People Movers to Connect Old Valley View Mall with Galeria and Knoll Trail Station of the new Silver Line

 Over the years, from the art collections studios that took over Valley View Mall prior to groundbreaking ceremony that started its demolition,

                                                    It's been a long time after this event

                                                But, never giving up hope for the future

piles of steel from duck work, structural beams and bar joist to the Mural of tiles on the old Macy store that was once was the older Sanger Harris, haunt  in-style fashion rags with an equally stylish price tag, is now ready to rise again from the Firebird dust anew. 

Now, the developer is ready to start the construction where a central park will be surrounded by hike and bike trails, housing, offices, and once again become something stylish for North Dallas, especially when the people movers (like the Las Colinas and DFW International ones) are working and the Silver Line diesel electric European-style smooth and quiet rail (much like the new Trinity TEXrail  that will share its terminal B with the Silver Line) will become even more than just a commuter line. In fact, it most certain will bring back the great escape of the northern (suburban) masses back into the city as it should be.

  

It has been a long time in coming, but it now includes the Galleria  Dallas to the eastern edge of the Dallas North Tollway back to Preston Road. Basically, metaphorically the main  street of Highland Park.

Silver line Construction Activity Hotline Number 972-833-2856

Silver Line will look much like this

People movers are reported to be much like this

esclaters at Macy's (former Sanger Harris)

                                                                One of the anchor stores

The Weather is doing Pushups Again. BTY, Palms are NOT a Texas Christmas Tree

 The last two days the high temperatures here in North Texas broke records for each day. The Thursday high broke a past 79°F high that was broken from last year. This year for today, we hit 84° F. Another new high. Cold front comes through tonight with jackets tomorrow. 

 Spending the day inside was not in my plans, but my list of things that had to get done took up most of my day. For a bit, I was able to get out to get the mail and walk a couple of blocks. Then, I got a text from the USPS that I had a package to be delivered. Since I had just checked my mail with nothing looking like a package, it was back inside to restart the computer, check the email again where the time of delivery had been changed to later in the day. Long story shorter. The package came just before the extended time of delivery and pretty much shut down any trips of short durations. The longer trips take a much earlier start. 

 The good part is that the mid 70's return mid week.So, there are still plans to get some good late fall shots before winter really sets its anchor as being here. In the meanwhile, I'll keep looking for some good shots. Plans were to try to upgrade two of my lenses. But prices are so high right now, even the Scotch blood in me won't pay those prices. If the economy takes a turn back to more normal economic levels and the supply chain (which won't ever return to normal) does fall back closer to where it was before, I'll start looking at lenses again. Until then, it's make do with what I have.

 

 

                                           In some places, this is considered  a Christmas Tree.

                     

Convention Center Fate Put on Temporary Hold

 City Council has put the fate of the convention center on a temporary hold. It's time to go watch the red needles and palms point-counter-point the leaves changing while the oak trees do their thing on the opposite side of the rail tracks. And, while we wait for City Council again. Now, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to some people that I know, but God love them, they never did know how to stop and smell the roses anyway. Had they done so, their visionary look on life would have been at a whole different level. Having said that, I've made some new discoveries that have me planning into the first half of 2022 already. 

On Sunday, I was on one of my discovery missions. In the past, I would do one of those trips about every four months. Now, I do one about every three weeks. Riding the buses and trains has expanded the little pockets that I had missed or overlooked in the past using my wagon wheel system of covering the metroplex. While it did generate a lot of stock work, it missed some of the more detailed things that I love in architecture and nature. It also opened up new windows of opportunity to see more things that are beneficial to my expanding interest in textures that make for fantastic abstract creations. 

In things to come, the use of the new versions of Photoshop are being cemented into the plans for a new line of cards that are  mainly greeting and note types, but the postcards have abstracts on the photo side. I have experimented in the Zazzle area for this. It peaked a level of interest where I went looking for some of my old friends in the printing business that I had used for years in the Great Lakes. My stationary company competed with landmark department stores in the wedding announcements, and funeral thank you cards became a mainstay to my, then, photography hobby since childhood. 

In my junior high years, I had learned how to set type in a small town newspaper and had also learned how to run an old Mergenthaler hot type linotype  machine. To this day, I have had opportunities to sit down and take old slugs and block new slugs of type into place to run on a letterpress printing press just  to see if I could still do it. This time, however, just for fun to help refresh and past techniques and bring them into the upgrade to the most modern Photo Shop experience. However, I continue to uphold the non-use of photo shop to change my images where they involve people or editorial images. The only place any use of photo shop will be on textures used to make abstract designs. 

