The Shadow Of The Tandy Hills Thin Man Enjoying Cool Hill Hiking With Beef Stroganoff

Yes, that is the Shadow of the Tandy Hills One-Armed Thin Man you are looking at here.

It is Saturday, with hill hiking the Tandy Hills being my fall back aerobic activity when I can't think of anything better to do to acquire much needed endorphins.

Even though rain fell a couple days ago, I encountered nothing muddy today on the hills. The drought-caused fissures in the trails shrunk a little, post-rain.

The biggest trail improvement I came upon today was the log which, for years, has blocked the trail that leads from Tandy Falls, north to the View Street Trail, has been chainsawed into oblivion.

I do not remember the last time hill hiking was done at such a pleasant temperature as today. Barely 80. With a strong wind.

The only hill hikers I saw today, besides my own shadow, were a young couple with a couple dogs. I encountered them twice. On the second encounter I opined as to what a perfect day it is being, almost cold. To which the guy of the pair said it's almost like a Texas winter day. To which I agreed, saying something like, yeah, those Texas winter days that are not in ice storm mode.

Town Talk is no longer my go to place when I go to the Tandy Hills on Saturday. My new Town Talk visit policy is I go there if I am already in the neighborhood, I don't drive out of my way to go to Town Talk. But, if I am on Beach Street and am driving by, I will stop. Maybe.

I read on the Town Talk website that a new owner took over in 2013. I wonder if that is what has caused the changes, with so much less treasure to be found when one goes treasure hunting at Town Talk.

Having said that I must admit I have been liking the Italian sausage and whole wheat pita bread I got the last time I was at Town Talk, a couple weeks ago.

It is now time for lunch. Beef Stroganoff. I've been feeling Russian lately....

Happy New Year From The Fort Worth Fat Man

2012 New Years Day Morning Polar Bear Swim

Happy New Year.

I'm starting off the New Year doing something drastically different on my blog. Instead of my usual morning view from one of my viewing portals on the outer world, I am starting off my first blogging of the New Year already out in the outer world.

It got into the 70s here yesterday. This made this morning's Annual Polar Bear Swim much more pleasant than last year's much colder Polar Bear Swim.

The Polar Bear photo rather clearly documents the number one problem I am going to be confronting in this New Year.

That is my obvious HWG (Hideous Weight Gain).

In late December of 2010 I started a blog to chronicle my struggle with obesity, documenting my attempt to get back under 200 pounds and down to 190 by the time of the Super Bowl. I managed to do that, and then managed, over the course of the rest of the year, to reverse what I'd managed to do.

This has me now weighing almost 220 pounds. Most of this poundage seems to have grown in my gut zone, giving me a beer gut without having had the pleasure of drinking beer.

I don't find myself having any difficulty zipping up the Tandy Hills, which makes this added poundage thing a bit perplexing. Maybe it is all muscle and what I think is a beer gut is actually a really muscular abdominal zone. Yeah, I'm sure that's it.

Changing the subject from me being a fat slob to some other mistake I made.

A couple days ago when I blogged about getting sour cream at Krogers because I was making Beef Stroganoff, cd0103 asked me for my recipe. I don't do a lot of measuring and don't think in terms of recipes when I am doing the cooking thing.

So, I typed out my directions for how I make Beef Stroganoff, for cd0103. A short time later a nice Anonymous person commented that I'd missed a key ingredient. I hit the publish button on that comment without really reading the entire comment. I get a lot of comments, sometimes when I realize it is not a spam comment and the person is making a useful point I hit the publish button without reading the entire comment.

Last night Betty Jo Bouvier emailed me telling me she was using my Beef Stroganoff directions to make New Year's Eve dinner. I then went back and looked at my directions. At that point I read the Anonymous comment which told me that "You made, no doubt a tasty dish, but it was not Beef Stroganoff." Anonymous then informed me my directions lacked sour cream.

I was mortified. The directions should have said that after the Strognoff mixture is done cooking, turn off the heat and stir in a pint, more or less, of sour cream. Without the sour cream it wouldn't even taste like Stroganoff.

I immediately emailed Betty Jo, hoping she was not already eating the non-Beef Stroganoff.

Well, tragedy was averted. Betty Jo knew Beef Stroganoff has sour cream in it. I'm guessing Betty Jo may have known this because in the blogging, with all the bad mis-direction, I said I'd gone to Krogers for sour cream for my Beef Stroganoff. Which I suppose in my mind was already in the directions without adding it to the directions I typed out for cd0103.

Changing the subject from Beef Stroganoff to New Year's Eve.

I think I may be too close to being elderly to stay up past midnight to ring in the New Year. Doing this did not used to be exhausting. Staying up way too late caused me to get up way too late on the first day of the New Year.

I do not like getting up late. New Year's Eve of 2012 I am not going to be awake ringing in the New Year. That is one of my New Year's Resolution. Along with ceasing being a Fat Tub of Lard.

The Last Thursday Of 2011 Hiking The Wilderness Area Where I Live With Homeless People & Beef Stroganoff

Fort Worth Water Tank

Today I decided to do something radically different.

The radical difference consisted of going on a walk without going on a drive to get to a place to walk.

This turned out to be much more adventurous than I anticipated it would be.

I left my abode, headed east and then south through the Albertsons parking lot. Then walked west on Bridge Street past some fast food joints.

Crossed the street to Krogers where I got sour cream for the Beef Stroganoff I'm making for lunch.

Left Krogers, heading south, up a hill, back to Bridge Street, then headed west towards Fort Worth's East Regional Library.

My plan was to walk the trail that I've noticed, for years, that is under a power line/utility right of way that a road leads to just to the west of the big Fort Worth water tank you see in the picture.

All was going well, walking under the power lines, til I came to an area where water was leaking in amounts copious enough to make for a muddy passage.

A lot of heavy equipment work had rutted up the area under the power lines. I saw drilling equipment. I could not figure out what the nature of the heavy equipment's project was.

The trail grew continually more difficult. Soon I was going cross country. No trail. At one point I had to jump a ditch that was running water. That wrenched my shoulder, somehow. The pain was bad, but quickly abated.

Eventually I came to a spot where heavy equipment had run over the land, making a sort of a trail, which, ironically. took me back to Krogers.

In the open field due north of Krogers I saw a big pile of garbage which caused me to mutter to myself about some Texans and their garbage disposal methods.

I was in mid-mutter when a guy popped out of the garbage and headed towards me. It was a young guy, looked to be in his 20s, maybe older. The garbage was his shelter. It'd been awhile since I'd seen a homeless person. I had no idea there were homeless people living so close to the place I call home.

If I was a nicer guy than I am I'd probably bring the homeless guy some Beef Stroganoff.

It was really good.

Beef Stroganoff is my favorite thing I learned to make during my stay in Moscow.