Tag Archives: Bicycles

What I learned this week, October 19, 2012

Posted on by Bill Chance

Terrible news from here… a Dallas Icon for the last sixty years, Big Tex, has burned.

RIP Big Tex

Big Tex destroyed by fire at State Fair

Why are you reading my stupid blog? Why aren’t you reading Cloud Atlas? The movie is about to come out and you have to read the book first.

David Mitchell basks in ‘Cloud Atlas’ boost

With the Wachowskis-directed film version of his intricate book ‘Cloud Atlas’ out soon, David Mitchell finds himself ‘happily bewildered.’

A User’s Guide to Watching (and Keeping Up With) ‘Cloud Atlas’

Dallas Skyline from the Soda Bar on the roof of the NYLO Southside hotel.

48 Hours in Dallas

Trammell Crow Center and the Winspear Sunscreen

Trammell Crow Center and the Winspear Sunscreen

Happy 35th, Atari 2600!

Yes, I had one of these… and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The sounds of the Space Invaders guys as they moved down,  inexorably, faster and faster,  is burned in to my memory forever. For some reason, I enjoyed the crude golf game. And I was really excited when the ultimate twitch-game Defender came out – though it wasn’t as cool as the arcade version – it must have really pushed the console’s capabilities. The thing only had 128 bytes of RAM. That’s bytes, not kilobytes.

http://youtu.be/g_AtNY0bYAA

You Built What?!: A Tesla Coil Gun That Produces Foot-Long Sparks

Kristen Wiig, Hailee Steinfeld to Star in ‘Hateship, Friendship’

Guy Pearce, Nick Nolte also are cast in the indie dramedy from “Return” writer-director Liza Johnson. The project starts shooting next week in New Orleans.

Based on Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, a book of short stories by Alice Munro, the project centers on a nanny (Wiig) hired to care for a rather wild teenage girl (Steinfeld). Using email, the girl orchestrates a romance between the nanny and the father (Pearce), a recovering addict living in a different town.

I am a huge fan of Alice Munro – I think she’s the best Short Story writer… pretty much ever. Sometimes her stories are too subtle to translate to film or video very well, but still… this has to be pretty good.

12 quotes about reading to inspire writers

1. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
— George R.R. Martin

2. “Show me the books you read, and I’ll show you who you are.”
— Unknown

3. “If you cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use reading it at all.”
— Oscar Wilde

4. “For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.”
— Eudora Welty

5. “These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.”
— Gilbert Highet

6. “We don’t need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts; we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.”
— Philip Pullman

7. “The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.”
— Ross McDonald

8. “Never judge a book by its movie.”
— Unknown

9. “A man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
— Mark Twain

10. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
— Stephen King

11. “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles William Eliot

12. “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin

What I learned this week, May 18, 2012

Posted on by Bill Chance

Another good article, this one from Vanity Fair, on the ongoing cotroversy between the Museum Tower and the Nasher Sculpture Garden.

A Glare Grows in Dallas: Why a New Condo Tower Has the City’s Art Community Up in Arms

From the article:

It’s hard to know what the mediation will accomplish, since the developers of the condo tower and their Los Angeles architect, Scott Johnson, have so far done little to accept responsibility. In an exhaustive report on the issue in D, Dallas’s city magazine, Tim Rogers quoted the developers as asking the Nasher what it was prepared to do to help, as if this were a negotiation in which both sides were expected to give an equal amount to reach an amicable compromise. Johnson, for his part, told The New York Times, “I can’t say sitting here now that the Nasher may not need to do something on their end.”

Why, in heaven’s name, should they have to? The Nasher was there first, it didn’t create the problem, and it is suffering from it.

 
There’s a photo of the glare inside the Nasher’s beautiful, Renzo Piano designed pavillion.

Photo from Vanity Fair

  

http://youtu.be/pD7T7y6CsJA

http://vimeo.com/26504393

The Next Great Technology Platform: The Bicycle

http://youtu.be/p24IdqUT_zY

I don’t want to sound like the old fart that I am, but look at this list of the best 70 albums from the 1970’s (not considered the best decade for music by any shot). There is nothing that comes close to any of these being done today.

