Day Two Iceman Blizzarding North Texas

It is the morning of the day after a day of snow blanketed North Texas.

During yesterday's ongoing blizzard eventually I could take being snowbound no longer.

At the point in time, yesterday, when I left my abode, the view from my living room window is what you see photo documented, looking north past some shivering blinds.

Before I forget, I must mention a word or two of appreciation of our US Postal Service.

On Monday I ordered a couple items from Amazon. The projected shipment arrival day was Friday.

However, Wednesday morning I got an email from Amazon telling me the shipment was already out for delivery, two days early.

I left my abode, went to the mailbox, and found that which I had ordered only two days before, successfully delivered by the Post Office, always true to their "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" motto.

I brought the packages back to my abode and then made my way through the blowing snow to my motorized means of locomotion to take an icy drive to ALDI and Walmart.

As you can see the road at the point in time I was driving on it was not covered with snow, and not yet slippery from a coat of ice.

I think a snowplow may have cleared the road. Though I do not remember ever seeing a snowplow in Texas of the big truck sort.

Eventually I made it to the Walmart parking lot, which is the view through my windshield, and snowflakes, you see above.

A device which looked like a riding lawnmower on steroids was snow plowing the Walmart parking lot, leaving big piles of snow which will likely take several days to disappear, if above freezing temperatures ever return.

Currently the temperature, this Thursday morning, is 14, with the wind chill making those 14 degrees feel like 5.

I think I may resist the need to escape being snowbound today...

Tale Of Two Town's Waterfront Attractions: One Real One Imaginary

I saw that which you see above, this morning on the front page of the Seattle Times online version. The photo illustrating an article explaining why it has become easier than ever for Amazon tech hires to buy homes in Seattle.

That buying homes thing is not what I found interesting. It is the photo I found to be interesting.

Most photo views of downtown Seattle are either from Elliot Bay, looking east at the skyline, with the Space Needle on the left, and the sports stadiums on the right, with the Seattle skyscrapers between them. That and ferry boats and cruise ships on the waterfront, along with a giant wheel. Or the most popular view, that being from Queen Anne Hill, looking south, with the Space Needle looming tall above the Seattle skyline, with Mount Rainier hovering in the distance.

In the rare above view we are looking south across the south end of Lake Union. The Space Needle is that stick sticking up on the right. The towers you see are not the main part of the Seattle skyline, but are mostly what makes up the Amazon campus. Somewhere amongst those towers are the Amazon spheres my favorite Ruby niece took me to see a couple summers ago.

Anyway, looking at the above photo of part of downtown Seattle caused me to realize why I have such an automatic revulsion reaction when I read ridiculousness in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about that which has become America's Dumbest Boondoggle, the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

I think my revulsion at the ridiculousness began almost two decades ago when I read a banner headline on the front page of the Sunday Star-Telegram, screaming "TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH".

I remember thinking to myself have these idiots never been to Vancouver? What can they possibly think could possibly turn this landlocked scenery free town into anything remotely resembling Vancouver?

Who could have dreamt that that ridiculousness would continue on for so long, soon to be boondoggling along into its third decade, with Fort Worth still not even remotely resembling Vancouver, or, actually, any other actual big modern city in North America, most of which have streets with sidewalks, city parks without outhouses, and no public transit of the Molly the Trolley sort.

Why would any sane city want to artificially turn their town into something it is not? Look at that view of downtown Seattle. See all that water? All that waterfront? And that is only part of it. To the left, out of view, is Lake Washington, across Elliot Bay, that land you see across the bay, is even more waterfront, as in West Seattle. To the right of the photo, out of Elliot Bay, is more waterfront, along the shores of Puget Sound.

All natural waterfront. With manmade attractions built on the waterfront, as in miles upon miles of private development, with not one inch of that waterfront being the result of some bizarre vision to create such out of nothing, under the guidance of some local politician's unqualified, inept, son, and expecting to do so via the largess of federal money doled out from the more prosperous parts of America, such as Seattle.

