Like A Cholocate Chip Cookie with Walnuts and Powdered Sugar on Top

Well, today was a bitter sweet kind of day. Mom always preached about how important it was to have balance. I guess the bitter sweet is kind of like that in some ways.Since the Monday before Thanksgiving ( that is November in the US) until today, my balance has been up and down. In the hospital, out of the hospital. Covid-19 cancelled surgery, re schedule, cancelled again. And, to top it off in Grand Maul fashion, my car got totaled last week. This week, I was driving a rental car but that came to a close today when the car was returned to my favorite car rental place. My old car was purchased on line in January,2007; about  six months after it began life as a new District Manager's car in San Antonio. I found it on line, called, set up an appointment and drove to San Antonio (5 hours from Dallas) and drove it home ( another 5 hours). I called it a new car with a built-in road-trip. There would be two more road trips in the comping years. One was when mom passed and the other one was to go back the day her marker was set ( more complicated and yet another story). The thing about those two trip were that Hotdog, my Anyssinian cat made those two trips of totaling over 1000 miles together. Ironically, I had Hotdog for 14-years and I had my car the same time (less the time between mom's death and Hotdogs).

Outside of regular maintenance, the car didn't even stop running after my accident and because it was still daylight, I could drive it home. That car knew my 18-mile-wheel-shoot-field grid like it was a dog with his special toy,blanket or pool float. Now, it sits waiting for the insurance tow truck to take it away.

So, when I turned in the rental today, it was a victory lap around the wagon wheel one last time. With that, I am without a car and likely to remain that way. Transportation is never as cheap as the one you have, it is often said by someone, whoever. I've heard that phrase since I had my first little sports car, my 1963 Pontiac Lemans Coup with a three-speed on the floor. 

Having said all that (it really was a part of my storytelling). The final miles was a loop through the high meadows. The sight was stunning and shocking. Kind of like the forthcoming bitter-sweet end that was nearing). My comparison estimates to past years, the meadows are about two months ahead of normal. But, there were a hand full of super shots that get into that class of "money shots". A somber smile with a turned up dimple on one side of my face was offered to the old car for all the trips we made around that wagon wheel grid where our urban photos had been made. To bid the old car good bye is both the bidder and the sweet.

When uploading from my camera to the computer this afternoon, the total shots made today were the most shots made since this hospitalization, surgeries, infections all began. I still wear my Covid-19 (copy on the band) that stated that I was Pre-screened and negative.

The Change Of Our Banner Says it All.

It has been a year that will top the year that I posted about back a few months ago. The big thing here in Texas is that the Fair Board will not say for sure if there will be a state fair this year at Fair Park or not for several more weeks. Just imagine not having a state fair at one of the best locations of any state fair. Fair Park is the home of the largest collection of  Art Deco buildings in one location in the US. The park houses 7 museums, and much much more. But most of all, maybe not a corny dog that Neil Fletcher first introduced at the state fair in 1942. It was an instant hit and now sells numbers that make even gastronomists turn and look the other way. 2020 will be a very bad year to begin with for many reasons, but without a Fletcher's corny dog it would be the worst yet.

With the highest number of cases of the Covid-19 on the rise again, Dallas Metroplex is trying to reopen and things are so uncertain. Following the calendar that editors use for the seasonal changes, most of the buyers are already looking for images for the fall. But, no Rangers playing their first game in the new stadium that will be air conditioned from that hot Texas summer heat is trying to get going next month.

Having said that, now, there is talk about sports being placed on hold again. The uncertainty is going to be the psychology of cabin fever returning and people climbing the walls. Schools, sports, businesses, that are eagerly awaiting the reopening dates approaching, just might be put on hold again.

So, when I was thinking about what to use with the banner change for the beginning of Summer officially this weekend, the only thing that popped into my mind was that image of the question mark (?).
 

It's That Time of the Year When The Local TV Stations Show Pets In the Pool Cooling Off.

Watching the nightly news locally, the stations here in Dallas all seem to have people send in pictures of their pets cooling off in the back yard pool. Some are really cute. Some are just plain funny. Some even seem to show a bit of lonely-in-the-pool, wish you were here feel.

It got me thinking about other things. Like, I have talked to my computer, dishwasher and my car. My computer never went down and always worked in the office. My dishwasher basically, has never failed me. and my car, God love that little gas engine that just rolled up 130,000 miles. So, today, on my way to the doctors, I pulled into Jerry's and got the $5.00 car wash and go deal. The way that I looked at it was that it is the easiest way to clean two big windshield windows and 4-side windows all  at the same time.  Now, my pet name for my car will remain silent for this little ditty but she seemed to be as happy as one of those dogs on a pool float with a ball at their side. It just purred as I made my way to the doctors. Then, I must admit, I need to walk to rebuild my strength and stability again. So I found a parking spot at a little bit of a distance from the front door to the doctor's building. It was perfect for the shade of one tree to cover the car and still be covered when I came out from the doctor's office.

