Archive for July, 2009

The North Central Texas Farmers’ Market will be in the Dee J. Kelly Alumni & Visitors’ Center parking lot from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm this Friday, July 24, 2009.  Vendors will have locally-grown fruits and vegetables for purchase.  Come support this group of local farmers and ensure that they will keep coming to TCU!

Back in the day, you could say anything on your blog, in a chat room, or where ever on the web and it wouldn’t matter because you were the only person you knew who had “internets” or whatever they called this thing. In 1998 I was the first one to have email in my family. Actually, it was my husband, who got it in a package along with grad school and kindly let me share his account. Eventually, I got my own account … a Netscape  one … yeah, it was a while ago. I had a website where I published articles which virtually no one ever read but the good part was I could say whatever I wanted without fear of reprecussions.

That was then. Now, there’s no privacy on the web anymore. Now, everytime I turn around someone is asking to add me on FaceBook or following my Twitter stream and with about 2000 unique visitors a month here at this site, there’s no way of knowing which of my arch-enemies are reading this and making notes of my typos.

Back then, I could shoot off my mouth at will, on a website, blog, or any portion of cyberspace, and never worry that someone from my family or from work, or from anywhere, really, was going to read what I wrote and, more importantly, associate my virtual web words with a real flesh and blood person, me, who was sitting across from them at an actual wood table. I could complain about anyone, anything, anywhere, and it would never get back to anybody. The web was my virtual confessional.

Eventually, my parents got on the web and my dad started reading my blog, but since I didn’t have any fights with him at the time that didn’t matter. Now, however, it’s pretty safe to say that everyone is on the web, with the exception of those too young to read, and, overall, you are never safe complaining about some member of the immediate or extended family, friends, or people at work, and feeling safe that they won’t find out. Probably they will. They follow you on FaceBook, they get your Twitter updates.

I heard that my ex-husband’s wife followed my blog and my twitter account, but that was okay … whatever she found there, she probably didn’t like me anyway, deep down, so what did I care? But the gig was finally up when I put a rant on my old blog, The Kids are All Right, about a member of the extended family — and she read it. The next time I was over at her house, huge innuendos were dropped like size 12 shoes about my blog, and how many people read it, and various other allusions to what I’d written.

Drat, I thought, I can no longer vent on the web. Mea Culpa. As I said, the web is not a safe place.

You heard it here first.  Writing “Uncle George has really really ugly green golf pants that make me want to throw up” will seriously put you at risk for, next time you see Uncle G., him asking, “don’t like my golf pants?”

I’ve thought of changing my avatar, my alias, my byline — but it’s too late. Everyone knows where I am and I’ve worked for almost a year building up the name recognition, etc. for this site and I’m not going to do it again. I’m going to have to do this the old fashioned way from here on out, and watch what I say.

I’m sorry people, but the days of digital freedom are over.

Fort Worth Social Media:

Blue Eye Brown Eye wants you to know who her Twitter Crushes are, including Chris Brogan; follow her on twitter? @laurenwsmith …. Richie Escovedo talks about his recent jury duty experience and how non-verbal communication plays a part in our judicial process …. then goes on to address how ChildFund is using a social media campaign to raise awareness of the NPO’s work helping poor children in Africa ….

Personal Blogs:

MLMCored has a list of unbelievable 911 callouts for your amusement …. The Roper Files has divulged that being a bachelor is not the run romp some peope believe …. and Super-Happy Misantthrope took his daughter to a Fort Worth Cats game last night, among other places, and reflects “having Elissa around gives me an outlet to be as weird as I want to be;” and yes, he does meet some aliens somewhere in there …. Emily reflects on the potential for meeting someone nice … someone you’d date … at Walmart on Saturday night; maybe we should introduce her to Roper Files …

The Economic Downturn:

Vee’s Blog writes about “today’s economic stimulus package” and coping with having no job in Fort worth… Frugal in Fort Worth has discovered that tonight is free admission night at Keller Point Water Park … starts at 5 p.m. Kevin lands a freelance gig on the Auston-American Statesman, breaking a four-month run of joblessness …

FORT WORTH REAL ESTATE BLOG has got a lineup of fine posts again this week … Death by Suburbia, about rootless “professional” families …. Looming foreclosures …. and Advice on refinancing.

