Where's a Flower Mounder to weekend, or retire?

Do you get a lots of mailers pitching all the new out-of-town lake/resort communities that have sprung up around our area? We do. We've kinda been thinking about buying a piece of something that we can invest in, to hold on to until we want to build a second home for weekends and possible future retirement, or just as an investment.

Next weekend, we're going to tour The Cliffs at Possum Kingdom. Mostly we're going there now because they're offering Calloway golf clubs just for making the visit. And I could really use new irons. We've been to The Cliffs before a couple of times on our own, but we've never taken the official tour. We stayed in their hotel once (which is OK but not fancy). We've also spent a few hours on PK Lake, which is a real treat.

The Cliffs looks like a really nice neighborhood, but it seems to be developing really slowly, and I wish such a nice neighborhood had more of a little town nearby than not-so-close Graham or way-too-small Mineral Wells. Perhaps we'll be wowed on our visit next weekend.

What about the new communities up on Lake Bridgeport or Amon Carter Lake, to the northwest? Anyone find an ideal weekend retreat east of Dallas?

Ideally, we'd love to invest in something in the Hill Country, since we spend some time down there. But it's really too far away to make it a regular weekend stop.

Where do you Flower Mound folks go for your weekends? Anyone have a weekend home or a favorite nearby weekend resort destination they'd like to mention?

Cross Timbers Gazette

Here's more proof that micro-local news is alive and well, and that someone (not this blogger) is making money on it.

Perhaps I've been in a hole all my years in Flower Mound, or perhaps I've been living too far south, but until tonight I had not heard of the Cross Timbers Gazette. It's a mailed newsletter, focusing on our neighboring communities Bartonville, Argyle, Copper Canyon, Double Oak and Lantana. But some Flower Mounders get the Gazette, it appears, according to its nameplate. Probably the FMers getting the Gazetter are those who live in the rural areas to the west and northwest.

Anyway, now we can all read up, thanks to my friend Max at LantanaLinks.com, who's posting the current issue of the Cross Timbers Gazette on his website, as a PDF file download. According to the Gazette's nameplate, this pub is in its 32nd year. Again I ask, where have I been?

Fancy new church on 1171

It's not quite a weekend barn-raising like in the old country, but the progress of construction for the new RockPointe Church campus is notable. The building is starting to take shape quite nicely on FM1171 west of town. Right now the church is meeting at Briarhill M.S. in Highland Village. Anyone go to this church, or know what makes it different?

There's been tremendous growth, both inside and outside, at the not-quite-as-new Valley Creek Church at FM2499 and Dixon. What's happening there?

If I hadn't said it before, we've been Trietsch members since 1996, and active members for most of that time. I wish I could get out and see what the other churches in our area are up to, but I guess it's been too important to reconnect each week with the people we're used to spending Sunday morning with.

Still here ... just swamped

Sorry to be quiet for so many days, but summer work and fun has occupied my mind the past week. A little website launching (the new myFOXdfw.com has been my focus for several weeks). A little weekend trip away to the Hill Country. More soon.

Meantime, discuss this even-odd water rationing arrangement the Town has rolled out, as part of Stage 2 water restrictions. Do you know which day you're supposed to water on, without having to click through to the link? I didn't -- I assume it was based on the last digit of your street address - wrong!

Flower Mound: a Town with six area codes?

Not sure if this will ever come to pass, but it's conceivable that Flower Mound could be one of only cities in the U.S. to have six area codes within its limits. You know that most of Flower Mound lies in the 972 area code, but there's the overlay with 214 and 469. I don't know if anyone in Town has a home or business phone with a 214 and 469 area code, but it's possible the phone company could create an exchange in any of the three area codes.

Same for the west side of town, which falls under the 817 area code. There's an overlay here too, so it's possible that someone in Flower Mound could have a home or business phone number in the 682 area code, which overlays 817.

That's five. What about the sixth? This is a stretch, but I think I'm right. There's a new subdivision being requested for the piece of Flower Mound that's north of 407, near Chinn Chapel. I think this piece of land is in the 940 area code - at least that's how it appears to me.

So 214, 972, 469, 817, 682, 940 -- all rooted in Flower Mound somewhere? Perhaps someone with the phone company will post a comment to debunk my logic, but how many other cities do you know that could claim six home area codes, even five (if you don't count 940)?

What's being built over there?

