Category: travel


Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign, Pt. 2

Filed under: Communications, Current events, travel, writing — 1 Comment
February 18, 2025

By Dan Roark

There are signs other than road signs. Posting on bulletin boards and other written paper notifications that are not permanent or near a road. Then the kind of signs that are simply sayings, texts, or whatnot – although we don’t know exactly what they are signs of. We’ll discuss it because, well, why not?

Today we’ll have one of each of two of the sign categories listed above. The first is the assumably permanent sign pictured here. As you can tell it was a cloudy day and there’s only so much you can do to a picture taken on a cloudy day.

Forget for the moment the fact that the sign above is technically on a hill to begin with. A smaller hill, but a hill nonetheless. The point I’m making is that you can see the freaking hill. You can’t miss it. You don’t need a sign to tell you there’s a hill.

What would be useful would be a sign telling drivers what is over the hill. Once you’re on top of the hill, it’s a little late to find out any changes in the direction of the road or see obstacles.

_____________________________

I was checking my email the other day and came upon an email from Walmart. I frequently order online and then go pick the order up. So I opened it:

“Thank you for buying lunch meats and deli meats.  Our pick for you today is Smoker Pellets.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand (or sit) before you, amazed and confused. It has been months since I have purchased either lunch or deli meats. We do, indeed, have a smoker. But it is old enough to precede the creation of pellets for smokers or grills. The three grills our family members own are charcoal so there is no grill attached to our name that uses smoker pellets.

I have, in fact, bought charcoal in an online order. So on what planet would you assume I would need smoker pellets? I wonder about the validity of their algorithms.

________________________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

PayPal.me/danroark

 

 

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign, Pt. 1

Filed under: Communications, Current events, travel, writing — Leave a comment
February 7, 2025

By Dan Roark

There are signs you see all the time, but ignore, because you either already know or it makes no sense. Then there are the signs you pass all the time, but don’t actually notice – or it doesn’t affect you (at least at the time you see it). So you quit noticing it.

We’ll begin with digital signs that may or may not change what it says. The picture above actually says “New Traffic Pattern.” I was taking J.D. – our youngest grown son – to work and back for a while. I took a picture with my android phone one day. J.D. took a picture with his iPhone the next day. The next day I had the 35mm camera.

What you see above is the best we got. That is not what we saw with our eyes. Since we could see what it actually said, it ruled out hackers. Hackers would change the message. It had to be a force that kept the correct message from being recreated in a picture. And it would have to be an electric/static force. Which would come from where, exactly? Certainly not the gas station across the intersection.

That is a rabbit hole we are not going down today. Take it at face value – New Traffic Pattern. Here’s the deal: in the numerous weeks we made the trip, the pattern NEVER changed. They did add a stoplight at one point, but the pattern never changed. It went on like that for weeks, not just the week we tried taking the picture. It alternated with Drive Slowly. Those that are going to actually slow down were slowing down regardless – whether there was a sign or not. Either way, New Traffic Pattern would have done the trick. If they weren’t going to slow down anyway, same difference. Whatever way you slice it, it’s using taxpayer money.

Every time I drive somewhere, I’ll see a sign (the electronic signs are relegated to high traffic areas in the city) that seems to be irrelevant or makes no sense. I think, crap, I need to get a picture of that. Then I remember that I’ve got signs on the list to keep me busy long enough to take the pictures. I just need to remember where they were.

Come along on the journey of stupid or useless signs. It’ll be fun!

______________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

 

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One Night in Colorado Springs

Filed under: brewery, Communications, craft brewery, Food, Music, Songwriting, travel, writing — Leave a comment
January 24, 2025

By Dan Roark

The tour began on a Friday in August at Oskar Blues Grill and Brew in Colorado Springs. A guy from a group of people at a table between me and the bar began to drift around the empty space in the middle of the tables, dancing to my songs like someone on acid at Woodstock.

If you’ve heard my music, you wouldn’t immediately think that it was danceable music. But it happened for the first time that year in July at Townhouse Sports Grill in Manitou Springs. A couple was dancing to my song, Poet and the Lady.  Which I could kind of see. Particularly slow dancing.

