Did Fort Worth's Mayor Slide The City In An Itsy Betsy Bikini?

A few minutes ago an incoming blog comment from someone named Anonymous led me to soon seeing hundreds upon hundreds of photos of Saturday's Fort Worth Slide the City Panther Fest event which went all the way from disaster with medical emergencies to ending the day having broken a Guinness Book World Record, the nature of which I still have not been able to determine.

Looking at all the photos of so many people seeming to be having themselves a mighty fine time getting ready to slide, or sliding down the 2,000 foot long waterslide, I really did not know what to think.

Is the large throng willing to pay a hefty fee to do such a thing an indicator that there is a great lacking in amusing things to do in the Fort Worth zone?

The comment from Mr. or Ms. Anonymous....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Saturday's Fort Worth City Slide Went From Disaster To Mysterious Guinness World Record Breaking Event":

Rare J.D. Granger sighting in photo #111. Betsy Price is in photo #173. These pics are from Slide-The-City. Fortunately Dennis Shingleton didn't show up and drop trou.

DFW.com Slide the City Slideshow

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I know I've been told why we should be grateful when Dennis Shingleton keeps his pants on, but I've forgotten the details.

As for Betsy Price being in photo #173, it turned out Betsy was in the photo previous to that one, #172.

As I neared the Betsy number in the slide show I had no small fear that I was about to be scarred for life by an image of Fort Worth's mayor in an Itsy Betsy Bikini.

Turns out I had nothing to be afraid of.

Did Betsy actually slide the slide? And who is the young man in purple, next to Betsy, to whom Betsy is directing her charismatic smile? Is Betsy Price married? I have no idea. Is she single and Fort Worth's version of Madonna? Dating young men a fraction of her age?

I also had some concern that when I got to the J.D. Granger photo I would be subjected to the sight of Kay Granger's baby boy in a speedo getting ready to slide.

Turns out, it appears J.D. Granger has kept intact his record of never getting the polluted Trinity River water on his sensitive skin. Not via the Slide the City thing, or getting in the water during one of those notorious Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the Trinity River.

I have no idea what that is that Mr. Granger is holding. Is it the official document documenting that a Guinness World Record had been set? Is that guy in a suit, next to J.D., the Guinness representative?

It might be useful if DFW.com had some informational text to go along with its endless collection of pictures.

Saturday's Fort Worth City Slide Went From Disaster To Mysterious Guinness World Record Breaking Event

Well now, is this not a classic case of turning a lemon into lemonade?

Saturday morning the Slide the City Panther Fest event was deemed a disaster.

And then, later on that disastrous day, the Slide in the City of Fort Worth set a world record in the Guinness Book of Records.

That is a screen cap of this momentous news, from the Star-Telegram, which you see here.

I am unable to read the article explaining how the slipping and sliding in Fort Worth set a world record, due to me not being willing to pay the Star-Telegram their requested reading fee.

Was the record due to a world record number of people sliding on a water slide in an allotted period of time?

Was the record due to a world record amount of money being raised by such an event?

Was the record due to a world record distance slid?

Was the record due to a world record number of people willing to slide on water which came, un-treated, from a polluted river?

Those are my four guesses as to what sort of world record could have been set yesterday in Fort Worth via a long slip and slide....

Fort Worth Panther Fest Slide The City Fails While Boondoggle Patrons Faint From The Heat

What you are looking here is a screen cap from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's online front page.

I checked the Star-Telegram after getting a text message telling me that the Panther Fest Slide the City operation had malfunctioned. But the beer and music part of the event would carry on.

Then a few minutes later I got an email telling me that Panther Fest is now a Multi-Injury Event, with MedStar deploying its AmBus multi-patient bus to North Main Street to assist with multiple people injured at Slide the City.

A few minutes later another email told me that the injuries are not water slide related, they are heat related. Multiple rehab units have now been deployed to help cool people down.

And just seconds ago another malfunction message, this one via a blog comment...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "On The Tandy Hills Finding A Hoodoo Towering Above The Fort Worth Skyline": 

SNAFU at the Slide Fest / Pantherfest. Dud Kennedy's Twitter page has the story. 

Film at 11. Belay my last. Film at 10 or not. Probably not. Who knows. 

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I have no idea what "Belay my last." means.

So, this latest Trinity River Central City Panther Island Vision Boondoggle product is one more rousing success.

I don't know why it did not occur to anyone that something might go awry with some out of state alleged charity operation coming to town to quickly set up a 2,000 foot long water slide running down Fort Worth's Main Street over the Paddock Bridge.

I heard yesterday that the slides had sold out. If I remember right sliding cost something like 25 bucks.

Sold out? Would that be a thousand slide tickets sold? Ten thousand?

How do the victims of this latest product of America's Biggest  Boondoggle get a refund?

Scam Business Posing As City Agency At Large In Tarrant County

I do not know what to make of that which you see here, sent to me a few minutes ago via email.

In addition to that which you see here, all the email said was "Too Funny".