Over there and over there and there and there and there? So much dirt is turning over in Flower Mound right now, particularly along 2499 north of 1171, it's hard to keep up. Used to be, you had to file an open records request with the Town (or go to the right meeting) to get a copy of the Active Applications report published by the Town Planning Staff. This document tracks all the building projects that are past the application stage and not yet past the Council-approval stage. But thanks to Town staffers, these vital documents are now available to be viewed online, anytime.

Save this link: http://www.flower-mound.com/planning/case_log.pdf. Check out the report every few weeks to keep on top of what's going where.

Another: http://www.flower-mound.com/bldginsp/bldg_stat.php. This page on the Town website lets you look up Certificates of Occupancy that the Town issues to businesses, even those that simply rent space in strip centers.

No time to check out the full reports? Here are the highlights:

• Much of the house tear-downs along FM2499 between FM1171 and Rippy Road will become office parks and the like.
  
• A new Market Street supermarket (smaller than Central Market, but with both staples and gourmet items) is coming to the northwest corner of Forums Drive and FM1171. That's almost across the street from Sprouts, right? Here's a good 2003 article about what Market Street is all about.
  
• Red Robin is building a restaurant in that new JCPenney shopping center, at the southwest corner of FM2499 and Dixon. There's a Red Robin in Grapevine. The chain is big in Seattle, but I used to eat at the Red Robin in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, all the time when I worked near there. Pretty good food - competitor to TGIFridays and Chili's.
  
• If you're a customer of Cingular or MetroPCS wireless service, you might soon get better reception. Both companies are asking to build more towers (or put additional poles on existing towers) in Flower Mound. Cingular wants one in Bridlewood.

The Great Water Main Break of 2006

Update Monday 7/17 -- the Town has extended the mandatory outdoor-watering ban until Tuesday 7/18 at 6pm. They still need to replenish the tanks, but it appears that pressure has been restored. Lifetime Fitness was back open tonight, and packed as usual. I saw one electronic traffic temporary billboard installed on FM2499 at Gerault tonight, telling people not to water.

Perhaps you know by now the Town's under mandatory outdoor-watering restrictions from now at least until tomorrow night (Monday July 17) around 6pm. There was a water main break near Morriss and 1171 Saturday that closed down several businesses because they couldn't use water.

Even as late as 5pm today, Lifetime Fitness was closed because they weren't confident they'd have water for showers, drinking fountains and emergencies.

The only way I learned of the mandatory water restrictions is by clicking to the Town's official website, once I learned there might be a problem. I didn't see any other attempts to get the word out to the residents to stop outdoor watering. Did I miss something obvious?

We heard tonight that a few residents near the break didn't have satisfactory water pressure. How were you affected by the water main break?

From Flower Mound to the Pacific, in the same lane?

I discovered this phenomenon of traffic trivia tonight as I was driving to North Dallas.

If you get on southbound FM2499, starting at FM1171, and head towards Grapevine, where does it lead you? If you said Grapevine or Hwy 121, you'd be right. But think about this. Did you know that if you drive south in the right lane of FM2499, you'll wind up in the left-hand lane of LBJ Freeway heading eastbound all the way across North Dallas, and perhaps much farther down the road?



Here's the deal. You stay in that right-lane, which becomes the center lane when 2499 goes to three lanes each way south of Spinks. When you get to Grapevine Mills, you stay in that center lane, which becomes the right lane on the flyover. That right lane is an exit-only lane for 635/LBJ heading toward North Dallas. That lane that flies over the bridge becomes the new left lane for LBJ, and it stays the left lane all the way through North Dallas, at least. (The left-lane of FM2499, by the way, ends with a forced-merger at the LBJ flyover.)

Tonight I exited at Coit, so I don't know how far you can actually go in that same lane without being forced to exit or being merged into another lane. (This trivial traffic pursuit only counts if you can stay in the same lane without being forced to switch lanes or forced to exit.)

So how far will that same lane take you? Could it be to the Pacific Ocean? Here's how it could be. Left lanes rarely merged or are forced to exit. We know LBJ winds all the way around Dallas, and then becomes I-20 heading back toward Grand Prairie, Arlington and eventually to Fort Worth and beyond. There are very few left-lane exits - period, and none that I can think of along LBJ heading in that direction. There used to be a left-lane exit to get on northbound Central, but that was removed when the High Five was built. So what if that same lane survived (no forced exits, no forced merges into another lane) along I-20 past Fort Worth to Abilene and Midland? And what if that same left-lane survived past the merger with I-10 in West Texas. And what if it survived Phoenix and points west?

