McNutty Inspired Iconic Commentary About A Texas Town & Seattle

I saw this last night, via Facebook, via a fellow ex-PNWer, Miss McNutt, who shares with me the frequent seeing of scenes from our old home zone which make us long for seeing a scenic wonderland when we look out any random window of our abode.

The above scene of Seattle and the Space Needle is just a tad hyper realized. As in this is not a totally realistic scene of the view from Elliot Bay, looking at the Seattle waterfront, the Space Needle, and Mount Rainier.

However, it is close enough to the reality to evoke that dreaded homesick feeling.

I see this type iconic imagery of my old home zone, Seattle specifically, and it activates my annoyance at the delusional nonsense I experience at my current Texas location, well, not my exact current Texas location, but my previous Texas location.

A Texas location where absolutely nothing is remotely iconic, as in remotely anything which one sees an image of and knows exactly what one is looking at. And yet this Texas town, via its various propaganda purveyors, ever since I arrived, has touted this that or the other perfectly ordinary thing as being something special, something so special it causes other towns, far and wide, to be green with envy.

Or that that perfectly ordinary thing is so special it is iconic. A signature iconic image representing the town to the world. Things like three simple little bridges built over dry land, which look like freeway overpasses, get promoted as somehow being special, unique iconic signature bridges.

Or, something like a sporting goods store will be propaganda-ized to the locals as destined to be the #1 tourist attraction in Texas, thus worthy of subsidies and tax breaks.

And then six months later, when another of the same sporting goods store opens in Texas, followed soon thereafter by yet one more of the same sporting goods store in the same metropolitan area as the one which was going to be the imaginary top tourist attraction in Texas, those who spouted the ridiculous propaganda turn silent, never uttering a mea culpa confession to being part of a what amounted to being a scam.

Or there was the time those same lame propaganda-izers spewed nonsense regarding a lame food court type enterprise opening in the town's sleepy downtown, touting it as being the first such public market in Texas, modeled after public markets in Europe, and Seattle's Pike Place Market.

Seattle's Pike Place Market is yet one more iconic signature reality which exists in that Pacific Northwest town. The quickly failing imaginary public market in the Texas town I am talking about was called the Santa Fe Rail Market. It was pitiful. Even more pitifully pathetic than the town's current three little freeway overpass type bridges being touted as being iconically signature structures.

This Texas town we are talking about has been working on building itself a water feature for most of this century. That's what the three little bridges being built over dry land are part of. To one day connect the town's mainland to an imaginary island, where there may be canals, and a lake.

Over the years of this century, that Texas town's touted imaginary lake has changed in size, at times as big as 33 acres, some times shrinking to less than 10 acres. 

So far, we have not made note of that Texas town's propaganda-izers claiming that lake will create a waterfront like Seattle's, where cruise ships dock, along with ferry boats. 

However, the propaganda for that town's future waterfront does claim there will be a Panther Island Houseboat District.

You reading this in modern, sane locations in America, we are not making this up...

Tacoma Snow With Spencer Jack 747 Flight To Highway 99 Tunnel & Pike Place Snowman

Incoming new Snowmageddon photo documentation from my old Washington home zone, specifically Tacoma and Seattle

Three photos from Tacoma in incoming email this morning.

Text in that email...

Went sledding with some friends then played in the snow at the kid's school. I took the pic of the water beyond the swings because if you zoom in, you can whitecaps. The sun is out now but the wind is still biting. Other pic is just how the roads look. Main roads are pretty slushy but our streets are still white. When it freezes tonight, it’s gonna get slick!

I could see the aforementioned whitecaps in the above photo when I viewed the photo full sized, but not so much in the cropped shrunken version. That body of water is a southern section of Puget Sound known as Commencement Bay.

When I first saw the above photo all I saw was Ruby sledding down a hill. Then I opened the photo  full sized and realized that was Ruby's brother, David, on the left, and twin, Theo, on the right, trudging back up the hill for another sledding run. I may have the brothers reversed, with it actually being Theo on the left, with David on the right. Or that may be a pair of the sledding friends referenced in the email.

