series. It was fun for me too!. Here is the final pun of that series, #38. It goes like this:

 "The poor guy fell into a glass grinding machine and made a spectacle of himself."

 

 

These Hay Fields are now rows of 5-story apartments.

This is another hay field I would visit in the fall. Now, it's home to 660 people.

People that held land like this, all began to cash in on the building boom when it was announced that Dallas needed 40,000 new living spaces for the influx of people moving into the city on a daily basis.

Try finding a vacant lot today. Everywhere I knew where one was, is now, either an apartment building, a multi-apartment building, new smaller size homes, During the past 5 years, at least 10 new homes have been built at White Rock Lake, some on prime lake front property. Others were built on higher grounds that were beautiful for native grasses or wildflowers or places where beautiful hummingbirds came for nectar. 

Yesterday, Mayor Johnson ,cut off the lights to all the tall downtown building until the end of October because of the number of migrating birds that are drawn by the lights from high altitude routes and fly into the buildings or they fly circular paths around  the buildings until they collapse from exhaustion and fall to the ground dead. A daily crew walk the 7 mile route around the central business district and pick up either the ones that survived and or injured and those that are dead. Beautiful humming birds are in that group of birds in the migration flights. Dallas is directly in the path of the central migration route. It is why photography of birds in Dallas is so good for unusual species that we don't see very often.. I still find it amusing that we now have born and breed Canadian Geese that live here all year and are Texans by birth!!

And the Cowboys Give a Hurting to the Eagles Yesterday.

 As Jimmy Johnson yells out, " How 'bout them Cowboys".  Well, that brings to mind the question, what kind of footwear did the Eagles have? And that, in turn, brings about today's  pun # 37 that follows.

"Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat."

 

Tomorrow will be the last of the puns from the original list from Maureen in the UK. 

Verizon has confirmed and noted that the Verizon Wireless Refund Scam is circulating again. Don't answer the voicemail per Verizon and delete. You should be doing that already when you get messages from unknown callers anyway.

 

 

 

 

Annual Fall Migration is well under way. 

Today,The Cowboys are opening the NFL season at AT&T Stadium. The party has already begun. Pun # 36 Follows

 Pun # 36.

" Acupuncture  is a jab well done."

 

 AT&T Stadium has the roof open for tonight's game. At Half-time, the Hall of Fame Inductees will get their rings, with  a little over 1 Karat diamond  set in the band of 24 K Gold. That's a payday for some in value. The New Miller Lite House (The official beer of the Dallas Cowboys) has their new House open outside of the stadium before the game tonight.

Several days of rain from a system in the 4-corners area moving this way will give us much needed rain over the next 5-days. Weatherman Rick says we should pick up about 1-2 inches of rain out of the system as it moves pass over the next 5-days.

 

 

 A sign in one of  the parking lots of a historic Garland Main Stream Church

Walmart makes makes millions on recycling their stores cardboard. We all should be doing that.

                                       

 Wonder who enforced this code for Code Enforcement.

 

Here it is Sunday Already. Working on Updates to Our Zazzle collections at both stores. Pun # 35. Nearing the end.

https://www.zazzle.com/checkerd_flag_high_top_sneakers-256036257247526601

Check out the sneakers in the link above. We have been updating items in our Zazzle collection store for Moontripper and Glendine's Fashion Design Works. We are devoted to putting color in all our designs. Bright little streaks or wide bands. The latte mugs are looking good. We're happy with those too. 

 Todays' pun # 35

"Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses" 

Not really, but that's the way the pun goes. Don't you know? Only three remaining from Mo's original list. There was a glitch in how the list was printed and it looked like three full pages at first. Once into it, the repeats begin to appear here and there in the next to pages. That's why I numbered them. Only the ones that were not repeated in the list. So goes the shortened version from the original statement.Sorry about that. I really am. Even I, have enjoyed the daily smile or laugh. 

 

 A sign on the wall behind our booth in Richardson, when out eating with my baby brother and my sister-in-law. The reuben sandwich was very good. But, the one I had in Grapevine,was even better!!