Just sayin’

The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s

The ’70s sometimes get a bad rap: Often these years are remembered as the musical era that brought us disco at its absolute gaudiest. But there was far more going on in the decade than polyester, sequins and cocaine; the 1970s saw the rise of the singer/songwriter, the birth of punk rock, reggae’s infiltration of the mainstream and the long, strange trip led by some of psychedelia’s finest.

In fact, it’s a decade so musically diverse, we had quite a time whittling it down to our top albums. When we polled our staff, interns and writers, over 250 albums received votes, but ultimately these 70 emerged as clear favorites.

14 Photographs That Shatter Your Image of Famous People

http://youtu.be/NZU1B8kb8EQ

Awesome People Hanging Out Together

Meat Pie!

Posted on by Bill Chance

As I was puttering around the house Saturday, trying to shake off the ache of a sleepless night, I thought about getting some cereal or something in my gullet – but I realized there would be food trucks at the Ciclovia de Dallas and that I would want to eat there. That made for some hungry driving around, but I was rewarded as I cycled across the closed-off Houston Street Viaduct by the appearance of a gourmet food truck that I had never tried before.

It was the Three Lions truck and this one boasted English Food. A while back I tried the excellent Three Men and a Taco truck and it was good. The problem is that the folks behind this truck were British ex-pats and driving another Taco truck around North Texas didn’t fit in with their souls. So the gaudy Taco wrap came off and the truck became Three Lions.

Most of the Ciclovia festivities were over before I arrived. When I rode my bike up to the truck they were working on the menu sign, crossing off the Sausage Roll. Looking at what was left, I decided on the Meat Pie (The Carolina BBQ Pork Mini Burger looked good, but didn’t sound very English to me). While I was waiting for my food a guy came up to grab a napkin and told me, “Oh man, those sausage rolls are great… Oh crap! They are out of them!” He looked at me like a poor relative as they handed me my meat pie.

I moved to the condiment section and chose the bottle of Sriracha (anything good is better with Sriracha on it). A Hispanic family was standing there eating the last of the sausage rolls and the man pointed to the Sriracha and in broken English said, “That stuff is good… spicy!” I agreed and gave it another squirt.

I carried my pie back to where my bike leaned up against the concrete bridge rail. I sat there eating, listening to the live music, and watching the bikes of the Ciclovia de Dallas roll by. It was good, though I was so hungry I can’t really give a fair review.

Some day, though, I’m going to try that sausage roll.

Three Lions Food Truck Home Page

Three Lions Facebook

Three Lions Twitter

Three Lions food truck at the Ciclovia de Dallas

Texas in our hearts, England in our blood.

A meat pie, Sriracha sauce, a diet Coke, a bike, and a concrete bridge

Ciclovia Dallas

Posted on by Bill Chance

The crowd at Ciclovia Dallas on the Houston Street Viaduct with the Dallas downtown skyline

Saturday, April 14, was a day I had marked my calendar quite some time ago. It was the day of the first Ciclovia de Dallas, and that looked really cool to me. I had never heard of a Ciclovia before. It means bike path, or in this case, the temporarily closing of a road to automobiles so that it can be taken over by cyclists and pedestrians.

The good folks at Bike Friendly Oak Cliff had organized this event and the City of Dallas had closed off the Houston Street Viaduct to cars. The viaduct is a long bridge that reaches out of the skyscrapers of downtown over to Oak Cliff across the vast Trinity River Bottoms. Over the decades I’ve lived in Dallas I have driven across the Houston Street Viaduct many times and I knew it would be a dramatic place to hang out and ride a bike because of the view of downtown and the long drop down into the river.

My intention was to get up early and get to see the whole thing, but I had a rough Friday the Thirteenth the day before and I was so upset I didn’t get to sleep until about five in the morning. So I slept in and it took quite a bit of willpower to drag my aching and worn out body from the bed and into the day. My mind kept racing and coming up with a million reasons not to drive down there and ride my stupid crappy bicycle over an old bridge.

