the tindog coffeehouse

Last month I pointed out how The Dallas Morning News told us that Texas had simultaneously both gained and lost jobs.

Now we get the sequel.

First, we find out that Texas employers hired 41,700 new employees in October (a number almost identical to the jobs lost a month before).  But then in another article (also from the DMN), we find out that Dallas-Fort Worth “lost about 60,000 jobs in October compared to a year earlier.”  Both stats, conveniently, come from the Texas Workforce Commission.

OK, so I guess you could argue that the DFW area lost 60,000 jobs while other parts of Texas gained 101,700.  If so, how do you explain the unemployment rate rising from 8.2 percent in September to 8.3 percent in October?  Something’s not adding up.

Further, the first article states that “Dallas-Fort Worth lost 59,100 jobs between October 2008 and last month”, while the second article (quoting the Dallas Federal Reserve) says that DFW has “lost almost 115,000 jobs this year”.

Huh?

Have we lost 59,000 jobs in the last year or 115,000?  Did we gain 41,000 jobs in October or lose 60,000?  Honestly, I don’t think anyone really knows.

And that’s why our economy is so screwed up.

Previously:
Texas gains jobs, Texas loses jobs
‘Stimulus’ spending could cost Texas 171,900 jobs

The Dallas Morning News would like you to know that 1100 jobs in Texas have either been saved or created because of federal stimulus money.  Hooray!  They would also like you to know that Texas lost 44,700 jobs in September.

Wait, wha?

Have we gained jobs or haven’t we?

See, this is why you should never let politicians do math.

Previously:
‘Stimulus’ spending could cost Texas 171,900 jobs

How weird is it that I go to Dallas every day but have seen almost none of it?

Like many residents in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, I live in the suburbs but work in Dallas.  I drive to work five days a week to my office in North Dallas, then drive home when I’m done.  And that’s pretty much the extent of my association with Big D.

I was reminded of just how foreign Dallas is to me when Fort Worth urban blogger Kevin Buchanan took a self-guided tour through the city, comparing Dallas’s urban design to that of Cowtown’s.  (And yes, I know how much he hates that term; wouldn’t want to promote Fort Worth’s agricultural roots too much, would we?)

Anyhow, while I disagree with Buchanan on a lot of things, I agree with him that much of Dallas is designed more for car traffic than foot traffic.  It’s designed to accommodate workers who commute in by car to work, not for residents or visitors to spend leisure time there.  And while there are a handful of attractions to be found, there aren’t many, and those that exist are spread out really far from each other.

As a result, there’s very little incentive to drive way back across town to visit on my time off.  After all, what would I do when I got there?  If you’re going to a Mavericks or Stars game, there’s the American Airlines Center, but the adjoining Victory Park is almost completely vacant.  (What few restaurants and retail stores open there struggle to stay in business.)  You could go to the Dallas World Aquarium, but the nearby West End is also pretty vacant.  There’s the State Fair in the fall, but the fairgrounds are pretty quiet the rest of the year.  Or there’s the Sixth Floor Museum if you still have any interest in the JFK assassination.

But if you just want to stroll around town to eat and shop and listen to live music, you won’t be going Downtown.  Other than the beautiful skyscrapers, there’s not much there.

Contrast that with some other big cities like Chicago.  I’ve visited Chicago a few times on business, and when the weather is nice, it has a lot to offer.  Grant Park and Millenium Park sit between downtown and Lake Michigan, offering plenty of family-friendly space to hang out.  The Navy Pier, Lincoln Park, and the Magnificent Mile also offer plenty of activities, just to name a few.  Downtown is extremely pedestrian-friendly, and the buses and trains allow most workers to take public transportation to work rather than have to navigate the already-insane streets.

Dallas, meanwhile, can’t even figure out how to build a convention center hotel.

Listen, I don’t mean to bash Dallas, I really don’t.  I just don’t have any strong feelings towards it, despite the fact I’ve lived in the Metroplex for over 20 years.  Yeah, I guess I could make more of an effort to get to know the city better.  Who knows, maybe I would learn to appreciate it more.  But for now, other than a biweekly paycheck, there’s not much compelling me to come back.

Previously:
Better than Fair

Yahoo Finance has a list of 15 companies that might go belly-up before year-end.  Some, like Chrysler and Blockbuster, are obvious candidates.  But Six Flags?