Could it be that the little lane that starts on FM2499 in Flower Mound takes you all the way to the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles? Could you really drive that far and never have to change a single lane?

Only one way to find out!

ROAD TRIP!!!!!

The News Connection's new website

Check it out at newsconnection.com. Quite fancy. When I clicked there tonight, I first thought I had mistyped the URL, because the site doesn't look like your traditional news site.

You know, I was just about to blog on a couple of nice notes from this week's paper edition of the TNC, and then this comes along. Good job guys!

By the way, those two nice notes about this week's TNC:

1) I'm really impressed with the TNC's nice art. The headlines at the top of the front page are nicely designed with good photos.

2) I love the sub-head on the Entertainment page regarding the movie, "You, Me and Dupree", which reads "You, Me and a Bottle of Tequila Couldn't Fix This Movie". Clever!

The HV HOA/flag flap

Unless you don't read any papers (even the freebies) or watch your local TV news (shame on you!), or unless you're on a summer-long vacation (send a postcard!), you've heard of the Great Flag Flap of 2006 going on in Highland Village.

A woman living in an HV neighborhood with an HOA has planted a few dozen small flags all around her front yard, and she wants to keep them there as a permanent display. The HOA says "whoa - that's going beyond a seasonal decoration (like Christmas lights) and now you need to get HOA approval before you make such a permanent change to your home's appearance." Lady says she doesn't need HOA approval to display the Stars and Stripes, any which way she wants.

I'm all for the American flag. In fact I have a 20-foot flagpole with a 4x6 flag hoisted above it. It's up 24 hours a day for parts of the year, and I have it lit at night. We have an HOA too in our neighborhood, so when I wanted to put up the pole back in 2000, I sent a letter to the HOA board asking permission. At first, my request was denied, but rather than calling the newspapers and TV stations, I called up a board member and found out what the concerns were. As soon as I sent along some additional information, including a map of my front yard where I wanted the flag to go, and as soon as they saw I had a place in mind that was setback from the street, and once they envisioned how it would be appropriately scaled next to my house, they gave me the green light.

So I don't have much sympathy for the HV lady, who put up her display without asking, and who now doesn't appear to want to apply for that approval. Sometimes HOA officers in some neighborhoods like to play king or queen and overstep their authority. But most times, they just want to keep the neighborhood looking its best.

My question for her is ... if she didn't want to abide by an HOA's rules, why did she move into that house in the first place?

What do you think? Is she taking this too far, or do you think I'm crazy?

Another What If ... The Library and Parker Square

So far my previous "What If" posts (here and here) have not spurred the debate I had hoped for, but I'll try it again tonight.

A few years ago, before the Town built our grand new library on Churchill Drive and while Parker Square was on the drawing board, developer Cole McDowell offered the Town of Flower Mound a spot in Parker Square for the new library. The Town listened, but eventually declined and opted instead for the current stand-alone facility we enjoy now.

But what if the library had been built at Parker Square? Would that have helped Flower Mound's premier retail development become more of a magnet here in Town?

What could Tom Thumb have against pregnant women?

I promise to get off the Tom Thumb blog-wagon, although I wish they would reply to my post just below. (Hasn't happened yet.)

My wife, daughter and I went to our favorite store tonight for our weekly shopping visit, and we wound up dropping about $125. That's about our usual weekly contribution to the fortunes of the Safeway global food empire (which runs our favorite little store). Tonight, the first thing we saw was that the up-close parking lot spaces previously reserved for pregnant women and moms with newborns have been removed. You know, those little pink signs with the stork on them? Gone.

Why would they would do this? I guess their answer is that they want to open up more spots for lazy-but-definitely-not-pregnant people like me. How nice. Or perhaps they're doing some even more sinister. Perhaps they're quietly removing all the parking spaces -- one by one -- just to see if we'll notice that too. Hmmm.

On to more important topics. I promise no grocery store posts for another week or two, but if we wake up one day and find there's no more parking for anyone at Tom Thumb, well, I'm going to have to write about it!!!!

Grapevine Mills getting a Cracker Barrel

That new construction going on across from Grapevine Mills Mall, and just under the FM2499 flyover is a new Cracker Barrel restaurant. Now those who are big fans of Cracker Barrel (and who isn't?) already visit the one on I-35 at Fox Ave., so this won't be a big deal to everyone. But it's nice to have nearby.

