Tag Archives: Dallas-Fort Worth

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Adaptability comes in handy

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I have written before about how adaptable I discovered I could be … such as when we moved from Oregon to Texas in early 1984, exposing all of us to a form of culture shock none of us really anticipated.

My adaptability continues to present itself as we have moved from place to place since settling in Texas. We now live in Collin County. I have just taken a temporary part-time job that takes me into downtown Dallas a couple times each week.

I discovered this morning something more about myself. I am actually getting kinda/sorta used to the rush-hour traffic I endure on the drive from Princeton into the Big D.

There’s really only one route I dare take: U.S. Highway 75, aka the Central Expressway. It’s a mess in the morning and in the early evening.

Understand this about the Metroplex: It is home to more than 7 million folks; it contains thousands of miles of multi-lane highway that take motor vehicle traffic in every direction imaginable. However, U.S. 75 is a major artery that requires many thousands of us to drive on it north-south into downtown Dallas.

I get slowed down frequently on my morning commute. Sometimes I am forced to stop. I used to grumble out loud when I saw the brake lights flash ahead of me; I no longer grumble, because it’s part of the task of getting to work.

It’s the adaptability, man! I am learning to just go with the flow. If I am late, I’m late. Ain’t nothin’ I can do about it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Happy Trails, Part 117: Technology comes in handy

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Now that I am a 21st-century man — more or less — I can report that we are relying on state-of-the-art navigational technology to help us get from place to place in our new community.

We live in Fairview, Texas — which is tucked between Allen and McKinney in Collin County. We live about 20-something miles north of Dallas.

Oh, but more importantly, it takes us about 12 minutes to drive to where our granddaughter lives.

We have some technological devices are our disposal to help us stumble and bumble our way around. They all work pretty well.

We have Google apps on our cell phones. The smart phones are pretty damn smart, if you know what I mean — and I know that you do. Hey, we don’t even have to provide a physical address to these devices; we just type in the place where we’re wanting to go and the phone gives us detailed directions.

Then we have the GPS system in our 3/4-ton pickup we have named Big Jake. That system works quite well … as long as the route we intend to travel is an established one that’s been there a while. The Metroplex is full of newly built highways, tollways, turnpikes and parkways. Big Jake’s guidance system, therefore, is a bit of a crap shoot.

And then … we have the Garmin GPS we store in our Prius. Same problem with the Garmin as with the truck’s built-in GPS system.

The bottom line? We’re going to rely primarily on our phones’ guidance systems until we feel comfortable enough getting around without any telecommunications assistance.

It’s going to be some time before that occurs. The Metroplex is hu–u-u-u-ge, sprawling urban center. Dallas/Fort Worth comprises about 7.5 million residents living in the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. You get my drift, right?

But we’ll find our way. Meantime, a prayer or two would be much appreciated.

One more thing. We had no trouble learning the way to and from our granddaughter’s house.

International news, medical news, State news

Ebola case testing my composure

Allow me this admission: News that a man got off a plane and is in Dallas, Texas, suffering from the Ebola virus is testing my resistance to panic.

Why? I have family immediate family members in the Dallas area.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/04/health/ebola-us/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

I keep hearing stories of how people are getting exposed to this deadly virus. I know that exposure relies on contact with “bodily fluids” and all that. Still, people are getting infected in other ways, or so it seems.

I will continue to keep the faith my family members will stay far away from wherever this individual is being quarantined. They’ll go about their day as they usually do. They’ll work, study, perform household duties, tend to their children, do the things they do normally.

However, the deadly news out of West Africa has found its way to the United States — and to the very part of the country where our loved ones are living.

I won’t panic. I won’t worry myself sick over this news. I’ll continue to put a measure of faith in the medical professionals’ knowledge of how to deal with this disease and how to keep it contained to the individual who flew here from Liberia as he was infected with the often-fatal virus.

But damn! If I spend too much time thinking about Ebola, it’s hard to keep my composure.

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Another retirement milestone reached

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This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

I love it when decisions make our paths a little clearer.

My wife and I made another key retirement decision the other day. It’s a tentative one, but we made it nonetheless.

I am reluctant to divulge the details of the decision, because circumstances might force us to change our plans. The decision involves when we plan to sell our home in Amarillo and move southeast, to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

Why there? I believe I’ve mentioned our granddaughter, her two big brothers, our son and daughter-in-law, correct? Well, there you have it. They live there. We want to be nearby.

OK, why not spill the beans? I don’t want to go on record — just yet — on our intentions. Plans have a way of changing suddenly, depending on a lot of matters relating to health and finances — or a combination of both. We intend to inform certain family members of our plans upon request.

We’ve already decided when I’ll start drawing Social Security retirement. My wife already is drawing her Social Security income. I’m going to soon begin receiving a monthly pension from a newspaper company where I worked for nearly 11 years before coming to Amarillo. I’ve got these two part-time jobs, one of which I’ll be able to continue doing after we make our move.

The stars are lining up pretty well for us — at this time.

We’ve learned, though, never to take life for granted. Unforeseen things happen. Neither of us is clairvoyant, so we cannot know what the future — immediate or longer term — holds for us.

Suffice to say that if certain things remain stable, if we maintain our excellent health, if se are able to sell our home in a reasonable amount of time — and at a reasonable price — then we’re out of here.

Our baby granddaughter already is growing up too quickly.

Knowing, though, that another key decision is now — more or less — out of the way, we’re looking ever more happily toward the future.

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Austin soon may not be so ‘weird’ after all

Well now. It turns out Austin — the Texas capital city and the home of some of the best music anywhere — is grappling with ways to maintain its self-proclaimed weirdness.

Motor vehicles, lots and lots of them, are rattling Austinites’ sense of uniqueness.

NPR broadcast a story today detailing how Austin’s population is continuing to skyrocket and how all those people are arriving in Central Texas aboard all those vehicles, be they SUVs, pickups, sedans, Jeeps, whatever. They’re clogging the city’s streets. They’re making Austin like, well, every other big city in America that apparently has done a good enough job in planning for future growth.

http://www.npr.org/2013/12/17/248757580/even-an-85-mph-highway-cant-fix-austins-traffic-tangle

My favorite part of the story was when it told how the Texas Department of Transportation built a toll highway east of the city that is intended to divert traffic away from Austin.

Here’s the problem: TxDOT put an 85-mph speed limit on Texas 130, which I’m guessing has scared a lot of motorists away from the highway. The NPR reporter noted that Austin traffic is still gridlocked but Texas 130 is virtually empty.

How is the city going to deal with this problem, which only is scheduled to get worse in the years ahead? The city’s current population of about 850,000 residents is projected to double in the next two decades. One set of ideas being kicked around is to make Interstate 35 a toll road, take the toll feature off of Texas 130 (and perhaps slow it down a bit, say, to around 80?) and build some light-rail lines through the city to lure people out of their cars.

Good luck with that, Austin.

NPR took particular note of an ironic twist. It said Dallas — long thought to be a bastion of conservative political thought — has built the nation’s largest light-rail transit system while Austin, arguably the last liberal holdout in all of Texas, has done nothing to promote rail transportation.

And Austin remains the largest city in America with just a single interstate highway running through. I-35 has long been thought of as a virtual demolition derby between Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio.

Traffic is going to be a great inhibitor to future growth in Austin. That’s the message I got from NPR’s thorough report this morning.

But hey, there’s always the music.