In the meanwhile, I continue to search for the most common of things to photograph from a totally different outlook on what is now part of new technology. I have been looking into the new 50 megapixal cameras but they have been shifted in the budget because of the Covid-19 experiences world wide. Sales and use of stocks are rebounding back to near pre-Covid-19 levels, however, the market has changed (and not for the better) from the likes of Social Media that created thousands upon thousands of self-appointed experts in what the stock business is all about. It's a two-blade sword in my opinion and others that  I communicate with, in what's happening with the stock business. In the long-run, we, as a society, will pay the price for that somewhere beginning in the near future.

                                                        Two stories up to get this shot.

Back on the ground again. 

And I used to tell my old AP friend that he was nuts to climb out on an steel beam 50 stories up to get a shot of steel workers having their lunch on a beam.

It's Just A Thought, but Texas Central Railroad's Bullet Train is

passing very, very,very close to Mustang, Texas.The smallest town in Texas with a population of 21. It's the same little 77 acres that Dallas Maverick owner, Mark Cuban just purchased and said in media reports that he did a friend a favor and he didn't know what he would do with the town, if anything. 

Remembering, of course, Cuban IS  of  an entrepreneurial spirit to begin with. The environmental studies passed and have been certified. The law suits that challenged the Constitutional base that Texas Central Railroad is not a railroad is coming up on the court docket in early 2022. That case and others cited Amtrak as being a very much defined railroad has helped to overturn and reverse previous cases filed by property owners and higher courts reversing the lower courts decisions. 

This is a very important legal issue that Texas needs with it's growing hub for transportation in the area of an inland port to handle intermodal containers on the rails. But, my gut feeling is that Mustang, Texas is going to end up being a very important part of that Texas Central Alignment Route along the Union Pacific tracks.It also has the great potential of putting an amazing piece of passenger comfort in Dallas, Arlington and Ft.Worth.

Just think how much fun, as well as a time saving and parking fees eliminator if you could ride Dart or TRE or TEXrail or Silver Line or A-Train to a Cowboys game; Rangers game; or a Mavericks game or a Star's Hockey  game at the AAC. And let's not forget the recent talk that the Dallas Convention Center may be closer to a wrecking ball than any of us know, plus the new convention center would  just so happens to be re-aligned very near the new Bullet Trail Station on the west side of Lamar south of I-30. Or even on top of it.  The bigger picture is being painted piece by piece and as of yet I have heard no one even thinking about how it all fits together. Let Mark and the others make their money and just give us civilians that train.  Dallas Metroplex needs this if we are to be the Chicago of the South. We are so close.The private landowners need to also realize in Texas Spirit  that this project is bigger than any of them, or anyone person  individually. It is for the greater good of all Texans overall in the end chapter.

Walked 4-miles following things connected to wires.

On every outing of a bus or train, the look for interesting things to photograph is always top priority. In fact, so much, that I have been known to see something and get off the bus or train at the next stop and walk back to were I had seen the items that had caught my eye. When I was using my car to do these discovery missions, many times have I turned around and gone back to find what I had seen was less photographic than I had seen from the bus or train because of light and angles of where the items were actually located. While other times, it has been a gold mind of sorts. So, as in life, you take the lumps and bumps as they appear.

Over the past couple of weeks or so, I have noticed a staging of sorts, for things to come and that peaked my curiosity. So, as I went that way over the several days, things begin to take shape so with this amazing late November and December weather, yesterday was the day that I pushed the button on the bus requesting a stop. I saw the first pieces that were being staged. Getting off the bus, I walked four miles effortlessly (the most since my last surgery) finding the shots getting more interesting as I went along. Plus, there was new learning as I moved along the path laid out by the contractor. At the end of the path was a CVS drug store. I went in, bought a bottle of cold water and kit kat and had an interesting chat with the front end manager. From there it was about a quarter of a mile to the next bus stop and waiting for it watching the mad rush of cars sailing by passed the time outside the new VA hospital in Garland. At the transit center, it was dodging the construction there, as DART is raising all the platforms to one level. Got off a stop to soon and took a lemon and made lemonade out of that flub and then got off the bus one stop short of where I needed to be. I still haven't had my mind catch up to were I was in real time when two short stops came about, but I lived to tell the story.  As they say in mid-town Manhattan: "you'll have that from time-to-time, yes you will!" And so it was, I found myself cooking a great dinner and sat down to watch to lighting of the Christmas Tree at 30 Rock.

