I read this a couple of weeks ago .. open.substack.com/pub/johnkrom...

Investing in the latest muscadine technology. Not sure where I'll find space for it in the yard but that's a problem for November Nathaniel.

My most correct NIMBY position is that it was a mistake to build an outdoor amphitheater for major music acts in the middle of Dallas surrounded by residential neighborhoods.

If you’re wondering about Mendelsohn’s behavior here, you should know that this is Ray Hunt’s neighborhood. She is one of the few CMs that receives campaign donations from him.

An embarrassing farce.

I know how to prevent the deaths of all of the birds while also saving $3 billion dollars today and hundreds of millions in the future.

You'd think "all the crime happens here and criminals regularly congregate around this building" would be followed by "so that makes criminal easy to catch". Instead the City purports "Convenience stores are the original source of crime and must be closed".

It seems Dallas will never get away from the "if we demolish all the buildings the crime will disappear" theory of policing.

The Convention Center ends up making a lot of people rich at the expenses of taxpayers. The most consistent grift in Dallas.

Dallas gave Neiman Marcus financial incentives for a new office when most execs moved to NYC and it was widely known that NM would be sold. Now the city has deluded itself into thinking Saks will really “reimagine” the old HQ. Charlie Brown? Meet Lucy. www.dallasnews.com/business/ret...

I went spelunking as a teen once. I got my waist stuck briefly (as in, for seconds) and started to panic and thrashed until my pants fell down much to the enjoyment of the teens behind me. Still have nightmares about being stuck in a cave. Never entered a cave I couldn't walk through since.

Our harvest was small, but tasty. "Razzmatazz" and "Ruby Crisp" muscadines. Highly recommend these for the home garden. Razzmatazz is seedless but small.

Does anyone have a good English-language book on the how the antiparochi/polykatoikia system in postwar Athens worked?

Water from the can is somehow better than from the fountain 🙄

I pet the office cat and now he owns my desk.

I listened to Philip Kingston's podcast on this (who is one of the biggest missing pieces of Dallas city/urban issues on Bluesky) and it sounds even worse. creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...

The city suing itself, wasting hundreds of thousands on a case they knew they'd lose is the worst kind of politics as usual in Dallas.

Concerns include grocery stores causing crime and traffic next to a freeway. candysdirt.com/2025/09/09/a...

I could make wisecracks about how Dallas itself mandated all this pavement, but credit to the City for taking meaningful steps to improve: mostly eliminated parking requirements and now reasonably limiting paving. If we could just get Public Works out of the 1970s we'd really make a difference.

Attempted some no-pectin grapefruit marmalade. Learned a valuable lesson on cooking safety as a molten piece of sticky grapefruit skin somehow leaped upon my finger. I also learned about overcooking sugar so it doesn't turn into a thick caramel. Oops.

Thanks to new state law, my kids teachers are having to purge their classroom libraries of anything not in the school library. We got a few freebies. Our kids are now safe.

I would like to see codes and standards lead to rationally designed systems that perform as intended, systems designed with economy, resources, and public health in mind, by implementing scientific advancements from the last half century.

The great conceit of Traffic Engineering is that interventions like reflective tape, repainting crosswalks, and replacing traffic signals is equivalent to reducing speeds. Dallas Public Works is truly the last great bastion of 1970s thinking here.

Sadly this bill is opt-in so it doesn't affect the cities in Texas that enact their own codes. Hopefully we can move to make this the default instead of optional in a future session.

Agreed: Dallas has a lot to gain by not fighting SB 840. If we actually worked to embrace it, Dallas could really turn things around for the metro center.

A good idea of an article that focuses too little on Dallas given that most of the region’s big problems are most acute here. Read for yourself. We need another “Dallas on the Brink” series. www.dallasnews.com/business/202...

Apotheosis August is over. Let's keep that momentum going as we move into PEPTEMBER.

It takes about 20 seconds for the cat to find a newly opened box #caturday

Not surprising, but it looks like Roth is going to be another "starve the beast" council member...except when it comes to Police/Fire.

Congrats to one of the most dogged exposers of fascists (and other unsavory folk) in all of Texas!

The only thing saving Dallas from a blog of unceasing spicy takes, inside baseball, and lurid allegations is the fact that I depend on discretionary approvals from many of the parties involved. So you get social media rants instead.

Submitted the project to the SB 840 pre-screen queue 🥰

I watched the discussion on this item and can summarize it thusly:

Opening a new front in the war on energy bills.

Contrast this with Dallas where staff are releasing new sb840 guidance, info sheets, and maps almost daily. A supportive staff helps a lot!

Here's Dallas map for SB840: gray areas are "probably applies" green is "definitely applies".

In response to SB840, Plano added multifamily residential as an allowed use in all commercial zones, and also updated all multifamily zones to: - Remove density, FAR, lot coverage limits - Increase height limit to 45 ft - Reduce front yard requirement to 25 ft - Reduce parking requirement to 1/unit

for all you vexillology enthusiasts, @forrest4thetrees.bsky.social and i ranked every one of these flags for @texasmonthly.bsky.social last year www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...

Has any economic impact study of a convention center or stadium shown it wasn't a great use of funds? No, because the firms that do these studies are hired to cover pre-determined outcomes (even without massive conflicts of interest.)

Galveston flag/seal is so dope

the corpus christi one is sick

Hilarious thread of Texas municipal flags. Galveston and Corpus are the winners in my book.

AAAAA (Alton, Texas)

I like it! Though to my Texan eyes this says "Toronto Longhorns" to me 😆

I had to see this flying somewhere to believe it was real. Go Bossier Parish.

Share your city's awful municipal flag. Here's Dallas (somehow not as bad as Houston's).

If your zoning code results in diagrams like this, throw it in the trash.

UpCodes is hiring! If you’re in tech and have an interest in building codes, it could be a good opportunity. up.codes/careers

Okay, getting closer. Need that robot to transfer the groceries into the fridge for me. bsky.app/profile/thev...