Let's take a current, 2019, look at the Vancouver of the South.

That wide creek is known as the Trinity River. Those buildings across the river are the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth, someday destined to become the Vancouver of the South, just as soon as the Trinity River creek can be diverted into a cement lined ditch diverting water around an 800 acre industrial wasteland, creating an imaginary island, imaginatively already named Panther Island.

Since 2014 Fort Worth has been trying to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island. But that bridge building has been slow, now in its 5th years, currently slated to maybe be completed sometime in the next decade.

That is if you in the more prosperous parts of America can be convinced to send federal funding to Fort Worth to help with its imaginary (un-needed) flood control project and ineptly implemented economic development scheme where local delusionists conjure visions of riverwalks, waterfronts, lakes, canals, houseboat districts, thousands of residents and other never gonna happen nonsense.

All on what is currently an industrial wasteland still waiting on its EPA investigation which will likely discover epic levels of ground pollution costing a fortune to mitigate, which will likely be the final death knell of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. That or the digging of the ditch under one of those possibly finished bridges causing the bridge to sink or collapse.

Or, J.D. Granger reaching retirement age, with that bringing to a close the lifespan of the main beneficiary of what has become America's Dumbest Boondoggle.

I just had a thought which surprises me that it had never occurred to me before.

A thought which vividly points out the obviousness of the Fort Worth Vancouver of the South embarrassment. Can you imagine another city somewhere in North America, let's take Boise, Idaho for example, touting some project as a "VISION TO TURN BOISE INTO FORT WORTH OF THE NORTH".

No, would never happen, because there is not one single thing about Fort Worth any town anywhere in America would want to emulate.

And that fact is what the people who run Fort Worth in what is known as the Fort Worth Way might want to ponder.

A ridiculous project touted as turning Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South is not the solution to what ails Fort Worth.

I don't know if there is anything a town like Fort Worth could ever manage to do which would cause other towns to want to turn themselves into the Fort Worth of the North, or East, or West, but I do know for sure the solution ain't copying Vancouver, or San Antonio, or...

Plot To Lure Amazon To Fort Worth's Web Of Boondoggles

Recently Bud Kennedy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorially opined one of the many things Fort Worth needed to do to fix its identity crisis was to get over the town's Dallas fixation.

Around this same time Bud Kennedy's employer spewed an Embarrassing Fort Worth Dallas Rivalry Editorial which really made no sense and which regurgitated more of Fort Worth's nonsensical delusional Dallas rivalry fixation.

I know I have blogged more than once regarding the reason I repeatedly verbalize snarky opinions about Fort Worth and the town's pitiful newspaper of record. That being it is the town's delusions, as reflected in its pitiful newspaper of record, which have grated ever since I was first exposed to it.

It's the bizarre hucksterism, the delusional bragging, based on, well, delusions, and the out and out misrepresenting reality which I have long found to be pitiful and have long thought does a great disservice to the citizens of the town.

I remember one astounding incident from a few years back where those who have been to other downtowns in America were shocked to learn, via the Star-Telegram, that Downtown Fort Worth is the Envy of the Nation.

I long ago gave up trying to understand why Fort Worth, as represented by the town's pitiful newspaper of record, and its inept town leaders, persist in so much wanton hucksterism, trying to portray sleepy Fort Worth as something it is not. And probably never will be, or could ever possibly be.

Vancouver of the South. Envy of the Nation. Best this that or the other thing.

Which leads us to this Luring Amazon a good reason to drop Big D rivalry editorial. It being the latest iteration of the ongoing delusional nonsense in the Star-Telegram, despite that newspaper's Bud Kennedy wisely suggesting such be knocked off because all it does is make Fort Worth appear small and petty to those observing from outside the town's Zone of Delusion.

The subject of this latest delusional editorial is the fact that Amazon included Dallas in it list of 20 finalists to be considered as locations for Amazon's HQ2.

