Articles for November, 2011
Enjoy Our New D Magazine Travel Website. And Share Your Own Story and Photos.
Awhile back we asked you to tell us about your vacation. Here’s why: Today we’ve launched our new travel website, which includes a mix of content from our readers and from our D Magazine editors. We expect it to be a place where Dallas travelers share the stories of their adventures. Please take a look and let us know what you think of it.
New CVB Video Makes Me Scratch My Head
An alert FrontBurnervian draws our attention to a new Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau video. It’s beautifully shot. The voiceover is poetic. But if you were trying to decided between taking your vacation in, say, Chicago or Dallas, would this draw you here?
Leading Off (11/21/11)
Tough Times For Dallas Tech Sector: In a new Forbes survey of technology jobs, Texas doesn’t fare well and Dallas fares worse, something the magazine admits is “shocking,” considering the area’s long-time role as a telecommunications powerhouse. Nonetheless, Dallas, “generally a job-created dynamo,” Forbes writes, “has seen roughly a quarter of its high-tech jobs go away, due primarily to losses in telecommunications carriers and in manufacturing of communications equipment and electronics.”
Hairdresser Murder Still Mystery: On November 3 around midnight, Elizabeth Lightfoot purchased two packets of ramen noodles at a Tom Thumb at the corner of Preston and Belt Line. An hour and a half later, and the woman was dead, her body and automobile burned. No one knows what happened or who did it, but what is baffling is that there is little evidence (sub. req.) that any of the typical explanations – sexual assault, robbery escalating to murder – apply.
Dried Up Lakes Reveal Underwater Ghost Towns: At a number of lake sites throughout the state, water receding from the drought has uncovered long submerged remnants of towns once flooded. Depleted Lake Whitney, south of Fort Worth, uncovered Native American tools and fossils. Underneath Lake Texoma, foundations from the long lost town of Woodville, Oklahoma are now visible again for the first time since the Red River was flooded to create the lake in 1944.
T. Boone Pickens on OSU Women’s Basketball Tragedy
Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens has released a statement on the tragic death of Oklahoma State University women’s basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant women’s basketball coach Miranda Serna, who were killed in a plane crash last night.
According to the university, the coaches were on a recruiting trip to Arkansas, traveling with OSU supporters Olin and Paula Branstetter, who also died in the crash. Olin Branstetter was the pilot.
Here is the statement from Pickens, who has given hundreds of millions to his alma mater over the years:
“This is a sad day for OSU Cowboy Nation. I’m stunned and saddened that another tragedy has hit our basketball program. My heart goes out to so many… Kurt Budke’s and Miranda Serna’s families as well as the members of the OSU Women’s Basketball team who have been touched by their passionate commitment to sportsmanship, competition and un unwavering focus on responsibility. I grew to know and respect Coach Budke during his seven-year coaching history at OSU. His star burned bright and his loss will sadden yet strengthen the University for generations to come.”
In January 2001, 10 OSU men’s basketball personnel—including two players—were killed returning from a game in Colorado, after their plane went down in a snowstorm.
Mistrial in Murder Case Featured on First 48
Earlier this week, we told you about the trial of Seth Winder, the schizophrenic charged with murdering Richard Hernandez. The case appeared on the A&E show “The First 48.” Winder was originally deemed incompetent to stand trial in 2008. Then, with medication, he was deemed competent. Today, the judge declared a mistrial. Several days of catatonic behavior have led some people to believe that Winder might be off his meds.
Sneak Peek: The New Show at Medieval Times
I like Medieval Times. I had a birthday party there a few years back, which you might want to read about here. (Perhaps not. Your call.) I also love puns. So when Tim forwarded a press release entitled “Resistance is Feudal at Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament,” I was buying whatever they were selling. In this case, they were touting a new performance—the first since 2007—and an upgraded menu, and they wanted a fair lady or lord of the media to attend. Jump if you care about my adventures.
Law Man Walking: Nature Treks With Bill Holston
In this installment of every perambulator’s favorite FrontBurner feature, Brother Bill drinks directly from the Trinity River. Almost.
D Magazine To Undergo Work on Server This Weekend
Here is a company-wide email I received at work today. It tickled me, so I thought I’d share:
Hello friendsish types and other co-worker acquaintances,
This might hurt your feelings. This might scare you into a broken fetal maneuver beneath your filthy desk. Save the drama for your mother. I will be moving the transfer folder to another server this weekend. In the process, all contents of the folders will be deleted. If this is not enough notice for you to make arrangements for your files, that’s a bummer.
Pretending to care,
[name withheld]
Things To Do In Dallas This Weekend: Nov. 18-20
It’s a busy three days, so I’ll skip my usual pleasantries and just get right to it.
Friday
If you missed French designer Jean Paul Gaultier last week at The Round Up Saloon, never fear. His video-animated mannequin is still here. Tonight’s late night at the Dallas Museum of Art celebrates the massive Gaultier exhibit, on loan from the Musée des Beaux Arts de Montreal, where you’ll find 140 haute couture dresses and ready-to-wear pieces alongside 40 years of Gaultier’s designs (including wardrobes for various films and Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour).
Admission to the exhibit isn’t included in the regular ticket price, but if you enjoy wearing stripes, as I do, you can get in for two bucks less. Also part of the party: Oak Cliff community artists and artisans. I suggest bundling up, since it sounds like much of the festivities will take place outside. Expect art and craft installations from Oil & Cotton in the courtyard, and the hungry should keep an eye out for Katherine Clapner of Dude, Sweet Chocolate and folks from Oak Cliff Crêperie. The Texas Theatre will screen The Fifth Element, the 1996 film featuring costumes designed by Gaultier, on the exterior of the building. If you don’t want to see a movie exposed to the elements, check out Madonna’s Truth or Dare, which follows the singer on her aforementioned Blonde Ambition tour.