But I persevered, took my bike apart (reminding me why I want to save enough money for a folder) and shoved it into the trunk. Then I drove downtown and proceeded to get caught in several massive traffic jams and lost and lost. I was hungry, frustrated, and sleep-deprived and couldn’t find a parking spot or make the right turns. I fought my way through downtown at least four times, crossing over the Trinity, then making a mistake and ending up on a crowded Interstate going the wrong way. Twice, I went by so closely I could see the folks on bicycles riding back and forth, but couldn’t find a place to stop (or at least couldn’t spot one before I drove by it). I was getting very close to packing it in and going home, but I thought I’d take one more drive across the river.

Finally, after wasting an hour driving around, I gave up and turned down an obscure side street in Oak Cliff, deciding I’d park there, assemble my bike (reminding myself why I want to save enough money for a bike that folds) and ride around looking for the bridge on my bike. After heading off I realized that the entrance to the bridge on the Oak Cliff side was only fifty feet on down the road.

I was late and a lot of the Ciclovia festivities were past, but there was still a nice crowd there and it was a lot of fun. I rode back and forth over the bridge enjoying the views of downtown and the Trinity river bottoms and looking at all the interesting people.

Music at Ciclovia Dallas

Unicyle riders - I was too slow to get a photo of them riding.

Bicycle Polo on the bridge

Bicycle Polo player

It was so much fun I didn’t pay much attention to getting photographs – I missed the bicycle powered smoothie maker. Didn’t get photos of the unicycle riders on their single wheels. There were food trucks on hand so I was able to get something to eat and I felt a lot better after that.

While I was eating I noticed a guy along the bridge sitting there with a manual typewriter. I’ve wanted a manual letter-hammerer for years and I asked him what he was up to .

His name is Thomas Cantu and he types up little chapbooks on that manual typewriter. I bought one (A Mexican American’s Guide to Your Parent’s Homeland) and chatted with him for a minute. Thomas writes about the Mexican-American experience and how drug violence is destroying Mexico. He says the typewriter is nice because people come up to ask about it and it’s an easy introduction. I told him I’ve always wanted one to put a roll of paper into – he recognized that was how Kerouac wrote.

Thomas Cantu and his typewriter.

So I rode one more lap of the bridge and then went back to my car, took my bike apart, and loaded it into the trunk (getting grease all over and reminding myself about how nice it would be to have a folding bicycle). It was a lot of fun, I hope the event was enough of a success for the city to take the ball and run with it. It would be a great annual thing – to close off the bridge and allow one day of slow riding and walking.

A Ciclovia… what a great idea.

What I learned this week, March 30, 2012

Posted on by Bill Chance

In his defense of Obamacare, the Solicitor General quoted from the Preamble to the Constitution. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t immediately familiar with the exact wording of the Preamble – but I found this video that explains it all.

Strangest of Places

Abundance Is Our Future (and We All Know It)

A Museum on the Streets of Rome

The odd and amazing story of Sealand

Sealand is a small country located off the British coast on an abandoned WWII artillery platform in the North Sea.

Things I want to do in Dallas (coming up)

Candy and I have tickets to the SavorDallas Wine and Food Stroll tonight down in the Arts District. I bought them for her birthday.

The Deep Ellum Arts Festival is coming up April 6-8th. My favorite band, Brave Combo will be there. I’m trying to save enough cash to buy another sculpture by David Pound.

April 14th is Ciclovia de Dallas – where the Houston Street Viaduct will be closed to traffic and open only to bicycles. Looks like fun – another bridge party.

Free concerts in the Dallas Arts District. Unfortunately, these are on Thursdays and my writing group meets then – but I might be able to work something out.

Any other ideas? What am I missing?

Free Things to do in Dallas

For all of you Mad Men fans out there:

Seven Things I Wish I’d Have Known When I First Became A Photographer

  1. Care about what you are photographing
  2. Learn how to use your camera and stop changing systems
  3. It’s not the camera that makes the shot – it’s the photographer
  4. Find the light first, the background second and the subject third
  5. If you photograph people or make pictures professionally understand that being nice is better than being good
  6. The best photographs in the world happen when …. there is solid, real emotion and/or love
  7. Serious photography is about protecting memories, telling stories, keeping moments

Sorry, I’m sure this is more interesting to me than it is to you….