Your turn: What's the best breakfast joint in Flower Mound? Is it the IHOP, by default? Or is there a better breakfast somewhere else?

Townhomes: Why not in Flower Mound?

Good story with photos in today's Star-Telegram on the growing popularity of townhomes in northeast Tarrant County.

Southlake has allowed townhomes near the Southlake Town Center. Now there are upper-end projects in places like Colleyville, Bedford, North Richland Hills and Irving. In Colleyville, the prices are over $400,000 for the new projects, but they can go as low as the $100,000's in other suburbs.

My wife and I spent last evening at the new FOX Sports Grill at the new Shops of Legacy mixed-use development in Plano. Like the West Village near downtown, the Legacy development is a mixture of upper-end restaurants, residential, retail, and it includes an Angelika theater. It's a beautiful project.

I know we have a love for low-density residential, and I'm glad our Town holds that as an ideal. But I think mixing high-end townhomes with these high-end retail projects is an idea that should come to Flower Mound. Not everyone wants to mow a lawn, and it's obvious from the examples in the previous paragraph that more upscale people are choosing to live in these retail/residential developments.

Want to go beyond the strip mall? This is how you do it.

Love the new 121!

I never thought I would say this, but for the first time in my 10 years of living, I actually enjoyed driving on SH121. They just opened the new freeway stretch from just north of Lakeside Parkway almost to The Colony. It's going to be a toll-road starting September 1st, but you can drive it for free until then. The rest of 121 from The Colony north toward Frisco and McKinney is still a mess, but they'll finish it soon enough.

The Plano commute has to be one of the worst for Flower Mound residents. Now that FM3040 is open and quite driveable, and now that this stretch of SH121 is open, it's such not a bad experience any more.

Go. Drive. Be free like the wind. The new road begs to be driven!

Trouble with a Tom Thumb-bought gift card

This was embarrassing.

Loyal readers of these pages know we are pretty loyal to the south-side Tom Thumb for our weekly shopping. The other day my wife was buying groceries there, and she added a Blockbuster gift card to her cart. We thought that would be a good gift to thank our neighbors for pet-sitting.

At the check-out stand, the clerk rings up the Blockbuster gift card and gives my wife a receipt that shows it's been activated. We give the gift card to our neighbors. A day later, they go to the Blockbuster in the same shopping center (FM2499/FM3040) and try to use it. It doesn't work. The clerk at Blockbuster says it's *not* been activated. Our friends are very nice. They go ahead and pay for their movie rentals with their own money. Later, they quietly let us know the card didn't work for them. Ugh -- that's no good.

My wife calls the Tom Thumb store on the phone, but they say to call the Blockbuster store. My wife calls the Blockbuster store, but they refer her to the Blockbuster website. After searching Blockbuster's website, she finds no mention of help for her specific situation.

My wife goes back to Tom Thumb with the card and the activation receipt and tells two customer service representatives what happened. They tell her they cannot help her, and that all sales are final when it comes to gift cards. They say she can wait until the next day to visit with the store manager. Alternatively, they tell her to go to Blockbuster, which she does. After some computer wrangling the Blockbuster clerk is able to get the card to work. They also give our neighbors a free rental for their inconvenience. We'll give the neighbors the working card, which they can enjoy on their next visit.

I realize gift cards are a tricky proposition for a reseller like Tom Thumb, since it may be difficult for them to track how a gift card is used after they sell it. But for them to tell my wife that they won't help her with a purchase she made at their store is unfortunate. And for a store that's spent big bucks on a makeover, and is putting new energy into customer service, this is not a good sign.

I'll e-mail this to Tom Thumb and post any reply right here. I realize this is small potatoes compared to the real problems of this world, but this site is a garden of small potatoes.

Big crowd at HV's new restaurant

There's a new restaurant, Patron's Mexican Grill, that's opened up near The Grotto. One of my north-side-Flower-Mound friends says there was a long line there Friday night.

Has anyone been there yet?

Sumo Cookies = Big Story

Check out today's Dallas Morning News article on our neighbor Janice Paris and her creation/business, Sumo Enormous Gourmet Fortune Cookies. Perhaps you've seen Janice driving around Flower Mound in her Sumo-decorated VW Bug. We've known Janice for many years, and we're thrilled she's been able to grow this dream of hers. Read the article. Buy her cookies.