But the guy at Oskar’s was dancing to everything. I was amused, and flattered in a way. It certainly made it interesting. Another guy came up and asked if I could play a song. He showed it to me on his phone and it was The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. That’s out of my style.

Then a woman who was apparently the significant other of the birthday boy came up and ask if I could say Happy Birthday to him on the mic. I was just happy she didn’t ask me to sing Happy Birthday. Then she asked if I knew Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. Well, no. Then – get this – she asked me if I knew anything by Journey. Hell, I could have faked Ring of Fire. But Journey? Are you freaking kidding me?

I kept talking about my new CD at the time. How would that suggest to you that I take requests? But the crowd over all was very receptive and appreciative. It was a good, albeit interesting, evening. But some people are oblivious to anything outside their own head. They just want to hear the song in their head, regardless of the style of music being played on the stage.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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The Phantom? Horse

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January 2, 2025

By Dan Roark

I was coming back from my show at The Barrel House in Winnsboro last Wednesday night – the night of the torrential rains. When I left, there was a misleading pause in the rain. It was not long before it came back with a steady, vicious, vengeance.

The weather people were not wrong about the flash floods. The rain was freaking relentless. Which rendered the GPS as useless as the empty cracker wrapper that ended up in the floorboard. I found myself in the middle of nowhere East Texas on two lane roads that weren’t really safe on a good day, much less after near continuous rain for hours on end.

I’m not quite sure exactly how it happened. Suddenly, I was careening off the road to the right. It would have helped if the tires were actually connecting with the ground. I turned the wheel and was headed to the left side. I think the van may have actually made a 360 degree turn. I remember praying that it wouldn’t end up on it’s side. When the tires caught the dirt and the van finally stopped, I was facing to the right. As I tapped the gas to make sure the van was still running, I was staring at a fence I was very happy was not closer. (The happiness was masked at the time by shear fear mixed with absolute confusion.)

With no other cars on the road, I took time to breath and a motion caught my eye. A brown horse was running from my right to my left. There was enough light to know it was brown. She was running like she was frightened, or at the least agitated, with mane flying. She looked and acted like a mare to me. The constant rain with occasional lightning and thunder had probably gotten on her nerves and the noise of the van skidding certainly didn’t help.

But it was a few seconds suspended in time. Just me and the mare. She looked like a phantom horse, with every thing else a seeming shadow. It seemed as if every move she made was directed at me.

I had no idea where I was. Actually, that’s only partly true. I knew where all the relatively bigger towns in East Texas are located. On a sunny day, with the light combined with my sense of direction, I could have gotten home with considerably less problem. But it was pitch black with hard rain. My sense of direction was on vacation.

When I finally came to the conclusion that I had to completely abandon GPS, I stopped at a 24 hour gas station/convenience store that seemed to be the outermost corner of a street that resembled more civilization than I had seen since leaving Winnsboro . The couple operating the store was friendly, helpful, and East Texas to the core. The man had a moustache and a beard down to his chest. He had a high voice and her voice was lower. She even unlocked the bathroom to let me use it. That’s how friendly they were.

As it turns out, I wasn’t so far off after all, even though most of my sense of direction had washed away in the constant rain assaulting the windshield after my frightening carnival ride on a rain soaked section of East Texas backroad. A stop sign and a stop light and I was on Hwy 80 headed to Dallas. It wasn’t much longer before I was home, drinking beer with the drive back running through my head on repeat. Not too long after that my nervous system calmed down enough to let me go to bed, comfortable in the knowledge that I was still alive and the van was still running like it should. I was also remembering a good show. So naturally, I dreamed about the horse.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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A Friend, A Cop, and The Morgue

Filed under: Communications, friends, guitars, Music, travel, writing — Leave a comment
December 16, 2024

Ridgmar Mall

By Dan Roark

Kevin was my roommate when I was manager of Famous Ramos Hot Dogs in Ridgmar Mall in Ft. Worth in the early 80s. Kevin worked across from Famous Ramos at a jewelry store, the name of which escapes me. I think it was Sterling Jewelers, but don’t quote me. He played a little guitar, as I recall, but not much. He rode bulls at a local rodeo on weekends. We did play a few shows together in Ft. Worth over the years before disco kicked in. I played guitar while I sang and he followed along on his guitar.