Oak Cliff Bicycles

Posted on by Bill Chance

I found a nice little cafe in the Bishop Arts District. It’s a latin inspired coffeehouse called Espumoso Caffe. Inside, it’s a dark, relaxed place with an inviting couch and window seating – I’ll have to try that place as a writing location sometime. Today, though, I bought my coffee and settled in to a little table on the sidewalk to sip and do some people watching. They were playing some awesome latin jazz on a speaker over the door.

I sat there looking at the posters on the clothing store next door. Let’s see, what do we have going on in the big evil city… Salsa Lessons, Music at the Granada, Blood and Black Lace at the Texas Theater, and Roller Derby…. I’d like to see me some Roller Derby.

A couple doors down is the Oak Cliff Bicycle Company. It’s a little bike shop with an attitude. How can you not love a place that wins the Best Vigilante Justice award from the Dallas Observer.

Out in front was the usual display of bikes for sale. One, in particular, really caught my eye. Not an ultralight racing machine, this was an urban bomber sort of bike – a beautifully utilitarian ride. It had chrome mudguards, nice canister shaped pack containers in back, a useful double kickstand, and best of all, a luscious, gorgeous, classic Brooks leather saddle. There is nothing better than a Brooks saddle.

As I watched a couple guys came out of the shop, pumped up the tires, and went off for a ride. I tipped my coffee cup a little bit – some folks get it exactly right.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!
For your holiday enjoyment – The Best Television Thanksgiving Episode Ever

If you want to see the whole episode – It’s online at Hulu.

Superdrome

Posted on by Bill Chance

I remember when the Superdrome was built, thirteen years ago. There were some interesting news articles about it.

The thing was up in Frisco, which, back then, was some small town way up north of the city. It didn’t take long for the Metroplex, which has been vomiting new developments out north across the cotton fields for decades, to swallow Frisco and now it’s another tony suburb between Plano and McKinney.

There was a time that I was a good bike rider. A very good bike rider. That was a long, long time ago. I never did learn to/get to ride on a track. Some friends of mine in college did, though I have no idea where the velodrome was, now that I think about it. I remember when one of them had his track bike go out of control on the steep slopes of Mount Oread – no brakes, no freewheel – and he had to steer across a lawn and into a hedge to stop.

I was old and fat before the Superdrome was built, though I still wanted to go out and see it. A friend from work rides there and he used to always bug me to take Lee up to the track and let him try it out. I was worried about letting Lee see the track. I knew he would love it and we couldn’t afford another expensive sport.

That’s not really true. I wanted to let Lee give it a shot, but there wasn’t enough time.

Now, after all these years, now that it’s far too late, I was able to drive out there after work and watch some races.

I wanted to take some pictures, but my good camera is still broken and I don’t have the money to get it fixed. I had to settle for a few quick snaps. It didn’t take long for the sun to set and the bikes to get faster and all that I had were blurs on the track.

The most startling thing about a velodrome, the first time you see one, is how steep the banked curves are. It looks suicidal to go up there on a bicycle. In the races, though, you see how the riders use the bank to control their speed, to slow for a second without losing momentum – they pick their speed back up when then roll back down the slope.

Superdrome

The ends of the oval track are high banked curves.

There are several division of riders: juniors, masters, Categories 1-4, women… they even took a break to let a toddler pedal around on a bike with training wheels (the announcer said, “250 meters is a long way to go when your legs are that short – this is a track, no coasting!”) – and they were all fun to watch.

Superdrome

The junior riders were the first ones out on the track.

Superdrome

While one class is racing, the next group warms up on the infield.

There were enough races to get a feel for how it goes, for the different types of race, and for the different classes of rider. I was the only true spectator there – everybody else was either riding or there to watch a family member.

I enjoyed going out there and will go back. I have no idea why it took me so long to get out there, even though it is a long, gas-guzzling drive from my house during a Friday rush hour. It was fun to watch, but I would give anything to be able to ride on those slopes, and it’s never going to happen now.