WHAT WE DID: OCTOBER 28TH

Y'all take fun photos. All of those social network things you use were filled to the brim with photos of costumes we couldn't figure out and all of your beautiful faces. We liked 'em so much we had a hard time selecting which ones to include in our list. If you made it out to the Day of the Dead festival on Saturday, you know how awesome this weekend was. That, coupled with quite a few other events going on made for a great couple of days. Sadly, we haven't pigged out and taken photos of it for y'all in a while. You came to our rescue, though. Check out those food pics, Halloween shots and much more in the images below. And, as always, don't forget to include #WDDI in your photographs from week to week to be included in our Monday morning What We Did post. 

The coffin races get bigger and bigger every year both in the amount of racers and in the number of attendees/near-fatalities. We love it more than we ever could have imagined.

Lots of businesses and individuals got in this mix. T-minus 363 days until 2014 coffin races. We're planning our coffin now. Probably won't be Dr. Who related. If you were there, you know why. 

Kimberly Flanagan snagged this awesome pic. Hopefully she remained unharmed. 

Of course, there's more to Denton's Day of the Dead fest than just the coffin races (but does there need to be). Lots of folks in costumes (like the Ms. Frizzle pictured above), plenty of vendors and wonderful entertainment were all over. 

We were wowed by the sheer make-up talent at play on many attendees faces. The intricate, Day of the Dead designs were beautiful and everywhere you looked like this photo from reader Veronica. 

Humans weren't the only ones that got to dress up. This sad weiner dog got to be encased in a hotdog costume. Naomi Wood loved it enough to 'gram it.  

Cirque Du Horror was once again happening inside Dan's Silverleaf. We interviewed David Pierce about it a couple of years ago and like what he had to say. Reader Deborah Nepal was one of the many to take part. 

Of course, there were enough activities for youngins thrown in that we could call the event "family friendly." 

The Day of the Dead fest wasn't the only thing happening this weekend. WDDI readers, being the food loving fatties that we all are got our fair share of eatin' in. Hutch snagged this shot of Crickle and Co.'s peanut butter cheesecake. 

Our buddy Michelle Bradley hit up brunch at Hannah's with some friends. Hannah's has been in What We Did a lot lately. Are they having a resurgence or is it a coincidence?  

Fix My Ride was an effort from the fine folks at Cross Timbers church to fix the automobiles of college students, single parents and others in need of repair but unable to pay. It was a resounding success and we will definitely let y'all know ASAP if they have another. You can help out, too. Click here to find out more. Pic from Bryce Olcon. 

If our schedule would let up a little, it would give us a chance to send our mascot, Glen Ferret, out to check out Dallas Comedy improv classes in Denton. Sarah Adams just makes them look so fun. 

Instagram video by @SundayPrintShop of Austere's shindig this weekend that we didn't get invited to. 

We also randomly stumbled across an OU/UNT quidditch match and were immediately sucked in by the game. It was surprisingly almost as violent as rugby. We caught on to the rules fairly quickly and can't wait to check out another game. More info here. 

Reader Shaina Sheaff really dug UNT jazz professor, Stefan Karlsson's tunes last Thursday at Dan's.

DENTON CROWDFUNDING: OCTOBER

Denton Femme Fest is just one of the three things you can donate to that we are highlighting this month. 

It’s been a while since we last took a while at the Denton crowdfunding scene. For those not in the know, crowd funding is sourcing money from local friends, family and invested peoples to help fund your project, idea or startup. We heard tell of a few projects making the rounds and figured it was as good of a time as any to search through Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and a few others to bring to you the best of crowdfunding that Denton has to offer.

Have a look through the following three campaigns and decide for yourself if one tickles your fancy. If so, hurry over to their page and donate. You’ll feel good about yourself for the rest of the day and probably get a prize later on.

Odds are if you have a kid and follow the Den10, you’ve crossed paths with Anyah Brittain Martinez and a baby version of the Explorium before. She’s often up at the Community Market on Saturday mornings with engaging toys, activities and craft projects for youngsters. The Explorium is a hopeful children’s science museum to be located in Denton, TX that Martinez would like to open. Proceeds from this campaign will go towards renting an actual physical space for the Explorium to operate their various exhibits within.

