Friday, May 6, 2011

Hot Stomping Through The Tandy Hills Jungle In FW TX Not FW WA

It is currently 82 in the outside world, with windows closed and A/C running and ceiling fans spinning overhead in my abode.

I don't know if it was in the 80s when I got HOT on the Tandy Hills today around noon. As you can see I was stomping quickly through the Tandy Hills Jungle.

Where I am stomping in the picture is the location where, a few weeks ago, I ran into a guy who very earnestly warned me about poison ivy, or was it poison oak? Along this section of trail.

Elsie Hotpepper took off for Vegas without me yesterday. This sort of hurts my delicate feelings.

In the past 48 hours I've spent quality phone time with Washingtonians I've not spoken to, via phone, in decades. First it was hearing the sweet, lilting voice of Betty Jo Bouvier.

I talked again to Betty Jo Bouvier when I was lounging poolside yesterday afternoon. And then late yesterday afternoon Carlotta Camano emailed me with her phone number and instructions to call, because she had too much to tell me to do so via email.

So, I called Carlotta just as she was leaving her place of employment in Arlington. That'd be the Arlington in Washington, not the one in Texas. We talked all the way from Arlington to Carlotta's home island overlooking Puget Sound.

Speaking of towns in Washington and Texas with the same initials. And who isn't? I got an amusing blog comment from Sarah R. who is up in FW, Washington.

Below is Sarah R.'s amusing comment....

I am starting to see that FW has a lot in common with FW. I mean look they even have the same initials. They both lack a downtown.

Federal Way (the one in WA no one else would figure out) has the same kind of cronyism. The council members have almost all served more than 20 years. Every year they're up for re-election, I always vote for the newbies, but they never win. A couple years ago a guy got pissed off and after 2 tries managed to get the government changed (via voter initiative) so we can directly elect the mayor. Problem is that the winner was a local politician that decided to continue to serve by taking a step down to local level where he originally started out 20 years ago -- the FW city council.

Our Trinity Project is the "build a high-rise" on the old theater site. The city and previous owner cheated a church out of the property. They bought it 2 days after we voted to raise taxes to pay for police using ($4 mil) money they said they didn't have. And since the downturn, the property has sat empty waiting for the developer to get funds to do the development no one wants.

Our council decided to help out $50K-wise with the World Championship Sand Castle Building Tournament "to bring in more tourists". (really? there isn't anything touristy here!) The tournament was held in the parking lot of an abandoned Target store. Still trying to figure out why they didn't actually do it at one of our beaches, but paid 20K to have sand hauled in and out!

Hmmmm...

A Sand Castle Building Tournament on a parking lot? Doesn't FW have quite a few miles of Puget Sound beach? Not to mention Dash Point State Park.

A Sand Castle Building Tournament on an old parking lot sounds like something that might happen in the FW I am currently in, but there would be a good excuse here, due to the lack of beaches, until the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's little town lake gets built. Surely it will have a beach.

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