OTBR: Great Australian Bight

Latitude: S 32° 27.450
Longitude: E 123° 56.328

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

Tunnel of Love in All the Wrong Places

As reported by Steve Brown of The Dallas Morning News, the area around Dallas Love Field is about to boom. Reconstruction of the terminal is nearly complete. Southwest Airlines is adding non-stop flights to destinations all over the country. Developers have plans for new offices, apartments, hotels and retail. So, what is the City of Dallas considering in reaction to all the traffic that's expected? Build a tunnel. Like one in Richardson.

The details after the jump.

Autumn in the Arboretum (2014)

From 2014 10 30 Autumn at the Arboretum

More photos after the jump.

Repeat Tweets: Silver Screen Slayer

Repeat tweets from October, 2014:

• Oct 1 2014: Silver Screen Slayer at PST: Silly parody of '30s private eye, Nazi spy movies. Jokes about Hollywood Jews and gays not as funny as rest. C+
  
• Oct 1 2014: Wonder if any Dallasite who argued it was *insane* to allow flights from West Africa to US is now arguing to shut down DFW airport. #Ebola
  
• Oct 2 2014: Headline in Sydney Morning Herald: "Caltech: the university ranked higher than Harvard, Oxford and Standford." Double ouch for Stanford.
  
• Oct 2 2014: J. Fred Bucy, Jr. resigned from Intrusion's Board of Directors. A name from the past -- forced out of TI in 1985. prnewswire.com
  
• Oct 3 2014: The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, by Bob Shacochis: Murder mystery, war novel, mostly a psychological study. Long, complicated, messy. B-
  
• Oct 3 2014: Jacquielynn Floyd: "In Liberia mistrust of authority and misinformation allowed Ebola to rage out of control." Glad we don't have that here.
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Saying Goodbye to Stefani Carter

Tuesday, Linda Koop won election to the Texas House District 102 seat currently held by Stefani Carter. Koop defeated Carter in the GOP primary. Before the vote Tuesday, Carter made one last pitch to the voters -- not for Koop but for Greg Abbott, GOP candidate for governor. Carter wrote an opinion piece for the Texas Tribune making a case why minorities should support Abbott. Mostly it was standard GOP boilerplate (e.g., twisting opposition to public education into support: "providing quality public education"). Nothing about Carter in that part of the opinion piece. It was the rest that reminds voters what they don't like about Stefani Carter.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others

• Young Women's Christian Association: For years, the YWCA operated a recreation center at Collins Blvd and Plano Rd in Richardson. I don't remember the neighborhood having any beef with that. The YWCA shut down and sold the property a number of years ago.
• Town North Presbyterian Church: For years, TNPC has operated a church on Plano Rd north of Collins Blvd. This August, a zoning change was requested and granted to allow TNPC to sell part of their church property to someone who plans to construct an assisted living center on it. Again, no beef from the neighborhood. No one spoke against allowing this residential addition to the neighborhood.

After the jump, the third thing.

Highland Park 55, Berkner 10

From 2014 10 31 Highland Park vs Berkner

Berkner's season continued its nightmarish ways on Halloween night, as the Rams lost to Highland Park 55-10. Berkner had a strong start and led 10-6 after one quarter, but it was all Highland Park from then on.

Fans who attended the game were rewarded with seeing one of the top bands in the state perform their last halftime show before their big events in San Antonio. The second half was eerily quiet as Berkner's Mighty Ram band left the stadium to drive overnight to San Antonio, where they compete in a Bands of America Super-Regional on Saturday and in the State marching band competition on Tuesday.

More photos after the jump.