Six Flags. (SIX; about 30,000 employees; stock down 84%). This theme-park operator has been losing money for several years, and selling off properties to try to pay down debt and get back into the black. But the ride may end prematurely. Moody’s expects cash flow to be negative in 2009, and if consumers aren’t spending during the peak summer season, that could imperil the company’s ability to pay debts coming due later this year and in 2010.

OK, so the numbers don’t look too good.  But as someone who worked there for three seasons while in high school and whose kids beg almost daily to go back, I’m really hoping they’ll be able to ride out the next couple of years (no pun intended).  Not that anyone expects them to be profitable, but then again, who is these days?  (I mean, other than Exxon.)

Despite the grim forecast, I think Six Flags actually has a lot going for them in a down economy.  After all, if you live reasonably close to a Six Flags park, it’s a lot cheaper for a family to buy season tickets than it is to shell out a ton of money for airline tickets to fly somewhere.  That’s what we did last year, and it worked out great.

And besides, how can you possibly trust a list of soon-to-be-extinct companies from Yahoo when they themselves aren’t on the list?

’Nuff said.

Previously:
What I did on my summer vacation
Better than Fair

Soon-to-be-former-President George W. Bush has signed a 10-year lease on an 8,000 square foot office in North Dallas not far from his new home in the Preston Hollow neighborhood.

Wouldn’t it be weird to see him in the elevator in the morning?  Or would he and his Secret Service agents get their own elevator?  Yeah, I can see it now.  You’re running late for work, trying to catch the elevator doors before they close, and just as you get close, two Secret Service agents pull their guns on you as the 43rd President of the United States waves goodbye.  Awkward.

But here’s my complaint.  Dubya’s office is about three miles from his home.  Three miles!  What kind of commute is that?!  I don’t think you’re even legally allowed to live in the Metroplex if you don’t sit through at least two traffic jams a day!

How do you ensure you’ll never have more than 598 followers on Twitter?  Post a tweet that says you’ll give the 600th follower a pair of movie tickets.

Dallas Morning News community site neighborsgo.com did just that.  And sure enough, they reached the 598 mark pretty easily.  And then stopped.  (Actually, they have since dropped to 597.)

(Click on the image to enlarge.)

Who would want to be Number 599 when Number 600 is a guaranteed winner?  Uh, nobody!

I guess it never occurred to them that others can see how many followers they have.  Either that or they’ve never played a game of Connect Four.

With stellar marketing like this, I can’t imagine why the newspaper industry is doing so poorly!

Update: Well, looks like someone proved me wrong.  Neighborsgo is now up to 601 followers.  Somewhere there is a lucky recipient of new movie tickets and a not so lucky person who missed them by this much.

It’s Election Day, and I know what you’re thinking: Who are the Dallas Cowboys voting for?

Well, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram asked them, along with some Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas Stars players.  Of 67 athletes surveyed, 54 percent are voting for Obama.

You don’t think it’s because a lot of pro athletes are black, is it?  Nah, that couldn’t be it.  Well, except for the fact that 69 percent of surveyed Cowboys players and 100 percent of Mavericks players chose Obama, while only 10 percent of Rangers players did.

But no, I’m sure race didn’t have anything to do with it.

Marlon Byrd, Texas Rangers (Obama): “How can I look at my children, which are mixed, and tell them I didn’t vote for a black president? How can I tell them I had a chance to vote for a black president for the first time ever and I didn’t?

It’s not like anyone could really expect the Dallas Independent School District to do anything right.  But the abrupt termination of hundreds of teachers as a result of an $84 million budget shortfall has got to be the single worst thing ever to come out of the district.

It’s heartbreaking to read some of the comments on the Dallas Morning News site from teachers who were fired and those who weren’t (yet):

Our principal was nice enough to let us go this morning. I composed myself and went to tell my children that I was “chosen to move to another job” and I was so proud of them and knew they would be hard workers and love their new teacher.  … I made it through my speech without crying. Then the kids started to bawl. I could not even get them to get up to go to PE (which is their favorite thing in the world). My heart broke and I began to cry with them.

Hi, I’m one of the “lucky” teachers who was transferred to another campus. Even though many of the “lucky” ones are celebrating upon hearing that they are moving, I can not celebrate. You see, my heart is breaking because I’m taking a RIF teacher’s position. Even though I don’t know her name….I want to say “I’m sorry and I will treat your students well.”

Mr. Warner said he had to walk back to his class after getting the news and collect his belongings. He said his students, who were still in the class with an assistant, were aware that he’d been fired.

