Tag Archives: Dallas

Two Years and a Ride to Denton

Posted on by Bill Chance

I’ve now had this WordPress blog up for two years. I jumped in after a friend of mine, Peggy, started hers.

Of course, I’ve done this before… As best as I can tell, back in the 1990s I was somewhere around the thirteenth blogger on the internet – though this was years before the term “blog” was coined. We called them “online journals” or a “digital diary.” I started writing web pages using notepad and posting them in the five megabytes or so that America Online used to give you. I outgrew that and bought a URL and some web space (from what turned out to be the world’s worst online service provider). For well over a decade I wrote something every day. I had to quit when my kids reached high school and too many people I knew in “real life” started reading the thing. Actually, I didn’t quit – I simply went to paper.

Now, this time around… it’s completely different. I don’t write as much in it (my writing addiction is mostly served by fiction now) and do too much photography. But it is what it is.
Two Years
773 posts
2,667 comments
Days missed – none.

At any rate…

A few weeks ago, Candy and I went up to Denton for the Arts and Jazz festival. The last time we went, a couple years ago, it was way too crowded and we had a tough time parking… so this time, we decided to go earlier and to ride the Denton County Transit Authority A-Train up to Denton. This was a great idea – the train ride was fun and the festival was cool – we headed back before the crowds really began to build.

Denton is a cool city. To a big extent, it is a college town, almost like Austin-lite. I enjoyed the pedestrian and bike-friendly areas around the town square and decided I wanted to go back there with my bicycle.

Looking at Google Maps, I noticed the telltale green line that represented a hike-bike trail that ran from Lake Dallas through Corinth up to Denton – a little more than eight miles. It paralleled the A-Train tracks and I was able to get a good look at it from the train windows. It’s called the Denton Katy Trail – and it looked like a nice bike ride.

So, one Sunday that promised nice weather (and light winds) I decided to pack my camera, drive to Lake Dallas with my road bike and head up the trail to Denton. There, I would wander around a bit, take some photos, and then ride back down.

The start of the Denton Katy trail off of Swisher Road, in Lake Dallas.

The start of the Denton Katy trail off of Swisher Road, in Lake Dallas.

The trail was nice – really nice. There is a great feeling of booking along fresh, smooth, level concrete. Not very many people using it – a few walkers from the suburban neighborhoods… I only saw one or two other bicycles. Still, it was fun and an enjoyable ride. Until…

The trail ended.

The sudden end of the Denton Katy Trail

The sudden end of the Denton Katy Trail

Along the south side of Denton is a loop expressway, the 288 and the trail stopped there. They are building a big new pedestrian bridge over the expressway, and it looks finished… but isn’t.

Now, I know that the bridge is expensive and is being built with the best of intentions. That highway is a barrier – though not an insurmountable one. They do have several intersections with lights – you can cross easily if you wait for a green. Once the bridge is finished, bicyclists and walkers can bypass the highway, walking up and over.

The pedestrian/bicycle bridge over 288 in Denton. It will be nice when it is finished.

The pedestrian/bicycle bridge over 288 in Denton. It will be nice when it is finished.

And that’s the problem. In separating the bike/pedestrians from the city, you make the trail into a recreational opportunity and take away the integration of human-powered transportation with the life of the city.

Presented with the closed trail, I considered turning around and heading back, but I wanted to get to downtown Denton. I walked my bike through a bit of thick woods lined with empty wine bottles and found myself in back of a huge Big-Box store of some kind. That area all along 288 is a massive expanse of auto-oriented shopping hell, with every chain store imaginable. No sidewalks, no way through, acres and acres of tarmac covered with clouds of exhaust fumes. Not a fun place to fight through on a bicycle.

This is what I am talking about. They can spend millions on a bridge to bypass the life below, but can't finish the sidewalks. Areas like this are openly hostile to people without cars.

This is what I am talking about. They can spend millions on a bridge to bypass the life below, but can’t finish the sidewalks. Areas like this are openly hostile to people without cars.

The ironic thing is that there were other people trying to walk through there. You would never see them from a car – but they are there… homeless people, young teenagers, poor students – the shadow population, carless by choice or by situation.

Again, I salute the money and effort put into the trail and that impressive bridge, but fear that the people behind this effort don’t understand the idea of making a city where you don’t have to have a car. I don’t think they can even imagine such a thing.