One of the Star-Telegram's ongoing delusions, ever since Amazon announced the HQ2 thing, has been that Fort Worth had a chance to be the HQ2 location, and that that location would be on the industrial wasteland bizarrely called Panther Island. A location where Amazon decision makers would find no island, no mass transit, few amenities, streets without sidewalks and parks with no modern facilities, such as running water, let alone modern restrooms, and three simple little bridges which have been under construction for years, over dry land, to one day maybe connect the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island..

So, this Star-Telegram editorial suggests Fort Worth drop the Big D rivalry for the bigger goal of securing Amazon HQ2 somewhere in the D/FW zone.

Recently during the spate of articles and opinion pieces about Fort Worth's identity crisis and the spending of hundred of thousands of dollars to try and figure out the obvious, we learned, via comments made by those not subjected to the Fort Worth propaganda, such as people who live in Dallas, that they had no idea there was a rivalry between the two towns. Time and again people living outside of Fort Worth opined they did not know this was a thing.

And then we have this latest Star-Telegram editorial with its premise largely based on the misconception there is some sort of rivalry between Dallas and Fort Worth.

The first paragraph of this Luring Amazon a good reason to drop Big D rivalry editorial...

There’s been a lot of posturing lately as the historic rivalry between Dallas and Fort Worth resurfaced.

I think I have already mentioned I find the delusional nonsense to be pitiful. An "historic rivalry"? Really? Historic? And such has re-surfaced? After being dormant? Really? This is an imaginary historic rivalry which exists only in the deluded imaginations of some in Fort Worth who, I don't know, don't get out much to see other towns, including Dallas.

And then the following paragraphs...

When a recently released economic development study said Fort Worth needs to up its game or be perceived as a Dallas suburb, many of our Cowtown citizens went ballistic.

“Don’t Dallas my Fort Worth,” some of you said.

This Star-Telegram Editorial Board also weighed-in when a Dallas Morning News columnist suggested Fort Worth should embrace its junior status.

We said, Fort Worth is junior to nobody, and “we aren’t sitting at the kiddies table.”

That was good-natured ribbing. (Most of it.)

Oh yeah, what hilarious jokesters, enjoying some good-natured ribbing, which makes sense to no one outside the Zone of Delusion. Cowtown citizens went ballistic? Fort Worth is junior to nobody? And won't be sitting at the kiddies table? How many times over how many years has it been opined that Fort Worth needs to grow up and start acting like a city of its size, wearing its big boy pants? So delusional.

In addition to delusional verbiage the Star-Telegram also just gets the facts wrong, like in this paragraph...

When it comes to the really big things that matter — when there are millions of dollars and up to 50,000 high paying jobs on the table — we should all support and applaud regional collaboration. Even if Big D gets top billing.

It is not millions of dollars. The Amazon impact would be billions of dollars. Billions. Amazon has spent billions just on its downtown Seattle campus. And that's just the campus. There are multiple other Amazon buildings all over downtown Seattle. And the dollar impact for the local Seattle economy is a number in the dozens of billions. Even this inept Star-Telegram editorial included the info that Amazon has pumped $38 billion into the Seattle tax base.

And then we get another paragraph with more of the aforementioned delusional nonsense...

The Fort Worth Chamber’s Vice President of Communications Andra Bennett says the Chamber is still trying to clarify whether in naming “Dallas” Amazon means it’s considering a site location within that city, or if it’s shorthand for looking at sites throughout the region’s communities, including Fort Worth’s Panther Island.

Can you really imagine any sane businessman, like Jeff Bezos, for instance, looking at the industrial wasteland Fort Worth currently insists on calling Panther Island, and think this was a location to build a new corporate headquarters?

And then we get to the most pitifully deluded three paragraphs in this overall pitiful editorial...

Fort Worth is being mentioned in national media coverage as a player for one of the biggest economic development “gets” in years.

