Super Bowl Sunday

This year,I'm actually looking forward to the Super Bowl. Don't know why. Maybe an East coast team playing a West coast team sounded reasonable. Two brothers;one that coaches each team is touching. The name, Ravens, were in the vocabulary when the 49ers were actually gold miners in 1849. You could even draw some comparison between sunrises and sunsets or Atlantic ocean and the Pacific ocean. How about river comparisons? One is East of the Mississippi,one West. Mountain ranges separate the two teams. Actually, the list could go on and on. But what does it all mean? Well, until this year, it meant absolutely nothing! So what's so different between this year and past years? Again, absolutely nothing other than the fact that now, I'll have material for another post when one of these two teams actually win the game. Well, that's lame, you say. I'd say you be right! 

But because the Hockey lockout  is over, I'm multi-tasking again! #gofigure.

Old Locker Room at former Texas Stadium

Play board from old Raven's game in December, 2008

The original !

Bunny Outline and A Green Heart

A Green Heart at the Chinese Lantern Festival  Takes Shape

This past fair season, Fair Park held a very large area to display the Chinese Lantern Festival. It was such a success that after the State Fair ended, the display ran a few additional weeks. Now that the media calendar is beginning to search for such material, I was able to find a bunny being built and a heart. The heart I shot was green. I choose it because it fits so well with ecology. That famous money-making Cupid treat, candy, fits because even at Valentines, mint chocolate has its followers,too.

A Bunny Head Takes Shape. The electrical bulbs and wiring can be seen inside in sunlight.

 

The Beautiful Lotus Bloom in Silk on a Blue Sky
All these are lighted from the inside and were fantastic at nighttime.

A Second Calatrava Bridge Is Now Approved!

Note the beautiful red ring around the eye. Click on the image to enlarge.

With the first Santiago Calatrava bridge now built and supporting traffic with its cable stays, a second Calatrava bridge,though scaled back, has now been approved to carry Interstate 30 traffic over the Trinity River. This second bridge will have bike trails and hopefully, construction of the Trinity River park will begin later this spring or early summer as the bridge building once again begins West of downtown. Most people don't get excited over projects like this. But for me, it runs deep in my blood and construction projects of this size are like new batteries in an old toy.





 

Walgreen's To The Rescue

Sea gull at Sunset Bay

The plumage is amazing

 It was in the 70's today. Even in Texas, that is a gift in late January because February really can be the coldest month of the winter. I get cabin fever after about three days in the house. So, when I discovered that one of my prescriptions was due for refill, I logged on and submitted the request to Walgreens. This morning, I had an email that my prescription was ready for pick up. Perfect!  An afternoon under the blue sky and sun. With a stress-test coming up shortly, it will also cover a cardiac walk and exercise. Sweet!

Subject matter was a bit limited, but along came a co-operative and curious sea gull. They really are beautiful birds. There must have been five or six photographers all looking for something interesting and for a rare winter's day, nothing was happening today.

 

A man walks  his dog and a woman rest in thought.

Architecture Comes in Varied Forms

Yesterday, while looking for something interesting to blog about, this little wren's nest could not be passed up for its architecture elements and stringing. It seems that every winter, I run across something like this that is unique and interesting. What is so amazing to me is the size of the wren overall. It's not a very big bird.
I have seen some hummingbird nest that are smaller and more detailed, but this one caught my interest because of its location right over a busy bike trail.

Paddlesurf

                                                                                                                                                                      It's always a gift to get a 60-plus degree day in                              

A super nice paddle board he sells at their shop

I watched him put this in the water and it was one of the most easy I have ever witnessed.

Off from the ramp and headed toward the dam. I saw him from the road down at the dam later enjoying his paddle surf

Mid January. With plenty of blue sky early on, before the high cloudiness rolls in toward sunset, it didn't take much to get me motivated to get out and walk. Deciding where to go was the next problem as Dr. Oz was at Cowboy's Stadium giving free physicals to over 1500, the annual Stockyard Rodeo  Exhibit will be filling the stockyards in Ft. Worth with a million visitor, Founder's Plaza at DFW had aviation geek weekend going on at Texas Trail and Airport West so the magic rabbit in the hat is always White Rock Lake. With all the good weather, there would be people all over the lake and that means finding something unusual and not normally found. Well, as the luck of the  draw happens.......White Rock was a winner again.

This gentleman is a partner in a paddle board shop and had with him one of the new stand up paddle boards. The shop has some unique activities planned for a bit later on this spring. It  sounded awesome. His shop: RIOSUP. They offer: Core Fitness Training and also have boards/gear/Eco tours.


  

A Train of Trains

History moving up the road from Dallas to Frisco. This is the consist of the hospital move of two engines and two diesels on their own wheels. It had left Irving about 45 minutes prior from this spot and from the Gribble siding going north toward Carrollton.

Just north of Gribble siding. The train behind waited as this consist passed it on the right, then back on the main track .

The Santa Fe diesel familiar to every one at Fair Park

Spot No7 and another moved as a hospital move

Chained Down and 20'06" on the move