The Best Football Game That I Have Seen In Years

 Texas scores 2 touchdowns in the first 3 minutes of the game. They led every quarter until the fourth. Oklahoma tied the score at 48-48 by going for the 2-point conversion. Then, at the very last minutes of the game, Oklahoma was going to go for a field goal, but Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma's coach, had another plan. They went for the goal line and made the winning touchdown. It was an energy, fun and nail-biting packed game with some amazing plays on both side. 55-48 Oklahoma at this years Red River Shoot Out.

The Cotton Bowl at Fail Park was packed to capacity with fans from both sides of the state line. The State Fair is also running.The Cotton Bowl sits in the middle of the Midways and booths. The economic impact is figured to be $32Million for the Red River Shoot Out's 92,000 fans attending the game today.

                               File Photo 2016: inside the seating area below the upper decks

                                                   File Photo from 2016: The outside decks

                                                 

                                                  File photo from 2016 : concession area

                                                File Photo 2016: the new digital screen

                                           File Photo from 2016: outside look at the field.

The best action -filled game I've ever seen from start to finish was played right here on this field today,October 09,2021, save none. Cotton Bowl, Fair Park, Dallas, Texas.

A-Train to Denton. Lunch at Cartwrights. Changes Are Astonishing Downtown.

 Well, I backed out of hitting Senior's Day at the State Fair in Fair Park. If it had not been for the Coronavirus, I might had gone. Exploring options, the trip up to Denton to Cartwright's for lunch out on the sidewalk across from Courthouse Square, won out. It had been a couple of years since making my last trip up to have Cartwright's Ranch House cook my meal. They are noted for their Chicken Fried Steak Lunch Specials. Last time, it was a burger with all the trimmings. But, breakfast was only a sausage on an  English Muffin toasted with orange juice before leaving the house. Chores were light, too. Took the garbage out, got the mail in, stopped to talk to a couple of neighbors before walking down to the bus stop. 

Yesterday, the research showed that a bus from the train station went directly to the train station at the transfer point to the A-train. So in two bus trips the time leaving the bus, catching the elevator up to the A-train's platform, the A-train was there.The first time riding the A-train up to Denton, the Denton Country Transit Authority had only one of the new engines from Europe and they pulled the old Budd Companies passenger cars.  Of course that's all changed now and the new passenger cars are running as envisioned. It's quiet,smooth, but not a rocket, so to speak. It took 45 minutes to get up there from the hour and 45 bus rides Still,two and a half hours isn't bad for the distance. But, on the other hand, 5 hours of travel for lunch and 60 shots isn't a game changer either. Never-the-less- I made  it home by 5:30 Central Time.  Actually, I feel pretty good. Not tired one bit. The weather was 85/15 perfect. Humidity and dew points were low.  The bummer was the three weather systems did pull the heat up to 95°. Our average daily high this time of year is 82°F.

So, in the past thirty days, train rides on three of the four rail lines have been ridden; DART to Terminal A at DFW; TEXrail from DFW to Grapevine returning later  on DFW Terminal B and walking over to Terminal A to ride DART back into the system home. That's 3 of the current 4 rail systems for passengers in the Metroplex. A few years ago riding the TRE to downtown Ft. Worth was made. Riding the TRE  in the same year as the other ones is being planned. However, this time it will include riding DART to the American Airlines Center, transfer to the TRE to Ft. Worth, walk over to the TEXrail platform and ride the TEXrail  to Terminal B, walk over to Terminal A and board the DART home. completing the south route to Ft.Worth by transfer to the north route and complete the circle of all three trains. Plus going north up to Denton on DART's Green Line enabled me to take the A-train. BTY, checked on new station construction at Addison Transit Center for the new Silver Line across the north on the old Cotten Belt Line and it is looking  good today.

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.