Archive for June, 2009

The other day, a friend on Twitter, @theDailyBlond, wrote a response to a document she had scoured up from 1955 — “The Good Wife Guide.” It was one of those “ways to please your husband” things you used to find in books and magazines back then — and which still come up now and again. What I want to know is, why hasn’t anyone come up with a “Good Husband Guide?” I think that’s something I can do, actually. So I got down to work:

The Good Husband Guide — circa 2009

Who is the Good Husband?

He’s a a guy you can really trust. Women value security, so the good husband is the guy who’s going to “be there.” This is the sine qua non of husbandness, of course. If he is not  going to be there for her, he can at best be a boyfriend, and not a very good one at that.

The good husband is a guy you can build a family with. He must be worthy of reproducton. Any flaws he may have are hopefully correctible in the children, if they recur, with proper training and instruction. This is why basic physical attractiveness is so critical to the young bride. Even if she can put up with flawed countenance in her mate, can she stand it when it recurs in the children? You can train your children to have better manners than their father, but, as they say, ugly is forever.

The good husband knows that we chose him for the way he was when we met him, and that he must try to maintain all those great attributes he had at the start. Any characteristics, such as education, athletics, musical skill, or professional knowledge that husbands came into the marriage with should be honed and maintained over the years, not dropped like a hot potato once the bride is carried over the threshhold.

Also, that Jr. High humor that you kept in the closet before we were married — try to keep it to yourself and your friends as much as you can. We’re still shocked that you fooled us into believing you had completely grown out of that stuff.

Speaking of your friends — the good husband prefers the company of his family to his buddies. He probably still has lots of friends, and spends time with them. But his wife knows that if she really needs him, he’ll be there for her.

Habits of the Good Husband

To  be a good husband, you’ll want to develop some tendencies that may be weakly formed in the male race. One of these is putting your things away. Your stuff, and even other people’s stuff.

The good husband does some chores around the house, even the token taking out of the garbage.  He does not say things like “why should I clean up? It doesn’t matter to me if the house is a mess.” This is an invitation to his wife to make it matter to him.

The good husband has a job and works at it. He may feed a deep attachment to getting on American Idol or his acting career, but nevertheless he keeps at least one foot in employment well paid enough to significantly contribute to the household. Not being employed is a characteristic of the houseboy, and is not appropriate for a good husband.

The good husband pays attention to money. He both saves and splurges, and knows how to balance the two.

Romance with the Good Husband

The good husband is a real romantic! He always makes sure that his wife knows she’s not missing anything by being married to him. He wears stylish clothes and pays attention to grooming; he speaks well and kindly; he is considerate about attending activities his wife wants to go, whether they be seeing a chick flick or attending a benefit dinner with her friends. He is not a doormat of course. He also expects her to attend to things important to him as well.

He tells his wife a reasonable amount of information about his needs for physical intimacy. This may be difficult, we know, but it is not fair to sit around sulking because things do not happen when a reasonable effort to communicate has not been made. Try it, the results may well exceed your expectations.

Nevertheless, the good husband refrains from creating scripts or expectations.

The good husband does not just talk about how much he loves his wife. He puts his feelings into action. He tries to observe his wife and see what she might enjoy. He doesn’t have to do this all the time, a little bit goes a long way. He brings gifts, he makes compliments, but sincerely. He finds something nice to say and something nice to do. He keeps the negatives to himself. He shares the positive with his wife and the world.

A better way to explain all this might be just to listen to the song, “Find 100 Ways” by Quincy Jones. So, to wrap up:

Here’s another one with James Ingram, it has better sound quality but omits the critical first line:

From a press release by the City:

Who/What: Dedication of 38 “pocket” gardens featuring native Texas plants.

When: 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, June 30.
Where: Fort Worth Garden Club Headquarters Building at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, 3220 Botanic Garden Blvd., Fort Worth 76107
Why: More than two dozen garden clubs from around the state donated money to remove invasive plants at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and establish a one-acre Texas wildscape for visitors to enjoy and learn about native plants from across the state.

Suellen, the young artist (and I mean real artist) at work.

