Downtown Dallas

A while back I got the idea to record my daily trip to downtown Dallas. It's been a new experience for me. This past year, Stephany and I pretty much stuck to our little area near SMU. We live close to campus, so neither of us have a commute. Since I lived in Austin, I hadn't worked in a downtown area, and even then, Austin's downtown is significantly smaller than Dallas'.

So without further adieu...

This is my bus stop. It's about two and a half blocks from our apartment. I spend approximately 8 minutes of every weekday here. I usually put my bag down on the bench and stand in the shade, because in Texas - man, it's hot at 8:04 AM.



This is the inside of a Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) bus. I take the bus to the DART rail station, which is only a few minutes away (by bus - by foot, it's more like 20 minutes).



I get dropped off here. When I come home from work, I get picked up here.



This is Mockingbird Station. The transit station happens to be in the midst of a shopping center. Not far from the transit center is the Angelika movie theater and an Irish pub called Trinity Hall.



This escalator takes me from the ground level bus depot down to the train platform. And that's a train.



This is the train platform. It's pretty cool, I guess (for a train platform). A portion of my ride takes me through a tunnel for a couple of miles.



These are commuters. Despite the folklore, they're quite a bit like you and me. I took a picture as inconspicuously as I could. For the record, of the eight and a half weeks I've been riding the train twice a day, I've been asked for a ticket by a DART Fare Enforcement Officer three times.



This is a close-up of the train after it dropped me off downtown.



These are some shots near Akard and Main. Earlier in the summer, I worked at Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, a non-profit legal services corporation, which is officed near here.







Here's Legal Aid's building. I worked on the fourth floor.



This was the "Intern room." I was an intern. At one point, I shared it with another intern. We were appropriately placed in the Intern room. The Intern room also conveniently (for someone) functioned as an IT router room. The router was on my desk. It was slightly annoying. Ironically, the computer in this room was very slow.



This was a hallway near the Intern room with a small library of law books. I did use some at one point, but most of my research was conducted online.



This is me in the Intern room.



These are some other pics of downtown.





And this is where I now work: the Earl Cabell Federal Building. This building houses the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. I now intern for a U.S. District Court judge. It's only about three blocks away from Legal Aid, so I use the same train stop as I did earlier in the summer.






So, that's my daily trip to downtown Dallas. After spending a year at the quiet, spacious, landscaped SMU campus, it's been a really different experience using public transportation and coming downtown every day. It's such a different feel coming to a place where so many people live and work.

It seems like downtown, you get a picture of the best and worst parts of a city. And I'd feel like I was missing out if I didn't get a complete picture. I walk everywhere I go downtown. In addition to the places where I work, I also had a chance to visit The Bridge, the city's new homeless shelter, twice while I worked for Legal Aid. The Bridge serves the chronically poor (those on the streets for more than a year) with meals, laundry facilities, a barber shop, and legal and clinical services.

I'll be interning for the federal judge for another few weeks. After that, Stephany and I will be in Albuquerque for a short visit and a wedding for a friend, and then classes will start back up.

Nathan

Texas Rangers Game

This past Friday, July 11, we went to a Texas Rangers game at the Ballpark in Arlington! We had gone to one game last year with some other law school students shortly after school had started, which was fun. This time, we went as part of a group of people from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, as I'm interning there for a while this summer. Some of judges went, along with some of their law clerks and interns - sort of as a social event. It was fun! We met at a little reserved area, where there were hot dogs and drinks prepared for us - then we caught the game starting about the end of the second inning. Amazingly, it really wasn't too hot, and we had a nice breeze.

The Texas Rangers played the Chicago White Sox, and the Rangers totally blew them away. In the third inning, the Rangers scored five runs, which easily put them ahead for the rest of the game. The Rangers came out on top at 7-2.

Steph took some pics of the stadium!







And here's one of us. They handed out free ball caps at the entrance!



Nathan

Albuquerque Trip, Part IV

Okay, this is the final posting of our Albuquerque pics.

Without further adieu, for those of you who do not believe that tumbleweeds exist:



That's right. We actually had to drive around this one, as it wasn't exactly "blowin' in the wind." Usually they're a bit smaller. I still can't help but find them so comical.

Next on our agenda was making homemade tortillas with Bob (Steph's dad) and the rest of the family (including Bill). First, you put all the ingredients together, then you roll it into balls, flatten it out, and cook it on the stove! Here's me getting my dough together.



The process was quite fun. I think this was the first time in my adult life that I've used a rolling pin...for its intended purpose, at least.



Here's Steph and Bob getting Steph's dough together.





We thought Steph's tortilla turned out to look a bit like a misshapen outline of the U.S.



And here was mine.



Sadly, eating the tortillas was not as much fun as making them. They turned out too hard and crispy, which we attributed to a deficiency in the mixture. Bob's working on a revision to the formula, so hopefully next time we'll enjoy some great homemade burritos.

Here's us with our Albuquerque families, enjoying lunch (sans tortillas - this was a different meal) and hangin' out on the back patio! (Picture courtesy of Steph!)



For dessert, we had Oreo cookies topped with whip cream. The Shelton sisters got a bit out of control.









Here's the view from the Sheltons' back patio. It's pretty fantastic, especially in the mornings and evenings, when the sun comes up over the Sandia mountains and when it sets. In the evening, the whole mountain turns purple (which is how it got it's name - "Sandia" means "watermelon" in Spanish).





Before we concluded our trip to the Land of Enchantment, Stephen, Bob, Malory, Stephany, and I spent an evening playing poker. Stephen went out first (sorry, bro - but that was Mal's fault), followed by Malory, and then Stephany. I lasted for a while against Bob, but he eventually wore me down to nothing. Considering it was Fathers' Day, it was a good win. However, that hasn't stopped us from taking him out during family games on his birthday. ;)



So, that concludes the picture journey of our trip to New Mexico. It was our big vacation for the summer, and it was definitely a good one. Lots of friends, family, and familiar places.

Now, we're just enjoying the summer, getting some rest, and seeing some friends. I finished my internship at Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas yesterday and will start an internship at the federal courthouse next week, where I'll work for the remainder of the summer. We'll post more soon.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Nathan

Albuquerque Trip, Part III

While we were in Albuquerque, we were fortunate to be able to catch up with a lot of good friends. We went out one evening with some people from MIOX, the water disinfection equipment manufacturing company where I had worked for two and a half years. We got coffee and played Scrabble one night with our friends Dan and Rebecca Larson, which was excellent (Stephany totally destroyed us all - but I got her back last night). We also had lunch one day with Ed, Eddie, and Becky Mooneyhan, friends of mine through a church there that I belonged to for a while, and we were able to see Craig and Rebecca Glover.

This woman has a very special role in the history of our relationship. This is Beverley Schwartzel. She and her husband David invited us to their home one day (March 5, 2006, to be exact) for lunch and to have us meet one another. Shortly thereafter, we fell completely in love and haven't spent more than about six days apart from each other. So...yeah - Beverley's pretty up there in our book. It was good seeing Beverley and David again while we were there.



Here's Malory pointing to the Flying Star sign after dessert there one night. This is the one on Rio Grande, for those of you in the know.



On Thursday, Stephany and I drove up to Santa Fe for a short day trip. We picked up a few things for friends, ate lunch at The Burrito Co. (excellent carne adovada burritos with red chile!), and walked around a lot of the shops there.









And here are some pictures of the Santa Fe Square. We always enjoy visiting here. It's also a good place to people-watch, especially if there are parades. You never really know what you're going to see here.








Nathan

Albuquerque Trip, Part II

We arrived in Albuquerque Saturday around noon, after spending the night in Amarillo - we had left Dallas on Friday after work. On Monday morning, Stephany, Malory, and I went hiking in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, which border the east side of town. The west side of town becomes more like a mesa (with some old volcanoes, which is also good for hiking), and the middle of town basically sits in a valley (so on either side of town, you can see most of the entire city - it's especially cool at night when you can see the city lights).

We had hiked the foothills back during our December trip, and Malory suggested that we go again on this one, an idea which Steph and I heartily embraced. The hiking is good, because there are some good paths you can follow (or not) and you see a variety of terrain, including desert with cacti (we're pretty sure that's the plural of cactus, but I sometimes say "cactus plants" just to be safe), large rocks (good for bouldering), and even some wooded areas.

Here's us on the drive out to the mountains. We ate chocolate chip pancakes from the morning before, made with love by Diane.





Here's us at the trailhead, preparing to venture out into the open spaces.





Here are some of those cacti I mentioned. Some of them create some truly beautiful blooms.







When I first moved to New Mexico in 2005, I noticed shades of green in the plant life there that I had never seen before (and coming from green East Texas - the "Piney Woods" - that's saying something). These plants are a really unique silvery green. It's an amazing aspect of the desert that although there is relatively little plant life, what plant life there is tends to be dramatic and vivid, as though it is proud of its accomplishment of existing in such an arid environment (and rightly so).



Mal and Steph taking a break.



We hiked on this stuff.



A stream ran through a valley area there. When we hiked back in December, we could easily follow it, but in June, it was too overgrown to even see really. We lamented the fact that we had no machetes.





Steph maneuvering on the rocks.



When we realized we couldn't pass the stream due to the overgrowth, I tried finding a way to go up and around and ended up climbing a good ways up. The girls backtracked a bit and climbed up to meet me. Malory knocked her knee into a rock she was climbing and skinned her leg, but she took it in stride - the girls were determined.





And here's a view of the city from the foothills - it's always an enjoyable part of the hike.



And here's us at the highest point we went.





By this time, we were all getting a bit eager to head back down the mountain and grab breakfast at the Flying Star on Eubank, not far from where Steph and I used to live. The Flying Star Cafe is one of our favorite local restaurants, and those of you who were at our wedding rehearsal dinner likely (because it was a memorable occasion, people) remember our dinner that night at the one downtown!

Okay, that's Part II. Two more parts to come!

Nathan