When the job at Famous Ramos ended, I moved out, got married, and moved back to Dallas. But we still kept in touch. We were living on Marquita, in the M streets, off of Matilda, one street east of Greenville Ave. The marriage didn’t last too long after we moved to the house on Marquita, despite producing a beautiful daughter previously.

I don’t know if I had a housemate when the phone rang, but it’s highly likely. It was a duplex that my parents and I owned. We rented out the other side. I often had friends hanging out. Kevin had arranged to come over to Dallas for the evening. But he was running late. This was back in the days when CB radios were common. Whoever was with me at the time and I had been drinking beer and smoking whatever. The phone rang – we still had landlines at the time.

Being a smartass, I answered, “City morgue, you stab ’em, we slab ’em!”

“This is Officer Harman of the North Richland Hills police.”

In my head I begin to panic.

“Yes sir,” I replied – not having any idea why he was calling.

“Kevin Hunter is running late and wanted me to let you know that he is still on the way.”

“I appreciate it,” I said. “Thanks for calling.” My voice was a little shaky.

“Have a good evening.”

I hung up and starting breathing again.

While I was glad to know that Kevin was still on his way, I was a little perturbed about him having the policeman call me. He knew me and I would have thought he would know not to have a cop call me. Yet it wasn’t like he had him actually stop by.

But it worked. And it turned out to be a pleasant evening.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

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Suspicious Activity

Filed under: Communications, craft brewery, Current events, travel, writing — Leave a comment
December 9, 2024

By Dan Roark

There are numerous things that happen that can seem suspicious. Not that they are implied to be inherently bad, but at least enough to be, well, suspicious. And suspicious in different ways. There’s odd suspicious, “what the hell are they doing” suspicious, and holy crap! suspicious. I’m sure there are more, but we’re concerned at the moment with these three.

Odd Suspicious

Odd suspicious is simply things for which there doesn’t seem to be an answer or solution. I was driving north on I-35 from Farmers Branch to across Lake Lewisville. Traffic was moving, but slower than the speed limit. Naturally, people were being stupid in every lane, braking at the slightest thing that surprised them since they weren’t paying much attention anyway. Changing lanes made no difference because the morons were doing that first – ad nauseum – which was causing the problem in the first place. There was no lane to change to that wasn’t occupied by someone not going the speed limit for one reason or another.

Then I come around a curve and suddenly there’s no one in front of me for like a quarter of a mile. Where did they freaking go? They didn’t exit. They didn’t speed up. So where did they go? Did they get sucked into the ethos so fast I didn’t notice?

“What the Hell are They Doing” Suspicious.

I turned onto Trend off of Beltline. Trend is a short street with a turn that becomes Arapaho after the light at Marsh. Most of Trend is trucking companies with docks everywhere and trailers in front of a lot of them with small businesses on the west side. When I turned onto Trend I saw two cars following each other slowly into a parking lot with trailers at loading docks. And they didn’t seem like they were supposed to be there. But they were definitely following each other and about to get out and meet outside the cars.

At least they didn’t pull in between the trailers at the loading docks. That would have been creepy. I thought about taking pictures for this post, but that would have been even more suspicious – someone following another person into a dark parking lot – or someone trying to take a picture of them doing that. They weren’t just meeting for beers. There’s plenty of places in the vicinity to do that. One of those places is Bitter Sisters Brewery, where I was headed.

They weren’t there for that. But who knows what they were there for. Probably not anything legal.

