Attention shoppers.....!

Big Gold Dog.Com, you've visited the website, perused the Blog, read the book and seen the movie. Now you too can own genuine Big Gold Dog© merchandise! Thanks to the inspiration of Eric's Wal-Mart of the web at
The Fireant Gazette I have opened the Gold Dog Goodies© online store. The store has been stocked and is ready for use, but new and exciting items from around the globe will be added constantly.

All proceeds from the sales of products will go towards our Jack's college fund. Well, much of the proceeds, OK, some of the proceeds may go to Jack's college fund. Bulk, discounted orders are welcome. All we need to do is to sell around 55,000 coffee mugs and Jack is off to school. Your business is appreciated! Stop in often at Gold Dog Goodies©

New Feature....

Tonight I preview, for your enjoyment, a new feature here at Streams....a series of animated features from WallyBall Films. Tonight's presentation is a short documentary film showing what actually goes on with "action figures" while their owners are away. The film is entitled GI Joe in action. For the future, I'm also working on a new concept featuring a jaunty clay figure that I've tentatively named, "Gumby". Enjoy the show.

Woody....the opening

The opening of Woody Gwyn's exhibit at the Museum of the Southwest has come and gone, but the memories linger. A grand time was had by all as admirers of Woody's works filled the hall at the museum. The artiste had no real time to mingle with the crowd as he was kept busy signing the finely done catalog that was produced for the event.

Woody was an hour late exiting the museum and arriving at the home of a local collector who hosted a reception for the artist. I arrived with my dates shortly before Woody, yes dates. Julie and I were accompanied by friends Suellen McCommon and Jeri Drozd who wanted to meet Woody. We enjoyed the fine foods, the girls sampled fine wines [OK, heavy sampling] and we had a grand time visiting with Woody and old friends.

We also had a great time getting to know Maria Hwang from Santa Fe who produced the catalog and Katie Leonard of Findlay Art in New York City, one of the galleries that represent Woody's work. The girls were truly impressed with life in Midland with Maria ready to move! Maria's doctor husband is a flying enthusiast and she promised he would be at our Air Show this year, she also invited us to tour Santa Fe's art galleries and lesser known eating establishments with her. Katie has offered us her studio condo in New York City while she and Julie see "Wicked" on Broadway.

Woody, humble artiste that he is, was truly overwhelmed by the support shown by his home town none more than these two adoring fans!

Woody Gwyn.....

Our art museum, the Museum of the Southwest, is featuring a "revisiting" of the work of our good friend, artist, Woody Gwyn. The exhibit opens this Friday and runs through March. Woody arrived today and I met him at the museum, along with his art dealer from New York/Santa Fe and his agent from Dallas. The display of his work looks wonderful; the picture at left was taken with Woody in front of the main wall of the exhibit.

The work behind him is one of his trademark pieces from an earlier period, a work of almost photo realism depicting a cut through a hill country section of I-10. Use the link to his website above to view the many splendid variations of his talent.

Woody grew up in Midland and in fact painted the mural that still hangs in one of the main stairwells at Midland High. We are going there tomorrow so that Woody can look into some much needed restoration. After high school Woody was going to go to the Chicago Art Institute, but instead on the advice of famed artist Peter Hurd, he enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Painting the Southwest, Woody ended up in Santa Fe, later in California and now resides in an amazing hacienda in Galisteo New Mexico which was built in 1754. Julie and I have had the pleasure of visiting Woody there and have been invited back. Something we can't wait to do.

For those readers in Midland, try and find a day in the next month or two to visit the museum and view Woody's work. Woody's works hang in some of the most prestigous museums in the United States and in the private collections of major collectors and corporations.

The Harmonic Hum....

The Harmonic Hum, sounds like a 1960's band or perhaps a Perry Mason edisode as in "The Case of the Harmonic Hum". In my situation it is the noise I hear every time I step out of doors at the estate, or for that matter anywhere in the neighborhood.

To the best of my knowledge I'm not hearing things nor have I gone whacko. Others have heard it too, wishing they hadn't, for when I point it out to them they say, "you know I hadn't heard it until you mentioned it, now I do". Some even say later that since I called their attention to it, they can't not stop hearing it, which is the case with me.

I first started hearing the hum many months ago while out in the backyard on a quiet and still night. It seemed to be a long way off and I thought that surely it was some machine abberation somewhere that would be fixed directly. I was wrong. The harmonious hum is there 24/7 every single day and night, Christmas included. I now sometimes even hear it indoors while awaiting sleep at night.

To acquaint you with the experience, imagine yourself in a large very quiet house late at night. The hum sounds as if someone in a room far away from you has just taken the phone off the hook.....a dial tone muted, a midrange audio background noise. This is what I hear constantly, especially when the wind is lightly blowing from the southwest. Even at the stadium where I walk everyday I can hear the hum and it still sounds fairly distant. The stadium is well over a quarter of a mile from our house.

I can pinpoint the direction of the hum within 10° or so, my compass tells me it's coming from roughly a direction of 220°. I haven't done a map recon yet drawing a line from my house out in a direction of 220° but I can tell you that such a line would pass nearly through the First Baptist Church about a half a mile away. I had suspected that this might be the source of the hum and logically it seems like it is probably some sort of electric motor powering a heating or cooling system.

But I've come to wonder. A mysterious hum coming from the Baptist Church. Is this some sort of mind control device. After all I do remember that they used to have speakers high up in their bell tower. Surely the Baptists wouldn't be after my brain would they? Well, no, not my brain but perhaps my soul!