Now, call me nuts. But, there is something to this electronic thing that I have observed over the years. So, going out of my way a bit on a warm Texas afternoon in near mid June was for my little old car. So, when you see one of those television images of some pooch in a pool cooling off on a hot day, think about something that supports you everyday without fail. The rewards might even surprise you.

When you click on the image to enlarge it, if its not clear enough about the surprise of the abstract design, use your browser and increase to a point that will highlight the water on the windshield. I use the 100 % for a clear image.

Tootles!!

The Case of the Disappearing Parked Planes

Yes, folks, the economy is opening up as predicted with increased new cases and deaths of Covid19. The world wide protest while long needed to weed out the bad cops in the active ranks is so long over due. I'm afraid that it is a price we pay for not having acted sooner. I have made post about the shaved-head, gym going, somewhat bully-type cops that can be spotted almost instantly, if only for a few turns of observation. There is a "TYPE" that fits that pattern. Thirty years ago, I met a guy who was former member of one of the military elite like, rangers, seals, etc.,etc. He once made the statement that if there was anyone that I didn't like he could take his squad on a training exercise. That was enough to scare me right there, but it also got me to thinking that I had friends that were in Vietnam that talked of friendly fire of soldiers that were holding them back....whatever that meant. Although, I can pretty much form an accurate detail of what they were talking about. In short, here, what I am saying is that this type of bully hatred among the military and eventually police departments that hired these guy in the first place. Take the example of the cop that held his knee on the neck of George Floyd. He had been on the force for 19 years and had some past history of that same type of thug mentality. And, one must consider that these guys with a near-retirement service were hired long before Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome was even fully understood.

Personally, I think that the government was wrong in supplying police departments with all the armor that tactical units use to bust doors down and S.W.A.T. teams that abound in an America that our forefathers never imagined in such a way. Don't get me wrong. There is a long history of law enforcement that has a vein that runs through our family, beginning with my grandfather who served as a U.S. Marshall in the Depression Era. Yes, that's the Elliot Ness Period, too.  Now, don't go getting excited. It was an era in time. Much has been written about it overall. Yet, my mom was also growing up at that time when good cops, baseball players from the major leagues, and others from  the wildcat oil men of Oklahoma around the same time period,  would stop to go quail hunting with my grandfather after he left the Marshall Service. Mom was a life-long Dodgers fan. Baseball star Preacher Row taught my mom how to clean a fresh kill of quail.

One thing that mom had was accurate radar that worked until her death, she could pick out the bad apples almost without fail. It got her a court appointment for Juvenile Offenders. She was like a silent type of fictional Lt. Columbo but using her radar could zero in on target. She had a way to give you "pearls" when she talked that were life-long gifts of knowledge that others could never figure out how does he do that?

Now, with the age of webcams and other things, it has become nearly perfect forecasting or deductions when observing something specific, like the parking of planes by American Airlines at DFW on the SW quad of the line-up-and-wait area of active flights waiting to take off. During the past 6-8 weeks the number has been fairly steady at 22 planes once the storage began. While the terminal D ramp was near empty of planes except for a plane or two that when to Brazil or Singapore Asia area. Qantas has been absent. Emirates has cut back, Korean has cut back and JAL seems to be the only one that still makes a daily effort.British Airways has all but stopped. Although, British Airways, Korean and Emirates have been parking planes one and two at a time in the area used for tour plane parking and athletic team charters or of their own planes. For a while BA was parking a 777 and a 747. They would alternate days that they few them out with crew only, I suppose.

Suddenly, this week, American announced that they had parked a total of 450 planes and that they still planned to retire about 100 aircraft of that number. Then, the line-up-and-wait parked planes began to disappear one or two at a time. While today, the total was at +/- 16-17 still parked. The west side of the airport or the 18/36L and 18/36 R runways are getting a major work over with new lighting, and other lighting that could be part of the ILS (instrument landing system) approaches.

Many of you are unaware of the DFW ideal and plans to increase capacity at DFW by 30-35% with the adding of a new Peripheral Taxi Ways on both side of the airport that end the crossing of active runways, a major safety move. So major in fact, the FAA not only gave DFW $180million to proceed with the final segment but has "somewhat" swiped the ideal and is now pushing it in new airport designs.  Yeah! DFW staff! Way to go guys and gals.