Bennett said the Chamber’s economic development executive Brandom Gengelbach was interviewed more than a dozen times in the past week and included in media reports around the country.

“Fort Worth’s visibility has been raised,” she said. “It would take a lot of marketing dollars to get that.”

Do some of the Star-Telegram's readers actually believe this embarrassing hucksterism? Due to Dallas being considered for Amazon's HQ2 Fort Worth's visibility has been raised? And it would take a lot of huckstering marketing dollars to get that type visibility?

Really?

I have read multiple articles in multiple legitimate publications about the Amazon HQ2 subject. Not once. Not a single time. Never ever, have I seen Fort Worth mentioned as a contender. Or included in any mention of Dallas.

Not once.

The only place I have seen where Fort Worth is considered a viable HQ2 contender is in the Star-Telegram's propaganda.

Could the Star-Telegram please provide us some instances of where Fort Worth is being mentioned in national media coverage regarding Amazon HQ2?  One of the Fort Worth Chamber's hucksters has been interviewed more than a dozen times in the past week? With those interviews appearing in media reports around the country? Really?

Note that the Star-Telegram makes no mention of what those interviews are about. We are left to assume the interviews had to do with Amazon HQ2. That is what is implied. Again, can the Star-Telegram please provide the information as to who did these dozen plus interviews with this Fort Worth Chamber huckster? And what media reports, around the country, did those interviews appear in? If such actually happened, this information should be easy to provide.

This type nonsense is precisely why I have developed such a disgust for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

This pitiful newspaper ill serves the people of Fort Worth, creating illusionary, delusionary misrepresentations of the reality of a perfectly ordinary town with a large population, with the civic mentality of a small town.

A small town with a small downtown with no department stores, no grocery stores, few residents, meager public transit, with the rest of the town having streets with few sidewalks, parks without running water, but plenty of outhouses, and host to America's Biggest Boondoggle, an inept public works project which has been limping along for almost two decades, with nary a mention made in the town's newspaper of record of this boondoggle's various scandalous missteps.

Yeah, that sounds like a town one of the world's biggest companies, with the world's richest man, would want to locate to for a second headquarters.

Delusional....

Since Great Recession Has Thriving Fort Worth Boom Left Other Cities Behind?

I have been having trouble completing a blogging about a couple articles in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from last week, one of which had to do with a town falling behind other towns in the growing and developing aspect of being a thriving city.

And then this, yesterday, from the Star-Telegram, an article titled Boom and gloom: Since recession, a few thriving cities have left others behind.

The first three paragraphs from this boom and gloom article...

As the nation’s economy was still reeling from the body blow of the Great Recession, Fort Worth’s was about to take off.

In 2010, Radio Shack opened a headquarters in the north end of downtown Fort Worth — and then expanded eightfold over the next seven years to fill 36 buildings. Everywhere you look, there are signs of a thriving city: Building cranes looming over streets, hotels crammed with business travelers, tony restaurants filled with diners.

Fort Worth is among a fistful of cities that have flourished in the 10 years since the Great Recession officially began in December 2007, even while most other large cities — and sizable swaths of rural America — have managed only modest recoveries. Some cities are still struggling to shed the scars of recession.

Okay, if you clicked on the Boom and gloom: Since recession, a few thriving cities have left others behind above you already know I punked you. Punked is a younger generation phrase which means tricked, I think.

Here are the article's actual first three paragraphs...

As the nation’s economy was still reeling from the body blow of the Great Recession, Seattle’s was about to take off.

In 2010, Amazon opened a headquarters in the little-known South Lake Union — and then expanded eightfold over the next seven years to fill 36 buildings. Everywhere you look, there are signs of a thriving city: Building cranes looming over streets, hotels crammed with business travelers, tony restaurants filled with diners.

Seattle is among a fistful of cities that have flourished in the 10 years since the Great Recession officially began in December 2007, even while most other large cities — and sizable swaths of rural America — have managed only modest recoveries. Some cities are still struggling to shed the scars of recession.