A few may remember the computer theft of February 27, 2009, and how I lost not only my computer (rather old and ready for replacement) but a new scanner fax printer and most important, a slew of digital photos. Imagine my happiness when I found, on a disk in a pile on the bookshelf, an archive taken in 2005 with over 1000 pictures, almost entirely of the children between 2002 and 2005.

I downloaded them and there they were: the photos of my youngest as a baby. He was so cute! The camping trip memories I’d assumed we’d never see again, my oldest daughter’s high school graduation, my first flock of chickens and my daughter holding them. I could spend the whole morning taking a walk down memory lane.

What do I think as I see the pictures? I think that things were better back in the day than i gave them credit for. One of my mottoes is “I can’t complain but sometimes I still do” and through the years that those photos were taken, I probably worried and complained a lot. But what comes through of these photos is that things were really okay, and actually, they still are. We are living our lives, perhaps not particularly famously, but we’re here and we’re together. As a family, that’s the main thing, I think, that I often forget.

So here, for old (or not so old) times sake, are a couple of the recovered photos:

Angelo poses in a baseball jumper with a baseball

Tonia with two friends from school and her little sister

Angelo with his grandfather on a camping trip in Missouri

Joanna and a friend

Cherry tomatoes from Cowtown Farmer's Market are locally grown

I’ve followed a little bit with Kevin at Fortworthology as he works to build support for local culture for the city. Fortworthology has focussed on local architecture and music, as well as restaurants, and I hope to see more business coming to these endeavors, but around here, in my house, the biggest monthly spending item is food and so we’ve been trying to support local culture by buying food locally.

Four months or so now after I wrote “we don’t shop at Walmart anymore” we haven’t gone back there to do the weekly shopping. Instead, we have been going to City Market and Costco, spliting the weekly budget between the two. Though Costco is no local venue, it does allow us to buy a few items at really good prices (such as milk and cheese) and this frees up more funds to shop the local market.  Today I stopped by City Market for peppers, pepperoni (it’s pizza night) and a bottle of Cherry 7-up, along with their trademark free soft serve ice cream.

City Market carries many Fort Worth brands, such as Renfro’s bottled relishes and sauces and OB Macaroni, and this afternoon I noticed that there were more cars in the parking lot. I asked the checker (and one of the good things about City Market is you have time to talk to the checker, the mad rush is not part of the experience) if business had improved and she said yes, more people are coming every week. City Market is owned by a local family and has put out a great deal of effort to revitalize the store. I hope more people will give them a try. Especially those who felt like they couldn’t take another trip to Big Box for weekend groceries, as I did.

Another way to shop locally is the Cowtown Farmer’s Market, now open Saturday morning from 8 to 12, as it is all year, and Wednesdays, 8 to 12. The produce, tamales, bread, personal care products, and locally-grown camraderie (everything at the market is produced within 150 miles of Fort Worth, so it’s local-local) is at a peak during the summer. Take a trip out the 183 traffic circle and see for yourself. Cowtown Farmer’s Market also deserves your support if you can give it.

From the Cowtown Farmer’s Market website:

Did You Know? By shopping Cowtown Farmers Market you are:

* ensuring farmers earn fair prices for the fruits of their labor
* protecting your community’s access to healthy, fresh, local produce
* helping Fort Worth’s economy

If you spend $100 at a grocery store, only $25 stays here.
If you spend $100 at a farmers market, $62 goes back into the local economy — and $99 out of $100 stays in the state.
So, where do you want your money to go?

I have been out of town for about a month now. I left a few days after finals completed, flew over to South Carolina to see my sister graduate from college, then back across the country to southern California for a week at my Dad’s, then up to Davis in Northern California where I have been working for my aunt.

Shortly after getting here, I felt something I had, literally, never felt before. I was homesick.

The truth was, I rather enjoyed the melancholy feeling, because never in my life have I had a place I called home enough to feel that irrational longing for. The longing for the familiar, the comfortable, the place where “everybody knows your name” – or at least more so than anywhere else.

I missed my house, to be sure.  My bed – a long army remnant with bright pink sheets. I missed the fried egg pan in the kitchen, waiting for a new user. I missed constantly having music on – Papa’s Negramaro or Vince’s The Killers or Brand’s Led Zeppelin or Mom’s folk or even Jo’s “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It.” I missed messing around with my little brothers, sitting around watching Star Trek or playing board games or all piling in to the kitchen to make snacks at 4 pm. I missed my dog, and her loosely curled tail bobbing around as she searches for “tidbits”.

