March 02, 2004
Kiss a Texan today!
Today is the day in 1836 when Texas won her independence from Mexico.
We usually celebrate by eating Mexican food and drinking Coronas.
What's wrong with this picture?
Posted by denise at 11:14 PM ~ Comments (3)
May 03, 2004
Visit
So John was supposed to be here early Thursday, April 22, but ran into a couple of delays getting his truck trailer hitched up in East Texas. So he got here Thursday afternoon. We took my car to Graff to get it worked on and then drove around Arlington. Then we came back ate supper, John was overjoyed to see the pecan pie, then fell asleep watching Rush Hour.
Friday, we got up and went to Glen Rose to visit the nuclear power plant and the dino tracks at Dinosaur Valley State Park. Right at the entrance to the park was an ocean of bluebonnets. I took a few pictures, but I know it won't do justice to 'em. We hiked around and took in the various track sites. Then we went home ate roast and watched Rush Hour 2.
Saturday was a trip to Dealey Plaza and the Sixth-Floor Museum. It's a very interesting place that museum. The window from where Oswald fired his fatal shots is walled off behind plexiglass and arranged more or less as the cops found it that day. It's a sombre place. Next we went to the Science Place to see an IMAX movie, "Adrenaline Rush." That was a great experience too. Then on the way back we picked up my car. (We'd paid for it on the way to Dallas.) and then we picked up barbecue for supper. Colter's barbecue is not bad.
Sunday was puttering about with computers. We also went to Fry's to look around.
John stayed Monday and ran errands, got a new LCD monitor from Fry's, he'd seen the day before and reorganized his truck. Then he left Tuesday as I was leaving for work.
So all in all it was a good visit.
Posted by denise at 08:49 PM
July 25, 2004
And then there were 6
Lance Armstrong handily wins his sixth straight Tour de France!
Posted by denise at 04:04 PM
September 05, 2004
Sign of the times
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Posted by denise at 08:48 PM
Dive grafitti
Grafitti on the side of Big Dick's Bar. (I'm not sure I supposed to even write that, but I did, so deal...)
Posted by denise at 08:59 PM
September 07, 2004
Ameriquest Field
One of probably many photos of the Ballpark that I'm going to post since I drive by it every day.
Posted by denise at 07:26 PM
October 11, 2004
Ameriquest Field #2
Posted by denise at 08:11 PM
Ameriquest Field #3
Ameriquest Field in artsy-fartsy Black & White:
And in artsier-fartsier Sepia:
Posted by denise at 08:13 PM
October 14, 2004
The Silly Season
Posted by denise at 09:56 PM
October 16, 2004
Downtown Fort Worth
Posted by denise at 08:42 PM
November 04, 2004
Lone Star Door
Posted by denise at 07:07 PM
November 06, 2004
The Long and Winding Road
Well, long, anyway...
Posted by denise at 06:18 PM
November 09, 2004
Ameriquest Field #4
Posted by denise at 08:31 PM
December 28, 2004
Dubya Presidential Library
SMU, Baylor & UT Arlington are in the race to be the site of the next presidential library. SMU is the odds-on favorite followed by Baylor and Arlington a distant third.
Posted by denise at 08:28 PM
January 23, 2005
Texas rulez!
I live in the most innovative region in the world!!
Posted by denise at 05:24 PM
April 25, 2005
The excitement's startin' early!
A tornado showed up today over the Miller Brewery. They must have tossed it a six-pack because it left without doing any damage.
Anyway, Florida Cracker posted some great dramatic photos of West Texas weather.
Posted by denise at 11:07 PM
June 08, 2005
Dealin'
The Art of the Deal...Fire Ant style.
Posted by denise at 11:32 PM
June 28, 2005
Goodbye, Forum 303
Forum 303 Mall/Festival Marketplace is closing for good. It's been a long slow slide to the bottom. Faulty A/C was the final nail in the coffin. It was too expensive to fix so the owners just closed the place up and called it a day.
Though the Forum was never as swanky as Six Flags Mall (a few miles to the north), it was still a great place to shop, eat, and see movies. It had a small amphitheater for fashion shows and the like. I had my first piano recital there (actually a Bluebirds talent show.) My mom was a Bluebird troop leader and I had just started piano lessons. I learned Bach's Minuet in G and my mom thought it would be a good idea if I recited a small paragraph about Bach's life and work. I have no idea why my mom wanted me to be so informative, but I wasn't too excited about having to speak in front of a crowd. So at the rehearsal, I got up on stage, said my speech, played my song and sat down, knowing with dread that I'd have to go through it all one more time the next night. But on show night a miracle occured. Right before my turn, the microphone mal-functioned, so I got to skip my little speech and go directly to piano playing. I don't remember really any more about that night except that sweet relief I felt in not having to tell the world about Bach.
The Forum also had my favorite bookstore, Century Books, and the arcade where I spent way too much money one summer and the movie theater where I stood in the longest lines ever to watch "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi."
The Forum was under a curse from the beginning. The main highway passing it was under construction for years and when they finally finished it, the town had developed toward to west rather than east around the mall. In fact the area around the Forum has never really been developed. The ultimate decline began when they built the Parks Mall in the early 90s and all business was sucked westward. The owners tried turning the Forum into a indoor flea market then. But that business model didn't really work either. Too many tenants owed too much back rent.
