Yesterday in Downtown

I rode the new #3 bus from Mockingbird Station downtown yesterday. I don't always like using the train underground from Mockingbird to City Place and finally end up on Pacific Avenue  as the train comes topside again.

It gave me a chance to see Ross Avenue developments that has totally transformed it from a decade ago. At the West End Station, I go off and hit the street heading toward Fountain Place. Then, it was just a meandering tour of all the changes from the west end of Ross avenue eastward through the Arts District when I meet a couple from India that were touring Dallas. As it turned out, the wife was a doodle artist and showed me a couple of here drawings that were absolutely amazing. I did give them my last business card that I had in my camera bag and I do hope that she sends me an email and how I can use a couple of her drawings. I can already see a couple of projects that would fit right in. I don't have any vectors and would like a show a couple.

From there it was to Cathedral Guadalupe where I timed it perfectly as  the bells peeled for 15 minutes. As they wound down, the space between the bells as they tolled elongated and because somber and fading. It's been a long time since I have heard Cathedral bells peal like that. Got some interesting shots of all the new construction and how things have become more dense.

 

A First to See This

 Over the years, I have seen a lot of things that are unusual. Some were a bit scary. Others were rather comical. Even enough rarity to bust out laughing. In those events, there has been times when I stumbled upon a guy playing his trumpet under a bridge to get the reverbs off the concrete. Just a couple of weeks ago I photographed a professional violinist on the cultural state at the Deep Ellum  Arts Festival. I ran across a Mexican Mariachi band playing under the west ramp of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge; a high school marching band when a Parliament Member from Italy was being honored on the Ron Kirk Pedestrian Bridge and Felix Lozada Gateway (Continental Avenue Bridge c.1929) but never, until today have I seen this! It was not only unusual. It was inspiring to see a young man practicing his violin while rollerblading around a school and adjacent park. Because the young man was a minor and had no adult parent with him, I could only photograph him with his back to the camera under editorial photos published guidelines. I did tell him how to find his image later tonight for his parents or his friends. With that said, I give you a talented student that was pretty good at both rollerblading and playing the violin, albeit all at the same time.

Braum's Ice Cream is more than just a Dairy Store! It's a place where great people hang out!

 Two great sports at Bruam's Ice Cream this morning doing the breakfast thing. Alright, I had a biscuit and sausage patty with a cup of coffee! Hey, I had to do something nice  for these two!  Hope they had a great day! BTY---Thanks for being a great sport.

I really was working.:

A red shouldered hawk flew past me at shoulder high and landed in his diversion tree before flying into his nesting tree. Totally caught me off guard.

Six Months Ago if You Told Me That...

 I'm now dangerously close to being a Vegan. A year ago I would have declared---No Way. It's all because of Karma. And---if I can hate brussel sprouts all my life and now can't get enough of them, I'm at the point of no return. What a surprise! Karma has struck home!

Karma is a strange animal. Be careful. The rules are simple. Never say Never. Always be true to your self. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Don't say, I won't do that. (street sign: Betty Wood.) Life isn't simple. It's very complex. You don't have to be a Rocket Scientist to figure that out. You don't have to be a scientist at all.  All the signs are all around us. All we need to do is to Listen and be aware. 

Now, I've noticed since I cut the cable that over-the-air television isn't that bad. Having the television on while I edit pictures or write e-mails when I hear something interesting, I look up from the my computer to the television, then return back to the what ever I was doing. 

Keeping better detailed records has now over run from the filing the paperwork from my IRS taxes in my big plastic bin to the long-standing recording of my picture sales. I have been watching my energy dashboard to such a degree that this month, the old Edison Company stopped giving me daily reports. It could be because I was so dedicated to lower my highest light bill in 55 years. I am using 5 Kilo Watts per day and they don't record that low amount because empty houses and apartments and condos use 5 or less per month if they don't run the heat or the AC or all the energy saving tricks. It's rather amazing, This month, and the months billing cycle ends on the 25th, I have shaved off a c-note ($100.00). I've been comfortable, still run the dishwasher daily or every other day, draw the shades to block the afternoon sun that beats down on my porch,and run the ceiling fan on the reverse to draw the heat down to mix with the 18-inch floor fan near my desk. Some days when I come in from being out all afternoon, it's rather chilly in the house and I do not  turn the floor fan on.  Imagine that!

Now the streaming services are loosing customers and things associated to cable-like money grabs and I have noted how the over-the-air programing has begun to change already. I have also noted that there will be those that will sing to the stars that they are glad that they cut the cable. The problem is, they have three or more streaming services and won't out of that too, but don't know how the save face! 

The answer is already here in this post. Always be true to yourself. 

Now--the secret is out of the bag as to how we have ended up with another Gate. This one is called Bunny Gate at the White House.  It's like a black cat in a coal mine.  You just have to admit that Hope---is not a strategic defense.