I believe Panther Fest is a Trinity River Central City Panther Island Vision Boondoggle product.

I know for certain Panther Fest is scheduled to take place this coming Saturday, June 6. And that part of the Fest is a long water slide sliding from the north end of downtown Fort Worth over the Main Street bridge over the Trinity.

I also know that some business entity has sold this slide concept to other towns across America, including Seattle.

The Fort Worth Panther Fest slide version, what with it being associated with America's Biggest Boondoggle, also includes beer.

Near as I can tell this scam warning is coming from the City of Fort Worth.

Is the scam business the city is warning us about the people bringing the slide to town?

Or is the scam business, posing as a public agency, that the city is warning us about, the Trinity River Vision Authority?

Has the city finally come to its senses?

After all, many believe America's Biggest Boondoggle to be a scam business, posing as a public agency, dawdling along, getting little done, taking four years to build three simple little bridges over dry land, wasting money on all sorts of tom foolery, like drunken inner tubing beer parties in the polluted Trinity River, ice skating rinks, paying double market value to buy some contaminated land from a bankrupt friend, followed by building the world's first drive-in movie theater of the 21st century, along with a ridiculous amount of propaganda, in signage and print publication touting the wonders of a public works project the public has never voted for, which has accomplished little in well over a decade of boondoggling...

America's Biggest Boondoggle's Imaginary Reality Programs & Products

Yesterday Elsie Hotpepper sent me a link to yet one more product of America's Biggest Boondoggle, telling me to check out the sponsors.

Fort Worth Weekly is now a proud sponsor of The Boondoggle's products?

What has gone wrong with The Weekly? This week's cover article covers the extremely serious situation regarding the rundown condition of the childhood home of a local golf legend.

It's a long article.

Back to The Boondoggle.

How many websites does The Boondoggle have under its boondoggle umbrella? Does The Boondoggle have in their employ a webmaster churning out these websites? How much is spent on the various Boondoggle domains and websites and all the other propaganda in various forms The Boondoggle churns out to create the illusion that The Boondoggle is a legit operation doing big things?

On The Boondoggle's Panther Fest website we learn....

You won’t want to miss this! Start your summer flying down a potentially world record-breaking 2,000 ft water slide–right on North Main Street.

Potential world breaking water slide? With beer, music and food? A new domain and website was needed for this? Why could this not simply been a sub-domain of The Boondoggle's Panther Island Pavilion website? As in pantherfest.pantherislandpavilion.com thus saving the cost of buying yet one more domain.

Speaking of The Boondoggle's Panther Island Pavilion website. On that website we learn that the venue is Texas's Premiere Waterfront Stage.

Stage? Pavilion?

Near as I can tell a platform with a  partial roof over it is what The Boondoggle is calling a pavilion. As for stages, the old subway waiting stations now are numbered, as in STAGE 1, STAGE 2. You get the idea.

The premiere waterfront stage in Texas? I would think other waterfront stages in Texas would take umbrage at this bogus claim.

I've said it before, but I will say it again. The supposed premiere music stage in Texas is serviced by outhouses. Not modern American restroom facilities. Outhouses.

You reading this in more civilized, modern areas of America, I am not making this up. The premiere waterfront stage in Texas is serviced by outhouses.

I also found the following blurb from The Boondoggle's Panther Island Pavilion website to be amusing...

Panther Island Pavilion is a product of, and programmed by the Trinity River Vision Authority as part of the Trinity River Vision Master Plan. © Panther Island Pavilion - All Rights Reserved.

Product? Programmed? Has The Boondoggle actually paid to copyright the Panther Island Pavilion name?

And then we have The Boondoggle's original Trinity River Vision Authority website. I have been amused at the hubris of the below paragraph of propaganda on The Boondoggle's home page, more than once...

The Trinity River Vision Authority (TRVA) is the organization responsible for the implementation of the Trinity River Vision (TRV) - a master plan for the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas. It is underway now - connecting every neighborhood in the city to the Trinity River corridor with new recreational amenities, improved infrastructure, environmental enhancements and event programming. The TRV will create Panther Island (formerly Trinity Uptown), a vibrant urban waterfront neighborhood, expand Gateway Park into one of the largest urban-programmed parks in the nation and enhance the river corridor with over 90 user-requested projects along the Trinity Trails.

On that aforementioned home page of The Boondoggle I saw a link.

 Panther Island Signature Bridges.

This is ridiculous, I thought to myself. The Boondoggle is still referring to those three simple little bridges, being built in slow motion, over dry land, as being Signature Bridges?

I clicked the link and soon saw that which you see below....

The Boondoggle is actually now calling these little bridges, being built to connect the mainland to an imaginary island, built over dry land, in a time frame longer than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge, Panther Island Signature Bridges?

Below is the propaganda that you see in the screen cap above...