And above we are looking at M Street, in front of David, Theo and Ruby's Tacoma abode.

And next we are standing on David, Theo and Ruby's front porch, looking out at their snow covered front yard and an equally snow covered M Street.

The current forecast for Western Washington, sent to me last night by David, Theo and Ruby's cousin, Jason, indicates the snow is not leaving anytime soon, with more expected to arrive, along with what melts during the day, re-freezing at night, rendering driving continually hazardous.

And speaking of Jason, now let's go to Seattle, with Spencer Jack.

Last week, between snowstorms, on Tuesday, Spencer Jack took his dad to Seattle, to Boeing Field, to the Museum of Flight, hoping to explore the first 747, which is now on display, marking it being a half century since that plane took its first flight over Puget Sound. Spencer Jack and Jason arrived at 10 in the morning, with their 747 tickets having a noon boarding time. However, incoming snow grounded that boarding, resulting in Spencer Jack and Jason being given raincheck tickets for a future snow-free boarding.

Leaving Boeing Field and the Flight Museum, Spencer Jack suggested, since they were in the neighborhood, that the drive back north be via the Highway 99 Tunnel, which had opened the day before.

So, I now have my first first hand account of driving through the new tunnel. Jason's take on it is that the tunnel is brightly lit, with LEDs, that he was surprised at how the tunnel seemed to slope noticeably downhill after entering, then made a not toodetectable curve before re-emerging at ground level near the Space Needle.

All in all, by Jason's account, compared to going the same distance via the now closed Alaskan Way Viaduct, the new tunnel is a boring way to cross downtown Seattle, with nothing to see but the tunnel. Whilst driving the Alaskan Way Viaduct gave one an elevated view of Elliott Bay, ferry boats, cruise ships, the downtown skyline and more. But, it was acknowledged that despite its many attributes the Alaskan Way Viaduct was a noisy, dangerous eyesore that needed to go.

After exiting the new tunnel Spencer Jack thought it a good idea to head back south to the heart of downtown Seattle, to Pike Place Market.

Above we see Spencer Jack standing by a rare downtown Seattle Pike Place Market sight. With that rare sight being a snowman standing at the location famous for flying fish, well, flying salmon tossed by fish vendors.

If I have my bearings right, and my memory is working somewhat accurately, Spencer Jack is looking at the location of the original Starbucks, a short distance to the east.

No snow at my current location way north of being deep in the heart of Texas. Just drizzle and cold air. I grow tired of cold air...

Seattle's MarketFront Project Has Me Freshly Wondering Why Fort Worth's TRV Boondoggle Has No Project Timeline

No, that is not an artist's rendering of some aspect of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle you are looking at here.

What you are looking at is an artist's rendering of something called the MarketFront Project.

I was reading the Seattle Times online this morning when the headline Seattle Council Expected to OK $34 million for Market Expansion caught my eye.

In Seattle if you say something about "The Mountain" you are referring to Mount Rainier. If you say something about "The Market" you are referring to Pike Place Market.

The city's $34 million contribution is just part of the $73 million MarketFront Project.

I'd not heard, previously, about a plan to expand Pike Place. If you have ever been to Pike Place you know it is a sprawling, multi-level development. Expanding on that had me curious as to what that expansion would be.

Reading the article soon had me thinking what a contrast between this and that which one might read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the slow motion project known as the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. That being a project with no project timeline, building oddball things like bridges over nothing connecting to an imaginary island.

And taking an astonishing four years to build those three simple little bridges to an imaginary island.

The Pike Place MarketFront Project has an actual project timeline, unlike Fort Worth's Boondoggle.

The following sentences in the Seattle Times article also served as an interesting contrast to Fort Worth's Boondoggle...

The project work is supposed to take about 18 months, but the complete vision for the Market’s expansion won’t be realized for much longer. That’s because the machine digging a new tunnel under downtown Seattle to replace the viaduct is almost two years behind schedule.