I was able to work my way through the maze of parking lots and fight past the thick streams of tinted-window SUVs and pickups to finally make my way into the old-fashioned heart of Denton… the area around the square and the roads leading out to the universities. There the cars, walkers, and bikes live together, moving a little more slowly, but getting where they need in plenty of time. It’s funny, the part of the city with the most modern, hip lifestyle… the part that everyone is spending millions of dollars trying to emulate… is the oldest, most “outdated” style of a city square surrounded by narrow streets with limited parking.

That’s the part I like.

Again in the Meadows

Posted on by Bill Chance

Texas Sculpture Garden,
Frisco, Texas

James Surls
American (Colorado/Texas)
Again in the Meadows
2002

“There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face”
― William Shakespeare

Photographs manipulated with Corel Painter and The Gimp.

James Surls, Again in the Meadows

James Surls, Again in the Meadows

“I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”
― Glenn Gould

James Surls, Again in the Meadows, plus a construction crane, a pile of dirt, and a stop sign

James Surls, Again in the Meadows, plus a construction crane, a pile of dirt, and a stop sign

The whole difference between a construction and a creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.
—- G. K. Chesterton

Four Women

Posted on by Bill Chance

Digital Painting done with Corel Painter and The Gimp, based on a photograph taken in the reflecting pool in front of the Winspear Opera House, Dallas, Texas

“Used to say there was four women in every man’s heart. The Maid in the
Meadow, the Demon Lover, the Stouthearted Woman, the Tall and Quiet Woman.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

Four Women, Winspear Opera House, Dallas, Texas

Four Women, Winspear Opera House, Dallas, Texas

Friends of the Santa Fe Trail Bike Ride & Pub Crawl

Posted on by Bill Chance

This weekend, I wanted a nice, longish, slow bike ride – something through some varied spots of city and where I could make a stop or two for a rest and maybe a beer. There was a very strong southerly wind so it was an easy decision to ride the DART train with my bike to somewhere south and then ride back home. I rode to the Arapaho station and hopped the train downtown and past to the Cedars Station in Southside. From there is was about a twenty seven mile ride home – through The Cedars neighborhood past the Dallas Heritage Village to the Farmers Market. Then under the freeway to Deep Ellum and up the Santa Fe Trail to White Rock Lake. Finally up White Rock Creek to the Cottonwood trail under the High Five Interchange. At that point I could take my familiar route home from work.

A high point of that trip is the Santa Fe Trail. I have ridden that trail more than a few times – it’s one of my favorites. In the paper today was an article about the trail and some of the attractions along the way – Bike the Santa Fe Trail to these 10 landmarks and eateries. A good article – even if it misses more than a few good spots. I decided to ride it and stop off at The Lot for a rest along the way.

I had been to The Lot a couple weeks ago on a really cool bike ride. It was the Friends of the Santa Fe Trail Bike Ride & Pub Crawl. It was a benefit ride for the improvement and upkeep of the trail. For a donation you were able to ride with the group and get a brew at each stop on the way.

The ride started at a really nice bike shop across from Fair Park – Switching Gears Cyclery. It a cool place – set up for city transportation style bicycling, not only the carbon-fiber-spandex-speedsters.

Colin Clarke and Andie Pittman, from Switching Gears Cyclery.

Colin Clarke and Andie Pittman, from Switching Gears Cyclery.

They had a keg set up in the repair shop and everyone had a quick cold one before we toured off through Fair Park and around the southern part of Deep Ellum .

Before long, we were at our second stop – Deep Ellum Brewing Company. We were given a complimentary glass and a beer ticket. The Saturday tour crowd was in full swing and there was live music. A bunch of fun.

Bikes lined up at the Deep Ellum Brewing Company

Bikes lined up at the Deep Ellum Brewing Company

Then we all saddled up and set out up the trail. It was a large and diverse group – everything from fixie track bikes to fuzzy customs and anything in between. The motley agglomeration of pedalers kept everything at a fun, leisurely pace – slow enough for conversation and contemplation. The best way to ride a bike.

It seemed too soon when we all arrived at The Lot. This is a new restaurant/beer garden located near the spillway of White Rock Lake. They have build a bridge over a drainage that connects the place directly to the Santa Fe Trail. It’s great… you can go for a pleasant ride or a run or even a bit of a walk and simply slide over and across and there you are.

