According to the Morning News, Troy Aikman sold a portion of his Highland Park spread this week, which reminded me, “Hey, you should really start saving money so you can buy a house someday.”

The part he sold contains a sports court and a 1,045-square-foot cabana, which is, oh, about 2/3 of the size of the house I grew up in. For changing into your bathing suit.

He bought that section of the property in January 2009, tax records indicate, and DCAD valued it at $7.3 million. No word on what he sold it for.

The main house — on the market for $24 million — is still up for grabs.

As reporters often do, I spent this morning driving around Highland Park and University Park, looking for interesting things to write about. There was the carnival at Hyer, the shirtless guy mowing his lawn on Southwestern, and the kindergarten-aged child walking his corgi, unsupervised, down Armstrong. All interesting, but nothing really worth the paper.

Then I was on one of the block in the northwest corner of UP (Bryn Mawr, maybe?) and saw the above picture. Construction site surveillance, in full effect. I was waiting for guards to come out and shoo me away.

Anyway, a note to copper thieves: probably skip this house.

Farley Sedina and his Gram, Carol Burrow

In April, the Hyer Huskies celebrated Grand Friends Day. Kindergartners greeted their guests in the classroom sharing smiles, hugs and even flowers. Grades first through fourth entertained their grand friends with a special performance followed by a classroom tour showing them examples of their latest work. See more photos in the May 18 edition of Park Cities People.

Highland Park sophomore Natalie Rathjen ran a phenomenal race this morning in the 3200-meter run at the Class 4A state meet in Austin.

Rathjen finished second to defending state champion Cali Roper of Willis, but both broke the 4A state record. Roper ran a 10:35.19, and Rathjen ran a 10:37.08.

The old record was 10:37.34.

Rathjen will also run in the 1600 later tonight. Teammate Gabby Crank will compete in the 800.

Griffin Gaule and the Scots take on North Dallas tonight. (Staff photo: Chris McGathey)

The Highland Park baseball team will be looking for its 10th straight win when it opens a Class 4A area best-of-three series against North Dallas at 7 tonight at Revechon Park.

Game 2 is at noon Saturday at Scotland Yard. If necessary, Game 3 will be 30 minutes after the second game.

Highland Park (23-10-1) is coming off a 1-0 victory over Carrollton Creekview in the bi-district round. The Bulldogs (23-5) swept Spruce in their bi-district best-of-three series.

The winner will play the Frisco Wakeland-Bryan Adams winner next week.

From my friend Liz Johnstone, over on FrontBurner:

This is fascinating to me. How is this free Mark Bittman lecture not yet all booked up?

Happily for you, you can still reserve a seat. Bittman, making the Dallas rounds (he’s on KERA with Krys Boyd earlier in the day if you want to tune in), will be at Temple Emanu-El chatting about his latest book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. His regular Times column is concerned with sustainable eating, food policy, and other issues associated with a poor American diet (i.e. tons of meat, tons of sugar, and tons of worthless carbs). If you’re skeptical, making simple changes to his diet allowed Bittman to lose 35 pounds, and solved several other health problems. After the lecture, don’t miss the reception and book signing.

Kicks off at 7:30 p.m.

A diner-inspired restaurant will open in Hotel Lumen by late summer, officials announced today.

The Front Room: A Park Cities Diner will be in the area that currently serves as the hotel’s lobby, and will feature “a modern American menu, espresso bar and handcrafted cocktails,” according to a statement from the hotel.

No word on whether or not they workshopped that excruciatingly long name.

Just got word from UP spokesman Steve Mace that the results of Saturday’s city council election will be on the city’s website by 8 p.m. that night. Pretty good turnaround on the city’s part, since the polls close at 7 p.m.

Anyway, if you’re sitting around at 8 p.m. on a Saturday, refreshing uptexas.org, maybe have a drink or something. Liven things up.

Actually, it never existed. Not in real life.

And happily, Twitter just led me to this late-April Daily Campus writeup — a rundown of classic summer meals and desserts, with many a local shout-out. Milkshakes from Highland Park Soda Fountain, which recently had its 100th anniversary (and is noted here as Highland Park Soda Shop), made the top of the list.

Have a look. It’ll get you peckish.