Today was spent inside, when it reached 81°F. editing and submitting images from yesterdays shoot. I had a fun time texting my youngest son and I think that I will order in groceries on Saturday rather than tomorrow, so I can have one last day before the rain moves in. Then the roller coaster begins from 80's to mid 50's°F. The early sunsets we are currently in will last a few more days before the morning sun rises start to come up a bit later in the morning and the early sunsets will make the day grow even shorter as winter sneaks up on North Texas.

A Melting Ice Cream Cone on the last day of November.

 Today was one of those days where if misinformation were a dog bit, I would have had broken skin. Now, it is not that much of a deal, but it travels down the line of thought that my brother and I have been concurring on for some time. When I set out this noon, my plans were to go to Firewheel. It's a stand alone shopping center of businesses more like a town square than a retail mall, if you will. The problem is that there are fairly new in the South, but in the Great Lakes, they have been around for nearly a quarter century. 

Firewheel I like. But since the days of no car, It just never occurred to me that I would be able to go there unless I rented a car. It's in far north Garland and Eastern Plano area. Then, last week, while at the Transit Center in North Garland,  a small shuttle bus type pulled in to the Transit Center with Firewheel in its lighted banner window. Remembering that last night as I was thinking about where I would go today it came to mind that with this perfect fall weather for the next five days, it would be a perfect place to travel. 

Long story shorter, I found myself on the bus joyfully riding to Firewheel. In the Town Center is a small park with fountains and the likes of such things and would make a perfect banner to use on the blog.  Then, I kept waiting for the bus to make a stop, but no one got off. We rode some more and I am watching the signs, knowing where I wanted to go but the there is a "horseshoe that goes around the big box stores, like Dillards and Dick's Sporting Goods and I'm waiting for the driver to go down one of those entry points. The distance from the horseshoe into the area where I wanted was a bit of a walk. Soon,it was plain to see that Firewheel was done and that we were heading back to toward the Transit Center. Pulling up to the slot at the point were I had boarded the bus outbound, I was the last one off the bus. I thanked the driver for the tour. Then, it hit him and he said that the route does not go  into the Town Center, we both laughed and bid each other a good day. 

So now, I'm thinking I'll ride the 486 the short distance from the transit center and Rail Station  to the square in downtown Garland. Then, I got to thinking, it is such a nice day, I'll go over the other side of the TC and check out the outdoor tree that is decorated. It's also a new ice cream shop and pushing mid-afternoon,it was perfect to get an ice cream cone and sit at one of the tables and plan the shots of the tree. As I'm getting the cone, I ask the clerk if I could take a picture or two of the tree outside since I had bought a cone. "Sure" came the reply.  So, outdoors I headed, choose my table, sat down my backpack and umbrella walking cane.  Then I noticed, the cone was lop sided. Next came the first drip of the melting ice cream onto my hand. I'm pretty good in keeping a  dripping cone  in  check in a warm climate, but then, like a swish of cold water, it hit me. This is the last day of November.I'm outside eating an ice cream cone that is melting on its own accord because its 78 °F. This isn't right! 

Finishing the cone, I got my images that I wanted and headed to the cross walk when the bus I wanted to take me to downtown was at the free-standing bus stop for all the buses not turning left. Great. Got to the square and first thing I noticed was a temporary fence installed all the way around the town square. My first though was that Christmas Decorations  were going up.  Then thinking, I've been down here after Thanksgiving and this was not part of the routine. Then, I recalled the media  short flash announcement about the redevelopment the town square. As, I walked around the full expanse of the fencing, setting down in the sunken level  were three information boards. Sadly,

 no one could see the details or read the info that the boards were designed to convey. The guy finishing up the fencing said someone  yesterday had ask if the boards were going to be brought up to sidewalk level? Like he said, "I'm just the guy putting up the fence."

The point of  this post is this: One can plan all they want but not every thing turns out as planned. So,when it happens as it did to me today not once, not twice but three times, just laugh, chuckle or both and head to the barn. Tomorrow is another day.

The Christmas Season Begins at 11A.M. (EST)

 Yes, it's Michigan v. Ohio State Time. This Michigan Fan wants Michigan to win. My son graduated from Ohio State and I have an official Stadium Chair from Ohio State's  Stadium Renovation of 1998-2001. The stadium chairs were also used for graduate seating on the field at Ohio Stadium. With the Andy Geiger certified chair, a section of the goal post mounted on a piece of hardwood base was also purchased.

This year, as in years pryor, I will be sitting in my Ohio State Stadium folding chair with a piece of bubble gum (aged and loosing it original color) stuck to the underside, watching Michigan take on the Buckeyes.  

SO, after the game of the year, it's officially the Christmas Season. Some say, unofficially. But we all know that Santa is a big Michigan Fan!!

 

                                        It's snowing in Ann Arbor. Santa is watching the game!