Welcoming The Morning News to the blog
It’s good to see that Kent Fischer, who covers the RISD for Dallas’ Only Newspaper, feels comfortable enough with our blog efforts to use it to recruit readers for a new News project. He posted a comment on our Preston Hollow blog (it’s the eighth one) about the paper’s plans to launch an education blog.
Of course, this raises questions of why The News has to recruit readers for its projects by using our blog, but who are we to question the omniscience of the people in the Belo building? Though, if this works out for Kent and they get some readers, can we suggest an ad in the Advocate the next time The News needs to market one of its products?
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Self Portraits on display at White Rock Coffee
Even the rain late yesterday afternoon couldn’t stop Lake Highlands Elementary teachers, parents and students from attending the current LHE/WRC Student Art Opening at White Rock Coffee. The installation, entitled ‘Self Portraits’, is the work of the LHE 3rd graders and will be on display until the end of January. The next installation, scheduled to open February 5th, will be a partner show just in time for Valentine’s Day. The LHE 4th and 5th graders will have their hearts on display, both two and three dimensional hearts that is.
The LHE/WRC Student Art Openings have become a popular activity in the community and with good reason: The students love to see their work on display, their parents love to see their work on display, the kids get a feel for what a gallery opening is like, the community enjoys looking at art while drinking their coffee, and the team of LHE/WRC is a marvelous example of a longstanding community partnership. White Rock Coffee is located at 10105 E. NW Hwy.
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Zoning action on senior living complex
A news flash, courtesy of the LHAIA and Robin Norcross: "The Dallas City Council voted unanimously this afternoon to revise the zoning of the former Northwest Terrace Apartments to allow Churchill Residential to move forward with their plans to redevelop the site as a senior living center. Thanks to the efforts of the ‘L’ Streets, Highland Meadows and Lake Ridge Estates HOA’s and Crime Watch 1077, the Council responded to the neighboring homeowners’ overwhelming desire to deny the Planning and Zoning’s recommendation which had been to leave the current zoning in place."
The apartment complex in question is located just east of the Ebby Halliday office on Northwest Highway near Ferndale, and it has been vacant and fenced off for quite a few months now. The initial concern of neighbors wasn’t so much with the senior living aspect of the project, as I understand it, but with the developer’s implicit threat to reopen the apartment complex if the zoning he was requesting wasn’t approved. No word on the timetable, etc., but we’ll keep you posted.
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Another perspective on home prices
Next month, I’m going to take a look at home prices in East Dallas, Lakewood and Lake Highlands. My goal? To see if I can find some numbers that make sense, given the wildly contradictory figures that keep getting tossed around. The latest came yesterday with the announcement that purchases of pre-owned homes dropped by 16 percent in North Texas in November.
That’s a pretty big number to swallow. But does it mean we’re about to go into a California- or Florida-style dumper?
I should have the answer to post on the blog in a couple of weeks.
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A Menu for Hope — charity virtual auction
One of our Lake Highlands residents, Alfonso Cevola, contacted me this morning about a very worthy cause he is involved with — the Menu for Hope. As Alfonso puts it, it is a "grassroots charity event for wine and food bloggers, started by Pim ( of the Chez Pim Blog) in response to the horrible Tsunamis of 2004."
Via his excellent site, On the Wine Trail in Italy, Alfonso (aka The Italian Wine Guy) has more details on how you can particpate in this virtual auction to help those less fortunate. Keep in mind that 100% of the donations go directly to the people in need.
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LH student writes about her pregnancy
The current issue of "Fang," the student newspaper at Lake Highlands High School, has a fascinating article entitled "But I can’t be pregnant!" by LHHS student Alex Osorio. In it, Alex writes openly about her experiences discovering her pregnancy, telling her father, dealing with fear, experiencing the pain of childbirth, and raising a baby. At several points along her journey, she says "all I could do is cry."
Alex doesn’t glamorize her situation. She describes vomiting from morning sickness and feeling ashamed to tell family and friends. She recounts the long hours of childbirth and the "outrageous amounts of pain" she faced. She talks about going home with the baby and realizing the nurses weren’t there to help her anymore. She describes trading senior parties for dirty diapers. Her basic message is this – "Sex isn’t a game," and pregnancy was the "hardest obstacle" she’ll ever face. A cautionary tale by a person who’s living it. I wonder if the kids will listen. Copies of "Fang" are available at Highlands Cafe.
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Want to chip in $100 million in city money for a convention center hotel?
Buried in a sidebar near the end of a lengthy and mostly interesting story in the DMN about how downtown residential redevelopment is coming along is a comment about the need for a hotel adjacent to the downtown convention center. Note the phrase "would probably require heavy public subsidy." What does "heavy public subsidy" mean to you for a hotel that everyone seems convinced can’t be built on its own economic merits but still is needed to attract major conventions to the city? $10 million? $20 million? Maybe even $30 million? Well, how does $100 million hit you as our public subsidy for the hotel? Must be a pretty nice one, huh? That’s not an official number, but keep your eye on this deal. Yes, we could use a hotel connected to the convention center. How much in city money should be spent on a project that apparently won’t stand on its own for a private developer?
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More on The Morning News
When executives at Belo, the parent company of Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper, announced the executives who will run the company after its spinoff next year, a couple of names were missing: current editor Robert Mong and current managing editor George Rodrigue (Jim Schutze’s favorite News employee).
The Belo-ologists among us have pondered this development for a week. We have sent emails, pored over tea leaves, poked at chicken entrails and otherwise tried to figure out what this means. All of the people named are business types; none of them have anything to do with the editorial operation. This does not seem to bode well for the news side of the business.
And this is what we came up with:
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It’s a hard knock life with “Annie”
Last night was opening night for the Lake Highlands High School musical "Annie," and it was a performance you really shouldn’t miss. The Thursday night crowd was light (most folks had their popcorn ready to watch the Cowboys), but those who attended were wow-ed by show-stopper numbers like "It’s a Hard Knock Life" and "The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow." You can purchase tickets for performances Friday and Saturday nights via www.lhhstheatre.org. Every student participating did a fabulous job, but I admit to having a few favorites. Susan Harris as Annie was spectacular. She reminded me of Tom Hanks in the movie "Big" — you really believed he was a kid in a man’s body, and you’ll really believe Susan is Little Orphan Annie. I also enjoyed Chase Bekharian’s transformation from grumpy aide of President Roosevelt to heel-clicking optimist.Little Jenna Mellinger steals the show as she mimics mean Mrs. Hannigan, played by the always fabulous Claire Daniels. And Samantha Grinsfelder as the mean orphan is hilarious. Don’t miss sophomore Martin White as the cheesy radio personality Bert Healy, and you’ll crack up at Elaine Walker as his sidekick with the funny voice. Cameron Alspaw, Molly York, and Justin Chumbley give incredible performances, but we’ve seen them shine in starring roles before. If you’ve never been to an LHHS musical, prepare for a Broadway-calibur evening.
After the show, I met a guy in the audience who brought his wife, baby, and young daughter to the performance. I asked him if he was affiliated with the show, and he said no, he was just a neighborhood guy and Exchange Club member who heard about it and wanted to check it out. What a great thing for our community to have events like these to bring us all together.
(Thanks to neighbor Ellen Sabin for providing pics from the dress rehearsal!)
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