“Holy Crap” Suspicious

There are several places where construction is in process in the area (Dallas and Denton Counties) that have a sign preceding them that says “New Traffic Pattern.” I have no doubt the situation is repeated in other counties. And when I say construction is in process, I mean that there are fifty to one hundred pylons or traffic cones (the terms are interchangeable, but in my mind traffic cones are the ones that actually look like cones, and pylons are the other ones) but, in a number of cases, there are no machines  or personnel present. And the patterns rarely change, if at all until progress had been made enough to move the sign – which seems to take forever.

Over three days of taking J.D. to work every day, we both tried to a get a picture of the sign saying “New Traffic Pattern.” It alternated with “Slow Down.” It is at a traffic light so we had to get there at the right time to get the picture. And each time we had a chance to take a picture, the result was similar to what you see in the picture here. We used a camera, an android phone, and an iPhone. But that was not what we saw with our eyes – or through the cameras for that matter.

So it wasn’t a matter of being there and then being gone. And it wasn’t exactly an optical illusion – except maybe for the camera. I’ve been taking pictures for years. I’m not an amateur, but I’m not a professional. And I’ve never had this happen before.

Is the sign haunted? Not likely. Why would extra-terrestrials, if they had superior intellect (which has not been confirmed), screw with our traffic signs? Even if they didn’t have superior intellect, why would they screw with our traffic signs? Our traffic is so screwed up now they would only be able to wonder what the hell we were thinking.

Which is why it’s holy crap! suspicious. Some forces from somewhere were at play. But from where no one knows…

 

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark 

 

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Traffic, A Show and Being Stopped

Filed under: Communications, Current events, live, Music, travel, writing — 1 Comment
November 22, 2024

By Dan Roark

So I left at 5 p.m. for my show at 7 at Pilot Point Coffee House. On a usual day, it would take me 45 minutes to an hour to get there. Even on a Friday, it shouldn’t take a lot longer than that. But there was nothing usual about this Friday night.

Heading north on I35 from Farmers Branch, things went as expected, even exiting and turning on Swisher and heading for the Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge. About two thirds of the bridge when fine. Then we slowed way down. We never stopped completely, but we were moving irritatingly slow. Turns out the right lane ended just past the bridge.

Once we got through the lane closure and it turned into Eldorado Pkwy., things ran smoother. I turned onto Oak Grove Pkwy. and seemed to be making up some time. Then there was a half-mile back-up at 380 and again at the light for 424 leading to 377, which went smoothly.

I parked at the coffee house about 10 ’till 7. After two trips from the van, and sound check, I started the show at 7:05. Not bad for having incurred hellacious traffic.

Despite the inauspicious start, it turned out to be a great show. I even gained new fans. It was a community event and I was the entertainment. Apparently, I didn’t disappoint them.

So I’m heading home. I’m going through small towns on a Friday night so I’m paying attention to speed limit signs. In my mind, I’m back home having a beer. I’m cruising right along, going through the show in my head when, suddenly, it looks like I’m being followed by a flashing Christmas tree – minus the green lights.

I pulled over immediately, which has been my reaction for years – I am an old hippie after all. I asked him if I missed one. He said “what?” I said, “speed limit sign.” It seemed to confuse him for a minute. Then he explained that he stopped me because my license plate light was out. He took my driver’s license and way too much time checking me out, then came back with a written warning. Are you kidding me? I haven’t gotten a written warning in years! Not that I haven’t received warnings, just not written.

To be honest, I didn’t even know the van had license plate lights (I changed them the next day – turns out there are two). They obviously hadn’t been changed in years as dirty as they were and as hard as it was getting them out. I watched a YouTube video to keep from snapping them off by twisting them the wrong way.

But the kicker is that I’ve been driving thousands of miles a year for a number of years now in more than half a dozen states and that was the first time I’ve ever been stopped because the license plate lights were out. I’ve been stopped for a lot of stupid reasons – and a few good ones – but not for lack of license plate lights.

And now I have – within an hour from home. Go figure.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

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Things That Happen When You’re Stuck in Traffic

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October 8, 2024

By Dan Roark

I was driving J.D. to work yesterday when we came upon a quarter of a mile or more of pylons which eventually brought us down to one lane on the other side of the median on Plano Parkway. We were heading east before coming up the rise toward the light at Alma.

