True Landmark

Got a rare chance this afternoon to tour the inside of the Masonic Temple on Harwood, currently up for sale. Wish I had the $3.6M to buy the amazing structure myself. It's like a granite fortress—and talk about the history of Dallas dripping from the walls. Surely someone could snatch the building up and turn it into a combination cinema/restaurant/lounge-type space, right in the heart of the city's neo-natal downtown renaissance.

Nine-O-Nine, Again

Wow—someone posted their own encounter with the Nine-O-Nine on Boing Boing—and used a photo almost identical to the one I posted below, 15 days ago.

I Got The Original Grenadier

Walking among the stalls at the Main Street Arts Festival in Fort Worth this afternoon, I turned to my wife and said, "One of these days, I'll find Mark Driscoll at one of these things again." I'd bought two of the El-Paso-based, occasional New-York-Times-Book-Review illustrator's paintings at a street fair in Austin in the early '90s, but despite diligent online searching, had never been able to track him down again. After more than a decade of looking, I'd begun to think maybe he'd given up art altogether.

A few minutes later, I was shaking his hand, and buying some more of his work. Turns out he had an image in the Book Review as recently as this past Febuary that I'd managed to overlook.

He also has a brand new website you should check out.

Powder Room Remodel Completed

Before:










After:

Minor Development

Nine-O-Nine

Sneaked away from work for an hour or so this morning to fulfill a long-held fantasy: crawling around inside a B-17.

Walking out of the dry cleaners before work, I heard an unfamiliar mechanical rumbling in the sky, looked up, and there it was, propellers chopping eastward, more or less along Mockingbird Lane. An older guy walking into the cleaners noticed me standing there slack-jawed, then turned his own gaze upward. "I'm sure that's a B-17," I said. He said he had no idea.

Got to work, logged on, and checked local news. Sure enough:


Today was the last day. Tomorrow would be too late. So I figured an early lunch-hour wouldn't hurt anybody.

Spent an amazing hour or so at Love Field admiring and photographing the restored "Nine-O-Nine" (although it's not the original plane of that name), and I actually got to crawl up inside and through the incredibly cramped interior. I'll never forget it.


At 5:42 p.m., heading away from work down Preston Road, I saw it in the sky again—this time heading west, back toward Love Field. (They were taking people on rides for $425 a head.)

At 6:32, after running a couple of errands, I was walking across my yard from the car to the front door and I heard the rumbling again. I looked straight up and it was there again, heading east, so close I could have touched the belly turret. I swear, the Nine-O-Nine flew directly over my house.

Stopped by my grandmother's house on the way to a meeting at City Hall, and there it was again, flying directly over her back yard, heading west this time, at 6:49. I could scarcely believe I'd been inside that old flying machine just a few hours earler.

Walked the rest of the way to my appointment, and as I turned the corner at Golf and Haynie at 6:58 I thought I'd stepped back in time. Heading right for me, rising up from behind City Hall, was the B-25 (one of the other three planes in the group).

During the meeting I heard one of the planes go back overhead one last time, at 7:23. Probably the B-25 heading back to Love Field for the night. Not sure anyone else noticed.

Fore-Edge Painting

Images hidden on the page edges of a book.

Rocket Pig

I can't explain why, but this series of photos had me laughing so hard I thought I'd have a heart attack. I think it was the pig's expression in the penultimate shot that did me in.

The Wheel Has Been Reinvented

Seriously. And it looks like this. (Watch the video clips of the three vehicles.)