Ducky Visitors

First, let me tell you about the photo situation - Flickr has installed a new feature that allows for people to "tag" people in their photos. This new feature has destroyed the ability to upload photos the way I am used to uploading them. So, today, I am trying a new way. I think what is going to happen - because I cannot see it first - is that the photos are going to be so large they will bleed off the page or they won't be there, or there will be an HTML error or something. If any of this happens, I will check it out and fix it in the future...bear with me as I try to work around Flickr's very not useful new feature. Here's hopin' there's a post below with photos!

So, when I showed you the location of the ducks at the fair, I asked you, if you were willing, and you were going to the fair, to please take a photo with the ducks.

Me, taken by my mother-I had to post it because of the look on my face.
Priceless.

Here's the exciting part - SOME OF YOU DID TAKE PHOTOS!!! Woooo-hoooo! So, today's post is a telling of those who visited the ducks and sent me a photo to tell about it.

First, I should say, I received quite a few like this - a photo of the photo - no people.

OK, thanks, good to know you saw it. I appreciate that very much! But, it was not exactly what I was hoping for. I'll give you an E for effort. Good job!

So here we go - of course, I have the photos of the family - those in town and those who came to visit:

S, in his smokin' shades.

I actually took a few photos of S without the shades, but in every single one, he looks very tired, ticked off or bored. He was probably all three. So, shades it is!

The In-Laws, Sam and Cheryl


My sister-in-law Kim


S's brother Mark, his daughter Alexandra and his wife Kim


S's other brother Michael (R), sister-in-law Brooke(L) and Andrew(M)


Dad and Torchy




My proud Mama

Then, there are the sweet friends who stopped by for a look see:

My friend Deborah


Our friends Katrina and Dan and their three boys.
I especially like the enthusiasm shown by the one in the hat!

Here's a small world story for you - Katrina is from Dallas. We all go to the same church, I guess you could say, but we haven't been in a while. We'll not define the "while" part. Anyhoo...Katrina met this guy named Dan and got engaged right around the time we met her. When I saw Dan at church, I thought he looked familiar, but I just thought he probably went to SMU or something.

Then, I heard someone say Dan was from Indiana. What a stinkin' minute, my brain said - wait a sec - no, it couldn't be, could it? I went home and searched high and low for the box that contained my high school year books. Yep - it was true - Dan and I went to the same high school in Indiana. The same one! He graduated a year before me, and we weren't really "friends" but we certainly were involved in a couple of the same clubs and knew some of the same people. So there you go - small world. Very small world.

Our friends JoNell and Jody.
(And Katrina's parents!)


My friend Tricia.

Of course, when we were at the fair for our team building day, I snapped a photo of my dear co-workers:

Karen, Mark and Melissa

Big news for Miss Melissa, up there on the right. On Wednesday, she went and got herself engaged! Congratulations to her and her beau, Zach. It was so cute - Zach came over to our offices to surprise her and give her the ring. She WAS surprised. In addition to the ring, he brought champagne (approved in advance by HR for this special occasion) and roses, and Karen brought cake. We all took a little sip of the champagne for a toast and all commented that it was a nice bottle. Zach then said, "Yeah, I didn't think today was the day to go for the $10 bottle of champagne." Good call, Zach, my man, good call.

OK - back to the photos - here are the photos that fit in their own category - first up, the people I don't know. My mother-in-law Cheryl works at a church. The youth pastor at said church was headed to the fair one day with some kids, and she mentioned her daughter-in-law won a blue ribbon at the fair and was trying to get people to take their picture next to it...so they took a photo:

Yeah, I have never seen these kids before...I don't know their names. Cheryl doesn't know who they are either...but there they are, hamming it up with the photo. So God bless them.

Then, there is the "art critic" category - Tricia's husband and our friend Wayne, took a critical approach to checking out the photo - sort of like a fine piece of art:

Very nice, Wayne.

Then there is the "props" category. My friend Melanie - you remember, the one who had the Gone With the Wind party last fall - brought props to the fair for her photo. I'm starting to see a trend with her, I think...hmmm...

Very clever, Miss Melly!
I love it!

But, this one - this one might be the most creative of them all - my friend Jessica, from Pittsburgh, sent me the following message:

So...I made it out to the TX state fair over the lunch hour. As requested, I found your photo and took a picture next to it. Don't know why your photo turned out so small. I guess my head is just really big.

I know the background doesn't look much like it did when you were there over the weekend. The TX State Fair people told me that they were "moving some stuff around"- hence all the white space.

The deep fried butter was good.
_______________________________________
Jessica

And, attached to that message was this photo:

I love ya, Jess.

Whoo-wee did I laugh at that one! Had me laughing for days, actually. I love that she left the pushpin in the wall above the photo, too. Classic. Great work, my friend. You're a hoot.

So, there you go. Thank you dear friends and family for playing along with my little assignment. I had GREAT fun opening your photos. I really did - I would just ooh and ahh and laugh with great delight whenever they arrived. It was a real treat!

And thanks to my mom and dad and Torchy for coming down to see it in person. That was so very kind of you. We enjoyed having you here.

Best wishes for the weekend! See you Monday!

Scenes from A Fair?

So today's post is supposed to be "Scenes from a Fair" - the highlights of the photos I took at the fair this year. But, for some reason, Flickr is not allowing me to copy the location of any photos this morning. I tried restarting, different browsers, throwing things at the computer. And not one thing worked. I have never had this happen before. It is very frustrating. Emphasis on very. And frustrating.

So, I have no way to post the photos here except directly, but because they are large files it would take well into lunchtime to do it. So, I guess you could go back and see this post and this post about this year's fair. When I figure out what the deal is, I will of course once again post photos to the blog!!! Grrrr.... So, I thought I'd give you a little update on what's up around here.