Imagine that, an actual project with a complete vision with a timeline of 18 months, with a rather valid excuse as to what will keep the project from being completely finished on time, that being a problem with the world's biggest tunnel boring machine causing a two year delay before the Alaskan Way Viaduct can be torn down.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, I have yet to read an explanation as to how it can take four years to build three very simple, very small bridges, with pretty much zero engineering complications.

With the excuse that building the bridges over dry land is to save money due to making construction easier. There will be no water in the un-needed flood diversion channel until the Trinity River is diverted into the channel, rendering as nonsense the claim as to why these bridges are being built over dry land, as if there was any other option, until water is purposefully diverted under the bridges.

So, what is Seattle getting for that $73 million 18 month project?

The upper section of the plaza, near Victor Steinbrueck Park, will house 47 new outdoor day-stalls for Market farmers and artists, shielded with a glass canopy. Tucked below and accessible from the lower section of the plaza will be 12,000 square feet of retail space for artisan-food purveyors such as Old Stove Brewery. Under the plaza and new shops, the PDA will build a garage with about 300 parking spots. The existing lot has 88. The project will include some delicate work because the century-old BNSF train tunnel runs directly below. The other chunk of the project is a new building with 40 units for low-income seniors. The bottom-floor apartments will be live-work units opening onto the plaza. The city’s waterfront plan calls for a massive overlook walk bringing pedestrians from an Elliott Bay park promenade uphill to the Market plaza.

Wow.

What a contrast with anything I have read regarding the Fort Worth Boondoggle's Billion Dollar Vision.

What would The Boondoggle do if part of their project involved delicate work over an old train tunnel? Dither til the tunnel disappeared?

I am almost 100% certain Seattle and its actual millions of visitors will be enjoying this Pike Place MarketFront upgrade long before any vehicles drive over any of The Boondoggle's bridges to  The Boondoggle's imaginary island....

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 Does Not Need A Bus Tunnel Under Its Downtown To Take You To Its Professional Sports Stadiums

This week's Fort Worth Weekly had an interesting article about the demise of the Fort Worth Streetcar. The article attempts to figure out what went wrong. And who went wrong.

From my point of view the article did not quite get to the real reason behind why many thought the Streetcar plan was yet one more Fort Worth Boondoggle in the making. And just did not make sense.

From the article this one paragraph bugged me...

"Fort Worth’s historical attitude of giving little value to mass transit was probably a factor in the decision as well. Funding for the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (The T) has also been on the low side compared to other cities, and the accepted view has always been that it’s mostly poor people who ride the bus — another reason the system gets little respect. Thus, better mass transit options have always been considered pretty much off the political radar screen."

Mostly poor people ride the bus? Why is that? And why is that the Fort Worth attitude towards bus riding? I've actually had someone tell me this in person when I opined that I thought riding the Fort Worth buses was fun, due to their theme park like wild ride aspect.

Now, the only other big city bus system that I have used is Seattle's. No one in Seattle would opine that only poor people use the bus.

In the picture above you are looking at the Pioneer Square station in the Seattle bus tunnel. Notice how many buses there are. This was on August 7, 2008. A Thursday, about 3 in the afternoon.

Seattle has a population a little over a half million. Fort Worth has a population over 700,000. Yet Seattle's downtown is way larger than Fort Worth's. There are several vertical malls, several department stores, grocery stores, theaters, two sports stadiums, museums, a symphony hall, Pike Place Market, all sorts of downtown attractions. And a lot of people from one end of downtown to the other, each and every day of the year.

Serving downtown Seattle, public transportation-wise, are surface buses, bus tunnel buses, light rail that runs through the bus tunnel, the SLUT streetcar and the Monorail. You can be at the Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is) hop on the Monorail to Westlake Center (an actual downtown square, unlike Fort Worth's Sundance Square, which is parking lots), take the escalator from the Monorail level to the bus tunnel level and hop on a bus, or train, to take you to the International District's sports stadiums, or stop at any of the other stations, along the way.

