Traveling the World...Without Leaving Richardson

This article was originally published in "Richardson Living" magazine. Read it on that website or read it here. Or read it in print. Look for it in your mail box.

Traveling the World...Without Leaving Richardson

City Hall

The town where I grew up was anything but diverse. It seemed to me like everyone was white and descended from northern European Catholics or Protestants, just like I was. There were no blacks on my street. Or anywhere else in my not-so-small city. There were no Hispanics. Or Asians. No Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus. There were no other ethnic groups in my school. Or in my church. I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, in the mid-twentieth century. I thought I was unprejudiced. In fact, I just didn't have any opportunities to test me. To me, diversity meant we had a German Catholic church and an Irish Catholic church. There was no Italian Catholic church, but there was a place to get pizza, said to be the first pizza restaurant north of Milwaukee. That was our ethnic food. You get the idea. Appleton has come a long way since I left town fifty years ago to see the world, but that's the place I came from.

POTD: Sun Voyager on a Rainy Day

From 2019 03 01 Iceland

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Reykjavik, Iceland. The sculpture on the sea front is Sun Voyager, which according to Wikipedia has been "described as a dreamboat, or an ode to the Sun. The artist intended it to convey the promise of undiscovered territory, a dream of hope, progress and freedom."

POTD: Tjörnin Swans

From 2019 03 01 Iceland

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Reykjavik, Iceland. Tjörnin is a small lake in the center of the city. The word Tjörnin in fact means lake or pond, so calling it Tjörnin Lake would be like calling it Lake Lake. According to Wikipedia, the popular pastime of feeding the swans has led to the lake being called "the biggest bread soup in the world."

Bonus photo after the jump.

Modern Love (TV 2019)

Rotten Tomatoes

Modern Love (TV 2019): Anthology. Adaptations of personal essays from NY Times. No violence. No shocks. No twist endings. Just the many forms that love takes. It does what it sets out to do very well. A welcome diversion. Lots of familiar faces. B-

POTD: Frikirkjan and Hallgrimskirkja

From 2019 03 01 Iceland

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Reykjavik, Iceland. It's a human-sized (pop. 125,000), walkable city, pleasant even in winter, on mild days, anyway. The week in late winter that we visited the temperatures were actually warmer than they were back in Dallas. We joked we had traveled to Iceland to escape the Dallas winter. With the warm Gulf Stream and global warming, Iceland just might grow more popular as a winter destination.

Bonus photos after the jump.

Autumn in Richardson

Duck Creek

It's November, and Northern Wisconsin finally makes it to North Texas.

H/T C.M.

Undone (TV 2019)

Rotten Tomatoes

Undone (TV 2019): After car accident, young woman finds she has powers over time and space. With help of her dead dad, she tries to find out who killed him. Her struggle to figure out her own life is what causes this show to succeed. Rotoscoping animation gives a unique look. B+

Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

Amazon

From Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens:

Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky. Slow-moving creeks wander, carrying the orb of the sun with them to the sea, and long-legged birds lift with unexpected grace—as though not built to fly—against the roar of a thousand snow geese."

The story of the marsh is the third major story line in this novel, the one that makes the novel soar above the love story and the murder mystery.

RISD Election: How Did It Go?

On November 5, 2019, the Richardson ISD conducted its first-ever election with single-member districts. The new voting system was specifically designed in reaction to a voting rights lawsuit that complained that RISD's at-large voting system discriminated against the minority community. In this first election, three of the five single-member districts were up for election. In each of the next two years, another single-member district, plus an at-large district, will be up for election. At the end of three years, all of the new districts will have been elected under the new system. Now that the first election is behind us, let's ask how it worked.

POTD: Heads-Up! Puffin.

From 2019 03 01 Iceland

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Kevflavik Airport in Reykjavik, Iceland. That's a puffin poking down from the ceiling in the baggage claim area in way of greeting arriving passengers. Iceland's puffin population is estimated at 10 million birds. The human population in the whole country is only about 340,000, so it's natural that puffins get a lot of attention. Admission: we didn't see any puffins. The best time to see puffins in Iceland is the summer. We were there in winter to see the Northern Lights. More on that to come.