Every once in a while we get jealous of larger cities and their many kid-friendly activities. It always happens when we visit the Austin Children’s Museum, the Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History does it, and now that the new Perot Museum is open in Dallas, it happens more than ever. We know this is a project on maybe 1/1000th of that scale, but something is better than nothing, and a little bit of heart can go a long way. Denton kids are in dire need of something like this. Unfortunately for us, there isn’t anyone with the last name Perot or overly-deep pockets living within our city limits with a foundation that needs to expel super large amounts of money. Maybe one day, but not now. For now, it’s up to us. If you can, donate to this project. It really does seem to have the best of the community in mind. The Explorium is looking for funding through “GoFundMe,” so don’t expect any silly gifts in return (it’s more like donating to a public broadcaster except with less guilt beforehand) - just the honest feeling of knowing you tried to help something good happen.

Local community activist and super-active social media person, Amber Briggle, has been in this column before. Last time we saw Briggle, she was pushing for a splash park, and while that’s still in the works, she’s back again, this time for her own, personal massage business, Soma Massage Therapy. Soma, apparently, is looking to grow.

Briggle wants to move her business out of her home and into a new space, get a new logo, and purchase some new equipment, amongst other things. This new space will also allow her to hire a few new massage therapists, as well. If you’re looking to get a massage yourself, why not go ahead and make a donation (a $100 will get you a massage and you’ll have that civic pride feeling) or, if you have more of a sweet tooth than you do back problems (boy do we envy you), make a donation of $25 and Briggle will bake you up a batch of your favorite cookies. 

If you’re interest in becoming more of a mover and shaker in the community and you like the cut of Briggle’s jib, you can attend this Saturday’s Neighborhood Empowerment Summit at the Denton Civic Center at which Briggle (and a few other cool people) will be giving some words of advice and sharing her experiences.

Here’s a quick and easy one, Daisy Salinas is looking for $200 to fund the Second Annual Denton Femme Fest at Mable Peabody’s. It looks as if it’s going to be a sure thing as they have already almost met their funding goal and the date for the shindig has already been set for November 23rd at Mable Peabody's. The event looks to have it all, complete with dancing, spoken word, a visual art auction, and “diverse” musical performances. In this particular case, your cold, hard cash goes not only towards the production fees associated with making this festival happen, but also the creation of local Latin zine creator’s, Muchacha Fanzine’s, upcoming issue entitled, “Nuestros Cuerpos/Our Bodies." A donation of as little as $5 will get you a single copy of one of their past zines of your choice. You can check out their old zines on their Etsy page.

THE TRUE HISTORY BEHIND GOATMAN'S BRIDGE

 Halloween is upon us, which seems the perfect opportunity to revisit one of Denton’s most legendary ghost stories. There are many Denton ghosts that have haunted our fair city over the years, but a few stand out as truly haunting. One of the most famous local ghost stories though, and one of the more terrifying, is the legend of Goatman's Bridge. 

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Denton’s most famous spectre is a story handed down for generations with a few variations, and that’s the haunted Goatman’s Bridge. Travelers to the Old Alton Bridge, built in 1884 as a busy thoroughfare, have long reported frightening encounters and ghostly experiences with supernatural creatures that have made it a legendary spot for Texas ghost hunters and a topic for numerous books.

According to the most circulated version, an African-American entrepreneur named Oscar Washburn and his family tended a farmstead goat herd near the bridge that was renowned for quality meat, milk, cheeses and hides. When the popular businessman proudly hung a sign on the Old Alton Bridge directing “This way to the Goatman,” it infuriated local Ku Klux Klansmen who plotted violence. On a dark night in the late 1930s, a lynch mob of Kluxers stormed Washburn’s shack and dragged the screaming Goatman to their noose waiting on the bridge, tightened the rope around the begging Oscar’s neck, then mercilessly flung him over the side. But when the Night Riders stumbled down to the dark river’s edge to confirm their murderous handiwork, they were shocked to find only an inexplicably empty noose dangling over undisturbed waters.

The panicked Klansmen frantically searched the area unsuccessfully before rushing to Washburn’s shanty, setting it afire with the Goatman’s family shrieking inside, perhaps to bait a desperate rescue attempt by the vanished Oscar. Washburn was never seen again, they say, but a vengeful spirit has haunted the Old Alton Bridge ever since.

