The First Shopping Trip of 2015--I Should Have Stayed in Bed

Thinking that the "worse" of the Christmas returns was over and that it was safe to venture out to shop now, I packed by hand-written, back-of-an-envelope list of errands into my front shirt pocket and headed out. First stop. Walgreen's. Now, this could be a story within itself and maybe down the line somewhere this year, I might get around to posting in.

My after shave isn't anything special. My grandfather used it. My father used it. It was always found on the back shelf behind each barber's chair in any barbershop, even if the chair in the shop didn't have a barber assigned to it at any given time. The company that makes the stuff  celebrated it's 200th anniversary in 2010. It's got those turn-of-the century phrases on the label that reads with sounds of the old-world like "Essence Imported from France" and "Blended in the USA".

My dad got the stuff for me for years until his supplier finally passed on. I searched the cosmetic supply places and Barber Supply places until I was blue in the face. Then one day, I decided that I would try one last time on line. Bingo! There it was. And, it also listed another old smell that I grew up with known to my age group simply as "body splash".  If you were taking a girl to a show or a dance, you splashed a little here and a little there and slicked the combed hair above the ears back on each side and were out the door.

As luck would have it. Walgreen's were out. The guy said that he would call the neighboring Walgreen's to see if they had stock. They did and were holding it at the front counter for me. I could order it from Drugstore.com but the shipping is not cheap--costing as much as a 6-ounce bottle of the stuff. On line the bottles are 12-ounces but you loose half in shipping so buying a 6-ounce locally generally is the better deal. Once or twice a year the 12-ounce bottles are much cheaper and I order the splash and the after shave. It usually last me most of the year after I receive it at the door. I checked out what I did find on my list, bought a couple of Russell Stover's chocolate-covered cream filled hearts. Yeah, mover over Christmas left overs--Valentine's here! Don't you just love the calendar for retail?

My route had to be re-worked as I try to plan out my stops so that the grocery stop is the last stop before home. In this case the drugstore and the grocery store are a half-block from each other and I'm going much farther to get the after shave. I can stop at my other Kroger's. Didn't think about one thing, however.

The next stop was to have a hot bowl of home-made chili at a local greasy spoon. From there, I had to make a return trip because there was no spoon i n the bag of chili. I got a lecture from Gus.  Gus is like that. You get a lecture if you are not ready to order when he arrives at your table to take your order. "No ready? You wait. I take more orders."  I can  remember years ago a greasy spoon with a name like "Rusty Lantern".  They had their Gus, too! He was Sicilian and more gruff! The food came on a sheet of wax paper--no plates. At lunch time, you could stand in line down the sidewalk for half your lunch hour but the food was out of this world.

The bowl of chili got eaten in my car in the parking lot of an alternate and friendly Kroger's. It was now getting close to peak travel time , I wanted to get the shopping done quickly and get home. That was not to be. Not this day. NOT this Kroger's.  

I know that some of you think I pick on Kroger's lately. From both angles, It has only been about the deli and the size of the fried chicken pieces--which now are pretty much uniform--all much smaller! At least it is uniform. And, in Kroger's defense today, it is a jurisdictional issue of Dallas passing a new law that  other suburban cities have not. Plastic Bags. Dallas has banned. My Kroger is in Richardson and it does not effect me. But, today, because of my 200 plus year old  after shave not being in stock at my Walgreen's, I'm at a Kroger in Dallas. Funny thing, I carry bags in my trunk. So, into the truck I went for the bags and headed for the front sliding doors.


Shopping went swiftly with only one isle traffic jam. Then I headed straight for the self-check outs.
Here's the thing. The self-check-outs now have a software add-on if you want to purchase a plastic bag or use you own and you are in the city of Dallas. If you use your own, then you have to clear the space on the counter where you can sit your items purchased because you can't put your items in your own bags until after you

Dallas Stores has the plastic bag ordinance...not the suburban stores like Richardson, Carrollton, Addison,Garland, Cedar Hill, Duncanville, etc.,etc.

check out. It's a weight issue.. No, it's a plastic bag ordinance issue that has unplanned consequences to the ordinance. Won't be using the self-check outs in Dallas Kroger's from now on. The lines now take three times as long to check out.In short--the new law has slowed down the self-checkout lines.

Which One Is Hanna Storm?

 

 Local IA706 in Burbank represents the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylist Guild.

Wow. When I saw that look on Hanna Storm's face in the much-viewed video of the incident on live television today, I could not help but think of all the little bloops in the past where the newcaster or sportscaster made fun of their situation and keep the stride. Hanna Storm's look and pause, told the true story of her disrespect for someone who gets her to the "stage" as a support person. And that, is why there are unions. Thank goodness the make-up artist has someone to represent her against such an angry person as Hanna Storm from the industry.

Today Was A Productive Day.

The weatherman said that the best day of the next week was going to be today and "you should go out today and enjoy it before the cold really sets in." I checked the National Weather Service website and after reading the discussion section, I was out the door with camera case in under 10-minutes. After checking the gas prices and finding a $1.79 station in the area, I drove to the station and filled up. It's been a long time since I filled my car for $20.69. Then, I pointed  Hildegaard (that's my car's name) toward White Rock and beyond--Great Trinity Forest Way-- beyond. Why? I have pictures!!

