Birds on Hand = More Bushes

We didn't need our Audubon guide this week to ID the big bird on the SMU campus: it's the construction crane (we counted three) at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. The Manhattan ConstructionCo folks gave us the low-down on the project?s status.

Manhattan Construction's Shelby Proehl tells us the site utilitiesare almost done and the installation of the 270k gallon modularrainwater recovery cistern that'll serve the irrigation system onsite just wrapped up. It's also finishing the ground floor concrete decksand framing the main floor concrete decks, Shelby says. The SMU Blvd realignment and the parking areas north of SMU Boulevard are also in the works and all of the scheduled trees have been moved and are being stored in a nursery onsite until they can be transplanted. The project is on target for a spring 2013 opening. Want to watch the construction live (or need a break from the twin babies talking video)? Manhattan has a webcam.

We left the construction site to see former First Lady Laura Bush's keynote at the Fort Worth Convention Center at the TEXPO treasury management conference hosted by the Fort Worth Association for Financial Professionals. She gave an update of the family, including her father-in-law who went skydiving (again) for his 86th birthday last summer and said her mother-in-law's health is back to 100%. The girls, Barbara and Jenna, both live in NYC, and Jenna?s gone to work for NBC (finally giving 43 some positive relationship with the media, Laura joked). And Barbara started the Global Health Corpsfoundation, which provides fellowships to young medical professionals working in poor communities.