Local legend says if you knock on the steel bridge three times at midnight, or perhaps- turn off your car lights and honk three times in summons, then you dare a visitation from the vengeful Goatman that’s preceded by the stench of decaying flesh. Numerous reports tell of unholy glowing eyes that burn red from the darkness, eerie glimpses of a large snarling Goat-headed man-beast stomping in the wooded shadows, or a frightening apparition of a maniacal Satyr carrying the heads of goats or humans in his hands.

The terrifying encounters and reported vanishings have been so frequent as to warrant numerous investigations by paranormal groups. But like I said, there’s more than one version that attempts an explanation for a century of recurring frights and sights encountered at the bridge.

Some attribute the work of Satanists who opened a portal for a hellspawn demon, while others say the Goatman’s wife is eternally searching for her murdered children.

There is also another variation that predates the bridge itself. In an account that may go back as far as the 1860s ”Texas Troubles,” some Copper Canyon cowboys lynched a Creole slave goat-herder named Jack Kendall from a tall creekside tree near where the bridge now stands, but ineptitude separated the runaway slave’s head from his body. The slavers then watched in horror as the headless body raised itself from the creekbed mud, animated by voodoo, and ripped off the head of a nearby goat to replace his own, still dangling in the noose!

Regardless of which origin gets told, old timers warn that knocking three times on the trusses of the bridge is an invitation to judgment, since the ghastly Goatman only spirits away those with the bloodlines of Klansmen or slaveowners into the woods for his terrible revenge.

You won’t find the names of Oscar Washburn or Jack Kendall in any historical records. Most ghosts are given names because we need to feel like we can know them. As a mentor once wisely advised, never let the facts of a story obscure the truths in the tale. If history is the self-congratulatory narrative of a community written by its victorious elite, then our ghosts will often problematize and haunt such tidy romanticisms of back in the day.

A handful of states have a Goatman tale, with Texas having a few itself, but each expresses unique reminders of threats from a forgotten past. Liminal areas of crossing can be full of possibility and danger, present injustices are informed by past prejudices, and there are critters – like snakes or gators – down in the creek that young’uns might outta be leery of. The Goatman isn’t just a haunting campfire tale, it’s also a reminder that an ignorance of our history is no protection from its everlasting consequences.

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Back in The Day is an ongoing WDDI contribution from Shaun Treat, founder of the Denton Haunts historical ghost tour. Treat has written about numerous local places and personalities at his Denton Haunts blog, and is forever indebted to the great work of the fine folks with the Denton County Historical Commission and local keepers of history like Mike Cochran and Laura Douglas at the Emily Fowler Library for their tireless work in helping preserve Denton’s intriguing past.

WHAT WE DID: OCTOBER 14TH

We try to make sure that we don't live the type of life in which we see our lives through the constant f/2.8, Instagram-friendly lens that lives on the back of our phones. Living like that makes having fun on the weekends a daunting task. "Is this 'gram-worthy?'" "Hey stranger, could you kindly turn slightly to your left and look into the sunlight?" We shouldn't have to be asking people these questions, but everything in the name of cool pictures, right? While we do know people like this, we aren't that bad...yet. 

We did fun stuff this weekend and documented said fun in a non-obsessive manner. Did you? Heck, we know you did because you tagged 'em with #WDDI and we saw all of 'em already. You had fun, too. Man, we love the weekend. Only five more days.  

There seemed to be lots of mini festivals close by this past weekend. We treked over to "The Unique Dining Capital of Texas" otherwise known as Roanoke on Saturday for "Celebrate Roanoke." We were mostly just there because we like Dentonites Brave Combo, we managed to have an excellent time in spite of ourselves. Watching an emmy winning band play to a crowd of less than a dozen definitely makes you feel better about yourself. In typical Combo fashion, however, they managed to get a crowd to not only gather but dance, as well. Here's Carl Finch of Brave Combo rockin' it with his accordion over the weekend. We love how "into it" Finch has always managed to be - always the showman. 

Jeffrey Barnes of Brave Combo. 

Robert Gomez at Dan's by Shaina Sheaff. 

Shaina Sheaff enjoyed the selection over at Denton Camera Exchange. We do, too. Have y'all checked it out yet? Hope on over and take a look at some of their awesome older models sometime. 

Reader, Bo Aughtry, went to Giuseppi's and found himself puzzled by this painting on the wall. Somehow, though, it does make us want Italian food. 

Do we talk about The DIME Store too much? We don't right? Man, we love that place. Shift, DIME and La Mexicana are an excellent S. Locust trifecta. 

We stopped by one of Denton's best attractions, Rose Costumes, to check out the costume selection for Halloween 2013. Your party may need their Game of Thrones throne, to go along with your white walker costume. Seriously, though, while we may be a little biased, this place is awesome. It makes for a great stop even when it's not October and is a great excuse to throw a costume party. 

Blowing dandelions on the square after the requisite Saturday morning jam. Photo by Instagram user jnemergut. 

Some blur on purpose (good bourbon will do that) out back at East Side Social Club from Deborah Nepal. 

Members of the 1 o'clock playing at Abbey Underground (is that what it's currently being called) last week. Photo by Shaina Sheaff. 

We cheered the Mean Green on to victory at Saturday's game after UT beat OU. 

Scrappy taught Glen how to make the Eagle Claw. 

A football game is the perfect time to partake in a big giant pretzel.  

We loved seeing all of the UNT spirit being taught to future generations. 

Speaking of spirit being taught to future generations - we're pretty convinced 'cheer camp' is just code for little kids bouncing around on the side lines. It's cool - its so dang cute we'll let it slide. 

One of the highlights of being at the game is taking in the halftime show of course!  

COMING SOON: ROCK LOTTERY 12

If you enjoy lotteries but don’t like losing money $1 at a time, have we got the event for you. The Rock Lottery, a Denton and Seattle staple, is coming back to Denton again to celebrate it’s 12th year on Saturday, November 2nd.

Rock Lottery collects 25 local musicians from a variety of different backgrounds and randomly groups them together into five different bands. This happens pretty early in the morning. Twelve hours later, after having spent the day writing, practicing and shaking hands, these newly formed bands play three to five song sets that they’ve spent the day writing. The results are always interesting. Shucks, we’ve wished that several of the bands created during Rock Lottery would have gone on to stay together. Previous band names of note include A Rising Beacon of Enlightenment Chamber Orchestra, Savior Serpent, and The Ghost of John Bonerz Denton. They’re “of note” for obvious reasons.

This year, we’re pretty excited by the list of 25 musicians that will be participating. Julie Glover, Economic Development Program Administrator for the City of Denton, is apparently also a rocker. Local hard-thinker and Doug Burr drummer, Dave Sims, and members of the Dallas Cowboys drumline will also be in the pool. We’ve got some pretty exciting combinations in our head that we’re hoping play out. Anyway, check out the entire list of musicians below and get your tickets early.

• Brandon Young (Cerulean Giallo, Quixod)
• Brian Smith (Maleveller)
• Burton Lee (Eleven Hundred Springs, Danny Rush and the DD’s)
• Chase Johnson (Chambers, Sam Robertson)
• Chris Bryan (Peopleodeon, Cool Womb)
• Chris Mosley (Contempt Collective, Early Lines)
• Chris Ott (Old Warhorse, Pinebox Serenade)
• Chris “AV” Avant (AV the Great, Trunk Pop Click)
• Cody Robinson (Paper Robot, Starhead)
• Courtney Marie (Ella Minnow, Forever & Everest)
• Dan Dockrill (Warren Jackson Hearne and Le Leek Electrique)
• Daniel Ziegler (Endless Thoughts, Teenage Cool Kids)
• Dave Sims (Doug Burr, Flowers of God)
• Donovan Ford (New Science Projects, Elesh Norn)
• Joey Kendall (Mount Righteous)
• Julie Glover (Jeff Glover Band)
• Kaleo Kaualoku (Spooky Folk)
• Members of the Dallas Cowboys Drum Line
• Mila Hamilton (Frauen, Jack with One eye)
• Reece McLean (Bukkake Moms, Problem Dogg)
• Rex Emerson (Boxcar Bandits, County Rexford)
• Ryan Wasterlain (Summer of Glaciers, The Angelus)
• Sashenka Lopez (Orange Coax, Christian! Teenage Runaways)
• Scarlett Wright (Spooky Folk, Fishboy)
• Spencer Stephenson (Botany)

Rock Lottery will be held on Saturday, November 2nd at Dan’s Silverleaf. $20 will get you into the selection ceremony and breakfast in the morning and evening general admission is only $15.  

WHAT WE DID: OCTOBER 7TH

Oh man, what a weekend. We hope your weekend was at least half as awesome as ours was. Canned, that festival we've been jabbering on about for months now, finally happened, and it was awesome. We also had our first cold-snap of the season and got totally drenched during said festival, but it still managed to be pretty danged awesome. In addition to that, October's First Friday was great and there were quite a few other things going on that WDDI readers visited and documented, too. Oh, if you read these Monday morning What We Did posts exclusively for pics of food that we ate, you're going to be disappointed this week. Not nearly as many food photos today. Check back next week when we promise to get fat again, y'all. Thanks for tagging your photos with #WDDI and have a great week!

Thursday evening, UNT on the Square had some live jazz in house. Reader, Shaina Shaeff, was there to capture this dude pounding some keys. 

We still need to make it out to Denton's Improv Comedy class put on by Dallas Comedy House. This photo from Sarah Adams shows last week's level 1 class. 

We visited a Farrier's Competition over at the North Texas Fairgrounds and saw a bunch of forges and hammers. 

One of our North Texas faves, Nervous Curtains, played Hailey's on Friday. Aubrey Salsman - who coincidentally has one of the best Instagram handles we've ever seen - was there to capture this light-filled shot. 

Old Potion kickin' around in J and J's Old Dirty Basement. Photo by Dave Koen.  

The DIME store had a 'sit and knit' during First Friday with Laura Jinks Jimenez. 

We made sure to catch the new show up at the UNT on the Square gallery - it's one of our favorite to date. 

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Reader beware, from here on out, it's a bunch of awesome Canned-related pics. 

We sampled a few beers here and there. Armadillo Ales was there reppin' Denton. 

Canned was wind-powered, y'all. Here's a photo of DME getting us all hooked up to that sweet, sweet breeze. 

This is about how many gates it takes to make one Canned Festival. 

We had a crew taking care of things from out Canned Command Center. 

AM Ramblers opened up the show and had things off to a great start. 

The #WDDI mascot, Glen Ferret, was on hand encouraging people to come out to the show and enjoy some live music and beer.  You can check his video here. 

Hares on the Mountain was up next. While they pretty much are represented in What We Did every single week, we don't ever really tire of them. They're always a joy to behold and photo snags like this one make them fun in still form, too! Seriously, limberness like this takes some practice. 

Alana Presley and Kent Boring from Keep Denton Beautiful and Denton Recycles were straight thuggin' at the show. 

Local band, Pageantry, who seem to getting some deserved attention lately, attempted to scare away any possible Canned fest-goers before the show with this frightening gram. Also, remember the time we included Pageantry in our first 3 songs column last winter? 

DIME Handmade spared a couple of their awesome ladies to Canned. They sold some locally-made goods and smiled a lot. 

Eventually, though, Denton's "rainy festival curse" hexed upon us Eli Gemini before he moved away a few years ago reared it's ugly head. Patrons - us included -  took shelter from the rain wherever they could. By the way, trees don't make great rain cover, FYI. 

A short while later, the sky cleared back up. Actually, it got super nice outside and gave us our first excuse to throw on a hoodie this fall season. We liked this shot of the Snosirrom Stik-Nroc sign and the post-rain sunset. 

Photo by Kyle La Valley. 

Helio Sequence kept the party going as the festival started to dry up. 

Menomena finished up the fest with a performance we won't soon be forgetting. 

MONTH IN REVIEW: SEPTEMBER

Midlake played a show at Dan's to give Denton a listen to their newest album, Antiphon. 

September had a few heavy hitters. Notably the Blues Festival loomed large over the month. The annual event has seemingly grown year-over-year to the point that it’s now Jazz Fest’s little brother as opposed to it’s former distant cousin status. We’re already excited for next year. We had a history lesson on Pops Carter in anticipation that had us ready for some blues. We were not let down.

The Arts, Antiques and Autos Show had another banner year, as well. We always love it when the square gets shut down and we’re free to walk around those streets as much as we want - heck, a lot of people do that even when the streets aren’t shut down. In fact, we’d bet that Denton is one of the top jay-walking cities in the nation. On the same subject,  we heard about some possible future changes to the way traffic - both bicycle and automobile - works on the square, that will hopefully result in fewer accidents.

Canned - an already exciting festival - got more interesting when we learned that it will be the first 100% wind-powered festival in North Texas and that over 170 different taps and 100 different Texas-born drafts will be available for us to choose between.

In addition, we made sure that the one year anniversary of that time we, as a town, forgot to come together and make plans to excavate a time capsule didn’t go by unnoticed.

We dug on some new tunes, ate at Viet Bites again, got some inside scoopage on goings-on in town, learned about DIME-seller Sheena Croft, had some yoga lessons, went behind the curtains of SpoOky Folk’s “Notion,” and talked to the dudes over at Redwood Recording Studio.  Oh, and we finally figured out where the ESSC was hiding after a bit of confusion. Whew! Was all of that really in September?

October should be an interesting month. Canned is this weekend, we'll see Lone Star Attitude open their doors (and roof top patio) to the public and plenty of Halloween celebrations will be had - what are y’all gonna be this year? October is sure to be jam-packed with things to do. What are you looking forward to in October? Make sure to check out our weekly Den10 column for a list of the ten best events happening in town and to tag your photos with #WDDI for inclusion on Monday’s What We Did. See ya next month!

WHAT WE DID: SEPTEMBER 30TH

This weekend fall made it's grand debut. The weather was great, and we found more than enough to do to keep us outside for the majority of the weekend. Of course, we made sure to eat plenty of tasty things we'll be telling you about later, we like to call it "research" - it's all for your sake dear friends. At least that's what we'll be telling our trainers. We also made sure to catch a few shows and spend some time hanging on the square.

Make sure to tag your photos with #WDDI over the next week, and, as always, thanks for sharing your photos with us.

We treked over to East Dallas to show you guys just how delicious Hypnotic Donuts (the donut place set to open in downtown Denton in early 2014) really, truly are. The things we do for you people. It's rough. 

We found out just how big the empty space left behind is when someone purchases a single copy of Gravity's Rainbow at Recycled Books. 

Herrera's got their new sign up at the corner of Oak and Locust. We like it a lot more than the sign it's next to. 

We had quite a few readers check out Hares on the Mountain at Dan's on Sunday - a requisite Dentonite activity. We particularly liked this shot from reader Camille Green (@camverde).  

Sara Button (@SaraButton) was also there to snag this shot of the lovely Petra Kelly - seemingly taken at the exact same time. 

We (once again) went to our favorite place (La Estrella) for a feature we're doing on breakfast tacos. 

Contributer, Naomi Wood (@NaysNews) says this monte cristo from Cups 'n Crepes is one of the best sandwiches in town and based on this shot, we're not inclined to disagree. 

We made sure to be at the Midlake show last week. We're of course always fans of the ever so talented Doug Burr. 

Midlake showed us what they're capable now, after all these years. We're pleased to say we're impressed with the new album, Antiphon, and completely smitten with Eric Pulido's voice. 

Midlake put on quite the show, with more lights, fog and effects than we've ever experienced at Dan's. 

The weather was perfect this weekend, so a few of us celebrated the oncoming fall with a picnic on the square. We chose our spot carefully, right between a group of people listening to Cas Haley sing and some kids playing hacky sack. 

MR. FARRIS GOES TO CITY HALL: SEPTEMBER

As we settle into fall, we think more about our community. Maybe its because we start spending more time outside, maybe it's because we get more Facebook invites that we aren't able to delete quickly enough. Whatever the reason, the fall makes us all the more likely to take a walk, ride a bike, or pack a picnic lunch during these times that the weather is cool enough to enjoy the outdoors without sweating through our picnic blanket. In doing so, we have the chance to notice the abundance of historic landmarks, small hidden businesses we never see from the main roads, spots where the sidewalks need repair and even small side streets that have become ideal places for photo ops. When we get away from the car we finally have a chance to really get to know Denton for who it (she?) really is, even in spite of her flaws - sometimes actually because of them. 