Arts and Culture:

If all that is too depressing, there’s always the arts, in good times and bad:

Kids at the Amon Carter Museum’s summer program recently created an art project of found objects that’s on display, and the museum has two more summer storytimes to go …  Dallas photoworks has been looking at Carnivals, as have I … Eva-Marie has a quick post on FWISD alumni who participated, actually or dramatically, in the U.S. Space program ….the Log Cabin Village Blog is showing images of their new firepit which will allow them to do live demos of frontier cooking techniques ….and Fortworthology gives us a nice selection of Fort Worth glamour real estate shots (if there is such a thing) from Flickr.

Restaurants and Food:

If culture isn’t enough to stir up your desire to live, there’s always the food section:

AT FOOD AND FORT WORTH Francis recommends Papasitos for the best fajitas, and he also is taking a survey of Fort Worth’s best beer.

And that’s all for this week. I’ve got to get ready to go to that free swim deal in Keller.

This topic came up recently on Twitter: Should a girl ask a guy out?

specifically, @Cryptic Fragment posted: “hey GUYS…r you ok w/a woman asking you out? if you were interested wouldn’t you ask HER out? and how would you like to be asked?”

I replied (in far more than 140 characters, the elipses designate the separate twitter posts:)

@CrypticFragment I think it would depend on the situation. There was a song, “He’s so shy” about a guy who couldn’t get up his nerve … on the other hand, some guys, asked out on a date, would be prone to take advantage of the situation …. negotiating with them is going to be problematic under any circumstances …

Right away I knew I had simultaneously said too much and too little. This was a blog-sized, not a twitter sized, problem.  I also asked Bill Cammack about it and he did a man-on-the-street interview about whether a girl should ask a guy out which, since he is in New York, focused on how he and friends from the bar scene might like a girl who shows some interest … how long the relationship will last, or what is its purpose, is undisclosed.

So, should you ask a guy out? Well, it depends. I’m going to write a quiz and using the answers you will be able to decide. But first, determine what the situation is with his not asking. There’s two basic potentials: First, that he’s so shy you haven’t really established a repoir with him, or second, you have a good repoir and you think he likes you, but he’s not asking you out.

If he’s a quiet type, and you think his social life is constrained by his shyness, before asking him out you might consider:

1. Does he look at you … across the room especially?

2. Do you feel in your heart that he really likes you, he just needs a little encouragement?

3. If it’s his personality that causes him to hesitate, are you into a guy who’s shy and hesitant? They don’t change, you know, just because you’re in a relationship … it he’s shy, he’s going to be shy.

4. If it turns out that for whatever reason he doesn’t accept your invitation, can you take the disappointment? Do you think he’s “worth” the risk?

On the other hand, perhaps he’s acting like he’s interested, but just not asking you out. This is pretty frustrating. In this case, it’s likely you can get him to go out with you if you ask, but have you considered:

1. Maybe he’s ‘s in another relationship — or sort-of-relationship — that he might not be talking about? Perhaps he’s waiting to see what’s happening with his current situation and considering asking you out later? Do you want to go kicking the door in now if that’s the case?

2. He might have personal plans or issues that make him not want to enter into a relationship, and since he does like you, he feels you’d be hard to escape once you’ve gone out a few times …so he doesn’t want to get started.

3. You might be sending him negative messages without realizing it. He’s so dynamic that you’re making fun of him to get attention, and he actually thinks you don’t like him.

4. Maybe he’s like that with everybody. It hurts to say it, but there you are.

We hear a lot in business about being pro-active. I think, in sum, there are situations where you may lose the possibility of learning more about someone if you don’t, as a girl, ask him out. Whether you think the proactive approach, which is asking, is going to work for you really depends on how highly you rate this guy and how many other opportunities you’re getting.

In the end, you really have to live this problem yourself. I would only encourage those who face it and can’t stop thinking about it — to ask him out, to try to get attention, or whatever. If you don’t take some action, you’re in danger of feeling later like “I should have asked.” And to me that seems worse than if you ask and it doesn’t go as you hoped.

@CrypticFragment let me know if you get anywhere with this.