The Trinity River Vision is no longer a vision, it is a reality. For several years, work along the Trinity River has been on-going preparing for this project milestone. The signature bridges are a collaborative effort between the Trinity River Vision Authority, TxDOT, City of Fort Worth, Tarrant County and the US Army Corps of Engineers. The three signature bridges positioned along the realigned Trinity River will begin construction in late summer 2014. The estimated construction cost for all bridges is $66 million. Serving as the gateways to Panther Island, the bridges create the foundation for a unique, urban waterfront community. The project partners will make every effort to minimize the inconvenience of this major construction project and will utilize multiple methods to keep residents and business owners informed. 

The Boondoggle is no longer a vision? It's a reality? Well, I guess that is true. Any project which has taken so long to do so little, well, that is a reality. For years work along the Trinity River has been on-going in preparation for this milestone?

Really? What would that work be. What would that milestone be?

Is the milestone starting the supposed construction of the three little bridges with the four year project timeline?

How come more taxpayers are not fed up with this embarrassing nonsense? How come so few people realize how embarrassing it is going to be, if those bridges ever actually get built, with the ditch dug under them actually filled with water, when one of Fort Worth's few tourists asks where this Panther Island island is, to have the local point across the ditch and say it's that there, on the other side of that signature bridge.

One would have thought the lesson of Sundance Square would have been learned. Where for decades there was no Square, with most of Fort Worth's few tourists  assuming Sundance Square to be the parking lots at the heart of downtown, where, finally, an actual little Square was built.

If The Boondoggle built Sundance Square Plaza they would have touted is as a Signature Plaza, the Premiere Plaza in Texas....

People Perplexed By How A Panther Fest Water Slide Celebrates Local Fort Worth

Yesterday evening, on Facebook, a couple Facebookers messaged me that which you see here. I saw it an wondered what fresh ridiculousness is this?

An hour or two later, also on Facebook, I saw a post which clarified what fresh ridiculousness this Panther Fest thing was about.

Earlier yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, I learned that the giant water slide charity operation which has been sliding in towns across America was coming to Fort Worth. I remember wondering, when I read that, where there was a sufficient elevation change, in downtown Fort Worth, to make water sliding for 1,000 feet doable.

That aforementioned Facebook post generated multiple comments which shed light on this Panther Fest event. I will copy and paste a sampling of those comments below, but before I do that, so that the first comment makes sense, make note of the slogan  at the top of the poster, with the black panther in the middle, "CELEBRATE LOCAL CELEBRATE FORT WORTH".

And now the comment sampling....

"Stick around and celebrate all things local." Except history. Or diversity. Because they've destroyed it.

And then a well known Texas jogger commented...

TRWD's Lawn Whisperer says "Remember to not water your lawns and conserve our precious and dwindling water supply.... so we can flush it down the street for a slip & slide and water gun fights.

Followed by a not so well known Texas blogger....

These giant water slide things are taking place all over the country. I first learned of this a couple weeks ago when I read one was coming to Seattle next summer. It is an expensive slide, with inner tubes for rent, which plays right to the TRV Boondoggle's strength. But, I assumed this slide thing would only be happening in towns with vertical drops. Where can a 1,000 foot water slide be placed in the downtown Fort Worth zone that is not vertically challenged? Has the Boondoggle excavated enough dirt for its Three Bridges Over Nothing to build a hill for a water slide???

Which then had someone explaining where Fort Worth's slide will do its sliding...

It will be on Main Street from the Courthouse going north, i.e. across the Trinity.

Which had one of the Tarrant County Water Warriors sharing a concern about the slide's water source....

Well let's hope that's not where they get the water for it

Which then had TRWD board member Mary Kelleher sharing her sliding befuddlement...

Don't ask me. I'm just a TRWD board member and this is the first I've heard of this. Elections in May! Incredible! Makes one motivated to make change on that board?

Which had a previous commenter elaborating on the Panther Fest slide...

From my inquiry to Slide the City about water, this was the gist:

Here is our general statement as a company on water usage:

The slide is designed to recycle water throughout the day, and to treat the water in a safe and environmentally friendly way. This, as well as the overall design, minimizes the impact and water use. In addition, Slide the City partners with a local charity, preferably a water related one in drought stricken states, and they try to donate (where permissible) the water back to the community at the end of the event.

Approximately 12,000-16,000 gallons of water is typically circulated in a day. Slide the City works with city officials on the proper water disposal. Methods of disposal include local reclamation centers, parks, golf courses and other places dependent upon local regulations.

To which Mary Kelleher let us know she will bring up this Panther Fest slide thing at the next TRWD meeting...

Thanks for looking into this. I most certainly will bring this up st our next meeting. Or at least try to bring it up at the next meeting since I need a second from another board member just to get an item on the agenda. Our current directors have lost focus of the TRWD's mission: flood control and water supply. Elections in May.

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Well, due to the nature of this Panther Fest event, what with beer and bands.

And water wasting.

I am assuming this is a Trinity River Vision Boondoggle product. Doesn't that quasi-governmental  body now own the rights to attaching the name "Panther" to anything they feel like attaching it to?

Isn't the TRV Boondoggle a product of the TRWD. So, how does something like Panther Fest come to be without the subject coming before the TRWD board?

Very perplexing....