World Turtle Day Coming Up.

It has always amazed me how discoveries are made while doing mundane things like errands. I first noticed this on my trips to the cardiologist after my surgery. Then, I would discover things new and unexpected while picking up prescriptions at my local Walgreen's. Soon, my visits to the doctor began to become a seedbed of projects to photograph, I began to log them. Then, I began to track the images that were sold by my agent and stock houses. There was a direct relationship to the discoveries and sales for sure. Now, even when I go to the grocery store, I work my project list and save the grocery store to the last stop on my errand list. Why? I do not like soft ice cream when I take the lid off the container! And---before you ask---yes, I had a half-gallon melt before; not a pretty sight.

National Turtle Day: May 23,2015

The local 501(C) (3) is a 17-acre facility in Melissa, Texas. That's a bit north and east of McKinney.
North Texas Tortoise Sanctuary and Conservation Center.
The American Tortoise Rescue organization is in California. 

So, if  you are a fan of the number one pet in the world, don't forget to observe National Turtle Day this year. 

Herb and Gary Have Learned Well From Tom Braniff

Dallas has been lucky to have been the home to so many great airlines. Braniff International was a landmark at Love Field. American Airlines became the King of Dallas International and of course there is Southwest Airlines founded on a napkin by Dallas Attorney Herb Kelleher and a buddy. Braniff is gone now, but the old corporate offices at Love Field on the Lemmon Avenue side continues to be a part of the changing growth at Love.

Now that the brief history lesson is out of the way, it's time for the political flight to take off. I was just a kid when Braniff started painting their aircraft in wild, bright and eye-catching colors. No one had done that before. It was the talk of the town, so-to-speak. But, I know what an impression it made on me and being an old marketing guy, I've always remembered those days.

After American Airlines filed for bankruptcy, it was only a matter of time before the old AA eagle had to go. With  its fleet of old MD-80s  being the airlines workhorse and  badly needing to be  replaced, a new livery was on the horizon for American Airlines. 

The air begin to fill with excitement as to what the new livery would look like. American even set the first one down in Victorville, that no-mans land in the south of the Mojave Desert near that fairy-tale town on Apple Valley in California. Most aviation geeks set off the alarms almost the moment the wheels touched the runway and for sure by the time it parked on the tarmac. The word was out. "Ugly!";" It's Ugly! " the geeks cried. And--- no one paid any attention. The new livery  would, however, welcome the new American out of bankruptcy. Doug Parker rumors were that the new livery would only be a transition livery while American was merging with US Air and hope once again rose like a victory bonfire's smoke and shimmers of heat.Dud! It was a dud!

Even though Southwest had some colorful colors on it's planes, The ghost of Love Field rejoiced that color had returned to the runways at Love. At least one air line had once again painted the sky over Dallas with it's colorful planes. Tom Braniff must have been looking down on Love Field with a big smile on his face. Herb Kelleher had answered the call once again.

It became a new breath. Color had returned  with blues, oranges and reds. Not so much one color from  nose to tail but three! And Love Field's new upstart began to grow, and grow, and grow. Then, there was the  political roadblock to stop the growth because  DFW was the new wonder child. And that it was. It made a star of Dallas air routes. The need to bring back the focus to Love had an opportunity and splash some paint once more. This time with big orcas on the side of the plane or some other theme like the Texas state flag. And after being let down by American, Southwest and  Gary Kelly, being a CPA, knew how to charge off paint and make it pay. And it did!  Time and time again. People were talking again  about the color in the skies over Dallas. Then came the new livery for Southwest and every parking spot in the parking garage was filled at Thanksgiving and overflow lots were filled at Christmas, too. Love Field was alive and well and new terminals were under construction.

Now some folks will say that it was more than a paint job on an airplane. And I would have to agree that it was all true. Southwest is known to be a happy bunch--even when they work a picket line now and then. But deep down inside, we all know that the sky is filled with more color once again and it makes those that had seen Tom's planes start a revolution jump to the other side of the field  in the house that Herb built, paint shop and all!

The State of Florida and click on image to see a better view.

Saint George's Day

St. George's Day

23 April  Two Thousand and Fifteen

In England and Jerusalem from the days of the Crusades.

Composed by William H. How in 1864 and set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1906
for the Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, it has been and remains today to be my most favorite hymn.

 FOR ALL THE SAINTS

For all the saints who from their labors rest, Who Thee by faith be

fore the world con-fessed, Thy name, O Jesus, be for-ev-er blessed,

Al-le-lu-ia! Al-le-lu-ia!

Thou wast their rock, their fort-ress and their might; Thou, Lord, their cap-tain

in the well-fought fight;  Thou in the dark-ness drear, their one true light.

Al-le-lu-ia! Al-le-lu-ia!

O blest com-mun-ion, fel-low-ship divine! We fee-bly strug-gle;

they in glory shine. Yet all are one in Thee for all are Thine.

And when the strife is fierce, the war-fare long, Steals on the ear the

dis-tant tri-umph song, And hearts are brave a-agin and arms are stong,

The gold-en eve-ning bright-ens in the west; Soon, soon to faith-ful

warriors com-eth rest; And sweet the calm of Par-a-dise, the blest.

From earth's wide bounds and o-cean's far-thest coast, Thro' gates of pearl stream

in the count-less host, Sing-ing to Fa-ther,Son, and Ho-ly Ghost.