In the meanwhile, somehow, despite the fact that the  process had been started, but got interrupted because of Covid, as of tonight, the old gas station where Clyde Burrow and Bonnie Parker planned their robberies etc.,etc. got demolished by a developer's bulldozer. It's a part of history, just as much a Al Capone and others. A city councilman will try to find out how this could happened. As he should. Let's hope he is better than the last tear down waiting for the same status that happened. The area is under development for multi-family apartments along the same area where a few years ago was cleared and three story apartments now stand there.  Letting developers wipe out a part of history should be a crime. No excuse. Lawmakers need to stop this. This is not the first time it has happened. The history of a city is important to its grown--good or bad--regardless if the historic place was a hide out for a couple of gangsters or not.It's history. It's who we are. Stop trying to rewrite history as the Egyptians did to one of their Pharaohs.

 

This is the general area where the old gas station was to obtain  National Historic Landmark status. Take the developer who is developing the old Valley View Mall in North Dallas. That project has incorporated many items of the old mall into the development and even more for the city as well as the residences and businesses that will become home---a part of history.

I've seen this same situation in Detroit, years ago and the loss hurt the city as will something like historic bank robbers from Dallas will hurt Dallas in the long run. My dad had a saying about such things. " when something happens that can't be reversed, you might as well eat the meat from the lamb, because that dead lamb isn't going to be any good, other than lamb  for dinner, any more."

Geophone Sensors---rather alarming in a growing list of identity markers

 It was not my intention to begin this post with a title that made a pun. However,  as it turned out, it is probably more alarming that I first thought.  Since, Geo sensors can be as small as a small spool of thread, their latest deployments are being used as home alarms. That's not a bad thing. The bad thing is that they can detect a person walking across a floor. That is not even a bad thing. The bad thing about them is that they are so sensitive that they have been found in research that every person has a distinct walk and is identifiable to a specific person, much like a fingerprint. In short, another way for government to track a person and invade privacy. Yes, that even includes all the so-called "goodie two shoes" that, while holding their cocktail in their hand talking about every one else, because they are that perfect individual are unaware of anything outside of their little world.

One must remember that :

 "The measure of anyone's freedom is what he can do without."

~~~L.M. Montgumary

An speaking of shoes

 

    Yes, they can sense the difference  of  individual workers on a job site like this one.

 For sure, it is something to think about in the growing era of infringements. First there was fingerprints,voice patterns, then DNA, camera, license plate readers, facial recognition profiling and now footstep sensory. I still remember my first two wake-up calls. The first:  the first time I left this country, my homeland. When I returned it was a shock to notice just how spoiled Americans really are while waiting in line at customs at Miami International Airport. The second wake up call was talking to a TexDoT. supervisor on the LBJ-635 upgrades between the High 5 and IH-35E. When I ask him how much technology was going into the project, he explained that there was..." more than people really want to know about". He went on to say that: "...what people see is construction going on.What they don't see is the really hi-tech stuff that was a good time to install because they would all associate it with an upgrade making their drive better. People in Dallas are asleep  at the wheel." Since that second wake up call, I really started to pay attention. The supervisor was absolutely, correct.

Overheard catchy phrases from platform conversations, line standing and sitting on a park bench on an urban trail.

1. A Buddhist with an ulcer.

2. Not A bland old man.

3. St. Georges Day is upon us already.

4. ...and God made a farmer. 

5.  Every one has a vein of creativity in them. It is just that some missed the chapter on putting a little hole in their creativity bucket so that it would leak out a drip at a time all through their life.

6. Yes, March is the battle of the winds in Texas.

7. Being Woke is a statement of awareness only achieved by those dumb enough to find injustice in everything except their own behavior.

 8. Spring in Texas in March is where you can have a blizzard in the panhandle, Wild fires in West Texas, tornadoes with 150 MPH winds in north Texas, hail, and hurricane force winds in the northern Gulf and Hill Country to the Piney Woods.

9. The Bach Boys: Johann Sebastian and Johann Christian, Carl Phillipp Emanuel.

10.When you must---you can.

11.Being a Force Multiply Person is when you can say what you want and place it in a blank outline of your state in 30-point type because your state is that big and you can say a lot.

12. Early Waves of Woe.

13.Flu Nona

14.Facebook. Haven't we had enough of it already?

15. My doctor told me that I could get a second opinion. So I did. That doctor, after his spiel said, "of course you can get another opinion." By the time I had stopped hearing the doctors tell me something other than I could get another opinion, I was on number 7!

Beautiful Tennison Entrance. PeoneyPoppies are coming up in porch flower pots

The Entrance Gate to Tennison's High course and Low course.Both are 18 holes. 

                                                                     Peony

Paeonia lactiflora 'Sarah Bernhardt'

A prized favorite for over 100 years

I have my fingers crossed that the seed I planted two weeks ago will produce four pots for my porch. The seed that I saved from two years ago is already coming up. The question is did I save the seed the right way. I love these blooms. These are more like a royal version of the carnation, but the demand to get them to grow is much harder than others think. So, they grow to 2-3 feet tall and will make for beautiful porch pots on either side of the gate. Stay tuned!