If you haven't been out Buckner Boulevard (Loop 12 South) for a while, you will discover that around the Audubon Society's amazing hide-a-way, Buckner, (aka Loop 12) is now renamed Great Trinity Forest Way. Fitting, because it is  the northern top of the heart of the Great Trinity Forest , a 6,000 acre urban forest.

There are a couple of areas down the driveway to park before you must pay for the Audubon and I wanted to see if anything had changed.  It had changed a lot! On the way back out the long drive,  I found two cars of Dallas Police Officers, parked in the free area. Two doing their routine checks and two that were on bicycle duty already out riding. The first two officers were able to answer my questions that I had and my main reason to come out there today. Alongside the roadway inbound, there were piles and piles of dirt being moved around and pipe and tubes and stake flags and bulldozers. I ask the first set of officers if the construction that was visible was the new golf course? I got a big smile from both of them and a strong, YES! So, half my search had ended before it had officially begun. My hunches had paid off. But there was a serendipity to be had as well. AT & T had paid out $2.5 million dollars to add to and expand the hiking and biking trails from the Audubon Society to Elam Road. In fact, between the roadway going into the Audubon and the new golf course construction, the new concrete trail was off through the Great Trinity already.

I shot what is reported to be the 5th green and fairway, of the 400 plus acre complex known as Trinity Forest Golf Course.  The other two offices that was  on their bikes were returning to the parking lot  and yelled out, "hey, how ya doing ?" as they arrived at their patrol car to load up their bikes. I walked over to the car and explained that I had been given direction  from the two earlier officers but I was uncertain about what was meant my a turn location they had given me. The officers on their bikes cleared that up for me.

Reported to be the 5th Green and Fairway at the Trinity Forest Golf Course.

Ribbon Cutting in March,2015

Designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw with Jonas Woods, the birds will already be learning to worm the course by the time it opens in 2016.

The second location? The new and nearly complete Texas Horse Park. I had taken some pictures of riders at the Columbus Day Parade on the Continental Bridge Pedestrian Park and one of the guy said that I should go check it out, that it was going to be amazing. So, I put it on my list of projects to photograph. Later adding the Trinity Forest Golf Course, it fit right in  with the Texas Horse Park as the two locations are within a mile of each other.

On leaving, I drove up 175 to I-45 to Central Expressway (US 75). Somewhere about Walnut Hill Lane there was a plumb of black smoke rising straight up miles ahead. As I am driving north, I'm thinking, that should be about Coit and Beltline. As it turned out, I was two blocks off! I shot the house fire with the help of the Richardson Fire Department and the Richardson Police. Long story short, no one was hurt. The fire came under control and the live feed picked up 20 images on the 48-hour rotation  cycle. Since those images are running on the live feed, I didn't include any of those here.

Edited to change Avenue to Boulevard 07/01/2015

2015 Is Underway--Roll it!

In the course of traveling a little circuit looking for editorial-type images, I come across a lots. Some are downloaded to my Lexar where they stay for 90-days. If I have not re-uploaded for use in this blog by then, they become deleted files. Some good shots have gone away like that because there just wasn't any good use for them. That includes not even selling them as basic stock images. Well, such is life in the big city. Otherwise, I would be paying mega bucks for terabyte storage.

A little sidetrack (pardon this pun as you will see later) here. When I was in college the thing called "new math" was just being taught in schools at most levels through college. No one really got it except people like my brothers and my sister-in-law. She is a cum lade math major. but terabytes--well, the whole Mega, Giga,Tera thing-- is all based on that early "new math". Had some one said to me then, take a 1000 bucks and grow it by another 1000 and you have a million, math would have been so much easier for me instead of talking in terms of powers (i.e. terabyte 4 10 a large allocation of data storage capacity or 2 40 is really 1,099,511,627,776 bytes) gees, a professional star gazer uses those things daily. Any who, ever six months I check to see how many of those things I can get rid of on my computer. 

Back to the travel circuit. In the course of those travels, I have noticed on the BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) tracks over the Carpenter Freeway just south of Las Colinas, there are always tons of rail road tank cars sitting on the rail road across the Carpenter (we call it the 114). I also know that those tracks go into Carrollton to the rail yard just north of Beltline and Main.  That is also the home of the local short line railroad that is the workhorse of the rail traffic in, through and around Dallas. That would be the DGNO, or Dallas Garland and Northeastern Rail Road, a property of Genesee & Wyoming, the G&W.Those tracks spur off and come back south along Denton Road to Lombardi where a 5 or 6 siding track is always filled with tank cars bearing the ADM logo (Archer Daniels Midland). In the photo, the DGNO is switching out rail cars north of the Denton Road Siding several blocks. In trying to get a better light shot on a gloomy day, I made a turn to the right so that I could make the block and come back around to where I had seen the DGNO engine. In doing so, I came across the ADM building on the corner of the second right turn. There was a truck tanker backed up into the building. Beyond that was a double row of tracks with rows of tank cars and a hopper car. All along side the back walls of two neighboring buildings but most were  bulk tankers.  Know, that solved the mystery of where all those tank cars were going. The rail cars were bulk storage and the truck tankers were either loading a blended mixture or taking their cargo direct from the rail cars. Either way, the operation was all connected to the string of tankers both on the BNSF tracks over the Carpenter and the siding tracks along Denton drive.