All this transit, except for the Monorail and the SLUT streetcar is free. You start paying once you exit downtown.

Is anyone familiar with Fort Worth getting the point I am making here?

I've only touched upon a few of the attractions in downtown Seattle that make public transportation a viable and necessary option. Another reason public transit in downtown Seattle is necessary and viable is because a lot of people live downtown.

Fort Worth's streetcar plan, from what I understood, was that the hope was, build it and the attractions, and people will come. That has worked in some other locales. Like Dallas, Vancouver, Portland and others. But, in Fort Worth, methinks the foundation is way too weak for that sort of dynamic to occur.

I don't believe the "T" currently has bus routes circulating through downtown Fort Worth. Unless you count Molly the Trolley. That fact is rather telling, streetcar need-wise.

What Fort Worth actually needs to do is figure out why there are no vertical malls downtown, no grocery stores, no department stores.

Figure out why Heritage Park is a boarded up eyesore.

Seattle has a park similar to Heritage Park. It also had some problems. I believe a murder was committed in Seattle's Freeway Park. Freeway Park has water features, like Heritage Park did. When Seattle's Freeway Park became a problem Seattle did not put cyclone fence around it and turn off the water features. Seattle fixed the problem.

To my eyes, Fort Worth tends not to actually address its problems. Instead it pretends the problems aren't problems. How long is that embarrassing courthouse annex going to stand? It's been years now since I read it was coming down, with the historic courthouse to be restored to its original glory.

To sum up, in my opinion, Fort Worth needs to figure out why its downtown does not have attractions that attract crowds of people day after day. And necessities (like grocery stores) that would make it a place people want to live. Fort Worth needs to figure out why, on the busiest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving, downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town.

The year that downtown Fort Worth is not a ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year is the year Fort Worth is actually ready to worry about building transit systems like streetcars.

Watch the video below I made of my Seattle visit of August 7, 2008. I was at Art in the Park in Pioneer Square (yet one more of Seattle's actual town squares). I walked to Westlake Center, then went into the bus tunnel. In the video you'll see one of Seattle's buses, on the surface, going by Westlake Center. In the bus tunnel you will see big, articulated buses, a lot of them, with a lot of people on board. You will notice that the bus I am on is standing room only. Picture the same scene in Fort Worth. You can't? Can you?

After the bus tunnel video I'll stick in one I made from the same day. Of Pike Place Market. On a summer Thursday afternoon. Make note of how big Pike Place is. In the video you see only a small fraction of the actual scope of the market. And note how many people are milling about. And how most of them look like they've had the air let out of them. You will see a big Texan or two, though.

Also, those who have heard me mention my disgust at how the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and downtown Fort Worth boosters touted Fort Worth's Santa Fe Rail Market as being modeled after Pike Place, well, the Pike Place video sort of shows you why I thought the local newspaper of record was not doing its job, and was pretty much spewing irresponsible propaganda....



And now a short walk through a small part of Pike Place Market...

Port Aransas Sunrises, Alma & the Puget Sound

That is sunrise at Port Aransas, this morning, sent by Alma, the Songbird of the South Texas Gulf Coast.

I have not seen the sun rise or set on saltwater in a long time. I do not remember the last time. I did see saltwater last summer, that being Puget Sound, but you do not see the sun rise or set on Puget Sound.

In Western Washington, the sun rises over the Cascade Mountains, not Puget Sound. And when the sun sets, it sets over the Olympic Mountains, not Puget Sound.

It is still spectacularly scenic, though. I remember being in a bar/restaurant in Pike Place Market in Seattle, while the sun was setting over the Olympics, with the barkeeper leading the bar patrons in a series of ooooohs, awwwhs and the sunset becoming ever more spectacular.

My best sunset ever was not a sunset. It was a moonset. On Lake Powell. The night is very dark on Lake Powell, the stars very bright. My first night on Lake Powell the moon slowly set, dropping behind the canyon wall. The instant it totally disappeared an eerie purple glow lit up the top of the canyon. It lasted for at least a minute. I had never seen anything like it.

