This Afternoon I Got The Good News That Spencer Jack Has Escaped Alcatraz

This afternoon, via email, I received fairly good evidence that Spencer Jack's Big San Francisco Adventure has come to an end.

The email was from Spencer Jack's dad, well, actually it was two emails, containing a total of seven pictures and one line of text with that text saying...

"Spencer Jack and I escaped from Alcatraz, Trolley ride to Chinatown and darted back to the airport via BART."

It was the darting back to the airport via BART part of the text which led me to deduce that Spencer Jack's Big San Francisco Adventure was over.

I am fairly certain that the purpose behind Spencer Jack's dad taking him to San Francisco was not to scare Spencer Jack straight by putting the fear of being behind bars in Spencer's fragile young mind.

Then again, the above picture of Spencer Jack caged up in Alcatraz is a bit disturbing. Spencer looks very worried.

I am guessing, due to Spencer Jack looking relieved, the above picture was taken after the escape from Alcatraz. According to a reliable source, Spencer Jack and his dad escaped Alcatraz to take a trolley to Chinatown, which is where Spencer Jack is in the picture below.

Where Spencer Jack is standing in Chinatown does not look like the Chinatown I remember. But, it has been at least 20 years since I've been in San Francisco's Chinatown, I no longer trust my aged memory. I remember Chinatown as extremely crowded, with sensory overload from all the visual stimulation. And it smelled good.

And then there's BART. Bay Area Rapid Transit.

BART seems an odd acronym for a town's transit system. But not as odd as Seattle's South Lake Union Trolley, which has Seattle people in transit mode saying something like let's ride the SLUT to the Burger King on Lake Union.

Where I am currently located in Texas I need not worry about taking a BART or a SLUT anywhere. The only public transit available to residents of Fort Worth is called the T. The T is made up of very bare bones type buses of the sort no one would consider a luxury ride. Riding Fort Worth's T, to me, is like riding a carnival ride in a very bad theme park. In other words, fasten your seatbelts, you are in for a bumpy ride. However, unfortunately, there are no seatbelts to fasten.

Is Fort Worth the only town in America with a  population over a half million with no public transit in bus or rail form which takes the public directly to its airport?

When a Fort Worth native flies into a modern American city, like San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City, Chicago, Portland, Miami.

Or Dallas.

And sees the town is connected to the airport by public transit in the form of bus or light rail or both does it occur to the Fort Worthian that maybe their town needs to do some modernizing?

I just remembered the answer. In Fort Worth only poor people use public transit......

It Is A Very Blue Day In Texas With Live Catfish

That is the sunny, blue noon view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony. The sunny view matches my current sunny disposition.

Hot temperatures have not returned with the blue sky, like what usually happens, unless it is the dead of winter. It is only 64 out there right now at half past 2.

I had to be in Arlington today. So, I decided that made for a good excuse to walk around at Veterans Park and to go to Chinatown. A new grocery store opened since my last visit to Chinatown. Fort Worth Weekly gave a rave little mention to the new grocery store. So, I went there. The rave little mention was well warranted.


Veterans Park was mostly dried out from our recent deluges. This park has paved trails that are very well done. And unpaved trails and rugged, hilly areas that are also quite well done. And, as you can see, more blue sky.

Above is the new Cho Saigon New Market. It was also under a blue sky. It was very busy. With a lot of shoppers who weren't Asian or of Asian descent. I'm often the only non-Asian in the other store I go to in Chinatown. Everything was nice and shiny and new. The checkouts had big flat panel screens. The debit card reader was of a new nice and shiny sort I'd not seen before.

The produce section had a lot of good stuff. I got the best celery I've seen in a long time. The meat/fish area was very popular. There was a big sign overhead with the 6 steps you could choose to have done to the fish you wanted to buy. Step 1 was just get the fish and walk away. By the time you got to Step 6 the fish was cleaned, gutted, cut up and deep-fried.

There is a wall filled with tanks full of live seafood, like crab and catfish and a lot of others that were alien to me. So, you can pick a fish and they'll take it from swimming in a tank to handing it to you deep-fried.

So, that's been my blue Friday in Texas so far. In the pool after the sun lit up the place and turned the sky blue, with the following hours being equally pleasant. For the most part.

Sunday In Texas With Chinatown & Cicadas

Another Sunny Sunday in Texas. With me falling deeper into that rut I must like falling in to.

That rut included the usual morning swim, though this morning's was longer than the norm, so that was slightly out of the same old rut.

I'm going to Arlington's Chinatown today. This is another thing I seem to do over and over again. On the way to Chinatown it is pretty predictable that I will go to Veterans Park and walk around for awhile.

I'm going to look for some cicada corpses at Veterans Park. Ever since I watched a video about cicadas I've wondered why I've seen no corpses. I thought the cicadas were done mating for the year because I've not been serenaded by them of late while in the pool. But yesterday the cicadas were in full cacophony mode at the Tandy Hills.