Okay, well, it is painfully obvious to anyone with functioning eyes that Fort Worth is one of those cities still struggling. Hence the articles referred to at the top, which showed up last week in the Star-Telegram, about Fort Worth falling so far behind.

Suffice to say, in Seattle, and other thriving towns in America, there is nothing so pitiful as Fort Worth's Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision Boondoggle struggling to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect a town's mainland to an imaginary island. Let alone letting a failed pseudo works project amble along in boondoggle mode, year after year after year, with no end in sight, and little to see.

The trouble I am having regarding blogging about that which is contained in those two Star-Telegram articles about Fort Worth's woeful woes is it is a lot of material.

Delusional, strange, embarrassing material.

Maybe I will get around to blogging about what the Star-Telegram has to say about Fort Worth falling so far behind tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. I have a lot on my mind right now, which is causing my focus to be a bit out of focus...

Searching For Dozen Reasons To Lure Amazon To Fort Worth

A few days ago Amazon let the world know they are thinking about building a second company headquarters. HQ2, at some location other than Seattle.

Having recently eye witnessed Seattle in Amazon boomtown mode I can see why Amazon would think it a good idea to open a second headquarters. I don't know how much more booming Seattle can take before bursting, traffic and otherwise.

And then we have sleepy Fort Worth, a town which does nothing fast. A town which has been boondoggling along year after year with an ineptly engineered public works project the public has never approved, known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, or America's Biggest Boondoggle.

A few days after the Amazon announcement I was amused by a typical Fort Worth Star-Telegram propaganda article about the subject, a screen cap of that article's headline is what you see above, "Amazon headquarters in North Texas? Let us count the ways".

 The first paragraph...

It is easy to rattle off a dozen reasons why Fort Worth is a great place to live — world class museums, the Trinity River trails, the world’s largest honky tonk, Joe T. Garcia’s — to name just a few.

Really? It is easy to rattle off a dozen reasons why Fort Worth is a great place to live? And these four examples of the alleged dozen reasons are your examples?

World class museums?

What town wearing its non-provincial big city pants refers to anything in its town as "world class"? World class? As opposed to what? National class? State class? County class? Yes, it is true, Fort Worth has a couple well regarded museums, brought to town early in the previous century after the wives of some local oil barons visited New York City, then returned to Cowtown pouting to their husbands that Fort Worth needed some museums if it was ever gonna be a town of culture. And so Amon Carter, and others, bought some artwork, built some museums in an area upwind from the rancid smelling Stockyards slaughter zone, and called this area the Cultural District, to differentiate it from the rest of the town which lacked culture.

The Trinity River trails?

Yes, in Fort Worth there are paved trails along many miles of the Trinity River. As the Trinity River flows alongside those trails, for the most part, it appears to be more of a big ditch than a river. And the water in that river ditch is murky, polluted, nasty. Not fit for fish, or fishing. This is not a river of the sort those working in the current Amazon headquarters are used to seeing. Nor are the Trinity River trails of the sort those working in the current Amazon headquarters are used to biking, blading and jogging on. Few trees, few if any, amenities. The Trinity Trails are no Burke-Gilman, in other words, words which those who work in the current Amazon headquarters will understand.

The world's largest honky tonk?

Does the Star-Telegram really think Billy Bob's is a big selling point making Fort Worth a great place to live? Or a reason a corporate headquarters might consider moving to Fort Worth?

Joe T. Garcia's?

Okay, one of the four reasons cited I agree with. I am not aware of there being any restaurant like Joe T. Garcia's being located anywhere near the current corporate headquarters of Amazon. Or anywhere in Washington. Joe T. Garcia's is one of the go to places I take any visitor who has never been to DFW or Texas before.

I can not help but wonder what the rest of the dozen reasons are which the Star-Telegram thinks make Fort Worth a great place to live.

