Late Autumn in the Steger Garden (2014)

From Flowers

The chrysanthemums are at their peak.

From Flowers

The freeze took the elephant ears and wandering jew. (Can I still say that?)

Dallas Unveils World's Saddest Bike Sharing Program

From 2014 08 23 Chicago

"Dallas Unveils World's Saddest Bike Sharing Program." So says Eric Nicholson of the Dallas Observer. I don't have anything to add to his excellent Unfair Park blog piece on the deficiencies of Dallas's bike rental system available only in Fair Park. I just wanted to share my photo of Chicago's Divvy bikes. Ride on.

It turns out I do have something to add. After the jump.

Keep Portland Weird

From 2014 11 05 Portland

"Keep Portland Weird." Portland stole the slogan from Austin, but Portland wears it authentically, so it's all good.

There's Voodoo Doughnut in Old Town (the "crotch" of Portland), the place with the maple bacon doughnuts that keep people lining up out the door 24/7. Voodoo Doughnut's partner, Rogue Ales, once created a Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale. Weird.

There was the Guy Fawkes Day anti-corporate, anti-government, anti-whatever protest march in Chinatown. It reminded me of The Wild One: "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?" "Whadda you got?"

There was the burrito maker at the food cart outside the Portland Building whose main interest in the November election was the Oregon referendum on legalizing marijuana. It passed.

There are the transit options -- light rail, streetcar, bike lanes, and ubiquitous Car2Go Smart cars. Oh wait, having transit options isn't weird, is it, unless you live in, say, north Texas, where TxDOT/NCTCOG/NTTA/... all conspire to build ever more freeways to cater to cars and sprawl. Whoa, keep the blood pressure under control. You're in Portland, remember. Chill. Bottom-line, Portland is very friendly to car-free tourists. Smile.

And Portland is just the right amount of weird.

More photos after the jump.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

IMDB

Grand Budapest Hotel (2014): Quirky. Eccentric hotelier, murder, inheritance battle, art theft, fascists. Lots of cameos. Works for me. B-

Gridiron Echoes (2014)

In celebration of another successful marching season, the Mighty Ram Band of Berkner High School put on their annual Gridiron Echoes concert in the school's newly renovated auditorium Tuesday night. And what a marching season it's been.

OTBR: Great Australian Bight

Latitude: S 32° 27.450
Longitude: E 123° 56.328

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".

Tunnel of Love in All the Wrong Places

As reported by Steve Brown of The Dallas Morning News, the area around Dallas Love Field is about to boom. Reconstruction of the terminal is nearly complete. Southwest Airlines is adding non-stop flights to destinations all over the country. Developers have plans for new offices, apartments, hotels and retail. So, what is the City of Dallas considering in reaction to all the traffic that's expected? Build a tunnel. Like one in Richardson.

The details after the jump.

Autumn in the Arboretum (2014)

From 2014 10 30 Autumn at the Arboretum

More photos after the jump.

Repeat Tweets: Silver Screen Slayer

Repeat tweets from October, 2014:

• Oct 1 2014: Silver Screen Slayer at PST: Silly parody of '30s private eye, Nazi spy movies. Jokes about Hollywood Jews and gays not as funny as rest. C+
  
• Oct 1 2014: Wonder if any Dallasite who argued it was *insane* to allow flights from West Africa to US is now arguing to shut down DFW airport. #Ebola
  
• Oct 2 2014: Headline in Sydney Morning Herald: "Caltech: the university ranked higher than Harvard, Oxford and Standford." Double ouch for Stanford.
  
• Oct 2 2014: J. Fred Bucy, Jr. resigned from Intrusion's Board of Directors. A name from the past -- forced out of TI in 1985. prnewswire.com
  
• Oct 3 2014: The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, by Bob Shacochis: Murder mystery, war novel, mostly a psychological study. Long, complicated, messy. B-
  
• Oct 3 2014: Jacquielynn Floyd: "In Liberia mistrust of authority and misinformation allowed Ebola to rage out of control." Glad we don't have that here.
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Saying Goodbye to Stefani Carter

Tuesday, Linda Koop won election to the Texas House District 102 seat currently held by Stefani Carter. Koop defeated Carter in the GOP primary. Before the vote Tuesday, Carter made one last pitch to the voters -- not for Koop but for Greg Abbott, GOP candidate for governor. Carter wrote an opinion piece for the Texas Tribune making a case why minorities should support Abbott. Mostly it was standard GOP boilerplate (e.g., twisting opposition to public education into support: "providing quality public education"). Nothing about Carter in that part of the opinion piece. It was the rest that reminds voters what they don't like about Stefani Carter.