S's dad is still in hospital. He will probably be there for a little while longer - he is now in the "wound care" area. He's doing great - it's just that they want him to be there while they administer IV antibiotics to guard against his infection returning. He is not happy about this development. He'd rather be convalescing at home. But, he also wants to do what is best, and this is what his very skilled physician says is best. So, he's still in hospital!

S's cousin Mary is not doing well. She has been battling some health issues and they now don't give her very long to live. She was on the trip to Sicily with S's extended family, and is truly one of the sweetest people. Very thoughful, soft spoken and lovely. She is a cellist, and an avid classical music lover, and I enjoyed talking "shop" with her. I hope she is resting comfortably and her immediate family can find some comfort in that.

S has had several very stressful weeks at work. I hope things ease up soon. I have been very busy at work, too. But, 'tis the season. We have done nothing besides sleep, work, eat, repeat this week! We are thankful for our jobs, though, and the fact we get to go to work and do them. We are very thankful for that.

Oh - this is big news - my Unk (my mom's brother, my uncle, who we call Unk) has challenged me to a 6 month weight loss challenge with a "big money" payoff for biggest % lost. It starts November 1 and goes through April 30. GAME ON.

I hope to start photographing some cooking for the "In YOUR Kitchen" segments for the blog this weekend. That'll be fun. Can't wait to do that.

So, I hope to see you later this evening or tomorrow with a post that actually has photos in it - it'll definitely put a cramp in my style if I can't get over this glitch. Best wishes for your Thursday. See ya later!

Thank you, Mr. Winspear

Bill Winspear and his wife Margot together donated $42 million to the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, now the new AT&T Performing Arts Center, to build a world class opera house in Dallas, TX. Because Mr. Winspear was an avid opera lover. An arts patron of the highest order.

The east lobby on the main level.

Looking up from the main lobby.

And, because of Mr. Winspear's gift and the gifts of many, many others, and the hard work of lots of people with specialized knowledge about how to build such a thing, the Winspear Opera House opened in the Dallas Arts District last week. And it is a gem. A wonderful place in so many ways.


S and I went to the opening night gala at the opera house. The grainy, low light photos in this post were taken that night with the purse camera.

Bathrooms aren't all that. They work.
I guess that's a good thing. Yes, that's me.

Cool signs that light up.

That's S, checking out the space.

Rather spacious pit.

View from the pit railing.

What the balcony sides are made of.

Opening number with Dallas Opera Chorus

We heard wonderful operatic voices perform in a space that is acoustically designed for that sort of thing. We saw world class dancers. We felt engaged in what was happening on stage, because the space, even though it seats 2200 people, feels intimate. We saw a venue that is high tech and 21st century in so many ways. It was thrilling to sit there and experience the space.

Our seats were in the center orchestra terrace. It gave us a great view of the festivities. The thing is, the space, even at the back, as I said before, feels very intimate. As if you are right there, near the action. If you're familiar with the Meyerson, where we were sitting in the orchestra terrace in the second row, it felt as if we were in something like row O or P at the Meyerson. It's that close-in. It's really that tight. That said, it doesn't feel cramped or too close or anything like that. The seats are spacious and comfortable, actually.




It is amazing to think that building sits right next to the acoustically wonderful Meyerson Symphony Center. And it is just dog-gone exciting that those two halls sit right next to one another in my fair city, Dallas, TX.


There are tons of reviews of the space - I have read a few, and you can too if you google it. Or check the AT&T PAC website. Or the local papers. Or the New York Times. I cannot live up to those standards. I can only tell you what we saw and felt while we were there. The Winspear was designed by Foster & Partners and the Wyly was designed under the auspices of Rem Koolhaas' firm OMA. So, these buildings very aptly join the ranks of architecturally significant dwellings for the arts in Dallas - between an I.M. Pei and a Brad Cloepfil. And near a Renzo Piano and an art museum designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes.




And I am sad Mr. Winspear is not here to see it himself. What a thrill that would have been for him. He, after giving the money to the Center, was diagnosed with cancer and died before it was to be opened. But, we are now the recipients of his generosity. All of the citizens of Dallas are the recipients of his vision and generosity.



The center of the audience chamber has a chandelier of light tubes that hangs down into the space, but draws itself into a "starry night" on the ceiling, or disappears altogether for the performance. I took a little video of this action the other night...but I forgot that videos shot in portrait mode turn out sideways. So, you'll have to imagine it right side up, going into the ceiling above, or turn your head to watch. Sorry about that. The video is only about 3o seconds of the transformation - it generally takes around 1.5 minutes, I'm estimating.

On Sunday, we returned to the Arts District for the open house for the city on that date. There were something like 45,000 people there. The weather was amazing and everyone came out for a look see. On that day, I took more photos and ventured up to the "cheap seats", which were just as perfect as sitting down below. There is not a bad seat in the whole place as far as I can tell.

It was so exciting to see the arts district so alive!

Look - there's S - in the navy shirt with the camera backpack.
He didn't go in with us.

One of two dining spaces.

The Winspear, along with the Wyly Theater I talked about last week and some outdoor spaces, make up the new Center, the newest additions to the Dallas Arts District. I'm thrilled they are now open and so thrilled for our city. I can't wait to hear and see memorable performances in these spaces alongside my fellow Dallasites. It will be a wonderful thing.



So, thank you Mr. Winspear and the throngs of other deep pockets that gave this gift to this city. Thank you for having the vision to make it a reality. We are very lucky you did!


I have a few more photos I can share on another day, but that's enough for now, no? Yes. It is. See you tomorrow.