I didn't die last night

Took the blue line to Cedars station (on the south side of downtown) last night to a bar. I was the only white dude on the train. As it went past the convention center, I started remembering the time Mark got his car towed. To south Dallas. And we picked it up at 10:30pm. Which is another story entirely.

But really, the train took me a block and a half from where I was going and there was a giant police station headquarters between the station and the bar. I would have been pissed if I got murdered along the way...dead but pissed.

Chick tried to walk in stupid...omg i'm a dick

So I had taken my seat on the Red Line at St. Paul and started staring out the window when I saw some chick walking along the platform in complicated heels. She wasn't doing too hot and it seemed like she was hobbling. The Nispy demo "Chick tried to walk in stupid shoes" came to mind. And then I realized that she was hobbling because one of her legs was slightly gimped.

I'm such a dick.

Dart's pre-canned apology

Thank you for your e-mail to Dallas Area Rapid Transit.

Rest assured this is not the quality of service DART intends to deliver. A copy of your e-mail will be forwarded to our Transportation staff in order to have the operator identified, counseled and reprimanded. Additionally supervisors will be alerted and assigned to monitor for on-time performance.

Again, please accept our most sincere apologies for any inconvenience experienced. We hope that you will continue to allow us the opportunity to serve your transportation needs.

Sincerely

DART Customer Care

No 8:12 train this morning

Got screwed by DART today.

Every day to work, I take the red line from St. Paul to Arapaho. Then I take the 571 bus from Arapaho which takes me right by my office. Since the bus runs every 30-45 minutes in the morning, I have to time which train I take so I don't stand around waiting for the bus. Today, as usual, I was going to take the 8:12 from St. Paul.

Well today, it didn't show. At all. It wasn't late. It wasn't early. Just nothing until the 8:22am Red Line showed up.

I get to Arapaho just in time to watch the 571 bus leave the station. The next bus wasn't leaving for 45 minutes, so I had to walk it to work. Given the heat at 9am, I arrived at my desk drenched in my own sweat.

The DART website doesn't have any rider alerts for the red line. Will I get screwed again tomorrow? I have no clue.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened since I started my new job. Taking the train already adds maybe an hour onto my commute a day (over driving). I may not buy a September monthly pass.

See you in the funny pages

Normally when someone on the streets is desperately trying to get your attention with the phrase "Excuse me! Excuse me!", the person wants your money for booze or whatever. Except this morning, the guy has a sweet 35mm camera, so I gave him some credit. A bum would have sold the thing for black tar or whatever.

"Are you going to work?"

"Yeah."

(paraphrasing) "I'm a photographer with the Wall Street Journal doing a piece on casual clothes in the workplace. I like your look. Can I take your photo?" I was wearing a zep t-shirt and ripped-up jeans.

So I laughed, walked toward him but looking off somewhere else while he took about a dozen shots.

Aussies like the Aristocrat

I helped three Australians find the Holiday Inn Aristocrat.

Not that interesting. Footnote on that I had originally intended the title of this journal to be Steve's Urban Non-Adventures.

Del's

I used to go to Del's Charcoal Burgers in downtown Richardson on a weekly basis for lunch while I was an undergrad at UTD. My visits continued during the grad school days, but they certainly weren't as frequent and dropped off almost entirely when I started working in the A.I. Lab.

Since I'm working a couple blocks away from Del's and I drove today, I decided to say hi to my old friends. I got really excited on the way over, wondering what the reaction would be to an old face ordering a "double-9 and curly fries." Well, much to my dismay, my old friends have gone.

Del's itself is still there. It's been in business since 1957 and likely will be in 2057. But the management has changed. It really shouldn't have surprised me, after the death of the principal owner. But it seemed to me like the rest of his family was going to carry on.

The look of the place was spiffed up, but with mail-order signs of yesteryear Dr. Pepper and Elvis. Antique brick facade was glued ontop of the existing brick in places to give it a hole-in-the-wall feel...even though the building has been more hole than wall for years. Overall, it's lost its authenticity. It was cleaner though, proudly displaying a food safety award presented by the Richardson Health Department.

The management, although different, was still friendly and welcoming the guests, including some regulars I still recognize. The old menu hadn't changed one bit, so my "double-9 and curly fries" request was readily understood.

And the food? It seems as though most of the ingredients are the same. The only differences I've noticed are that the cheese is served beneath the meat rather than above it and the meat is cooked longer, likely in effort to maintain the safety award. The obvious downside here being that the well-done beef patty has lost it's juice. And ultimately, a dry burger is not going to keep me going back.