ReStoring Dallas

Let's have a talk about Dallas, gentle readers. I once spent a week working in Dallas with an old (far inferior, of course) employer. While there I asked only two things - that they teach me how to drive a forklift and that they tell me what the locals do for fun around there. We were dealing with computer inventory in a vast warehouse, so there was a fork lift right there, outside our office. Not only would they not let me near the forklift, they kept taking me to Olive Garden for dinner. My hosts, it would seem, were not the ideal ambassadors for the city.

How can a place that names its airport after an Elvis Costello song not be cool? Perhaps you've pondered the same thing. Well it is cool and here are just a few of the cool things about it:

• Doom was invented in Dallas. Not the concept, I'm not sure where that originated, the game.
• It's home to the nation's first convenience store (a 7-11, purveyor of the delicious Slurpee)
• The very first microchip was invented in Dallas
• The first drive-through bank window? You guessed it, in Dallas!
• The frozen margarita was created in Dallas (an improved-upon version of the Slurpee)
• The Be-Dazzler was invented by a Dallas resident. OK, I just made that up but is anyone really going to question you if you quote that tidbit? It's my gift to you, feel free to bring it up during awkward silences at cocktail parties and other gatherings.
• Stevie Ray Vaughn, Luke and Owen Wilson, Sharon Tate, Aaron Spelling, Meat Loaf and Morgan Fairchild were all born in Dallas.

Of course what really makes Dallas cool (besides the snow it's getting as I write this) is that it's home to an Engle Martin office! That's Cheryl Baker, Kyle Brothers, Scott Brown, Thomas Brownfield, Nick Cimino, Jonathan Havens, Candi Hopper, Sally Stewart (good heavens when did this office get so populated?), David Tusa, Crystal Crosby and Jody Wender (+1 Wender on the way.)

Down in Dallas, they're helping out their local Habitat for Humanity. They'll be working with Habitat's ReStore. ReStore is a retail outlet run by Habitat for Humanity that sells all manner of building materials that have been donated. All the proceeds go toward the funding of the organization's home-building projects. See? Cool.