I am used to missing home; I have routinely left in the summer nearly my whole life. But this time, it was different – it was more.I found myself missing Hulen Blvd. and going to Half Price Books; walking around TCU’s shady campus. Missing the bike path by the duck pond, and my church, which, in my opinion, is just right – not to cakey, not too hardcore. Even missing sitting around griping about wilting heat, and watching dry lightning appear in a dusky sky.

There’s nothing too special about Fort Worth. Out here in Cali, we have lots of neat things – fresh fruit of every variety, reasonable weather, the beach, lots of Asian food. Rolling fields and that lovely light green brush. Davis has piles of bikes and my Dad is right behind a mountain. But you know what – they’re not home. Nowhere is but Fort Worth – I say this after seven years of it growing on me. To think, seven years and a few months ago I was crying in the Sacramento airport to hear I was moving there, and now, a few miles away from that very spot, I am dreaming of returning. Returning home – to see the skyline appear as you move over the crest of the hill from DFW, or Oklahoma, or Burleson, or the exhasuting trip in from the West.

PR Guys vs. Print Journalismos

Richie Escovedo blogs about a recent PRSA (the PR folk’s professional organization) lunch at which the Fort Worth Weekly and other local journals claimed that they want the real story, not the varnished variety, and that PR people just get in the way. Escovedo was offended, and you can understand why, although the problem is intractable … the real truth is harder to get at than it has ever been, though whether that’s because of corporate obfuscation, or because journalism no longer wants to do its homework, is open to speculation.

In another blog-jab at journalism, Austin at Fort Worth Real Estate takes the Dallas Morning News to task for conflicting stories on whether DFW real estate prices are lousy or not … and in the end, he asks “why don’t we just hire out the job of journalist to a bunch of middle schoolers? Shocking words, indeed.

Arts and Culture

Did Fort Forth blow it, asks the Fort Worth Weekly, when they lost the Wall of Sound festival? Or are other music genres, such as Texas Sound and New-Timey, the actual place where the action is happening in terms of Fort Worth bands?

Log Cabin Village Blog offers a short post and link to information about Juneteenth, the traditional African American celebration of emancipation day that originated in Texas.

Technology

Emily, who on the Balcom Ad Agency blog wrote a love letter to her blackberry before she gave it up, isn’t overwhelmingly thrilled with the i-phone ...Food and Fort Worth contemplates the mental processes, such as making change and anticipating a customer’s order, which no machine could handle, and admits to getting coffee from Dunkin Donuts every day … Matthew J Stevens blogs about not blogging … something a great number have faced, and also about getting FIOS cable hooked up…. and Kevin at Fortworthology links to news about how North Texas politicians may have damaged our chances to have high speed rail anytime soon.

Fort Worth Blogosphere

Fort Worth Hole in the Wall announces they have progressed to 100,000 hits. … Pete Wann rides again – just what I’d given up hope. He writes “On Making Art. … Eleiva considers the loss of Air France 447 and the search for meaning in life and literature … Dave of Dallas Photoworks does some family portraits in the Grapevine Botanic Garden …. We’ve added a link to our blogroll for local culinary student Callie and her blog, Linguine and Dirty Martinis; her latest post is on tortas and baklava.

Yesterday, I went down to our public pool at Kellis Park. A small place with a little cement brick guard house, two or three guards on duty, three drink machines, and a couple trees, our local pool could perhaps accommodate 50 swimmers. Not as fancy as Forest Park, but not as crowded, either.

I was surprised to meet, while I was there, with a girl I had been teaching in music last spring. I asked her where she lived. “Over in the South Side, over by the school,” she said. “My dad had the day off today, he drove us out here.”

“Isn’t there a pool closer to the school than this?” It’s about eight miles, after all. No, there is not. This is the closest for her family.

Of course, and perhaps sadly, many of the type who make spending decisions in this city have never considered going to the public pool, since they have their home or a club or an association to patronize, so they have no concept of the fact that most of the 78,000 students in the FWISD will not be going to the pool this summer, because they would have to be driven there by their parents, who are busy, or don’t have a car, or are at work, and because the pools are too few and too small for the need, which means they are overcrowded and this impairs lifeguard’s ability to enforce rules and keep the peace.