I am hoping to go down to Port Aransas this spring, to see Alma and a sunrise or two. And to have some real seafood. I have never been further down the Texas Gulf Coast than Galveston. I loved Galveston, pre-Hurricane Ike.

Seattle Pike Place Market YouTube Video Debacle

I'd wondered why the number of viewings of a short YouTube video I'd made of my August 7 walk through of Pike Place Market last summer seemed perpetually stuck on 24 views. Today I found out why.

YouTube had made several of my videos "No Longer Available For Viewing" for apparently no good reason. Including the Pike Place Market one.

I had not intended to spend more than the time it took to eat breakfast making and uploading a video of this morning's swim. And now this YouTube debacle has wasted most of the day. And made me cranky. Lord knows it is hard to make me cranky.

I did manage to escape YouTube and go hiking at Tandy Hills today. It was hot. Some like it hot. I didn't use to. But I do these days. If you don't like it hot you shouldn't live in Texas.

Seattle's Pike Place Market Video

I think I've mentioned before how appalled and disgusted I was a few years back when the Fort Worth Star-Telegram was doing their extreme version of civic boosting by repeating over and over again the bizarre propaganda that a lame little food court type thing in downtown Fort Worth, called the Santa Fe Rail Market, was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market and public markets in Europe.

And that the Santa Fe Rail Market was the first public market in Texas.

This was to be the start of my realizing that the Star-Telegram was not a newspaper of the sort I'd been used to reading.

Not only is there a place very much like Pike Place Market nearby, called the Dallas Farmers Market, the failed Santa Fe Rail Market wasn't even the first public market in Fort Worth! An historical marker makes note of that fact at the building's location. The Star-Telegram has since mentioned this, but not their boo-boo, when that former public market was deemed a building of historical significance worth preserving.

I think the Star-Telegram thinks it can get away with some of its more ridiculous hyperbolizing because they figure most of their readers won't know any better. Which perplexed me regarding the Santa Fe Rail Market misrepresentations, because I figured at least a few Fort Worthers must have made it to Seattle and Pike Place at some point in time.

Those of you who were victims of the Santa Fe Rail Market false advertising and wasted gas going there to check it out. Like I did. And if you've not been to Pike Place, watch my video below and you'll get why I found comparing the thing in Fort Worth to an actual tourist attraction to be bad journalism at the very least. Someone should have been fired. I think her last name is Tinsley.

So, when I was up in the Seattle zone last month I wandered around with my video camera in Pike Place on a Thursday afternoon on August 7. When I was making the video I was making sarcastic remarks directed at Fort Worth, well, actually at those who falsely promoted the failed Santa Fe Rail Market. Saying things like "more people are here in Pike Place in 1 minute on one lazy summer day than were in the Santa Fe Rail Market during the entire time it was open." Likely the number was probably closer to half a minute.

I also said things like 'See why I was disgusted to read that that pathetic Fort Worth Rail Market was modeled after this?" And at one point I said something like "Fort Worth, see all these people? This is what a tourist attraction looks like." This was in reference to the Star-Telegram's once more breathless hyping that a sporting goods store, Cabela's, opening in Fort Worth, was going to be the Number One Tourist Attraction in Texas. A short time later another Cabela's opened down by Austin. And a short time after that Fort Worth's ruling junta figured out they'd been snookered again. But, they're back seeing clear once more, with their Trinity River Boondoggle, I mean, Vision.

Anyway, below is a YouTube video of a few minutes at Pike Place Market. I edited out my sarcastic remarks. Some of them were hard to hear due to the noise from so many people. I could have whispered remarks in the Santa Fe Rail Market and my video camera would have picked them up from 50 feet away. It was that dead.

Oh, one more thing, I wouldn't repeat these Star-Telegram embarrassments if they'd just once fess up to being a bit too exuberant with the hyping. They do drop some of the stupid stuff, sometimes, like the Star-Telegram no longer repeats that the Trinity River Boondoggle will make Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South. Nope, not making that up. That paper can be that ridiculous.