Remembering The Dallas Farmers Market With Mom & Dad

 Microsoft OneDrive Memory from this Day, in my email, this morning, where I do remember both the location and the date, well, the month.

That is my mom, looking perplexed, in the Dallas Farmers Market. 

Mom and dad visited Texas twice whilst I have been residing in Texas. The first time, a month after 9/11, in October of 2001.

Mom and dad's second visit to Texas was in January of 2009.

I remember mom and dad enjoyed the Dallas Farmers Market on that first visit. It was festooned in pumpkins for Halloween. Mom and dad were a bit bored with the visit to the Dealey Plaza Book Depository, but perked way up at the Dallas Farmers Market.

I think the above photo was from the January 2009 Dallas Farmers Market visit.

Is the market that busy in January? I know in 2009 I drove mom and dad onto the Dallas Fair Park grounds for a close up look at the Cotton Bowl. Fair Park is fairly close to the Dallas Farmers Market.

That 2009 visit from mom and dad seems so recent in my memory. But, it was 15 years ago...

Microsoft OneDrive Remembers Mom & Dad At Dealy Plaza & The Dallas Farmer's Market

Once again I remember the Microsoft OneDrive memories Microsoft thinks I should remember. 

These memories are all from October of 2001. 

Mom and dad's first time visiting me in Texas was a month after 9/11.

The two memories at the top are from the Dallas Farmer's Market. Mom on the left. Mom and dad on the right.

The rest of the photo memories are from Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

I thought mom and and would find the 6th Floor Museum to be interesting. That proved not to be the case.

Mom and dad quickly went through the exhibits, showing little interest in any of it. They had no interest in watching any of the incident documenting films, with mom infamously saying something like, "We lived through this happening, so we really don't need to see anymore."

That visit with mom and dad seems so recent, in my memory. But, it was 22 years ago...

Why Did Downtown Fort Worth Not Open A CityTarget On Wednesday?

In the picture you are looking at something called "CityTarget". This is an urban concept Target store.

This new Target store concept opened in three locations this past Wednesday, those being Los Angeles, Chicago and Fort Worth.

I'm sorry, I typed Fort Worth when I should have typed Seattle.

That is the Seattle CityTarget in the picture. It is located one block from Pike Place Market. Pike Place Market is a market that is like the Dallas Farmers Market on steroids.

Nothing like the Dallas Farmers Market, let alone the Dallas Farmers Market on steroids, exists in Fort Worth. Years ago, in a civic delusion that preceded Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle civic delusion, the powers-that-be in Fort Worth, powers like the town's sad excuse for a newspaper of record, the Star-Telegram, trumpeted a lame failure called the Santa Fe Rail Market as being modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market.

The misrepresentations, made by the local powers-that-be, in regards to the Santa Fe Rail Market, are very instructive, what with the same type deluded nonsense being foisted on the public in regards to the TRV Boondoggle.

For example, this morning the Star-Telegraph, (please note I typed Telegraph, not Telegram) pointed me towards an absurdest editorial in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram titled Funding for Fort Worth bridges and bikes good for the future.

The Star-Telegraph blogged about this twisted Star-Telegram editorial in a blogging titled They don't read. That blogging reprinted a very good comment to the Star-Telegram's editorial from someone calling himself gmsherry1953. You can read that comment on the Star-Telegraph's  They don't read blogging.

The fact that downtown Seattle has opened yet one more department store, in addition to all the department stores, grocery stores and vertical malls that already exist in downtown Seattle, with the first floor of the new CityTarget being a grocery store, a type store downtown Fort Worth lacks, except for something called Oliver's Fine Foods, a place which only a very imaginative person would call a real grocery store, has me thinking that it would behoove the powers-that-be in Fort Worth to devote some think time to the reasons why downtown Fort Worth lacks a single department store, grocery store, vertical mall and many of the other amenities one associates with a big town's downtown.

Yes, I know someone is going to say the reason why downtown Fort Worth lacks stores and is the deadest downtown of all the big towns in America, on the biggest shopping day of the year, that being the day after Thanksgiving, is because few people reside in downtown Fort Worth.

So, it would seem the question to be asked is why not enough people live in downtown Fort Worth to cause the normal development one sees in a big town's downtown?