It's a Sonic!?!

The abandoned KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut building next to Magic Mike's on FM2499 now has a Sonic banner draped over it. I love our Sonics in Flower Mound, so this one here won't do us much good. I miss Schlotzsky's and KFC. I'd also take an Arby's, but do we really need another Sonic in the area?

Watch the shuttle over Flower Mound!

Here's a Flower Mound-specific schedule for watching the Space Shuttle Discovery fly across the sky.

Wright Amendment proposal -- good for Flower Mound?

While I was away a few weeks ago, there were a few headlines on a compromise for the Wright Amendment. That compromise (info here) won support of the cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, and both American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

It's no sure thing Congress will sign off on this pact, and already, other airlines are voicing objections.

Here's my question for you:

Would this new Wright Amendment compromise be good for Flower Mound? Discuss. I'll pop in with my answer in a few days.

The secret of Magic Mike's and gas prices

We did a story on the TV station this week about how gas futures shot way up this week, and experts tell us we can expect prices at the pump to follow in step, perhaps up another quarter to the levels we had to pay in the Katrina/Rita days last fall. Not good.

No sooner than I was driving home from work that night and passing by Magic Mikes (the two gas stations that have a corner on the Grapevine Mills gas market), and they had raised their prices by at least 15 cents. Just like that. Tonight, Mikes is at $2.99 for regular, but the FM stations are both at $2.85. That's a big difference if you're filling up that SUV.

I've been comparing gas prices at Magic Mikes and the two FM2499 south Flower Mound gas stations (Diamond Shamrock and Exxon) for years. Here's what I've learned:

• When the trend for gas prices is on the rise, Magic Mike's is usually first to raise prices. We've interviewed "Mike" before and I know he really watches those wholesale price sheets (and he's probably watching the markets too). If the trend is up, take a close look at the FM stations, because you'll generally find cheaper prices here.
  
  
• But the reverse has shown to be true too. When gas prices are trending down, Mikes is often a bit quicker to lower prices, compared to the FM stations. I find this somewhat ironic, since the only market force to drive down prices is competition, and Mikes really has no competition where he's at. But that's what I've noticed over many ups and downs in the cycle.
  

Don't cry for me, Highland Village

Driving along FM407 for the first time in a few weeks tonight, I'm starting to get a sense of the enormity of the two side-by-side developments on the HV side of FM407 at FM2499. I've already blogged about the movie theaters and Barnes and Noble and all the other great stores going in on the NW corner of that intersection. But that Wal-Mart center (and all the auxiliary buildings) are starting to go up, and they look quite impressive. I know that development was a hard-fought battle in HV (and I know a lot of their people bemoaned the fact that FM already had the Target), but I think they'll be happy with these new stores when they're built and occupied.

Baris: Freak me out

On a Saturday night, you can expect a huge crowd at old Flower Mound staples like Salernos and Christinas and Baris. So I was shocked tonight when I drove by Baris and saw the place closed with a sign in the window. Uh oh! I've seen that sign before, at dearly-departed places like KFC (signs are still there - ugh).

I quickly peeled into their parking lot, but to my relief, I found that the sign said only that Baris was taking four days off, from tonight through the 4th. That's a good thing for a business to do -- lets the business-owners and their employees get some holiday time off. That's all it is, right?

My new favorite Chinese food restaurant

We eat a lot of Chinese food here in Flower Mound. Our regular rotation consists mostly of takeout - either from Beijing Wok on FM2499 or from Panda Express on FM3040. My son's favorite restaurant in all of Flower Mound is the buffet at China Palace, across from Sprouts. But I'm only lukewarm on eating there. It's expensive for dinner, and I don't eat all the fancy stuff they offer (sushi and such).

Tonight, my son was playing at a friend's house and not with us. My wife and I wanted Chinese, but not at any of the regular haunts. We revisited a place we had been to once, but for some reason, she didn't like. We ate at Empress of China, next to the Tom Thumb on FM407 at Morriss. I remembered liking it before, and this time I absolutely loved it. I'm a big curry lover, and they did Canton Curry Chicken just perfectly, with just enough of the powerful spice to let you know it's there. My wife enjoyed her orange chicken too.

Empress of China is wonderfully decorated, very modern and stylish inside with some cool lighting. It's not a huge restaurant, but there's room for 100 or more. As Joe Bob Briggs used to say, check it out!