Dine Smart, Dine Local. How About Dine Healthy?

The City of Richardson recently revamped its online presence, rolling out a new website with great fanfare. Maybe it's a work in progress. Check out these two sections of the city's website and see what you think.

• "Dine Smart, Dine Local"
  
• "Restaurant Scores"
  

OK, what do you think? Compare and contrast. Make a suggestion for how to improve the usability of these two sections.

After the jump, the answer.

OTBR: Hopetoun Falls in the Otways

Latitude 38.6094° S
Longitude 143.3802° E

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

Dallas Arboretum vs Winfrey Point

From 2012 04 Dallas Blooms

Dallas Arboretum Garden Etiquette

No picking flowers, foliage, seeds or leaves No climbing on trees, walls, fountains or sculptures No standing or walking in flower beds No balls, Frisbees, bikes, scooters, roller blades, kites, balloons, or other items potentially damaging to the grounds are permitted in the Garden. But feel free to drive your cars, vans, SUVs, pickup trucks, whatever, all over the grasses on that patch of Texas blackland prairie at Winfrey Point. What do we care? It's not ours.

I have no business commenting on Dallas's business, but I can't resist this spat of nature lovers. It's tree huggers vs flower power. What it boils down to is that the Dallas Arboretum has outgrown its parking. It wants to use White Rock Lake's Winfrey Point for special event overflow parking (and maybe later for more permanent parking).

After the jump, my perspective.

Even More Spring in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

Another photo after the jump.

Swing Away ... in May

From 2012 00 Miscellaneous

The Lake Highlands HS Wildcat baseball team extended their season with a wild win over McKinney Boyd in the second game of their three game series Friday night. Just how wild was it? I dunno. I left in the second inning when rain started to fall. Lake Highlands was trailing 2-0. Apparently, the serious rain missed the ball field, allowing the teams to get the game in. Judging from these tweets, it sounds like it was a game to stick around for:

RT @GreggCalvin: "Yes please! That's how you do it! #Game3 at McKinney Boyd tomorrow at 12 o'clock"

RT @rthomas422: "Ahh crazy game! Game 3 at Boyd tomorrow at 12. #lhbaseball"

Update: From The Dallas Morning News: "Lake Highlands 4, McKinney Boyd 3: Lake Highlands scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh [high schools play seven innings], capped by an RBI single by Colton Bradley, to even the best-of-3 series at one win apiece. Game 3 is set for noon Saturday at McKinney Boyd."

Keep Richardson Weird

Teresa Gubbons and Pegasus News have the big news:

The City of Richardson's planning commission gave the go-ahead to a plan from Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse to open its first branch in Dallas-Fort Worth in the Richardson Heights Shopping Center.

Source: Pegasus News.

This announcement of a movie theater coming to Richardson, and not just any movie theatre, is exactly the kind of catalyst that could spark a renaissance for Richardson's old downtown ... if Richardson seizes the opportunity.

After the jump, imagining what this might mean.

SBOE Faceoff in District 12

Recently, I offered my opinions on the four candidates for the GOP nomination for the State Board of Education (SBOE) District 12 seat.

• Gail Spurlock
  
• Tincy Miller
  
• George Clayton
  
• Pam Little
  

George Clayton, the incumbent, received my (reluctant) nod.

Tuesday night, all four candidates, plus Lois Parrott, who is uncontested in seeking the Democrat-ic nomination, had a chance to impress me in person at a forum jointly sponsored by the Leagues of Women Voters of Plano/Collin County, Dallas and Richardson, the Greater Dallas Section of the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Women's Council of Dallas County.

After the jump, how the candidates fared in changing my mind.

Repeat Tweets: A Slack Month, Only One Amazing Thing

Repeat tweets from April, 2012:

• 2012 04 06 - Headline: "Texas Voter ID: State Tries To Keep Info Secret." State leg doesn't want open mtgs law to apply to them. http://t.co/DfDZ7Aqx
  
• 2012 04 06 - 50/50 (2011): Comedy about cancer. Not funny ha ha; not weepy either. Succeeds in walking a fine line on a touchy subject. B-
  
• 2012 04 10 - One Amazing Thing, by Chitra Divakaruni: Nine melodramatic stories. Platitudinous. Interchangeable. Pick one. Flesh it out. C+
  
• 2012 04 13 - Headline: "RISD’s Bob Dubey named Athletics Director of the Year." Congratulations! http://t.co/aHk2mMm5
  
• 2012 04 13 - Headline: "Treasury predicts all federal bailouts likely will turn profit." Reason to not trust conventional wisdom. http://t.co/EbTVB7Fn
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Slicing and Dicing Richardson

This is the most passionate I've seen people. My email is blowing up, my phone is blowing up.

Source: Public Hearing, City of Richardson.

What could be causing such a commotion? It was a public hearing of Richardson's Council District Boundary Commission (aka the City Planning Commission, or CPC). Every ten years, with the new census, Richardson redraws its council district boundaries to ensure balance in the population of each district. This public hearing was for receiving comments related to the three district boundary options under consideration by the CPC.

After the jump, what the passion is all about.

Everybody Should Go to College

Really? Who says? Well, when you try to answer that question, you have to dig some. At most, it appears that some school districts wanted every high school graduate to be college-ready, some going as far as the Los Angeles school district to require all students to take college-prep classes to graduate. But wanting all high school graduates to be college-ready is not really the same thing as saying everybody should go to college. Just that they should be ready to go if they decide to choose that path.

So, who says everybody should go to college? Often, the charge is that the President says so. Either President Barack Obama or maybe going back to President George W. Bush. Did either one really say that?

After the jump, hunting down the origin of conventional wisdom.