The bizarre Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is partly touted as being the solution to bringing downtown Fort Worth out of its current doldrums, causing people to want to live in what's called the Trinity Uptown zone. An area, supposedly, where condos, apartments and other living quarters will be built. Along with other big town amenities, in addition to a tourist attraction the likes of San Antonio's River Walk. Only bigger.

Did I mention already the tendency of Fort Worth's powers-that-be to come up with exaggerated delusional plans that end up being big boondoggles?

Yeah, it seems really likely that the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is going to out-do San Antonio's River Walk.

Just like the Cowtown Wakepark became the world's premiere urban wakeboarding destination.

In the graphic you are looking at the the population increase in downtown Seattle's various downtown areas from 1990 to 2010. Downtown Seattle, as a whole, grew 72%, outgrowing all of Seattle's neighborhoods outside of downtown.

Instead of coming up with pathetic boondoggles in the hope that the boondoggle will somehow cause Fort Worth's downtown to magically become like other big towns, Fort Worth's powers-that-be should look at towns like Seattle and make note of what it is that has caused those other town's Downtowns to become Boomtowns.

Seattle's Downtown became a Boomtown not as the result of a bizarre nepotistic plot using the abuse of eminent domain, with massive influxes of federal dollars to build bridges to nowhere, over giant, un-needed flood channels, with a little pond, and maybe some stagnant canals, to employ a Seattle congresswoman's unemployed son with a job for which he had zero qualifications.

Seattle's Downtown and other town's Downtowns become Boomtowns due to the organic, natural attributes and legitimate efforts of the people who live in the towns, not due to pathetic public works projects that the public is not allowed to vote on.

I'm done now. For now.

Fort Worth Resident Survey Shows Satisfaction Regarding City Services With 93% Agreeing Dallas Is Their Ideal City

The Fort Worth, Texas, Official Web Site Home Page is home to some very interesting information.

If the Internet had existed back when the Soviet Union was in its propaganda spewing heyday, I imagine the Moscow, Russia Official Web Site Home Page would have been very much like Fort Worth's.

In the City News section of the Fort Worth, Texas, Official Web Site Home Page we learn that "Resident survey shows satisfaction with City services."

A few paragraphs about this "Resident survey".....

Fort Worth registered high marks in an annual survey that measures residents’ feelings about municipal services. Residents ranked the City highest for having a clean and attractive city and ensuring a strong economic base, and lowest for improving roads and public transportation.

In April, ORC International, a global market research firm with offices across the U.S., surveyed a random sample of 1,614 Fort Worth residents age 18 and older. At least 200 surveys were completed in each City Council district.

Ninety-five percent of respondents said the overall quality of life in Fort Worth meets or exceeds their expectations, and 93 percent agree that Fort Worth is close to their ideal city.

Fort Worth residents feel that the overall quality of City services meets or exceeds their expectations, and 79 percent feel the city is headed in the right direction.

On a scale of five stars, 73 percent of residents rated the City as four stars or better. Only 11 percent of cities rate five stars, ORC International reported.

It is clear that Fort Worth residents feel that the No. 1 strategic goal should be to ensure a strong economic base, a reflection of the nation’s current economic state and overall concerns about the economy. Twenty-nine percent of respondents ranked “having a strong economic base” as the most important goal. Also important were “being the nation’s safest city” (21 percent) and “improving roads and public transportation” (18 percent).

95% said the quality of life in Fort Worth met or exceeded their expectations? With 93% agreeing that Fort Worth is close to their ideal city?

As in Fort Worth is close to their ideal city of Dallas? Dallas is considered the ideal city by 93% of the Fort Worth people surveyed? Well, I sort of do understand that. Dallas is a very attractive city, with an iconic skyline and some nice attractions, like Fair Park and the Dallas Farmers Market.

Even though there are some nice locations in Dallas, Fort Worth has my favorite attraction in the D/FW Metroplex, that being the Fort Worth Stockyards.

In the survey, 18% thought Fort Worth needed to improve its roads and public transportation.

The Dallas transportation infrastructure is likely another reason why 93% of the Fort Worth people surveyed opined that Fort Worth was close to their ideal city, because Dallas has all those miles of DART train tracks, that you can now ride all the way to Denton. Fort Worth has a TRE train that you can ride to Dallas to connect to the DART trains.

I wonder how much the City of Fort Worth paid for this rather absurd survey? Enough to buy a library book or two? Fill a pothole or two?