When we came down to one lane, we also came to a complete stop. A man in a hard hat popped between the two tower type “arms” of the crane and strung a cable from between the two to the large part on “our” end.

He climbed down and began the process that led to the next picture.

It was quite interesting watching the arm that the guy had walked across raise up and the two original arms split in separate directions. We were wondering what it was they were going to lift.

About that time, traffic began to move again. On the other side of the crane was a bridge on a flat bed truck. Traffic had begun to move so we didn’t get a picture of the bridge on the truck.

But this morning, I took the following pictures of the bridge installed.

 

The moral of the story is, if you’re going to stop traffic, at least have something for the drivers and passengers to watch to get their minds off of running late.

 

 

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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When Silence is Golden

Filed under: Communications, Current events, Music, travel, writing — Leave a comment
August 9, 2024

By Dan Roark

During the school year last year (she works with ESL students as a teachers’ aide), Cyndy quit listening to the radio in the car. With all the noise of the school day, she began to crave silence when she got in the car to go home or to New Hope Equine Assisted Therapy. And that continued into the weekend when we went places.
At first it bothered me. I’ve almost always listened to music when I’m driving or riding. But I generally just listen to two stations.

I tried to argue against the silence. I didn’t try very hard though, simply figured I’d just listen to music when I was driving the van. Sometimes, when Cyndy was driving, I wanted to listen to music. But I got to thinking about something else and the urge went away. Being a writer, my mind is good about wandering.

After that, there were times I would be driving when I would realize that I hadn’t turned the radio on. That’s still true much of the time. Sometimes I’ll give each of the two stations a couple of songs to catch my ear, so to speak. If the station plays two decent songs in a row, it usually goes south after that. Either way, at the beginning of the first “clunker,” I just turn the radio off.

What sort of surprised me about this little experiment is all the garbage I actually listened to without thinking about it. Not the commercials – I always turned the volume down. But the crap the DJs say. As if anyone cares what they have to say. And the crappy songs. Definitely, the crappy songs.

If the song is good, but I just don’t like it, I’ll admit it’s a good song. But I’m not talking about those songs. I mean the songs that really suck. The songs you wonder about why they’re actually playing them on the radio. The songs which are really painful to the ears. And the songs that don’t seem to make sense. The music is catchy, and designed to keep the focus away from the lyrics, which, taken by themselves, are just a bunch of words thrown together.

So I turn the radio off.

_________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

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Remote, Remote, Who’s Got the Remote?

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July 12, 2024

When I check into a hotel, ordinarily there is one remote by the tv. Granted, there are times I have had to take it to the front desk for new batteries or eventually getting a new remote. Which entailed holding the door of the room open while the desk clerk programed the new remote. But ultimately – regardless of the technical delay – it still only took one remote to operate the tv.

Now that doesn’t mean it operated the tv well. It just operated what was there to operate. Sometimes you get lucky and have a choice of shows that you can tolerate. Then there are the times when the only show you can find that you can possibly stand are reruns of shows you only watch in hotel rooms because you’ve seen them far too many times. Castle, Rizzoli & Isles and Bones are a few that come to mind. Or certain episodes of Andy Griffith that no one likes.

But in this particular hotel there were three remotes. (And the refrigerator didn’t work, but that’s another story.) There were no instructions as to which remote to use. Come to find out, it took all three. J.D. and I would have to re-discover the combination each time we came back to the room.

The remote on the right was the tv remote. The middle remote was a Roku remote. The one on the left was our Fire stick remote. If I remember the combination correctly, the Roku turned the tv on, the tv remote changed it to the Fire stick (HDMI 1) and controlled the volume and the Fire stick controlled our shows. It took us quite some time to figure it out in the first place. But, pain in the ass though it was, it was worth it. None of this explains why there were two remotes to operate the tv in the first place. Before we figured it all out, we had a choice of – you guessed it – Rizzoli & Isles or Castle.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

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