A Note About FrontBurner Traffic
In the comments to Leading Off this morning, a FrontBurnervian named M Schwartz said that there has been a “significant drop in traffic on FrontBurner” because of the way we moderate comments. FBvians who have been around a while know all about the Time of Darkness a few years back, when Wick shut off comments altogether because they weren’t much fun to read. Traffic did drop then. But the decision to moderate comments — and to do it with a fairly heavy hand, tossing remarks not only because they are vulgar but because, for instance, they don’t use upper-case letters to begin sentences — has proven to be a solid decision.
From August to October last year, FrontBurner averaged about 56,000 unique visitors per month. For the same period this year, we have averaged about 114,000 unique visitors. Now then, owing to the way Google Analytics does its job (and the way we do ours), the number from last year doesn’t account for visits made on a mobile device, which the 2011 number does. A tech genius here (Hi, Randy!) says adding 10,000 unique visitors to last year’s average would be a crazy high number. Let’s do it anyway.
Conservative estimate: traffic is up 70 percent over last year. Lesson to be learned: don’t confuse the number of comments to a post with the number of people who are reading it.
We’re humbled by your patronage.
(Not really.)
Faux Town Squares: Do ‘Suburban Lifestyle Centers’ Create an Authentic ‘Sense of Place?’
Is Southlake Town Square the exception or the rule?
Long-suffering Denton residents have heard this before. Golden Triangle Mall has new ownership. The long-troubled shopping center is going to get yet another renovation. This time the city of Denton itself had to kick in $9.5 million to make it happen.
The news reminded me of something that came up during my recent breakfast with Ray Washburne, he of the MCrowd Restaurants and owner of Highland Park Village. We mostly talked about all the changes coming to the Village, but something that didn’t make it into the published article were his comments about Denton.
MCrowd had a deal in place to put a Mi Cocina location into the Rayzor Ranch development in Denton, but with that planned mixed-use project having slowed down due to economic factors, it hasn’t happened. “It was going to be the classic suburban lifestyle center,” Washburne said. “As a college town, I think a small Mi Cocina or Taco Diner would do well up there.” Then he added:
“Denton doesn’t have a sense of place. That’s what these lifestyle centers have done — like up in Allen — is create a sense of place.”
Obviously, I disagree. (more…)
Mark Cuban Co-Hosts Entertainment Tonight
If you missed Mark Cuban’s turn at the ET anchor desk last night, here’s a taste. Anyone see the entire thing? From the looks of this show opener, he wasn’t as bad as I would have imagined.
Leading Off (11/18/11)
Shuttered. Maybe. Apparently DISD is considering closing a few schools and consolidating in a bid to make up for a $38 million shortfall. Most of the schools are elementary schools. In addition, the district’s HVAC department (because who needs that in Texas?) and custodial departments face cuts.
You Booze, You Lose. Or rather, you don’t booze, you lose. An Illinois man is suing Dallas-based Southwest Airlines for breach of contract after the airline changed its drink coupon policy. The man has evidently amassed 45 drink coupons, and under the old terms would be able to use them whenever he wanted. New terms say the coupons must be used on the day of travel.
Unsolicited Uterus Alert. WFAA Daybreak anchor Cynthia Izaguirre announced this week that not only is she pregnant, she’s pregnant with twins.
A Bunch of BCS Stuff I Will Now Post So We Can All Say We Hate the BCS. The Bowl Championship Series is considering several changes to its format, including the possibility of bowing out of arranging every bowl game that is not the championship game between No. 1 and No. 2. This could be a big deal, because also in this change would be the ability to negotiate so-called non-traditional sites like Jerryworld.
Friday! Today is Friday. Next week is just a three day work week, so that makes Monday your Wednesday and not Monday at all, by my math. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? I like this.
Local Nurse Gets Berkus’d (Or Something)
I have proudly avoided Oprah Winfrey for many, many years, so I wasn’t entirely sure who Nate Berkus was, other than he had some vague affiliation with her and he decorates stuff nicely (although, certainly, taste is subjective). But now he has a show of his own, and has taken to hiding in crates and jumping out and surprising people.
I bring this up because not long ago he did this to Julia Clarke, who is a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano. She was um, excited. A lot. To the point, in fact, that Berkus said he was a little scared. I don’t want to point fingers, here, but if someone jumped out of a crate at me, I’d probably use pepper spray (unless, like Julia, I was lead in to a room where a bunch of people were cheering and there was a camera crew and the crate said, “NATE” on it. Hello, dead giveaway) . So he’s just lucky it was Julia, and not me. IJS.
Clayton Kershaw, Highland Park Alumnus, Wins National League Cy Young Award
As was expected (though not a certainty), it was announced just now that Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw won the National League Cy Young Award for 2011. Kershaw, a Highland Park High School graduate, had taken the unofficial “pitching Triple Crown” this year, leading the league in strikeouts, earned-run average, and co-leading in wins.
His main competition for the prize was perceived to be Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies, thought of as the best pitcher on the planet the last few years. And the voting bore that out. Kershaw got 27 of the 32 first-place votes. Halladay finished second, with four first-place votes. Cliff Lee, also of the Phillies (remember him, Rangers fans?), finished third.
Our November issue featured an article written by a fellow who played against Kershaw in high school, when the southpaw’s greatness was already apparent. Read it.
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