I’ve heard that the City is about to cut its budget, so I suppose this is a crazy time to suggest that investment in parks infrastructure, pools to be specific, is indicated. But honestly, how much of the $1.2 billion budget of this city would be needed to beef up the pools? We’ve just had a huge repair job done on the drainage to West Creek Road two blocks from me, when in fact, no appreciable problem existed with the drainage or the paving, whereas the vast majority of Fort Worth’s children have no effective access to public swimming or swimming lessons this summer or any of the 7 summers we have been here.

The City has spent plenty of money on police (recently having announced that no money will be cult from the police budget, naturally). Is law enforcement perhaps considered more important to our City fathers because there is no private way of hiring a police force, and there is a private way of getting your kids to the pool?

This is a reminder to those city councilpersons who are working on the budget that for most of Fort Worth’s schoolchildren, private pools are not available. And when you create a city where there is no safe place for children to recreate and play, you are creating a city which will have a much greater need for a police force.

A stitch in time saves nine. Please consider taking a look at Kellis Park Pool, or at the crowded conditions at Forest Park Pool, and consider whether this is an adequate level of public pool service for a first-rate community.

In the town where I grew up, we had three public pools for 50,000 people, or one pool for every 16,ooo people or so. Here in Fort Worth, we have 7 for 750,000, or about 1 pool for 100,000.Does this seem like not enough swimming? I think we can do better.

FORT WORTH – Colored lights will illuminate the night sky during a festive block party June 25 when the Avenue of Light on Lancaster Avenue is turned on for the first time.

Avenue of Light, a public art project, consists of six stainless steel sculptures that incorporate energy-efficient LED lights and tower 36 feet high. They’ve been installed along the median from Lamar Street to Main/Commerce Street.

The public is invited to this free party. Speakers will include Mayor Mike Moncrief, Mayor Pro Tem Kathleen Hicks, Council Member Joel Burns and the artist, Cliff Garten.

The event begins at 8:30 p.m. at the northeast corner of Lancaster Avenue and Throckmorton Street, where light refreshments will be served. The program starts at 9:00 p.m. with remarks. The sculptures will then become a “canvas” for a color light program lasting about 30 minutes and created especially for the occasion.

Lancaster Avenue will be closed to traffic 8-10 p.m. from Throckmorton to Houston streets. Parking is available two blocks north at the new Fort Worth Convention Center Parking Garage.

The City of Fort Worth’s public art program commissioned Avenue of Light as part of Lancaster Avenue’s reconstruction. The sculptures’ contemporary design was inspired by the nearby Texas & Pacific Terminal’s Art Deco architectural details.

Lancaster Avenue’s reconstruction is a catalyst for future economic development along the corridor. Median landscaping will be part of a future phase of the project.

Avenue of Light will be illuminated nightly from dusk to dawn beginning June 26.

The Arts Council of Fort Worth and Tarrant County administers the city’s public art program. Fort Worth Public Art creates an enhanced visual environment for Fort Worth residents, commemorates the city’s rich cultural and ethnic diversity, integrates the design work of artists into the development of the City’s capital infrastructure improvements, and promotes tourism and economic vitality in the city through the artistic design of public spaces. For more information visit www.fwpublicart.org.

From a press release by the City:

FORT WORTH — After the completion of the 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), the City Council was informed today that the city’s financial books are current, verified and in order. The important announcement is a culmination of more than four years of significant improvements to the city’s financial reporting and internal processes.

“Words can’t describe how it feels to know the city is current on its CAFRs,” said Finance Director Lena Ellis. “Now that our financial records have been verified, we can focus clearly on the future to ensure the city’s financial house remains in order.”

In 2005, the Council learned that the city had fallen behind on its annual financial reporting obligations. Because the CAFR is the report card of the city’s financial health and performance to investors, it can greatly influence the city’s cost to sell bonds that pay for major infrastructure and other essential needs.

Now that the city has current audited financial statements, it can sell bonds in the public market at lower interest rates and with better repayment terms. Moreover, it gives the City Council a clear picture of the city’s financial landscape heading into of one of the toughest city budgets in recent history.