In the spring and summer months, carnivals sometimes set up in shopping centers in various zones in the city. This latter-day descendant of the Travelling Circus or camp meeting draws attention with its towering ferris wheel and, at night, bright lights. The other day we drove past one in the Ridgelea Mall Parking lot, and the kids insisted on checking it out. “I’m not taking you now,” I said, “but we can find out how long they’ll be here.”

It turned out to be opening at 6 p.m. through tonight, Sunday. The kids asked if we could come back. I thought it over and decided we could, on Saturday. I thought they might forget and I would be off the hook, but by no means. They counted off the days. “We’re going to the carnival in three days … two days … one and a half days … tonight.”

By the time we got dinner finished and the dishes washed, it was 9:30. For normal activities, this would be a problem, but the carnival is open ’till at least midnight, we could still go at this late hour, as long as the kids were still awake … and believe me they were.

We arrived in the sea of lights at just 10 p.m. The ferris wheel was spinning, the Kamakaze was spinning cars of people upside down, the flags on its crown pointing down as the cars on the bottom flew up, the Scrambler was scrambling, loud rock music blared, carnival barkers tried to get our attention for the games of chance and skill. The spectacle of it all was intense as we walked the circle of attractions and checked out the Space Ship 2000, the Haunted House, the Hall of Mirrors … the kids drank it in, skipping along.

Rides were not cheap, ranging from 3 to 5 tickets (24 tickets for $20). Angelo first tried the mini trains (evidently going on the TRE the day before did not satiate his train fixation) and Brand and Joanna went on the Space Ship, which is a sort of human centrefuge which gets people dizzy so they stumble as they get off.

Screaming, lights, loud music, the smell of fried and sugared food — we don’t do this every day, but when we do, it’s such a thrill. You can see why the kids wouldn’t forget to remind me to come out here.

I chose only one ride — my old favorite, the Scrambler. I got on and it spun around and around and I laughed and laughed. It reminds me of riding a running horse, actually, that rushing rhythm is like a gallop to me. It’s delicious, really, there’s no other way to explain it.

At the end of the evening (which due to the shortness of funds lasts only about an hour) Brand and Joanna flipped a coin for the last extra ticket, Brand so he could ride the Kamakaze and Jo so she could ride the Ferris Wheel. Brand won, and Jo cried. He considered giving her the ticket, but decided going on the ride is too important. He walked up the ramp, and was strapped into the cage behind four giggling teenage girls in tank tops just a couple years older than him. He held on. The cages began to swing back and forth, rising higher and higher until they hovered upside down and then came flying back to earth. I watched, heart in my throat. What else could I do? When he got off, he was all smiles. He made it. He would not, probably, analogize the experience with riding a running horse, something which he has never done, but he knows it was something transcendent.

When we leave, Angelo cries, partly because he doesn’t want to leave and partly because it’s 11 o’clock and far past his bedtime. We should all be at home now. The music blares and the rides hum in the background as we walk back into the night. I reflect that the carnival was worth it, at least once a year, for that moment of some kind of magic within a mundane summer.

The kids pose by the TRE train outside Dallas Union Station

My youngest son loves trains, so recently when we took him on the Trinity Park Mini train, he didn’t think it was enough. He wanted to go on a REAL train. So I decided we would go on the Trinity Railway Express (TRE), just for the fun of it. We set a day — yesterday — packed a lunch, and set off with his brother (12) and sister (9). It would be a far more meaningful trip than I initially expected.

Taking the TRE to Dallas could hardly be easier, or cheaper. You go to the T&P Park and Ride station on the Downtown side of Lancaster Blvd. very close to where the I30 crosses the 35W freeway. Do not go to the main station, called the “Intermodal Center,” because there is no free parking there. Get your all-day ticket for $5 (children $1.50) which gets you on not only the TRE but the DART trains (and buses) in Dallas. Now sit back, probably on a double-decker passenger car, and enjoy the ride.

We ate lunch in the ornate courtyard of the Trammel Crowe building, which was beautiful and serene.

My youngest son loved it, as did his older brother and sister. Of course, once we got to Dallas, we had to do something to justify the effort of going out there. I wanted to take them to the Dallas World Aquarium but it was too expensive. So I went for the high value/low admission price route: museums. We visited the Crowe Museum of Asian Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Dallas Museum of Art.