The "future" #8 runway that is being used as parallel taxiway currently, will be hooked into the peripheral taxiways. Well, today, they started pushing dirt to extend the end of that taxiway and tie it into the ones that will connect 18/36 L and 18/36 R to that system. Surprisingly, I still believe that the #8 runway in the plans will one day be that taxiway, giving 3 parallels on the 17/35 R,C,and L and 3 parallels on the 18/36 L and the 18/36 R which would become the center runway and of course the two cross wind 13's one on the east side and one on the west side which are now active 6 and 7 of the master plan. Of course it's all subject to change unless someone goes off the deep end out there and decides to mess up a geometric flow.

Also Terminal "E" is shaping up and American has committed to building Terminal "F". With the peripheral taxiway "invention" that will increase capacity by 30-35% baring another pandemic or something else unseen, I'd say that the next ten years will get shortened quickly with that forecast growth and efficiency. Airlines don't like to waste money on operational matters, remember.

So, the building of the new normal has begun. Disappearing planes isn't all bad.

The new norm for me is also deeply engrained.

Sometimes, you know what you must write, but it just does not fit the time of the moment. That has been the story with this post the past seven days. The delete button has been pushed at various times over the last week, but the time was just not then. Some have even suggested that,"Oh, you have a writer block".  Uh! no, I don't. Thoughts flow from my head like a creek running wild below a mountain bridge. And, for more fact there, that bridge was washed away a day after I had left the Big Thompson River Canyon  area in Colorado. I could have been killed. That story could be written, but there again, it's not it's moment in time. In fact, July of 1976 was it's time. Not mine.

Never-the-less, I keep trying to sort volume numbers from chapter numbers and sometimes, enough falls out that somehow probably makes more sense to me than to my readers, but hey, that's life!. This is a hard time for me without the medical part anyway.

Although, I came to a resolution with myself as to how I would continue to remember my son each year without the grief and pain that I have felt the past twenty-two years. If it had not been for my strong faith, sometimes I wonder were I would be today mentally. Yet, I have been able to work my way though this to a point that I think my son would be very pleased and I can accept that the good Lord gave my son to me for 26 years. Trying to imagine those 26 years with out him would not be possible.

The thing that has sifted though the nets of time is the fact that I have begun to realize just how many men that I know that have lost their first born or other station of birth of their son. It absolutely blows my mind to read a list of names that I have jotted down as it came to mind that I have worked with so many men and women that have lost a son. It's not an easy thing to be able to recall those  names, including two of my best friends and dozens of others that I have known over the years.

Sometimes, I  have felt that I should reach out and start a support group, but there are plenty of those already. What I'm searching for is a far deeper purpose.Not only why my son was taken at such a prime time in his life,but the things that I don't know. I'd love to know where he went in Germany when he made a trip there before he graduated from college. He had ask me if he could take a year off. Asking my permission was something I never expected him to do, although he did everything right by the book.  

Last year was the final year of mourning. I took on a 20-year mourning when I learned of his death.So, frankly, my mind has been occupied with how to unhitch from that mourning period and still remember the time of his death and burial. I'm making my way to that point in time when I will finally find out if I can get through that period and still feel that loss. The pain will never go away. I know this already. But, at the same time, I want to remember him from some of the things that he wrote to me from trips to Put-In-Bay Island he made with friends while he was working toward his degree.I still read some of his letters and I can hear his voice as if he were telling me what he had written on the pages that I was holding. In the separation, the first year and the last year of the deep mourn period were not counted.

In all fairness to my two remaining children. I love you both in the same degree that I loved your brother. I have discussed this before in that each of you were equal to me in some special way, from my daughter being my first girl, your younger brother being the only one that I witnessed his birth besides being the baby of the family. I could never pick a favorite. I love you all equally. Always remember that. 

A Sign In A Yard Today Said:

Hope 

Has Not Been Cancelled.

The High Meadows Are in Full Bloom After Early May Rains.

One of the last trips to the high meadows of North Texas saw the cutting of  last seasons stubs from a very pretty season. Ironically, one of the first trips there this spring after my hospital stay during the month of May was somewhat of a shocker to see the blooms and colors going across the meadows like a paint brush of color on a fresh canvas.


Suffice it to say, the meadows are off to a spectacular start this season. The only thing left now is to cross the fingers and toes that the fall season will be far better to view and enjoy than the Spring of 2020.

Thistle Blooms

Major color display over several high meadows have got a good start.