Since I'm going to Chinatown today, part of that rut is I go to the Wal-Mart across the street from the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. The last time I did that I had myself all sorts of traffic woes that had me heading towards Dallas when I wanted to go the opposite direction. I hope I remember not to make that same mistake today.

A Wet Walk In Arlington At A Very Crowded Veterans Park

Around noon the rain sort of let up. A bit. I couldn't take being cooped up like a prisoner in a cage any longer.

I decided to head to Arlington, ready for a walk at Veterans Park, ready to skip that if the deluge resumed and head on to Chinatown for some good stuff.

It did not look promising when I left here. I-820 was backed up to I-30. Traffic was at a standstill on the flyover that connects 30 to 820 northbound. It looked like a big mess. Fortunately that was not the direction I was heading.

Driving by the entry to Village Creek Natural Historic Park I could see the gate had it closed due to flooding. I continued on to Veterans Park, where I figured I'd have the place all to myself.

Well, on the rainiest, stormiest day so far this year, Veterans Park was the busiest I've ever seen it. The north parking lot was completely full, with people parking on the street. I found one empty parking space at the south lot.

A school was having a graduation party. I thought it rather daring of them to go ahead with their party plans, what with the weather being in lightning, rain, hail, wind, tornado mode.

Though it was damp, the party goers seemed to be having fun playing games in the mud, like volleyball and some other team type game, I had not seen before, that involved a lot of yelling. A good time seemed to have been being had by all. Loud music played from the covered amphitheater.

I only unleashed my umbrella once, even though it was not raining, under the trees a deluge still fell, shaken off the leaves by the wind.

After the Veterans Park walk it was off to Chinatown, got my goods, and now brown basmati rice is cooking in the rice cooker. And I await it being done.

I am seeing some blue sky through the clouds. Hallelujah!

Sweet Tomatoes,..Etcetera...

My one longtime reader, Layla, a real sweet tomato, may remember that ever so once in awhile my imagination runs dry, or I'm just not in the mood to spew out voluminous words at rapid pace.

This morning I've got a lot of things that have crossed my mind to blog about. But at the forefront of my mind right now is I'm thinking of going out into this overcast, warming day and head to Veteran's Park in Arlington to go on a long walk. Followed by lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, my new favorite restaurant.

After Sweet Tomatoes, I'm going to Fry's Electronics, again, to see if I can find Dragon Speak, which is a program where you can talk into a headset and it converts your words to editable type, with a supposed 99.7% success rate, at 300 words per minute. Which is way faster than I can type. And about half as fast as I can talk. I estimate, if this works, it will amp up my blog spewing a minimum of three times. Oh, the horror.

I also want to see if Fry's has any sort of Walkman type thing. You know, those old-fashioned headset things where you can listen to the radio. Wal-Mart and Target no longer have such things.

I'm going from Fry's to Chinatown in Arlington to get stuff I forgot 2 days ago. I need to remember to make a list. After Chinatown I'm going to go by the new Dallas Cowboy's Stadium, which is almost completed, and maybe get a good picture or two. Maybe not. Last time I was there it was so congested with construction obstructions all I wanted to do was escape.

On my mind to blog about, today, likely this afternoon, is something I learned about this morning, that being that Dallas also is in some sort of deal to have Omni Hotels build them a convention center hotel. The deal has hit snags. I'm not getting why Dallas would have to go to any extreme measures, unlike Fort Worth, to get a convention center hotel, because Dallas actually has a lot of conventions and already has a lot of downtown hotels.

I have also been amazed at how many people come to my blog after searching for help about how to deal with "Only Child Syndrome." That's always fun to write about. Also, I am perplexed as to why, all over the world, people are looking for info about the "world's biggest butt." Yes, I did blog about that after I saw what I thought had to be the world's biggest butt at my local Wal-Mart Supercenter. But what causes people all over the world to keep searching for this? And they usually do the searching in packs. Look at my FeedJit stats and you'll likely see what I'm talking about.

Alma, my favorite Songbird of the South, sent me an email, this morning, with "Tips For A Better Life in 2009" that I thought was pretty good blog material, though it is one of those things that has likely spanned the globe a million times via being forwarded.

Also, I had it in mind to blog about how well my Chinese Herb Detox program is going. Last night I had another insomnia free sleep. What a difference that makes. This morning I took my blood pressure for the first time in awhile. I could tell it would be low. 123/68. I recently learned my little brother is on BP medications. He drives down to Mexico to get his pills. My little brother is actually my big brother. He's about twice as big as me and a little shorter.

Anyway, it's time to get ready to get out of here. Sorry to disappoint my one longtime reader, Layla, my one, self-described, adoring fan, that I wasn't in the mood to blog this morning. Maybe I'll feel more word-worthy this afternoon. After I have my daily Chinese Herb Detox Tea.