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Working Out In The Park

While waiting to receive a text that my prescriptions had been filled, it was time to  run a couple of errands. While out, lunch,though a bit late, was filled at a Subway sandwich shop while continuing to finish my errands when I saw two news helicopters hovering over LBJ at the Dallas North Tollway. Managing to get over a bock to bypass the immediate congestion and picking up the service road again,I drove the service road to White Rock Creek and parked at a small park that is used mostly for soccer games to eat the sandwich and watch the back-up on LBJ that was then backed up beyond Hillcrest Avenue. Later, it was reported that some one had jumped from an overpass to the traffic lanes below.  Somehow, all this construction on LBJ, let alone the traffic, has got to improve life and blend in with the finished High 5 to end one of the worse traffic stretches in the several states.

 Pulled in and parked, I began to chow down on my Subway sandwich when I looked up and noticed that a guy was getting gear out of his trunk. I watched him hang his punching bag and get things organized. He started his workout. As I finished my sandwich, the thought that I did not have any really good pictures of a punching bag, I got my camera set and walked over to near where the guy was working out. I didn't want to upset his routine so I waited until he got a rest point and I ask him if I could take a few shots. He agreed and went back to his workout. These shots are the last few minutes of his routine.


 

One of the best setups outdoors that I have seen.

A Left

A Right

A thank you to this man for allowing the shots and the editorial use for this blog.

A Pelican Practices His "Ho Down Number"

Crazy weather find animals responding just like humans. Today, the temps were in the low 70* F range but the roller coaster will bring 'em down for the weekend where we are rolled up in a comforter. Reading  a good book or watching a good movie or finding a good game on TV seems to be about what the weatherman is forecasting all ready.

 But, this pelican was so comical. I could almost hear the fiddle and the banjo strumming in the background.
 

Check out the second from right as he holds on to his partner with a wing and has the left leg and web foot raised as though
he was in a barn yard ho down. Can't you hear the fiddle and banjo strumming in the back ground? 

The line between darkness and light is moving East to West. Here, you can actually see the line as darkness falls on Dallas.

Looking to the left of the sunset you can see some of the skyline in downtown Dallas. So, this would be looking more Southwest from Northeast.

A Man of Percy Bysshe Shelley

In college, I did not know it at the time but I had signed up for an English class taught by a man who later would become a very dear friend. He was the scholar that scholars would like to emulate. In the summers, he returned to his London flat in his homeland where 600 year old libraries were as common as black ravens in London Tower and publishing houses of scholarly works and noted authors had been on the same street for centuries. He loved good brandy. He was constantly writing forwards for his publisher's clients as well as for his own publications, new or a re-edit of a previous publication. He dressed in fine tweeds and to some in our gourp, his very large collection of American Jazz was a bonanza when he held discussion groups and potlucks. The man loved American Jazz.

At Christmas, he would send me copies of works of art that his family held in their English estate that were beautifully handcrafted lithos the size of over- sized note cards. Since life isn't perfect, my collection of those were lost to a divorce that didn't have to be as bitter as it was, but turned out that way. Over the years, I have thought of him. Several years ago, he did pass. Yet, like the lines of Shelley, his memory holds as much guilded gold as the Taj Mahal.

Two weeks ago, I ran across an index of authors that were listed as scholars in certain fields. In the English literature category were page after page of published works on his life's work--the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. And  when I had finished the list, what I had heard Neville recite time and time again unbiddenly came to mind:

Death is the veil which those who live call life.

They sleep,and it is lifted.

 



 



Yarn Art in an outdoor setting.

A Splash of Color on a Bleak Winter's Day

Sail boats at a marina in North Texas

Boats this size can sail on the Great Lakes with
 an eye on Marine Warnings for 6-8 foot waves or above and fast moving storms

I like change. In fact, I have been known to embrace it. But somethings just are not the same as the genuine article. I'm talking about the difference between a puddle and a lake. There again, I am not a negative person. When I have posted to this blog it is nearly one hundred percent positive for the city of Dallas, it's park system and all the things that are available here as a great city. But.....I have watched the Marine Industry in the Dallas Market for many years. And the sailing clubs that are on the larger puddles in North Texas, including beautiful White Rock Lake, make up a lot of the sail boat market. What I don't understand is when do these boats actually meet the water and sail away for the day--or two--or even three? I see the boats canvased in the fall, uncovered in the spring, sit most of the summer and then recanvased in the fall.When I see regattas, they are in dingies with a short pole mast. This past summer, I saw a young chap and his friend with an old catamaran actually doing what sail boaters do with boats. He did it a couple of times and that was that.Later,when I saw him, he wanted to sell me a change in my electric provider. That was telling me that he was done taking his catamaran out on the puddle again. His interest had changed that fast. Boats are a lot of work any way you look at it.  So this year when the annual Port Huron to Mackinac race is run on Lake Huron or the Chicago to Mackinac race is run from Chicago, on Lake Michigan and through the Straits of Mackinac, my heart pounds a bit more than normal, or better yet, hoping so see one more time, beautiful and romantic era  the three-mast skooner Arkansas Best Freight sails out of Saugatuck, Michigan in the summers, if they still have that unusual flagship for a trucking freightline company. I'd have to put that on my bucket list for sure. So, there isn't any disrespect to the lakes here in North Texas. It is water that we need. It can be recreational to a limited extent, but when it comes to sail boats.....well, you can't beat the Great Lakes and I say that with love. A very,very large amount of love!

Lake Highland Center Begins Construction

Gravity Still Wins

with a multi-level parking garage. It's not what everyone thought that they would see. There is a pad with pipes coming out of the cement for plumbing and appears to be condos or apartments . Still, the past two years have been a delight  with no construction. We all knew that eventually that day would come and so it has.
 



New art on display

The balancing act

Video being made for social media

                                                  


During the trip to check out the construction, I discovered two new metal art pieces that have recently been displayed by the Office of Cultural Affairs for the City of Dallas.  Sweet.  It just continues to prove that everything in life is a trade off. You give up something and you get something else in return. The construction of a peaceful block of land was obtained from old apartments. The solitude of water, beauty and wildlife gave way to construction and for that construction sacrifice, the city set two new works of art.

Spring this year will see more construction but 20 feet below on the walks to the the Lake Highland Train Station  along the creek, new beauty will explode and the area will transform and morph into what the developer originally saw in the property.

Have Been Chasing Grimlins All Day Long

Yesterday afternoon went out for a couple hours waiting on the pharmacy to fill my scripts and color was the king pin target. Every thing was bleak and grey and wintry. Shots with some color might have been the target but it was a bit more difficult. The only thing that stood out from  a hill top was some boats on the lake.



Blades with little wheels

A Big Wheel