The Vintage Railroad at the original Cotton Belt Station on the noth side of the present day tracks, with the new TEXrail station and tracks immediately south where you enter from the Grapevine Main station, restaurants , tower (tours) and the VIN hotel. There are ballrooms in the new complex as well.

 

 

 

Here, at the Peace Circle statuary outside Grapevine Main in the background, Sam Houston holds the document for the Republic of Texas at the meeting of the 10 native American trible chiefs or counter parts. The statuary scale is 1.25 ration to actual size. 

Running Late and Short on Time

 Pun # 34

" Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know-basis."

Happy Friday. For some, it could be very good news. There are only 5 more puns available! from Mo's List

 Well, summer is trying to make a comeback already. The temps have been inching upwards one or two degrees a day since the three days of absolute delightful fall weather. Even the nighttime temps have moved up from the 50's to 70s by the end of the weekend. Rain, finally, is coming from a low out in the desert of  the southwest. We need some more rain. Our impressive surplus has slipped to under an inch since the first of the year early July.

Sky link running overhead the terminals at DFW the canopies of the DART rail station in Terminal A seen in the distance below the Sky link.

The diesel electric made in Hungary and finished in Utah under the Made in America Agreement.

The Chief of the Delaware Tribe at the Circle of Peace monument at Grapevine Main

Okay, here is pun # 33 for today. It goes like this:

 " When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye."

A Couple of Train Trips Today

 Yes, today was a day for the railroads. The trip began with about a 8-minute bus ride to the train station. From there it was taking the Red line to the St. Paul station downtown, then transfer to the Orange line for a trip to DFW's terminal A on DART light rail. From there, it was a little bit of a walk, but not overbearing and the walk to terminal B from terminal A was outside. Finding the TEX rail station was exactly where I thought it would be (it was my first trip on the new TEXrail). The original plan was to ride the TEXrail all the way to the Center Station in Ft.Worth, but the trip ate up a bit more time than I had planned. So, I got off at downtown Grapevine and checkout the new bronze statuary of Circle of Peace before having a late lunch at Weinberger Deli in Downtown Grapevine. The Weinberger Reuben was out of this world. The new tower complex at the Old rail station had to be put on hold. Guided tours run $3 of the complex plus a view from the top of the tower overlooking downtown. My train back to DFW was due in about 6 minutes. As it was, it came in on track 1 and I was at track 2 so had to hustle to catch the train.The engineer said ,"I saw you hustling and wouldn't leave with out you." That is the one thing that was recalled about riding the TRE and now, the TEXrail. They have that conductor finesse that DART lacks. The comparison runs like the difference between riding in a hailed taxi and riding in a top notch limo.Oh, there is such a difference and yes, it can be said that TRE and TEXrail have exhibited it from the very beginning. 

Walking in the door at home exactly 6 hours and 5 minutes after leaving the house was not bad. It can also be said that of the three rail lines, the TEXrail, which is an electric diesel like the TRE is even smoother riding than the TRE and certainly left DART at the station, pardon the pun. Speaking of that: today's pun # 32 follows here.

" Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine." 

 

Terminal B at DFW. TEXrail 

Grapevines new Main across the tracks from old Grapevine  Station

Circle of Peace. Very impressive

Beautiful Weather, Running Late, Creative Mode All Day, Pun#31

 Well, sorry to be late today. The cold front arrived and the weather today was delightful. Three more days before the humidity and dew points return, though not as high as we have had before the cold front and our  eighth 100°day this year. Normal is 20. Today was a long sleve day for the shirts.

Been in a creative mode all day long. Still feel creative and making notes. I have a creative train ride coming up. Will ride DART to DFW. Walk from terminal A to terminal B, board the TEXrail and ride it to Ft. Worth to the TP Station (Texas and Pacific) where I will board the TRE (Trinity Rail Express) and come back into Dallas Union Station where I will catch the DART RED Line back home. While in Ft. Worth, depending on the time, I might ride the bus down to the Stockyards and have either lunch or dinner. It has been awhile since being in the stockyards. There has been a lot of changes made since my last trip. 

Today's PUN # 31 goes like this:" Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall."

Editorial Use of a Colonial Soldier Enactment

A sign on the first day of Astrological fall that not only is it knocking on the door, it's here!