Kindergarten teacher Vanelle Akers, a 23-year vet, was released this afternoon. Rather than go home, she finished out the day.

Late today, she stood outside the school with the last of her students who remained waiting for the bus. Tears welled in the girl’s eyes, and her cheeks were red from crying. She held a white poster board titled, “All About Me.”

As the bus arrived, Ms. Akers asked the girl if she was ready to go home. She then took her hand and passed the girl to the bus driver.

“Make sure she doesn’t forget this,” Ms. Akers said, handing the driver the poster.

“Are you safe?” the driver asked the teacher.

“No, I’m not,” Ms. Akers replied, before turning around and heading back into the school for the last time.

And yet DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa still has his $379,000/year job.

Incredible.

Texas has the biggest and best State Fair in the whole country, but it’s also really expensive, which is why we opted not to go this year.

We had planned to go yesterday.  The girls were out of school for Columbus Day and had been given free tickets, and I took the day off from work.  But ultimately we decided to go to Six Flags instead.  We still have season passes, so it didn’t cost anything to get in.  It was also a lot less crowded than the Fair, and we could ride as many rides as we wanted without having to buy additional tickets.

OK, so we didn’t get to experience Big Tex, the Texas Star Ferris wheel, or chicken-fried bacon.  But we had a lot of fun nevertheless.

We’ll try for the State Fair next year when we can save up for it and maybe go on a less-crowded weekday.

I travel through the infamous Grapevine Funnel every day to and from work, and it’s the main reason I try to come in early and leave early.  Hit the area just a little too late, and your daily commute goes from slow and tedious to simply painful.  Throw in a minor fender-bender, and it’s enough to force you to do a U-turn and spend the rest of the day trembling beneath the sheets.

Aptly named, the Funnel is the area north of DFW Airport where seven different highways converge, a pretty good design if it weren’t for the roughly half million cars that pass through it five days a week.  (Really, it must be more than that.)

There have been plans for years to reconstruct the area with additional lanes (including some toll lanes) and a better design.  We were told it would take years to complete (up to 10 years by some estimates) and that it would get worse before it gets better.

Now it looks like it may just get worse.

Having done nothing so far, now the costs of construction are a reported $1 billion (up from $400 million in 2000), which has some people wondering if the project is too expensive to complete as designed.

Money, however, is not a deciding factor in this case.  The Funnel provides a critical northern link between Tarrant and Dallas counties, and as the population of the Metroplex continues to grow, something must be done to relieve the pressure from all the cars that swarm the highways each morning and evening.  Even if that something runs into the billions.

I’ve always had a strong dislike of toll roads, and this is no exception.  But honestly, there are days I would happily fork over the extra cash just to relieve some of the stress of dealing with an already-long commute.

I’m sure there are many others who feel the same way.

It’s so hot, the themometer is on fire:

(From the Forecastfox add-on for Firefox this morning.)

As reported on Ars Technica, the National Motorists Association has compiled numerous reports from cities around the country (including Dallas and Lubbock) caught shortening yellow lights below the recommended time limit in cases where those intersections contain red-light cameras. It’s implied that these cities are shortening the yellow lights on purpose as a way to increase traffic violations and therefore increase revenue from tickets issued to red-light runners.

In Dallas:

The city’s second highest revenue producing camera, for example, was located at the intersection of Greenville Avenue and Mockingbird Lane. It issued 9407 tickets worth $705,525 between January 1 and August 31, 2007. At the intersections on Greenville Avenue leading up to the camera intersection, however, yellows are at least 3.5 or 4.0 seconds in duration, but the ticket-producing intersection’s yellow stands at just 3.15 seconds. That is 0.35 seconds shorter than TxDOT’s recommended bare minimum. Dallas likewise installed the cameras at locations with existing short yellow times. A total of twenty-one camera intersections in Dallas had yellow times below TxDOT’s bare minimum recommended amount.

Ironic, then, that Dallas and some other cities are scaling back or discontinuing their red-light cameras because they’re unprofitable. (Maybe they didn’t shorten the yellow lights enough!)  Lubbock canceled their right-led cameras altogether after rear-end collisions increased in those intersections. (D’oh!)

Personally, I don’t agree with them.  I’m all for public safety, but as you can see, the cameras quickly become more about money than safety.  And as the National Motorists Association site pointed out, simply increasing the yellow light duration can decrease violations and therefore decrease collisions.  But then that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?