Al-le-lu-ia! Al-le-lu-ia!

A-men.

Happy St. George's Day yea 'ole Presbyterians

Credits: The English Hymnal by permission of Oxford University Press, London, Hope Publishing Company ISBN:0-916642-01-1 YouTube and Fort Street Presbyterian Church, Detroit, Michigan.

Weather Report

Dallas,USA,21 April 2015. The stone in the string sling is wet!

Welcome Back To Dallas Streetcar

It has been some 60 years give-or-take since street cars were part of the urban and interurban network. Sure, the old green trolley car called the "M Line" still makes its way through Uptown to  City Place, but that is more historic and nostalgia than anything else. True, it was and still is a street car but not like the 21st century ones run in eastern Europe and Scandinavian countries. But on Monday, April 13, 2015, Dallas, came back from the past to the future!

While the first part of the line is from outside Union Station at the beginning of the Houston Street Viaduct, it runs over the viaduct making four stops, the last two of which are at Zang Triangle and Colorado Boulevard at Methodist Hospital in Oak Cliff.  DART says that it will be expanded into the Bishop Arts District.  I was hoping that it would go there originally, since there is limited or no parking to speak of in the district anyway. The other extension is slated to be around the corner from its  Union Station terminus to the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center and the connected  Omni Hotel.

Never-the-less, it is just good to see the streetcar line back in operations. Good job, DART.

How sweet it is! Coming into the Zang Triangle stop on its way up the hill .

Happy 37th Reunion Tower

The Tower- April 15,1978

The Sign- The chicken or the egg?

The Reunion Tower has been  a beacon on downtown Dallas that long! Every day I find new things that remind me how old I have become.

Mr. Owl, The 7-Year Search Is Over.

I've heard about the big owl at White Rock for years. While people tried to describe where he was hanging out, I never saw anyone actually looking for him. In fact, those that tried to explain the area of trees where it was thought he lived, either could not or did not want to reveal the actual location. People sometimes show their own insecurity in such matters because they want a certain location as their own. Find a photographer with a 400 or 600 MM lens on their camera and observe! It's more interesting than watching the duck races at Eddie Gossage's little camp ground north of Dallas International this weekend (alright, I like Eddie, so his little camp ground is formally named Texas International Speedway and the office race is the Duck Commander 500).

Any who (pardon the owl pun), it has just been one of those weeks. I had three fires burning, so Monday was the day to work on putting them out. First, came the battle with Time Warner Cable. For weeks they have advertised that on April 7th that they would be going digital and you needed to pick up an adapter. I did that last week-end, standing in line for the better part of two hours. The adapter set on the  floor in front of my TV until the day before. I put on the adapter and called the number given to me by the TWC lady when I picked up the adapter. An activation number. It was then, that I found out that I was loosing channels. No where had the advertisement advertised that the change to digital would do that. The first call on Monday netted a goose egg. Cable 1, me nothing

By Tuesday, I had regained some strength and it was fire number 2 with Aetna insurance. It appears that Aetna, has a very messed up formulary for medications that they pay for under their coverage. The one drug that has worked better in treatment happens to be one that they have decided not to pay for. It was time to take on Aetna. I filed the appeal. My doctor didn't want to put his neck on the line but didn't like the fact that I was probably going to have to change up the med because Aetna didn't want to pay for it. 72-hours of e-mails and wait, e-mails and more info and wait, Bingo! Aetna called to say that they were going to pay for the drug anyway. Second call on Tuesday netted a win for me and the doc. Big Companies 1; me 1.

Wednesday, fire number 3 was a "life-time guarantee" on a 5.5 Qt glass-covered skillet purchased at Sam's Club 6-years ago.  Normally, I would not even fight something like this, but I know that the vendor had problems with this pan in the past and Sam's  Club, though reluctantly, honored the life-time guarantee. Now, as luck would have it, Sam's is letting their vendor duke it out with past customers. At this point in time, the vendor is sending me a pre-paid label to return the pan for inspection. This fire still smolders in the debate world currently.

Thursday, it was a battle with Walgreen's. I had two refills at the pharmacy. I go in to pick up the one refill that was a partial (Walgreen's didn't have enough stock to fill) The Aetna decision had come down and was now in the system so I submitted the refill on line.While at the pharmacy picking up the partial that was now filled and ready, the pharmacist said that I would have to come back tomorrow because the second refill would have to be a partial as well, since Walgreen's was out of stock to fill the second refill completely. (UPDATE:NBC5 10 April 2015)WALGREEN'S ANNOUNCED THAT IT WILL CLOSE 200 STORES BY 2017 (now we know why I have to make 4 trips for 2 scrips, don't we.)

It was time to clear the head and go look for an owl. After searching for 7-years, finally, I found the owl. He had been driven up higher in the canopy by a 600MM photographer, the sky was getting dark with building thunderstorms in the large grove of trees, but, trying to make lemonade out of lemons, I cranked up the 200MM and just started shooting into the canopy, then, I saw the big owl fly into another tree. The shot is terrible, out of focus and nearly to dark, but who cares...... I photographed the big owl that had, until today, evaded me, unlike the many times I have seen the two bald eagles when others had not. For my patience, Mr. Owl rewarded me with a red cardinal on a car mirror and a lesser hawk feeding on grubs.