The new bridge from the Santa Fe trail into The Lot

The new bridge from the Santa Fe trail into The Lot

Everybody sat around outside and talked bikes and cities and other stuff. The place used to be a sand volleyball and swimming pool sort of club. I noticed that the beer garden is lined with concrete ledge that still has the depth markings on it – they filled in the pool to make room for seating.

So this weekend I decided to stop by the place again. There was a nice crowd on a warm day and a live band playing. I stayed for a bit and rested, until I decided I had better get back on the road – I was only halfway home, after all.

Right Angles (#23)

Posted on by Bill Chance

Texas Sculpture Garden,
Frisco, Texas

Gunner Theel American (New York)
Right Angles (#23)

Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!
—-Melville, Moby Dick

right_angles2

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
—-Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here

right_angles1

We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.
—-John Dryden

Maternal Caress

Posted on by Bill Chance

Texas Sculpture Garden,
Frisco, Texas

Eliseo Garcia, Farmers Branch
Maternal Caress
1999 Cordova Limestone

“Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others … an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands … hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.”
― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

maternal_caress

Time Management

Posted on by Bill Chance

Texas Sculpture Garden,
Frisco, Texas

Zad Roumaya, Dallas
Time Management
2004 Aluminun, Paint
In Memory of Jody Young 1978-2004

Time Management, Zad Roumaya, feet hanging over the edge

Time Management, Zad Roumaya, feet hanging over the edge

“Life was not to be sitting in hot amorphic leisure in my backyard idly writing or not-writing, as the spirit moved me. It was, instead, running madly, in a crowded schedule, in a squirrel cage of busy people. Working, living, dancing, dreaming, talking, kissing — singing, laughing, learning. The responsibility, the awful responsibility of managing (profitably) 12 hours a day for 10 weeks is rather overwhelming when there is nothing, noone, to insert an exact routine into the large unfenced acres of time — which it is so easy to let drift by in soporific idling and luxurious relaxing. It is like lifting a bell jar off a securely clockwork-like functioning community, and seeing all the little busy people stop, gasp, blow up and float in the inrush, (or rather outrush,) of the rarified scheduled atmosphere — poor little frightened people, flailing impotent arms in the aimless air. That’s what it feels like: getting shed of a routine. Even though one had rebelled terribly against it, even then, one feels uncomfortable when jounced out of the repetitive rut. And so with me. What to do? Where to turn? What ties, what roots? as I hang suspended in the strange thin air of back-home?”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Time Management, Zad Roumaya, feet

Time Management, Zad Roumaya, feet

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Time Management, Zad Roumaya, Briefcase

Time Management, Zad Roumaya, Briefcase

Ready Player One

Posted on by Bill Chance
Old School Video game inspired graffiti, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Old School Video game inspired graffiti, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

I was looking through the READ (that’s as “red” not “reed”) folder on my Kindle and also in my Goodreads list at the books I’ve cranked through recently. After some thought I decided to give a bit of opinion on some of them… in case you might be interested (or interested in avoiding them).

Picking books to read is always a difficult and tricky proposition. I am not a particularly fast reader (especially now that my eyes and brain are getting old and worn out) so to commit to a novel is an investment of a good bit of precious time. That said, I do love the feeling of perusing a list on the Kindle or a shelf of paper and deciding which tome to dive into next.

One feature that is always attractive are those books that have a movie deal done. I always like the read the book first (the book is always better, isn’t it?) and that way, when the film is flickering there in the dark, I can go if I want to – rather than giving the pathetic excuse, “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see that until I get a ’round2 reading the novel.” Sad.

But sometimes it leads me down a good path. If some Hollywood Icon is ready to plop down a few million dollars on a story… doesn’t that mean it might be good? Of course not, but it’s a nice thought.

So somehow I stumbled across a story about a book called Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and the fact that it is about to be filmed. I’m not now and have never been a gamer, but was looking for some lightish fiction – something fun and not too straining – and this one seemed to fit the bill. Plus, it was on sale.

And it was what it promised. A fast moving story – more than a little on the predictable side, but I did care about the characters… and that’s the important part.
I’m late to the party on this book, so bear with me – also, I don’t like to put spoilers in my reviews, so everything I write about will be obvious in the first few pages.

