Short Rides: A Photo Blog

Thanks to the good people at the Association of Alternative Weeklies, I had the chance to get grilled have a lively conversation Friday afternoon about my Texas Observer story on former KBR trucker Preston Wheeler.

I'd already been following their "How I Got That Story" live chat series, so it was great to be able to join in with my old editor Jake Bernstein. "Private Trauma" took AAN's 2008 award for feature writing in under-50,000 circulation papers, and you can check out the archived live chat on AAN's site.

Thanks to Julia Goldberg at AAN for making this happen!

I've been doing lots of shooting for the Observer's food blog, City of Ate, over the last few months, and thought I'd throw a few of those shots onto the site here. These shots come from a pair of posts on special dishes during Dallas's annual Restaurant Week, and the best ways to use bacon in the kitchen.

With the State Fair of Texas coming up in a few weeks, I'm betting there'll be plenty more food shoots, deep-fried and glistening in the sun, coming along soon.

After a long week with lots of shooting for the Observer, I wasn't totally thrilled at the idea of getting up early on Saturday for another one. The fact that it was a high school reunion, and not even my high school, didn't get me any more enthused.

But I was dead wrong -- following the parade on its short route to the school, and talking to old Woodrow alums along the way, made for one of the most fun shoots I've had yet in Dallas. There was a great small-town feel around the Lakewood neighborhood school, and best of all, this was my neighborhood.

I met Tom Hopkins (above) out in front of the school, where he was watching the parade come in. He planned on driving in the parade like he usually does (there's one every five years), but this time they'd filled all the cars already. Instead, he took up a Greaser pose against his car and sized up everyone going by. I wrote more about him in the lede of my post on the Observer blog Unfair Park.

It was a great start to the weekend, and a nice change of pace from all the concerts and press conferences. Best of all, I feel a lot more a part of this neighborhood after hearing so many great stories about what it was like in Lakewood decades ago. Crashing someone else's high school reunion ended up being great -- I'll definitely have to try it again sometime.

I also posted a slideshow on the Observer's site, including author Lawrence Wright, a Woodrow '71 grad who was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame Saturday. Steve Miller (you know, "The Joker") was honored too, but I believe he was a no-show.

Still, once again it's a little frustrating there was nowhere on the site to run this one any bigger than our slideshow holder:

...or maybe I should just quit complaining and get closer.

For the first update in a while, I just want to share a few stories worth noting form the last few weeks.

The biggest story I've seen in a while on PTSD is this Salon investigation into evidence that the Army's doctors are being encouraged to find other, less expensive diagnoses for patients with PTSD symptoms. One of the big questions about the long-term effects of the war has been how the Army will cope with the huge rush of soldiers coming back with PTSD. Based on this story, the answer seems to be, in part, that they'll find some other diagnosis. Plenty of parallels to the difficulty contractors have had with their PTSD claims.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' surprise announcement that he'd push for drastic cuts in defense contracting has a lot to do with big-budget weapons programs and contracts for new fighter jets. But the headlines, like the Washington Post's "Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out" show that way down deep, this could be more about pushing back against the private interests that have become so well entrenched in U.S. military operations. It's an interesting signal of the new administration's intentions toward private contractors in the war.

Then there's this piece from the good people at the Medill news service in Washington -- a familiar story about the trouble contractors have had with their medical claims, including a name that will be familiar to fans of the show: Art Faust from Houston.