Back Talk Far North Dallas

Dallas electricity bills going up

It’s for a good cause, though -– to build new transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity from west Texas to Dallas. Someone has to pay for the $4.83 billion initiative, which means each of us will have about $4 tacked on to our bills each month. No word yet on when the fee will start or how long it will last.

Ideally, all of this extra electricity will increase supply, which should eventually lower the cost. Regular visitors here know how skeptical I am of the deregulated electricity market in Texas, so I don’t expect the price to go down. Still, we have the advantage of knowing Texas will be in the forefront of green electricity, which is impressive. Texas leads the country in wind-energy production, and when this transmission is built, we’ll produce more wind-generated electricity than the next 14 states combined.

Technorati Tags: wind power,electric bills

Jim Schutze: You can find Dallas in Frisco; all you have to do is look around

You have to appreciate "tongue-in-cheek" writing to get something out of this Jim Schutze story; it's a good read if you aren't someone who takes things like the origin of Dallas too seriously. Because Schutze offers up this theory in the latest Dallas Observer: Dallas really doesn't exist, except in Frisco. I can't really explain it anymore than that without regurgitating Schutze's entire column, which kind of defeats the purpose of reading it in the first place — plus he's a better writer anyway. So if you have a couple of minutes for a bit of a chuckle and a little bit of introspection, check it out.

AMC Theatres offers discounted tickets for seniors and students

A few months ago, to the dismay of high school and college students, AMC Theatres took away student prices for movies. So instead of paying my usual discounted $7 ticket (I'm a soon-to-be sophomore at SMU), I had to pony up $10 for an adult ticket. A mighty big difference in my eyes. Now, back from a long and missed absence, student fares have been reinstated by AMC — but only for one day.

All day every Thursday, students can get in for $7. (Just for the record, other locations such as the Angelika Theatre still offer student discounts every day.) AMC also offers seniors discounts all day every Tuesday for $6.

How walkable is Far North Dallas?

Here's something for the neighborhood to brag about. Far North Dallas, often derided in other parts of the city as way too car-happy, gets a pretty good score in the Walk Score index recently released by a Seattle software firm. Among the 26 Dallas neighborhoods that were ranked, Far North Dallas came in at No. 9, with a walkability score of 58 out of 100 and just below Oak Cliff. And it ranked better than Preston Hollow or Bluffview. (South Dallas ranked at the bottom.) ... Among the 40 cities ranked overall, Dallas was No. 24, the highest-ranking city in Texas. (Houston was 26th, Austin 29th, and El Paso, San Antonio and Fort Worth ranked 31st, 32nd and 33rd, in that order. (Jacksonville, Fla., was ranked least walkable.)

Dallas North Tollway and George Bush Turnpike: Don't slow down

According to a DMN Story, drivers on the Dallas North Tollway and George Bush Turnpike will no longer be required to slow down as they approach express lane toll booths. The speed limit for express tollways will remain constant, and all cash booths will begin to transition into an automatic electronic tolling. This pretty nifty change should begin to take place at the end of this summer and is anticipated to be completed by 2010.

This change in rules seems promising for drivers who frequent the tollways. Without the need to slow down, traffic will be less likely to build up and possibly even be safer sans the drastic changes in speed.

Housing starts fall -- what does that mean for our home prices?

The news this morning that single-family housing starts in the United States dropped 5.3 per cent to their lowest level since 1991 was not encouraging. Neither was a report from the National Association of Realtors that its index of future home sales unexpectedly dropped.

So far, we’ve managed to avoid most of the bad news associated with the housing collapse. Has that changed? I’ll have an answer next week, when I’ll look at home prices in this area for the first six months of this year and compare it to prices and sales data since 2003. It’s a follow-up to the piece I wrote in January for our East Dallas magazine.

And a bonus: The blog post will link to a chart with five-year home price data for the 20 ZIP codes that are in our four-magazine coverage area, so can compare your prices with those in Preston Hollow, Lakewood and Lake Highlands. The numbers, compiled by the indefatigable Ron Burch of Coldwell Banker, are quite intriguing.

Technorati Tags: home prices,Dallas,Far North Dallas

Soak up Dallas design trends with Design Sponge

Never know what the latest design trends are? Or where to shop in Dallas for hip furniture and home décor? Me neither. My solution is heading to Design*Sponge.

