Tuesday Morning Haiku

Rain and wet weather
Dominated the weekend
Still relaxing time

"Once" (again)

I went to see the movie "Once" on Friday night after I had written my previous blog entry. You can listen to the whole movie soundtrack at the Fox Searchlight website and I highly recommend it. The music really is touching and beautiful.

I really enjoyed this little film. It's not really a musical but there is a lot of emotion conveyed between the boy and girl in the music that they play separately and together. Whether you are a musician or an avid listener, I believe that the music in this movie will remind you of the magic and force that it is capable of and probably what made you fall in love with music in the first place.

I certainly enjoyed all the musical aspects of this movie from the beat up guitar with the hole in it to the fascinating weekend in the low-budget studio. But what really won me over is the quirky charm of the leads and the positive reminder that there is great power in the human spirit.

"Once"

I'm so excited! I didn't think that this movie would hit the metroplex for another month or so but it's opening in Dallas (at the Angelika) today! "Once" is a movie that has gotten more positive reviews than anything in recent memory. It is about two amateur musicians in Europe (one a street busker and one a clerk). From the previews it sort of looks like a "Before Sunrise" (one of my favorite all-time movies) set to music. I heard one reviews describe this movie as one that NOBODY can escape untouched by this film....

Go see it! I'll report back after I have seen it.

Monday Morning Haiku

Thirty friends - one night
Catered food - drinks on command
Susan went all out

More On Texas Skiing

Above is a pic (click on it for a larger view) of the Bearfire Resort coming to Fort Worth in 2008 (maybe). Here is an article about it. Highlights include:

• Will rank among the world's largest buildings
  
• Scheduled to be built in 2008 in North Fort Worth
  
• First use of this technology in North America
  
• Biggest use of this Snowflex technology
  
• 650,000 square feet of skiing
  
• Includes spa, hotel, convention center, retail, half-pipes, toboggan runs, snow tubing, concert venue, rock climbing, dining...
  

They are still looking for investment partners so I don't think this is a done deal yet. I can't wait! Skiing 365 days a year? Excellent!

Skiing In Fort Worth!

A ski slope and village could be coming to North Fort Worth! Well... maybe... Check out this video to see some of the technology and a virtual look...

Monday Morning Haiku

Bronx - off to good start
Taste of Addison - long lines
Fondue - too much work

Dallas Civic Pride

"Old Red" - the old red Dallas County courthouse (1890) is reopening tomorrow as a museum for the City of Dallas. There will be a dedication ceremony at lunchtime. This has really been an amazing restoration project as detailed in the Dallas Morning News today. (Be sure to check out the interactive feature as well)

I wanted to comment on two things. One is that the city of Dallas really didn't have a museum about Dallas' history until now. Given the size and relative importance of Dallas, this is surprising. There are many small towns around Texas that I have visited that have historical museums of their cities.

I suppose that I should admit that living here for almost 20 years, I have never really felt a real focus on civic history. One example of that is seen in the relative lack of Victoria-era buildings - many torn down in the mid 20th century to make way for more modern buildings and housing. Another way that this lack of history is manifested to me is the focus of the JFK Sixth Floor museum as the focal point of Dallas history up to now. That event occurred only 44 years ago and represents a dark spot in this area's history - not a point of pride.

The second thing I wanted to mention is the attention to detail in the restoration work. And amazingly, they didn't have a lot of pictures or records to go on to do this work. The architects and reconstructors had to do a lot of "backwards engineering" to figure out many of the original details such as inside paint schemes and colors, presence of balconies and details of the missing tower. A new bell tower modeled after the one taken down in 1919 will be complete next month!

Wow! I'm excited. The picture above represents the "before". Sometime in the next two months I will post an "after" picture of Old Red.

If you live in the Dallas area, go downtown and show Old Red some love and learn a little something about your city.

Ugly Betty

I found this exerpt from David Spade's "The Showbiz Show" on Ugly Betty really funny! (Don't worry if you've never seen the show - I haven't)

Tuesday Haiku

Lightning and thunder
Hard rain outside my bedroom
Hard to get to sleep

The Singles Map

Click on the above for a larger view in a new window. Go ahead - take a look and come back.

This map is from the February 2007 issue of National Geographic Magazine and shows the level of imbalances between the sexes of single people through the country.

The two quick observations are that the west coast and the southwest have more single men than single women and the midwest, northeast and southeast have more single women than single men.

Note that the size of the circles is not all that useful since the measurement is in the absolute. (for example, a 10,000 person disparity in New York City really represents a much different description than a 10,000 person disparity in Atlanta - yet the circles are the same size). As a result, the dot size is more of a function of the metropolitan area size than any demographic insight into single people. I'm surprised that National Geographic didn't use a more interesting parameter for circle size like percentage of population. Tsk tsk...

A blog called Creative Class has solicited a number of comments from various people giving reasons for these results. I'll try to summarize the more frequent "reasons" given here. (just reporting, not agreeing!)

• More tech jobs in the west and southwest and there are more men in technology
  
• More immigrant workers in the west and the southwest. These often are single males supporting their families in Mexico
  
• A lot of military in the west and southwest
  
• More creative industry in the east cost that draw women (like fashion, publishing, design, advertising, etc.)
  
• Men are more apt to travel to find their fortune, women are more likely to stay near family. California holds more of a "gold rush" like mentality for some of these men - promises of riches, warm weather, beach babes, ...
  
• Women living longer than men could explain some of the disparity in the older northern cities where the young have left for jobs nearer growth in the south
  
• Cities with high concentrations of African Americans like New Orleans, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, East St. Louis, DC, Baltimore, etc... may have more women because of more single mothers and absent fathers
  

My hunch is the first two reasons (high tech concentrations and immigrant dynamics) above may be closest. Any other ideas out there?

Monday Morning Haiku

In the spirit of this post in D Magazine's blog FrontBurner, I have written a Monday morning haiku:

Shrewdly, Kate was tamed
Violins of Tchaikovsky
Fan of hot beignets