The Crowe Museum was all right, but the Nasher was the prize of the day. Finally, after years of taking kids to art museums and having them not “get it”, the kids began to actually participate in the experience. Part of the thrill was the garden setting of much of the art, and the lowering of the tension surrounding getting too close. Most pieces are still off limits to touch, but it’s much more on the honor system than in, say, the Kimbell, which has the jumpiest guards I’ve ever seen.

Much of the kids’ enjoyment seemed to be the puzzle aspect of the art, which was “modern and contemporary” (that means, generally, that it was created in the last 100 years.) They wanted to know what the artists were thinking, what they meant when the built the art, and what it represented. We spent a long time going from statue to statue, talking about them.

Brand very much liked this "Quantum Cloud XX (tornado)" sculpture by Antony Gormley. The statue is constructed entirely of small steel bars, and looked at from the front, without shadow, the man inside can be difficult to make out.

After finishing with the Nasher, we went on the the Dallas Museum of Art, though were were pretty tired by that time. If my husband had been there he would have insisted, probably, that we stay until midnight (the museum was apparently having some special event that allowed visitors that late) but we satisfied ourselves with a visit to the interactive room where the kids were provided with art supplies and told to create their own “works.”

kids enjoyed creating their own works in the Dallas Musuem of Art's creativity room.

We stayed in this place for a long time. The materials offered were tape, sea shells, cardboard, gold foil paper, and pipe cleaners. Before you say “this is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of” let me tell you the kids found it very meaningful, and Angelo spent the entire time building a Japanese Spider Crab, he said, out of the pipe cleaners and gold paper, with mini-sea shells for eyes.

I eventually had to drag them out of there because we were going to miss the train we were planning on catching.

As we rode the DART light right to Union Station in Dallas to catch the TRE back home, I noticed we were passing Deally Plaza where the Kennedy Assassination occured, and 6th Floor museum … and we hadn’t even stopped! Clearly, another visit to Dallas was called for.

Reflecting on all this now, the time we spent in Dallas seems magical. I felt for once that I was not alone in the community, that I was part of a greater group of people, which included not just my children, and my region, but my world — and they weren’t all different, they were united through this common world of what I think used to be called “the sublime,” but which I have termed, more often, “the world of ideas” or “the life of the soul.” We came, we saw, we shared in some kind of discourse. For one day, fear and worry were banished, and all I thought about was ideas and creativity. What a great moment.

I’ve been working on this but didn’t finish my entire blogroll, which is now 29 blogs long. So here’s about the first half …

Local News:

Broadway Baptist Church has been tossed out of the Southern Baptist Convention for being “too lenient” about homosexuals, though what exactly they did to be “too lenient” isn’t made clear anywhere I can find … Because of the issue, the church’s youth group, which had planned to go to Appalachia to do service work for the needy, was uninvited to the project and had to find a different mission project … The U.S.’s Ten fastest growing cities include Fort Worth, according to Nicole’s DFW Real Estate Blog … On the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York, a fight between Fort Worth Police officers and patrons of a gay bar, the Rainbow Room, left one man in intensive care … two weeks later the Dallas Morning News does a wrap up … Kevin at 5kssandcabernets doesn’t think Steve McNair’s death-by-infidelity should negate everything good he ever did …

Culture:

Art and Seek covers the Amon Carter museum’s recent acquisition of a set of rare North American Indian photographs … Eleiva in Notes from Chronotopia reviews “How to Have Style” an inspirational makeover book by designer Isaac Mizrahi… she also contributed a long meditative piece on the phenomenon of the Vanity Licence Plate …

Social, Advertising and other Media

Carol at the Balcom Ad Agency blog begins a quick discussion of advertising’s paradigm shift since the 90’s …

New Blog Notes:

I’m noting a couple new  Fort Worth blogs. Fifty miles to Coffee is the blog of photographer and painter Mark Scantling. He explains what he’s up to … Another local blog: Mist Photography puts up a few shots of a pretty wedding last week which took place at St. Elizabeeth Ann Seton Church and Colonial Country Club

Education:

Eva-Marie at the Extra Credit Education Blog talks of wind-farm projects sponsored by institutions of higher education … Also from Extra Credit, Southwest High School students made a video about repairs needed at the campus, entered in a contest to win money for upgrades, and posted the video on YouTube: