D

Gerry Fraley Back at SportsDay

In case you missed it — and you probably did, since the Dallas Morning News has always treated him like a Hawaiian-shirt-favoring stepchild — Gerry Fraley is back with the paper, after three years or so filing copy in St. Louis. Always enjoyed his work, so it’s good to see him back.

What Was Your Most Memorable Halloween Costume?

We are hip-deep in the shipping of our December ish, so posting has sort of slowed to a standstill. And tomorrow, there will be a bunch of rugrats in the office stopping us down, looking for candy. So here is something to run out the shot clock: what was your most memorable Halloween costume? Myself, I’d have to pick “N/A” because I pretty much don’t have one, as I’m lazy and unimaginative when it comes to dressing up for Halloween. Unless you count when I was a kid and my mom made me dress as Uncle Sam, complete with cotton glued to my face. That whole thing was scarring in so many ways. Okay, yours in the comments.

People in Downtown Dallas and Surrounding Suburbs — Duck!

As Steve Earle sang, the rain came down.

A 10-Year-Old Reviews DTC’s Midsummer Night’s Dream

Last night, My Fair Lady and our 10-year-old son went to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Wyly. This being the boy’s first official play (I don’t count Stomp), we weren’t sure whether or how much he’d dig it. So we gave him the option of decamping at halftime (as he refers to it). I was dreaming my own dreams by the time they returned last night (old man) and had to wait till breakfast to hear how it went.

He was blown away. We were late leaving the house for school because I couldn’t get him to shut up about the play long enough to eat his breakfast. There were Nerf guns involved in the production. And water guns! The actors ran into the audience, shot their weapons over the audience’s heads. I asked if he thought the play was funny, and he proceeded to re-create a funny scene for me (something was lost in translation apparently). My Fair Lady said she, too, had an absolute blast. At many points during the production, she said, she thought it couldn’t get any better — yet it did. The final scene actually brings the audience up onto the stage for a dance fest with the actors. All of which is to say: go see the play.

On the drive to school, I had the boy record a two-minute audio review. For your listening pleasure:

Pegasus News to Become Wired Local

I’ve done an atrocious job of following up on my post revealing that Pegasus News is soon set for its relaunch. I failed to check in to see if they posted a response, which they did last week.

So if you’re a devoted reader of Pegasus News, then the headline on this post isn’t news at all. The new name will be Wired Local.

Look, I was in on some of the early discussions when another hyperlocal site in town was planning a name change. There were a lot of bad ideas floating around the room. I mean really, really, really bad. And you can see for yourself what they settled on (after I’d left the company.) But, lord knows, I didn’t have any brilliant ideas of my own at the time.  Coming up with the right name is tough. Particularly when you have expansion to other markets in mind.

And that’s where the trouble comes. (more…)

Gary Kelly is D CEO’s 2009 CEO of the Year

We’ve been closely guarding the secret for weeks. Last night it was revealed. This morning you read the headline of this post, rendering my next statement redundant: Gary Kelly of Southwest Airlines is the 2009 D CEO of the Year.

A crowd of more than 250 invited guests from the local business community descended upon the Collins Executive Education Center at SMU last night for the big announcement. Kelly said it’s been awhile since he received any kind of award. “I had to go all the way back to the third grade. In third grade, I was the Good Citizen of the Year.” (more…)

Leading Off (10/29/09)

1. I don’t have kids, so I don’t know how one goes about teaching the birds and the bees. However, I’m guessing that waking children in the middle of the night and showing them porn is not the way to go about it. But, apparently, that’s legal.

2. Since moving downtown, a couple co-workers have had some problems with vandals and their cars. We all know about Glenn’s fiasco. Another co-worker had her plates stolen while her car was at a West Village garage. Maybe these new security cameras in Uptown will bring peace of mind to anyone who parks there. If nothing else, they look pretty snazzy.

3. Tim told you about Newt Gingrich’s group awarding the owner of The Lodge with an “Entrepreneur of the Year” award. Well. Here’s the latest news on that. The award was revoked, and the entry fee money ($5,000) goes back to the owner, Dawn Rizos. Rizos has decided to take that money and donate it to an animal group in Celina. They’re naming it Newt’s Nook – A Home for Pit Bulls.