The old Montgomery Wards space was rented out as a haunted house last October. I took this picture a couple of weeks ago and they still hadn't cleared away the Halloween stuff. A little self-fulfilling prophecy here, perhaps.
Who knows what will become of it. It's too expensive to fix and too expensive to tear down. I hope some big-moneyed developer will take up the slack and revitalize it. It's got decades of life left in it. I suggest turning it into a movie studio or a skateboard park.
If they turn it into condos I call dibs on the old Century Bookstore space!
Posted by denise at 11:59 PM ~ Comments (8)
July 24, 2005
Durn Politicians
The Texas legislature can't find the money to fund the public schools, but they have no trouble giving themselves what amounts to a pay raise.
Typical.
Posted by denise at 10:16 AM ~ Comments (2)
August 07, 2005
Kinky fer Gov'ner
At least it will be a funny campaign season. Can't wait for the debates.
Posted by denise at 10:29 PM
October 18, 2005
Chewbacca becomes an American citizen
Peter Mayhew, known to the world as Han Solo's faithful sidekick, Chewbacca, became an American citizen* today in Arlington, Texas.
ROWWWRR!
He lives in Granbury of all places.
- Chewbacca actor to become an American (FoxNews)
*Registration required
Posted by denise at 12:21 AM ~ Comments (2)
January 10, 2006
The Buzzards of Grand Prairie
Buzzards right in the middle of town. Go figure.
And yeah, that's the middle of town in Grand Prairie.
Posted by denise at 11:37 PM ~ Comments (4)
January 21, 2006
December Sunset
Posted by denise at 08:48 AM
January 26, 2006
No presidential library for Arlington
Arlington lost its bid to host President Bush's presidential library. The proposal video has been released. (Video links on the right under "Related Content".) It's not as well produced as the West Texas Coalition's and, frankly, the Fields of Peace idea was kinda wierd. The exact proposed site isn't revealed in the Arlington video, but this was my suggestion. SMU, the University of Dallas, Baylor and Texas Tech are still possible sites.
It's just as well. Arlington has its hands full building the new Cowboys Stadium.
Posted by denise at 10:46 PM
June 24, 2006
RIP Aaron Spelling
Aaron Spelling, the man who made TV as we know it, has died of complications from his recent stroke.
I loved this paragraph from his E! Online obit:
"Born April 22, 1925, in Dallas, Spelling studied journalism, but lived for theater at Southern Methodist University. When his father lost his job at the local Sears because of a controversial all-black play directed by his son, the younger Spelling agreed to get out of town in exchange for his dad's reemployment."
Right on!
In addition to innumerable hours of trash TV he also produced some more sober stuff like "And the Band Played On" (recommended) about the history of the AIDS crisis as well as the movie based on the Pulitzer-prize winning play "'Night Mother" starring Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft about a young woman planning her suicide (not recommended).
Technorati tags: Aaron Spelling
Posted by denise at 12:36 AM
July 20, 2006
A few things
- PBS broadcast a couple of episodes of the behind-the-scenes documentary about Windsor Castle: A Royal Year. It's a castle, palace, art gallery and working farm all in one. Fun fact (for scale purposes): Windsor Great Park occupies 15,000 acres. The King Ranch covers 825,000 acres.
- Today is the 37th anniversary of the first moon landing.
- It's pointless for me to mention this since it's been slashdotted, but Mike J. Nelson, former host of MST3K, is doing his own DVD commentary tracks via a new project called RiffTrax. The tracks are $1.99. Payment through PayPal. I've already purchased mine. The payment and download is relatively quick and seamless. The first movie is Roadhouse which is one of my favorite bad movies.
A couple of weeks ago I was all excited about the new Townhall.com site. Now I have to rein in my good thoughts about it, because, apparently, there are no RSS feeds anywhere on the site. The lack of that particular technology seriously cripples Townhall.com. Hopefully they'll correct that in the near future.- Um, never mind... Townhall.com RSS feeds on the way!
Technorati tags: Windsor Castle, Apollo 11, Rifftrax, Townhall.com
Windsor Castle Apollo 11 Rifftrax Townhall com
Posted by denise at 10:12 PM
September 13, 2006
Ann Richards (1933-2006)
Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, died this evening. She served one term as governor from 1991-1995 and brought a lot of much needed energy to the governor's office. I don't remember voting in that election, but I remember being glad she won over her boorish opponent, Clayton Williams. She expanded the Texas prison system. French Robertson prison was built near Abilene while I was living there during the early 90s. She also introduced the lottery and pari-mutuel betting to Texas which I wasn't so happy about. The money the state earned from the lottery was supposed to fund education, but it didn't actually earn enough money for that so the money now goes to the general fund.
Ann was also a gifted orator. She's probably best known for delivering the best line ever at a national convention when, during the keynote at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, she ridiculed George H. W. Bush's bumbling campaign rhetoric: "Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth!" Bush got revenge of a sort when his son, George W. Bush, defeated Ann in the 1994 race for governor.
Technorati: Ann Richards
Tagjag: Ann Richards
Posted by denise at 10:45 PM ~ Comments (0)