One can not be the town's lifeless downtown with zero downtown department stores, with zero downtown vertical malls. How many vertical malls are in the downtown of Amazon's current corporate headquarters? How many department stores? And then there is that sprawling attraction known as Pike Place. Does Fort Worth have anything like Pike Place? Well, there was the Santa Fe Rail Market, but that only lasted a couple weeks.

Has Fort Worth fixed Heritage Park yet? After years of being a boarded up eyesore at the north end of the town's downtown, across the street from the country courthouse. A town which can not upkeep a park dedicated to its heritage really does not seem like much of a viable candidate to which a world class corporation would want to locate.

One of Amazon's new headquarters location criteria is easy access to outdoor recreation. Well, there are no real mountain trails in the DFW neighborhood. There are no ski resorts a short distance away. No cruise ships or ferry boats docking anywhere nearby.

Like to walk? Most Fort Worth streets have no sidewalks. Don't most world class cities with world class museums have world class sidewalks?

Fort Worth is particularly ill served by city parks. Most of which lack modern plumbing. And modern restrooms. Yet proudly sport an astonishing variety of outhouses. World class outhouses.

I recently spent time in Tacoma and Chandler, Arizona. Both towns, much smaller than Fort Worth, have multiple public pools. Pools with wave features and lazy rivers. Fort Worth has no such thing. But, the town does have happy hour inner tube floats, with music, in summer, in the polluted Trinity River.

Speaking of America's Biggest Boondoggle. Maybe if that ill fated much needed flood control economic development scheme had been actualized the way things get actualized in actual world class cities Fort Worth would currently be making use of its new fake waterfront, little lake, canals, whilst driving across its three little bridges connecting the town's mainland to an imaginary island.

And, if in 2017, the Trinity River Vision were something someone, like Amazon, or anyone, could actually see, maybe Amazon might consider making its $5 billion investment on that imaginary island.

Wouldn't that be something...

Amazon Biospheres & Fort Worth Slow Motion Bridge Construction

I saw that which you see here this morning via the online version of the Seattle Times.

I knew Amazon was expanding its Seattle headquarters in the South Lake Union zone. I did not know Amazon was building a new urban campus in downtown Seattle.

And I definitely did not know that part of this new Amazon campus are structures called "biospheres".

Amazon building a new campus in a downtown zone where there are no undeveloped open spaces had me wondering if eminent domain was abused to acquire land to build this corporate headquarters in the manner eminent domain was abused in Fort Worth so Radio Shack could build a new corporate headquarters that it could not afford.

This new Amazon campus in Seattle appears to be a real big deal. In Fort Worth, way back in November of 2014 a ceremony with a big TNT bang was held in Fort Worth to mark the start of construction of one of America's Biggest Boondoggle's three simple bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

I blogged about this momentous Fort Worth occasion in A Big Boom Begins Boondoggle Bridge Construction Three Months Late.

I wonder if a big bang ceremony took place in Seattle to mark the start of construction of the new Amazon campus?

In Fort Worth a big fuss was made about a year after that TNT explosion marked the start of Boondoggle bridge construction, when wooden V pier forms were finally under construction and visible.

I blogged about the V pier fuss in Beautiful Fort Worth V Piers The Likes Of Which The World Has Never Seen.

I wonder how big a fuss was made in Seattle over seeing these Amazon biospheres rise above the ground? The Amazon biospheres appear to be a bit more remarkable than those Fort Worth's Boondoggle's wooden V pier forms.

I suspect little fuss was made in Seattle over the Amazon biospheres. That town has a lot going on. Like the world's biggest tunnel boring machine, Bertha, is again on the move, about to dig under the downtown skyscrapers.

The new Amazon campus is set to open in 2017.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, digging has yet to begin on the ditch that may eventually cause water to flow under America's Biggest Boondoggle's three simple little bridges, currently set to maybe open in 2018.....