The truck tanker was later spotted at a Raceway gas station. Ethanol? Was that a corn cob incorporated into their logo on some of those rail cars? 

Here's the thing: ADM is looking to move its headquarters out of Chicago. The company is listed on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange). They operate on 6 of the 7 continents. They progressively grow in the right direction and work for a good environment, not a bad one.

In a past reported 10-K filing, they list as either owned or leased:

2,500 Barges

27,400 Rail cars

600 Trucks

52 Oceangoing vessels

So, when George A. Archer, John W. Daniels acquired the Midland Linseed Products Company and founded the company in 1902, later incorporating in 1923, moving to Texas was not in their immediate plans. I hope the board members are beginning to have dreams of moving to Texas!

Tank cars with the ADM logo are a beautiful sight.

Happy New Year from Dallas

Happy New Year 2015

Hope, Peace and Joy

Crossing the Trinity on the Skyline Trail

Every one that I have come across when discussing the new Trinity Skyline Trail noted as everyone  else did that there were trails on both sides of the Trinity but no one could state with any certainty where the bike trail would cross to the other side. Today, I found out.  The city parks and recreation guys are pretty knowledgeable about what's going on and with the aid of a supervisor from all-places, Burkburnett, Texas, could even provide more information since his company was the project contractor.  Burkburnett,Texas

The new ramp down to Trammel Crow Park off the new Sylvan  Avenue Bridge

is west of Wichita Falls just 2 miles off the I-44 bridge crossing into Oklahoma. That is right at 100 miles to go home or to come to work. Later, I was thinking that my uncle who was an electrician and driving that distance every day was just part of the job. He worked on Cobo Hall when it was being built with the Joe Arena. Now, the Joe is being torn down.Then, he worked for years upgrading Detroit Wayne County Airport. That's Metro. So distance like that isn't really a problem if  you want to work.

I had gone down to the Anatole to see if the Michigan Spartans were meeting the public but I had missed the events for the day. On the return, driving out Harry Hines to see if the new Parkland Hospital was clearing out the fences so a shot of the magnificent architecture could finally be taken. Usually, it takes five or six trips to check on the best times for sunlight--morning--afternoon--evening. During the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge build, it turned out that the best sun is afternoons between 3PM and 5PM in the winter months. This time of year when the angle of the sun is still low, even the morning shots can be more silhouette than morning sun normal. As I crossed the new Sylvan bridge, I saw a car at the new ramp that goes down to the boat docks and the parking lots of Trammel Crow Park. I turned around and came back and went down the new ramp. Later, the contractor super told me that he and the crew opened the ramp to traffic last night. Today, the crew was setting the post that blocks off all the areas of the new trail except the two parking lots and the boat ramp. He showed me where the crossing from the east bank over to the west bank would be made on the old Sylvan bridge which is at trail grade below the levees.

Now, it was clear where you could cross on the north end. For now, there must be a new crossing on the south end and I'm thinking that it will be the I-30 Maggie 2 bridge since it will have a pedestrian and bike way on the bridge. But, for now, if the weather ever comes back to normal for north Texas, I can park in the Continental Bridge parking lot or the lots at Trammel Crow and ride both sides of the river. It's marked as 6.2 miles from the old Sylvan bridge on the new trail.

There will be new wet lands north of Sylvan and the banks of the Trinity have really been cleaned up. The crews are still working and the estimated completion date is mid February, or about 6-weeks more work. The Trammel Crow lake is now drained but is being cleaned up and then will be re-flooded.

Special Post for Texans

 Texas Residents Special Notice. Big Bertha in London Live New Feed Images Are Showing Up In Post.

The University of Texas Alum Band and Big Bertha, James Bowie High School Marching Band and Dallas' Lake Highland High School Wranglers dance troupe are in Trafalgar Square, London, UK today pre-performing for London New Year's Day Parade.

Currently, and on a 48-hour rotating cycle, is showing 32 images on Alamy Live News Feed. On the cycle, they are already on page one, row 4 and middle image. As time passes and feed images are added, they will move right and drop down another row.

You can go to the link: http://www.dallaspaparazzo.com  or click on the "a" in a black square on the right hand column of this blog. Scroll down until you see the "a". Click the box and a window will open up. Click the same black box with "ALAMY" and then the "live new feed". Look for the image and headline and it will open up to all 32 images. You can click on those images  and  purchase an image. The London photographer gets full credit for the image.

I could not pass up letting people know that they can see the news feed. And, I would watch the feeds daily as other photographers may post live feeds from today or tomorrow or at the parade itself on New Year's Day.  Also remember that England is +6 hours ahead of our time as they are on  GMT.