Tag Archives: river

I Move, Therefore I Am

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Judging from the spiderwebs clinging to it, the emergency stairway was hardly ever used. To each web clung a small black spider, patiently waiting for its small prey to come along. Not that the spiders had any awareness of being “patient”. A spider had no special skill other than building its web, and no lifestyle choice other than sitting still. It would stay in one place waiting for its prey until, in the natural course of things, it shriveled up and died. This was all genetically predetermined. The spider had no confusion, no despair, no regrets. No metaphysical doubt, no moral complications. Probably. Unlike me.
I move,therefore I am.”

― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

Trinity River Levee Dallas, Texas

Trinity River Levee
Dallas, Texas

Marble and Mud

Posted on by Bill Chance

Life is made up of marble and mud.
—–Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Trinity River was still boiling, but it had obviously been higher a couple days earlier. The dropping river left it's burden of mud. Soon enough all will be dust.

The Trinity River was still boiling, but it had obviously been higher a couple days earlier. The dropping river left its burden of mud.
Soon enough all will be dust.

Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.
—- John LeCarre

Love Lock Dead Drop

Posted on by Bill Chance

I wanted to put out another USB Dead Drop.

When I stopped by the local electronics store to pick up a replacement for the USB drive that I used in my Spring Creek Nature Trail USB Dead Drop I came across a two-pack of small plastic 8 gig USB drives. These looked good for making a Dead Drop and were inexpensive, so I bought the pair.

These have a nice hole in the plastic housing for mounting on a keychain and I had an idea. I took a red plastic padlock I had lying around and drilled a small carefully placed hole. Then I used a washer and a pop rivet to permanently attach the USB drive to the lock.

You see, one of my favorite spots in Dallas is the Santa Fe Trestle Trail. This is an old unused train trestle that has been converted into a biking/pedestrian trail across the Trinity River just south of downtown. People have copied the French Tradition of placing “Love Locks” – padlocks with two names – along the fencing of the bridge.

What a perfect spot for a USB Dead Drop – The Love Lock Dead Drop.

I caught the train down to the Corinth and 8th DART station, rode my bike down the trail to the bridge, and put my lock with attached USB onto the bridge. Easy as pie.

Closeup view of my red padlock - Love Lock USB Dead Drop, on the Santa Fe Trestle Trail bridge.

Closeup view of my red padlock – Love Lock USB Dead Drop, on the Santa Fe Trestle Trail bridge.

Medium view of my red padlock - Love Lock USB Dead Drop, along with the other locks on the Santa Fe Trestle Trail bridge.

Medium view of my red padlock – Love Lock USB Dead Drop, along with the other locks on the Santa Fe Trestle Trail bridge.

Distant view of the Santa Fe Trestle Trail in Dallas. My Love Lock USB Dead Drop is on the bridge.

Distant view of the Santa Fe Trestle Trail in Dallas. My Love Lock USB Dead Drop is on the bridge.

That’s What This Storm’s All About

Posted on by Bill Chance

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Trinity River Dallas, Texas

Trinity River
Dallas, Texas

Unseen Crooks

Posted on by Bill Chance

“You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me? No! I am the one who knocks!”
—-Heisenberg, Breaking Bad

Trinity River Bottoms Dallas, Texas

Trinity River Bottoms
Dallas, Texas

Energy Frequency And Vibration

Posted on by Bill Chance

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
― Nikola Tesla

Trinity River Bottoms Dallas, Texas

Trinity River Bottoms
Dallas, Texas

Life Swarms With Innocent Monsters

Posted on by Bill Chance

“What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.”
― Charles Baudelaire

Dallas from the Trinity River Bottoms

Dallas from the Trinity River Bottoms

Time Gains Momentum

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I am now 33 years old, and it feels like much time has passed and is passing faster and faster every day. Day to day I have to make all sorts of choices about what is good and important and fun, and then I have to live with the forfeiture of all the other options those choices foreclose. And I’m starting to see how as time gains momentum my choices will narrow and their foreclosures multiply exponentially until I arrive at some point on some branch of all life’s sumptuous branching complexity at which I am finally locked in and stuck on one path and time speeds me through stages of stasis and atrophy and decay until I go down for the third time, all struggle for naught, drowned by time. It is dreadful. But since it’s my own choices that’ll lock me in, it seems unavoidable–if I want to be any kind of grownup, I have to make choices and regret foreclosures and try to live with them.”
― David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

View of the Trinity River and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge from the Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas

View of the Trinity River and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge from the Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas

Truck is from Bertrand’s Inc..

A Waiting, Opened Soul

Posted on by Bill Chance

“He was taught by the river. Incessantly, he learned from it. Most of all,
he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart,
with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without
judgement, without an opinion.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Trinity River in the Fall, Dallas, Texas

Trinity River in the Fall,
Dallas, Texas

Cannot Bar Its Path

Posted on by Bill Chance

“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver—not aloud, but to himself—that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at.”
― Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Capt. Billy Slatten Towboat Mississippi River New Orleans, Louisiana

Capt. Bill Slatten
Towboat
Mississippi River
New Orleans, Louisiana

Capt. Billy Slatten towboat information

“Whoo-oop! I’m the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!—Look at me! I’m the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the small-pox on the mother’s side! Look at me! I take nineteen alligators and a bar’l of whiskey for breakfast when I’m in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I’m ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according to my strength! Blood’s my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is music to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!—and lay low and hold your breath, for I’m bout to turn myself loose!”
― Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi