The Gypsy Wagon on Henderson is trying something new this weekend by hosting an outdoor Swap and Flea on Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Vintage items, home décor and clearance priced winter clothing will all be on sale in their Airstream store-on-wheels, Gertie A-Go-Go. Twenty vendors also will be there swapping and selling their “junk, treasures and funky finds,” according to the event promo.

Two food trucks also will be on handfrom 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. to supply lunch to hungry shoppers. Ruthie’s Rolling Café will serve some of its classic grilled cheese sandwiches, and Trailercakes will sell cupcakes.

Parking will be available behind Jones Walker furniture store or along Miller, Homer and Willis streets. Follow The Gypsy Wagon on Facebook and Twitter to see a preview of this Sunday’s deals, or the other vendors that will be selling merchandise Sunday. Most vendors will take only cash, and there is an ATM at the Henderson Market just in case.

Cerina Wrye and Unarei Saldana opened their shop, the Labyrinth Metaphysical Herbal Apothecary, in 1997. These modern-day witches specialize in psychic readings, reiki healing, herbal remedies and other spiritual elements. In this video, shot in October, the women talk about how they started their business, their life stories and what inspires them. Read more about their shop in our February 2012 story.

Lakewood Elementary counselor Lydia Dickson agrees it’s never too early to talk to kids about college. That’s why last month, she invited about a dozen Lakewood alumni to visit fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms. There were a couple of Woodrow Wilson High School seniors, but most of them were college students home on break. The Lakewood students asked a lot of questions: Why did you pick your college? How long are your classes? Do you live in a dorm? Did you get to pick your roommate? What is the food like? Is there recess? Read more about it in our February 2012 issue.

Stealing Harry the UPS Guy’s boxes?! No you didn’t. Last year we heard about Harry Scoville detaining a thief he witnessed stealing packages off a porch in Lakewood. And then we were like, “Hey! That’s our UPS guy!” Harry spotted a guy who looked suspicious on his route, so he kept an eye on him. He tells the rest of the story in this video from January 2011. We also feature him in our February 2012 cover story.

East Dallas resident Heather Paterson recently was awarded jazz performer of the year for 2011 by the Sammons Center for the Arts.

The Center has sponsored a successful monthly jazz series for more than 20 years; check out the spring 2012 schedule here.

Paterson is a member of the jazz quintet Straight Ahead. You can see them Saturdays at The Free Man Cajun Café at 2626 Commerce.

Paterson is a nurse practitioner by day and chair of the nurse peer review committee at Children’s Medical Center.

Is there a budding young filmmaker living at your house? Is your high school or college student passionate about energy conservation?

The Dallas Film Society, host of the Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF), is teaming up with TXU Energy to sponsor a student film contest. Participants will submit a 3-5 minute short film about the future of energy conservation in hopes of having their creation shown for 2012 DIFF crowds.

In addition to the big-time exposure (the top 3 high school and college winners get to have their film screened at DIFF) there are cash prizes for your school’s film department (from $1,250 to $7,500) and individual prizes, which include cash and/or video editing software. The deadline for submission is February 10, 2012 and more details are available here.

“The festival is a great event that not only celebrates film and filmmakers, it celebrates the City of Dallas,” said Karen Fleig, who’s handling advertising and marketing for the Dallas Film Society. The “festival village” will be at Mockingbird Station April 12-22, but there will also be events at West Village, the Majestic Theater, Texas Theater in Oak Cliff and NorthPark’s AMC.

High School Roundtables are held every other month by the Dallas Film Society, including one last month on the set of Dallas. “Roundtables are fun, informative and introduce students to the world of filmmaking on a local and attainable level.”

And to Lakewood’s next Steven (or Stephanie) Spielberg: I want to be your first interview!

Mike Rawlings, Dallas mayor, will be the keynote speaker at Woodrow's Class of 2012 baccalaureate.

I have it on good authority, since my wife is one of the sponsors of Woodrow Wilson High School’s Class of 2012, that Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings will be the keynote speaker at this year’s baccalaureate program. Rawlings’ wife, Micki, is a Woodrow graduate, and she is expected to attend the event, too. Full disclosure: Our youngest is a Woodrow senior this year.

In an interesting coincidence, the keynote speaker for our older son’s Woodrow class also was Dallas mayor at the time — Tom Leppert. Our son was tapped to introduce Leppert, who showed some class in not boxing his ears for all of the anti-Trinity and anti-city-owned convention center hotel posts I’d written here on the blog during Leppert’s term.

No such worries for Rawlings, who is getting around the city consistently and seems to be a reasoned cheerleader for Dallas neighborhoods. In fact, I have yet to hear him use the dreaded Leppert-ized term “world-class city”; see, there I go again…

Eric Nadel has been the radio voice of the Texas Rangers baseball team for years, so you can imagine he spends a good amount of time eating at restaurants through the country each year.

So when he was asked Tuesday by the DMN’s baseball writer, Evan Grant, what his best meal of the off-season has been, he went on and on about Sundown at the Granada.

Even while he still admitted being pained by the Rangers’ loss in Game 6 of the last year’s World Series, Nadel said the Sundown veggie burger was “the best I’ve ever had” and said he and his wife also enjoyed a chopped salad with kale, something called Macchu Pichu (beans, sweet potatoes and quinoa) and stuffed avocados.

I haven’t stopped by yet, but it looks like the place is worth the trip.

Mario Lopez, most recently of “Dancing with the Stars”  and “Extra” fame, visited the Boys & Girls Club of Greater East Dallas last month.

Lopez attended a Boys & Girls Club when he was growing up in San Diego, Calif. During his visit to our neighborhood, Lopez talked to the students about the importance of health and fitness.

A pal who teaches high school journalism in Plano told me her kids think corny songs like “Bust a Move” and other calorie-free pop culture from the ’90s is cool. So A.C. Slater must be cool.

At a community meeting Monday night regarding a Dallas ISD plan to close Bonham Elementary School, parents were asked to write their questions on 3-by-5 note cards. Northeast Learning Community senior executive director Lisa Deveaux then attempted to answer questions written on the cards, which were handed to her.

Parents and educators were not allowed to make comments, and follow-up questions were discouraged. This was a Q&A, but it was not a discussion.

Frustration among Bonham supporters was palpable. A few shouted questions and comments to Deveaux, who first ignored them, and then implored parents to set an example of civil discourse for the children present. One parent became disgusted with the Q&A process and stormed out, saying, “You’re insulting my intelligence.”

District 8 Trustee Adam Medrano, whose district includes Bonham and two other schools slated for closure, told the crowd he intends to vote against the DISD school consolidation plan, which would close 11 schools in an effort to save $11.5 million. The board will vote on the proposal at its 5:30 p.m. meeting Thursday, Jan. 26. A public hearing is set for 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

The bulk of the savings — $9 million — would come from the loss of 177 jobs the closures would cause. At the same time, DISD says it will attempt to reassign all of those employees. The district has almost 11,000 employees, and they lose about 800 a year when employees retire or accept jobs out of the district. The savings in this plan is due to increased class sizes. The elementary school standard is one teacher for every 22 students, which is the ratio at Bonham. Under the school consolidation plan, DISD elementary school classrooms would include 27 students for every one teacher. In other words, even though Bonham is an exemplary, Blue-Ribbon school, it is on the chopping block because it is less efficient than other DISD elementary schools.

A few questions were answered:

Q. Why doesn’t the district instead close 11 of its 33 academically unacceptable campuses?

A. Because those schools receive money from the federal government, so closing them wouldn’t save as much money as closing schools that perform at least adequately.

Q. Why not close a school that has a higher payroll, such as Lakewood Elementary School?

A. Because the population of Lakewood elementary is much higher. Bonham is at risk of closure because it serves just 230 students, compared with nearly 730 at Lakewood.

Q. Is the district closing Bonham because it is valuable real estate?

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