Whatever the harmonic hum is and where ever it originates I'm really tired of it and will soon go down to the zoning commission, which controls such annoyances, and try to get action. Perhaps before the Baptists capture my brain!

How's that.........?

Today, of course, is Martin Luther King day and with Jack out of school and many offices closed [including Julie's] the holiday was on my mind as I started the day.

As I opened the front page of the "Midland Reporter-Telegram" I first noticed the picture of Dr. King and then directly above, the lead headline......."Experts say race to be entertaining". Wow, I thought, that's a pretty bold and provocative statement and frankly not too much in the spirit of the day. I would call the last 200 years of racial relations interesting, but entertaining is perhaps not the word I would use.

But, oh those wags, at the newspaper. Upon further reading of the headline article I discovered that they were referring to the Governors race, not relations among our ethnic groups. Sometimes I do wonder whether editor Gary Ott is poking a little satarical barb at us on purpose.

Boyz......

Today's picture of the day captures one of the events this evening as our Jack has three amigos over to spend the night. Did I ever act this way? Undoubtedly, there were just no cameras around to capture the action.

Mama......

Julie, Jack and I wish to express our heartfelt sympathy to Midland writer and fellow blogger Jimmy Patterson and his family on the loss of his Mother today. Jimmy's personal and touching account of his Mother's last weeks relates how he and his family faced this moment of deep and painful sadness with diginity. It's a chronicle worth reading....

Announcing.......

The picture above is of my brother Mark[r] and Me[l] with Speaker of the Texas House Tom Craddick who was in town to announce legislation proclaiming the Craig boys as "Texans of the Decade".

Well not really, that may come later. What Tom was in town for was to announce our Blakemore Planetarium renovation program for which he was instrumental in getting the funding. Our planetarium is a great civic asset but has become worn and dated over the years. That is about to change with the complete renovation of the present building, construction of a new education building and the installation of a digital projection system to give us IMAX type experiences.

We will also focus on distance learning to serve the very large geographic area that we cover which will include data links to the McDonald Observatory which will enable us to view real time projections of what they see on their world class telescopes. In fact McDonald is so excited about the possibilities that Dr. David L. Lambert, head of astronomy at the University of Texas and director of the McDonald was in attendance today and will have lunch with several of us tomorrow to chart our course.

Interest in the project was gratifying. In attendance at the press announcement this morning were the Mayor and a former mayor, two county commissioners, a city councilman, Dr. David Daniels the President of Midland College and two senior representatives from the University of Texas, Permian Basin. Brother Mark, a recently retired Deputy Director of NASA is our honorary chairman and flew in from Houston to deliver the keynote address. We thank all those who help make the two years of work on this project come to fruition.

The Sky's, and Stars, are the limit in Midland Texas.

The Soiree....

Creative writing [if that's what you call this?] at Streams came to a standstill these last several days as we entertained our semi-annual visitors Bruce Crandall and his lovely wife Arlene. Bruce was portrayed in the movie, "We Were Soldiers" by Greg Kinnear and was the aviation advisor for the film, so he always is a crowd pleaser. And so we always try and provide a crowd.

Our little soiree was Friday evening and The Bride outdid herself with a festive occasion and grand gourmet treats. We had a fine time and I'm sure that some of the people meeting Bruce for the first time enjoyed his stories as we always do.

Faces seen in the crowd included Judge John Hyde, Doc Dodson, Bill Coombes who is a board member of the CAF and Jim Edwards, manager of Chaparral Racing. Also Julie's Dad, Don, my cousin David Donnell and Suellen McCommon, one of Julie's best friends recently relocated to Midland.

National Champs......

If you missed the Rose Bowl game tonight you missed one of the best college football games in history, in my humble opinion, and one of the most amazing performances by a single player ever. Vince Young beat the USC Trojans and two Heisman award winners.

Honestly I thought it was over with six minutes to go, but I should not have counted Vince out. Truly amazing. The photo above is Julie, in the hat at center, surrounded by Vince Youngs family at the Texas/OU game in October. I had just talked to Vince's mother and congratulated her on that triumph for her son.

Congratulations Longhorns, it means a lot to the State of Texas to beat the boys from Hollywood!

Tradition: Adios, good-bye, so long...

Did anyone else notice something strange about this New Year's Day? As far as I can discern there is not one college bowl game being played today. Not one. For those under the age of 20 I will relate to you that all the major bowl games used to be played on New Year's Day. It was an orgiastic football feast lasting from 10 a.m. till after 10 p.m. A time for male bonding of the highest order and for the women to sit in the other room cooking and gabbing. In other words quality family time. At the end of New Year's Day you would know [most likely] who was the National Champion and the next day the holiday's were over and it was back to work.

Now? The bowl games began two weeks ago with the Avocado Bowl, Jell-0 Mold Bowl, Roto-Rooter Bowl....ad infinitum. If your team finished the regular season with a 6-5 record, no problem you were bowl bound. This is in some ways humerous to those of us who have been watching college football for 46 years. But mostly it is very sad. Crass commercialism has finally sacked the tradition in college football. This trend continues and in fact gets worse. I heard several days ago that The Peach Bowl, after all these years, will now be known only as the Chick-fil-A® Bowl. How catchy, will the bowl championship ring have a drumstick on it? A fowl wind blows in Georgia and in the tradition of college sports.