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If you were under the impression that the forthcoming Hickory St. improvements were a big deal - guess what! The floodplains are an even bigger deal. We know what you're thinking, "What?! Floodplains?  What are these people talking about now? Who cares about something like a floodplain? Certainly not I, Johnny B. Dentonite. I only care about beard growth and quality tacquerias." Trust us though, its a big deal. Our city is reviewing the problem of the floodplains - areas adjacent to bodies of water that are subject to flash flooding during storms - and they're making sure that they are FEMA compliant, not only to ensure the safety of its citizens, but to protect the property of the city. The reason we are currently concerned is because there are areas that studies show will be in big trouble when flooding occurs. Not only do we care that Pecan Creek will be under completely submerged under water, but we also care that the way the floodplains in the downtown areas are currently functioning is preventing new development around the square and the A-Train. Yeah, you read that correctly, until these problems are addressed (and we're talking big expensive problems here), we'll have a lack of new businesses and stunted growth in one of the city's most thriving areas. 

The downtown traffic safety report has been presented at the request of district 1 councilman Kevin Roden and the Denton Downtowners association. The biggest concerns that were asked to be addressed were pedestrian safety, red light violations, unsafe lane changes, and backing out without safety. The residents of downtown felt like more and more accidents were happening, and there were more near misses than they would have liked to see. The report started to address some of those concerns. Apparently 62% of the red light-related crashes involved the flashing red lights that come on at night. Therefore, there is a possibility that the city will be changing the times in which the flashing red lights turn on. They will also be cracking down on bicycle violations around the square. So if you're cycling on the square, make sure to use those hand signals, stop at the red lights, and walk your bike around the square sidewalks. The report is also causing concerns about the intersections where pedestrians are walking. Hopefully, this will result in making the crosswalks safer and more visible by painted stop blocks and maybe in the future outlawing cars turning left on red. 

There is also a group of citizens who are trying to imagine the possibility of Walnut St becoming a pedestrian plaza. The street as it stands right now is a sort of service alley. It houses the dumpsters, services the grease traps, service entrances for wait staff/deliveries, and is lined with utility boxes. It's also a little bit of an eyesore. As for parking, there is parking allowed, but the lines aren't clear and neither are the signs that show where parking is and isn't allowed. So, it's become kind of the wild west for people who park back there. There is always trash on the ground from people littering, there is an untamed forest of grass and weeds growing through the cracks of the side walk and there are numerous potholes in the road. Apparently a few people think this alley way would be better used as a pedestrian plaza - with tables and umbrellas. They want to turn those  aforementioned service entrances into a back entrance to serve patrons from or through. While this is a noble vision, there are several obstacles to overcome if there is any future permanent closing of the street to cars. In addition, there are several areas in other parts of town (away from the square) that could definitely benefit from a little TLC, too. Where would you guys like to see something like this go down? In the meantime, we would love to see that little street have a general make over, maybe some murals on the backs of buildings, taming of the weeds and a little more landscaping, and repainting the lines for parking in the back would improve the look of the side street exponentially.

Hypnotic Donuts and Cultivar Coffee are teaming up to bring us hand-crafted coffee, tasty donuts, and chicken biscuits. Even better, they're rumored to have hours that keep them open until 2am. Since we love the DFW native roast, we are pretty pumped that they are making a little home in downtown Denton. They'll be setting up shop on Hickory Street, right across from Gerhard's and next to Natalie's. A few citizens have commented that it seems woefully far from their favorite bar, and almost on the wrong side of the square, but we're pretty pumped that someone great will be re-energizing an oft-forgot block. Plus, we'll have one more place to grab caffeine and a tasty treat on our way to all of those meetings. 

Canned Fest announced that its going to be 100% wind energy thanks to the help of Denton Municipal Electric being way awesome and donating the wind energy. Alongside DME coming in and helping out, the Keep Denton Beautiful team will be there making sure that your recyclables get to where they need to be. We're excited about Canned being Denton's first super green music and beer fest. Oh yeah! We're pretty excited about the beer selection too. Make sure to grab your tickets now. You won't want to miss a moment of one of our new favorite festivals. 

That's it for us this month, y'all. We'll keep hitting up those meetings for ya, though. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.