“Because of the serious implications to our taxpayers, the CAFRs have remained a top priority for the Council and city management. It’s about accountability and being transparent.” said Councilmember Jungus Jordan, who chairs the city’s Audit and Finance Committee. “A lot of people have put in some extremely long hours away from their families working with antiquated systems to get Fort Worthback on track. On behalf of our citizens, we can’t thank them enough for their commitment to this important mission.”

Mayor Mike Moncrief said the CAFRs have a lot to do with the confidence people have in their city, and he appreciates everyone who was involved in reaching this major milestone.

“This Council and City Manager along with our staff have remained focused on meeting our deadline for this CAFR and getting our financial house in order,” Moncrief said. “We have committed major resources to this effort; and while we still have a lot of work to do, we are well on our way to putting the city back on course when it comes to responsibly accounting for taxpayer dollars.”

Successfully meeting the Council’s goal to have the CAFRs completed by the summer of this year is the result of not only hard work on the part of the City Council and staff, but several organizational changes as well.

The City Council created the Audit and Finance Committee in 2006 to ensure the city’s finances are more accountable to the people. The Fiscal Accountability Committee was formed to improve inter-departmental consistency and communication. And, new leadership, including Assistant City Manager Karen Montgomery and Finance Director Lena Ellis – along with additional certified public accountants and other essential staff – were brought in to add expertise and set a strategic corrective course. Working side by side with the City Council and staff were also teams of outside financial and management experts.

The completion of the 2008 CAFR is not only significant because it brings the city’s financial books current, but also because it’s based on improved internal financial controls. These controls add another line of defense against potential weaknesses in the management of the city’s finances.

To further enhance the city’s ability to accurately and effectively manage its finances going forward, a new automated financial reporting system – known as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system – will be purchased this year and is expected to go live in 2012.

The CAFRs are required each year to detail the financial condition and performance of the city. The reports also reflect the independent auditors’ assurance that the city of Fort Worth has fairly presented its financial position and that all funds are accounted for and verified.

This morning Chris Brogan, social media prince, wrote a blog talking about the possible creation of a city information center (what he calls a city news feed) on the web. Brogan suggested that the police blotter, feeds from the fire department, gps data about the location of public transit, everything that you might want to know, be put on a single site.

This kind of thinking is right up our alley at Renaissance – although I haven’t finished my set of utopian posts about what Fort Worth should be like, I haven’t given up on the concept either — but the main questions about the concept of a city data information center of the type Brogan describes would be

1. Who’d pay for it;

2. Who’d write it and

2. Who’d be allowed or forced to participate once it’s constructed.

As we’ve said before, a local hub where blogs can post their news and views is something we’ve discussed with other bloggers in the area. But a blog hub isn’t what Brogan is talking about — he seems to be thinking more of updates from the police and ambulance crew. I have a vision of some clerk in some office saying, “hold on, hold on, I’ve got to update our feed … ”

Or, alternatively, I suppose, cops could digitally enter their crime reports on a hand-held device and then the second they’re turned in to the office a data abstract could appear on a the city’s website feed, something like:

“6-23-09 7:00 a.m. … car burglary … 27th and Vine…. district 36 …. laptop computer, wallet stolen …  officer # 2345″ with a hyperlink on the type of crime (so you could see all the others) and the district and the day ….

Some people might feel compelled to read this stuff (wow, officer 2345 really gets around, he’s listed more than any other police operative) but for many, would it just be a bunch of datapoints which are ultimately minimally comprehensible?

Because, and here’s the kicker, data needs analysis and in general, there has been no way discovered to digest, interpret, and present data in easily digestible chunks except a person whose qualifications are basically in the journalistic line.

Therefore, if the city had an RSS feed — it would be up to the city to hire someone to put the data into usable form. I suppose this could provide work for some laid off writers from the Star Telegram. But with the cutting of the library hours and the paucity of public pools and other recreation opportunities — a post is upcoming on that — I doubt Fort Worth will be doing something bold and innovative in this line any time this decade. I mean, maybe after New York or Washington proves is works, but not yet.

For today, the best way to find out about crime in your local area is to ask a local police officer.