http://youtu.be/UCBEA4aI0eU Got a chance to crawl around inside the type of bomber my grandfather flew, a B-24 Liberator, today as several Collings Foundation aircraft visited our town. America's most-produced plane of World War II, these heavy bombers typically dropped 5,000-pound loads of explosives deep behind enemy lines across Europe and in every theater. B-24s were... Continue Reading →
A year kicked off with loved ones in Fort Worth is a year that's gonna go well. I grew up near here, love the city and was tickled to hear the Metroplex referred to on the radio as "FW-D." Sundance Square decked out for the holidays. It was barely above freezing, so nobody's loitering in... Continue Reading →
Marfa's Hotel Paisano famously housed the stars of "Giant" during filming in 1955, and you can, if you like, throw rooftop terrace parties in the Rock Hudson Suite; the Elizabeth Taylor Suite has a kitchen and sitting room. Up-and-coming actor James Dean got a single room with its own bath, not a given in hotels... Continue Reading →
Got lucky with the light out at my folks' place the other evening.
Back in 2007, Michael Winterbottom filmed parts of a movie in and around Austin. The film was "A Mighty Heart," in which Angelina Jolie plays the wife of kidnapped journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Austin American-Statesman co-stars as a Wall Street Journal bureau. Us Statesfolk were reminiscing about this last week, and I thought y'all... Continue Reading →
Update, November 2017: Todd has made several more of these signs (they're now priced at $8,500 apiece, dammit), and one has popped up in my new hometown! The Stella Hotel in Bryan opened in April 2017, and up on the wall in its Campfire restaurant blinks one of the pretty "Fireflies" signs that I love... Continue Reading →
My illustration for Memorial Day is a cross-stitch done, we are 90% sure, by my grandmother (known to me as "Mamma"). We know she did needlework, and I've seen other items she stitched on linen. This seems to me like it's a kit or at least a pattern, and it resembles a kit from Bucilla,... Continue Reading →
Out here visiting my folks, and we got to playing with Dad's USB digital microscope. Here's what the numbers on a 10K Aggie ring really look like after seventeen years of daily wear... (I got it when I was a junior, whooooop): Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 1994!
The earliest known photo of Mark Twain shows the young printer's apprentice Samuel Clemens, right around his 15th birthday, holding printer's letters that spell his name, "SAM."
