What I learned this week, August 31, 2012


A great idea for a bike – take a look and decide if this is a worth project on kickstarter.

The Viaje Bicycle: Engineered for Adventure


How to seperate an egg yolk


The days before photoshop.

I remember well the one with the pickle.

Early 1900s Postcards Show Off Primitive ‘Photoshopping’ Skills 


Why I Still Write With A Fountain Pen in This Age of Computers



Allways Carry A Camera & Trust The Force!


I remember Heathkits from my youth. Back then, electronics were not disposable items and you could build your own appliance or gadget after countless hours of painstaking work for only about twice what a new one would cost. They were very high quality, though, in a day when quality still existed and mattered.

The detailed instructions, the carefully labeled parts (especially the myriad resistors) and, especially, the smell of rosin-core solder heated and the sight of the wisp of burnt flux smoke rising from the pool of liquid lead.

A friend of mine across the street even made an entire color television. It burnt out one day while we were watching football (there was always the danger you would make a mistake – I view that as a feature, not a bug).

I still use a Heathkit audio amp I built in 1982. It sounds better than anything made today.

For Sale: Vintage Heathkits


30 Shocking and Unexpected Google Street View Photos

Outside Espumoso

Through the door of the Espumoso Caffe, Bishop Arts District, Dallas

I was hanging out in one of my favorite places – The Espumoso Caffe, in the Bishop Arts District, in Oak Cliff, Dallas. I love the music playing there – once I asked the barista what station they were playing and he said, “my Ipod.”

While I was sitting there, I shot this photo through the front door. There is a sign on the door, by the way, that says, “Watch your step.” I didn’t. I should have.

NYLO Hotel Roof

Last weekend, Candy and I drove down to the Bishop Arts District for lunch at Eno’s and on the way back, we decided – spur of the moment thing – to stop off at a spot Candy had seen on the web. There is a new boutique hotel – The NYLO opening up in Southside – and they had a bar and infinity pool on the roof. The person writing the article said the view of the Dallas Skyline from the bar was the best in the city.

We parked and walked up at about one in the afternoon. The place wasn’t even officially open – it was in the middle of a “soft opening.” The woman from the front desk gave us a tour of the lobby and the restaurant. Pretty damn cool, if you ask me – especially the lobby room called “The Library” with a case full of books and funkified seating all around. Then she walked us over to the elevator and took us up to The Soda Bar on the roof.

The article wasn’t kidding, the view from up there is jaw-dropping.

click for a larger and more detailed version

We hung around chatting with the folks that worked there and some customers. They didn’t have any beer on tap – but I made sure they would have some local Deep Ellum Brewing Company products available (they will have the Double Brown Stout and Deep Ellum IPA) when they officially open (which they have by the time you read this).

I kept thinking what the view would look like at sunset, so we sneaked across the street for dinner at Cedars Social and then came back to watch the sunset.

When we finally left to drive back to suburbia we came across the same woman in the lobby that had given us our tour. She said, “Are you still here – I’ve been home and changed and come back again and you’re just leaving?” I said we came back for the sunset.

The place may get too uppity and twee after it gets established – it’s also a bit too far to be a neighborhood hangout – but I’m sure I’ll be back. I could get used to hanging out there. That view is too good to miss.

Dallas Skyline at Dusk

The Dallas Skyline from the Soda Bar on the roof of the NYLO Hotel in Southside. It is a very cool place.

Click to a view higher resolution version on Flickr

Click to view a higher resolution version on Flickr

Click to view a higher resolution version on Flickr

Click to view a higher resolution version on Flickr

Tower Building

Tower Building at Fair Park, Dallas, Texas

Tower Building

Artist who restored Fair Park’s Tower Building in ’98 is quite unhappy State Fair of Texas installed security cameras on historic landmark
I looked at my photos – the cameras are now gone.

Datum Engineers – Tower Building at Fair Park

What I learned this week, August 24, 2011


The 21 Absolute Worst Things in the World


An Unexpected Ass Kicking

— read this story… it’s amazing – and here’s a sequel, sort of –

7 Things I Learned From My Encounter With Russell Kirsch



A Big Week for Bicycling in Fort Worth

This Texas city is leaving its big brother Dallas in the dust when it comes to bike-friendliness. Just this week, the feds awarded Fort Worth with $1 million for a 30-station bike-share system, which is slated to be up and running next April.

And just yesterday, Fort Worth installed the Dallas region’s first green bike lane


The most amazing quotes and graphics. I would buy all of these if I had the cash – they are so… perfect.

Blog – You Are What You Underline

Etsy Store – Buy them here


Nobody writes short stories like Alice Munro.

A new one… Amundsen, from The New Yorker.

Read it here

Then there was silence, the air like ice. Brittle-looking birch trees with black marks on their white bark, and some small, untidy evergreens, rolled up like sleepy bears. The frozen lake not level but mounded along the shore, as if the waves had turned to ice in the act of falling. And the building, with its deliberate rows of windows and its glassed-in porches at either end. Everything austere and northerly, black-and-white under the high dome of clouds. So still, so immense an enchantment.


E-Mails to My Past Self: 5 Facts I Wish I Could Send Back In Time

The 3 Most Poisonous Movie Clichés of the 60s and 70s

Nurse Ratched, My Hero: 4 Female Movie Villains I Love