Ready Player One is set in a world that is similar to The Matrix. War and Pollution have pretty much destroyed the planet and the survivors spend most of their time in a virtual world, hooked up to a powerful computer network, living out artificial lives that are usually more pleasant and interesting than their real ones. It is different from The Matrix in that this is voluntary and everyone knows what is going on… though the border between real and virtual does get a little hazy now and then.

One unanswered question is that how much is the dystopian future caused by the presence of this virtual world – in other words… if everyone didn’t have this escape would they get off their butts and make the earth a better place to live?

Within this virtual world the founder of the network has created a fiendishly difficult game – a puzzle – a scavenger hunt – and the first person to solve the riddle through to the end will gain the most valuable prize imaginable – the complete ownership and control of the virtual system. He or she will become a living god.

The plot proceeds from this premise… pretty much in the way you think it does. My biggest complaint is the basic story – which is a classic teenaged fantasy fulfillment tale. I also wasn’t bowled over by the gaming elements of the story… it’s simply not my thing.

What I really did enjoy were the puzzle elements themselves. The game master was only a little younger than me and he based all the games, clues, and Easter Eggs in the virtual world on 1980’s pop culture trivia. A lot of fun and a lot of guilty memories for me.

So, if you are looking for a fun and exciting read, not too deep in philosophy or moral paradox, and steeped in Brat Pack Movie, New Age Music, and early computing trivia… then this is your man.

Now I’m ready for the film.

game2

What I learned this week, May 10, 2013

Posted on by Bill Chance

May is National Bicycling Month, next week is Bike-to-Work week… and Friday, May 17th is National Bike to Work Day.

Local groups are sponsoring “Energizer Stations” – I’ll visit the one at Arapaho Center Station on my way in on Friday.

bike_work_banner

How Government Wrecked the Gas Can

I’m pretty alert to such problems these days. Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice.

Dallas-area hike-and-bike trails poised to get major financial boost

What is nice is that these are almost all “connector trails” – designed to allow bicycling trails to be used as transportation corridors, rather than something to stroll along with your kids on Sunday afternoon.

The group’s Regional Transportation Council will vote Thursday on a plan to use more than $13 million to benefit nearly a dozen biking and pedestrian projects in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The efforts are intended to provide transportation alternatives to motor vehicles, especially by connecting the projects to existing paths.

“They can’t be purely focused on recreation,” said Karla Weaver, a program manager at the Council of Governments. “We wanted to help to get some more concrete stuff in for active users.”

Brain, Interrupted

No surprise here, interruptions make you stupid. I find The Pomodoro Technique to be very useful to focus concentration for a short time, get important and difficult tasks completed, generate ideas, and help me ignore interruptions while still keeping up with things.

Pomodoro

An Idea Pomodoro – timer, pen, composition book.

Bike rider on the DART train.

Bike rider on the DART train.

Bicycling in the City and Living to Tell a Skittish Class

Ride with the flow of traffic, the teacher said, or be prepared to “spend the rest of your day in the hospital and the rest of your year filling out insurance paperwork.”

And always live up to these buzzwords, even when fellow travelers do not: predictable, visible, assertive, alert and courteous.

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

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

Home by Hovercraft in Deep Ellum

Home by Hovercraft in Deep Ellum

Interview with Home By Hovercraft

Hummus Is Conquering America
Tobacco Farmers Open Fields to Chickpeas; A Bumper Crop


Life in the City Is Essentially One Giant Math Problem


Bars Are the Secret to Thriving Downtowns: The Best #Cityreads of the Week

Local officials who want a more lively town center and a development team seeking to restore a landmark hotel were hoping to put a new watering hole on Main Street. Then they ran smack into New Jersey’s strict, Prohibition-era alcohol laws, which restrict the number of liquor licenses per town. Flemington had just three—two belonging to establishments in strip malls and one for a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall.

Having a decent bar, it turns out, is helpful to reviving small downtowns, development experts say. So, in February, the developers came up with a novel but expensive solution, buying the Italian restaurant that owned a license and eventually transferring it to the downtown hotel. The price: about $1 million for the permit alone.

Town Centers Seek Another Shot at a Bar

Airstream 2 – Old and New

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don’t stop at your station.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

airstream2

“The train bore me away, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap-iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her—her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever-seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that ‘It isn’t the same for them as it would be for us,’ and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her—understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe.”
― George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier