This business has had more incarnations than that guy in the Halloween movies! Finding the place is kind of like playing hide and seek, though; you just have to keep looking to find him. I have to believe that's going to be a pretty temporary site, though, just like the last location on Mockingbird next to KFC. I haven't heard anything about the longterm building plans for the old Arcadia site, but I'm willing to bet that the carwash that followed the garden center next to KFC won't be picking up this deal — land prices on Lower Greenville would have to be way too high for the carwash to warehouse the land for a few years. By the way, speaking of Lower Greenville, I haven't heard anything lately about the crackdown Angela Hunt is leading on bars masquerading as restaurants to dodge parking/permit rules...

I want to believe in this project as much as anyone, because it will be great for the neighborhood and great for small businesses like ours. But does it seem possible, as the developers are saying, that this $300 million project will be started by 2008 and completed — completely done and built out — by 2010? That just seems like an incredibly quick timeline to me, particularly if there really is no anchor tenant (or even non-anchor tenant). Again, I want to believe, but...

I admire your effort. I thought about building a tree house, but then thought again about the amount of work and decided instead to buy a wooden swingset that also included a small fort with canopy, a swinging bridge and a slide (I'd probably still be out there with a hammer if I had tried to build all of that). Our boys spent countless hours out in the back yard with friends climbing, hiding, sliding and battling on the set. Finally they physically outgrew it, but the day we decided to get rid of it to make room for a trampoline was a pretty sad one, as well as being a reminder of the fact that there are things out there that can be fun without having to be plugged in. Good luck with yours!

For more information and to sign-up to help with petitions, etc., go to trinityvote.com. That's were you'll find some straight talk about the growing cracks in the dike of the Trinity Tollroad/river/parks project. What the whole project is essentially coming down to, so it appears, is the choice between a $1 billion roadway project that is lacking about $500 million in city funds to complete or the original parks and such that we voted for 10 years ago. Jim's point is this: Which project will win out if the deal stays behind closed doors? Need that question really be asked? With $1 billion in constructions funds out there vs. a few million in parks, who do you think will be chasing the big steak around with more energy? That's right - it won't be the parks supporters. The mayoral candidates are starting to separate themselves on this question, and it's a great question to be separated on: We need someone in charge here who's willing to ask the tough questions (like Laura Miller said she would before she was elected) and also willing to stay the course (unlike what Laura did once she was elected). And what issue could be more important than asking our political leaders to live up to the promises they made, and the votes we cast, in terms of building a park in the Trinity? Thanks to Angela Hunt and Jim Schutze with the Dallas Observer, we may just get the chance to use that litmus test in May.

Finally some cracks in the dike of the Trinity Tollroad/river/parks project. What the whole project is essentially coming down to, so it appears, is the choice between a $1 billion roadway project that is lacking about $500 million in city funds to complete or the original parks and such that we voted for 10 years ago. Jim's point is this: Which project will win out if the deal stays behind closed doors? Need that question really be asked? With $1 billion in constructions funds out there vs. a few million in parks, who do you think will be chasing the big steak around with more energy? That's right - it won't be the parks supporters. The mayoral candidates are starting to separate themselves on this question, and it's a great question to be separated on: We need someone in charge here who's willing to ask the tough questions (like Laura Miller said she would before she was elected) and also willing to stay the course (unlike what Laura did once she was elected). And what issue could be more important than asking our political leaders to live up to the promises they made, and the votes we cast, in terms of building a park in the Trinity? Thanks to Angela Hunt and Jim Schutze with the Dallas Observer, we may just get the chance to use that litmus test in May.

I used to request the vanilla flavor in a couple of different drinks, but then someone wise and trusted (my wife) told me that the flavor shots were filled with extra calories, putting a damper on my mixing fun. I haven't noticed anything on Sonic's website about the calorie count (nor have I spent much time trying to figure that question out, either), but if you happen to know whether I'm penalizing myself unnecessarily by avoiding the mix-ins or whether it's OK to continue to follow Keri's pattern and guzzle away, please let me know.

I'd like to see a few more Chick-fil-A restaurants in our neighborhood, but does anyone else think the Abrams/LBJ location is a bit odd for this chain, which generally shows up near/in major shopping malls and/or surrounded by relatively high-income residential areas? Although the traffic is there, the Abrams/LBJ area has a mixed bag of residential and retail and just doesn't seem like the kind of spot where most Chick-fil-A restaurants wind up. And I just don't generally think of Wal-Mart and Chick-fil-A in the same sentence. I think a better spot would be on the south side of the Compass Bank center at Skillman/LBJ or perhaps "anchoring" the Town Center development across from Mi Cocina, although this is probably only a great site for the restaurant after the Town Center development rather than as the first one in.

I don't think it's possible to guarantee that situation will never occur in Lake Highlands. An offending student will have to show some real backbone to self-report; if experience with my own kids is any indication, when they do something wrong, their first impulse isn't necessarily to confess. A coach would have to find out from the student and then weigh the chance that an opponent would find out; again, the right thing to do is pretty clear but not necessarily easy given the pressures of winning today. The student's teacher would probably be willing to pass the word along, but teachers have so many responsibilities and pressures these days, I wonder if even the most responsible teacher can keep all of their students' athletic entanglements straight much less their academic issues. And an administrator would probably be the most likely to come clean and the absolute last person to find out. So there you have it: Even if everyone is motivated to do the right thing, everyone has to do the right thing in sequence to make sure the school and the neighborhood aren't embarrassed. It can all happen that way; hopefully, if the situation ever arises, it will.

Carol, I checked out the website, but it seems to have old pictures of the kids involved (like from a year or two ago). Am I going to the right spot or are the students so busy doing TV shows that they haven't had time to update the website?

Given that TXU is a monopoly, and given that being taken probably will wind up increasing the stranglehold TXU has on the market (assuming that private finance guys are smarter than government finance guys), is there going to be any way to actually bring deregulation in a meaningful way to Texas without going back to the legislature and changing the law? I don't see how the market can do it right now without legislative help, but then of course it isn't really degregulation...

I still have my bin, even though I wasn't supposed to receive one in the first place. We've been filling it up regularly, and the City has been emptying it every other Thursday, just like clockwork. And one of my neighbors asked if he could put some stuff in it since he didn't request one in the first place. If the City can ever get its hands around the program, I think people will participate. It's sure a lot easier than the way we used to do it, visiting various recycling spots with the various, sorted recyclables...

I wonder if the Muffin incident is the culprit, or this is simply a case of service workers unhappy in their job taking it out on their customer — a kid who, like you say, really didn't have much of an incentive to lie, since he was turning in the original sandwich (sans a bite) while asking for a second one. I can understand a certain automatic level of suspicion when dealing with kids (I have a couple myself), but this story is sad considering that the student probably wouldn't dare show up with his meal no matter what happens the next time. So the stray cockroach or tooth floss is probably safe for now...

Jeff, I think you are giving the mayor a more difficult time on this issue than she deserves. Although I don't think she deserves any credit, it does seem as if Dallas is headed the right way regarding crime. I think the interesting challenge facing the police dept. and Chief Kunkle now is whether they can hire the 100 additional officers they're budgeted for. Kunkle has been asking for the money for awhile; let's see what he can do with it.