The website features city guides (not limited to the United States), before and after pictures, do it yourself guides and more. It's also very picture oriented, which enables you to see the design trends and then pick them out somewhere else on your own, or knock off the design and make it your own.

The best feature of the site (in my opinion) is the city design guides. With only 29 city guides so far, Dallas has made its way onto the list, with shops of all kinds featured under categories from furniture to gadgets to fashion.

For example, if you're looking for something contemporary, the guide points to shops like BoConcept on Alpha Road in the Village on the Green Center, where Denmark's global brand name offers customized, coordinated and affordable design furniture and accessories.

That's just a taste of what the Design Sponge site has to offer. Explore for yourself.

Wine review: 2006 Louis Latour Macon-Lugny Les Genievres

It's not often that one can find an $18 wine that will improve with age. These days, spend less than $30, and you'd better hurry up and drink it. It's as fruity and as interesting as it's going to get.

The Latour (about $18, available at Central Market), though, is a welcome exception. It’s white Burgundy, which means chardonnay, and since it’s Macon, it means it wasn't aged in oak.

This wine is perfectly acceptable now, and I drank it last weekend (with mushroom and artichoke crepes –- why are crepes so little appreciated?). It's still a little tight, with some spiciness typical of young white Burgundies. But let it sit for a year or two, and it will open up, becoming a fuller, richer, more complex wine. In fact, I’ll probably buy another bottle and let it sit for 12 months to see just what happens.

Technorati Tags: white wine,chardonnay,white Burgundy,Macon,Louis Latour

Tolbert's chili resurfaces at Whole Foods and in Grapevine

I'm showing my age here, but a brief in the DMN about X2 Chili being sold at Whole Foods Market made me recall the one-and-only, original Dallas chili-man: Frank X. Tolbert. Tolbert (who died in 1984) was a true bear of a man, tall and lanky and loud and funny and everything I imagined a Texan would be when I was growing up in Minnesota. And in case you didn't know, X2 is Frank's son, as well as an accomplished but eclectic artist, and X2 Chili is a frozen version of what the son cooked up for the father at the downtown Tolbert's Chili Parlor on Main across from El Centro, where those of us who worked at the Morning News back then spent many a lunch and, sometimes, dinner hour.

In fact, the first restaurant I remember eating at when I arrived in Dallas in 1978 was the Tolbert's on McKinney (in what is now a portion of the Chuy's space). Tolbert's super-serious chili was way too hot for my Yankee tastebuds back then, and that was before I met Frank X. his-own-self at the Morning News, where the guy pretty much had the run of the place. He occasionally wrote a history column, but he seemed to spend most of his time telling stories to youngsters like me when he wasn't holed up with Blackie Sherrod and/or John Anders (also rather elusive but personality-laden columnists at the News back then). Tolbert had a hand in starting up the Original Terlingua International Frank X. Tolbert - Wick Fowler Championship Chili Cookoff, and if you don't want to try the frozen variety, you can get a fresh batch of Tolbert's chili at the remaining Tolbert's in Grapevine, operated by Frank's daughter (and X2's sister) Kathleen.

And I guarantee you that if you click on all of the links in this blog post, you'll have added a mini-history of Dallas and Texas to your party repertoire.

Commerical property in Dallas: Let's end the 'secret' valuation process

If commercial property owners paid more taxes, residential property owners would pay less — as much as $90 million less annually: That's pretty much the bottom line in the ongoing debate over whether commercial property sales prices in Dallas County need to be publicly disclosed. The DMN offers a lengthy and informative story about the issue, which is expected to be acted upon during the state legislature's session next year. And the whole issue gained momentum as a result of Dallas' taxpayer-owned downtown convention center hotel land purchase — the city offered to pay about $40 million for eight acres of property that was being assessed at about $8 million (five times less than what the city is paying to buy the property).

Just imagine if your home tax appraisal increased by five times next year because the appraisal district figured out it had undervalued the house for awhile: I suspect we'd all have something to say if that happened to us. And it won't happen, either, and not only because the appraisal district can't raise taxes on a homestead that much in one year. It won't happen because sales prices for residential property are virtually always publicly available, allowing the appraisal district to come pretty close year after year to proper home valuations.