Fort Worth Is Not The Most Laid-Back City In America

Yet one more sort of goofy item on the Microsoft News page I see via my Windows Edge browser.

Titled "This Is The Most Laid-Back US City"

I do not know if the above link works on all platforms, or just on the Edge browser.

Anyway, this was a gallery one scrolled through, listing the 50 most laid-back cities in America. By what criteria? I have no idea.

Several Texas cities showed up on the Laid-Back list. With Houston being in last place, at 50. San Antonio is #47, followed by Dallas as the 46th most laid-back city. Continuing on, expecting to see laid-back lazy Fort Worth show up, I came to the last Texas entry, Austin is the 29th most laid-back city.

And, the most laid-back city in America? Why, it is the big city in America about which I am most familiar.

Seattle.

Like I said, I do not know by what criteria it was decided a city's level of laid-backness is. As I have experienced Seattle, the town is way too bustling to be considered laid-back. The downtown area of Seattle has throngs of people bustling about. If a couple cruise ships are docked, with the cruisers off the boat, the Seattle waterfront is bustling, not remotely laid back.

The most laid-back city I have experienced, by my idea of what laid-back is, is Fort Worth, Texas, with the deadest big city downtown I have ever been in. A ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

Fort Worth never shows up on these type lists. On the rare occasion something about Fort Worth is made note of, a big fuss ensues. Like the time a Washington, D.C. lobbying group, who were advocates of the Urban Village concept, had Fort Worth as one of the Top Ten American Cities with Urban Villages.

You likely will not believe this, but Fort Worth actually had a city-wide celebration celebrating showing up on this list.

I was in Tacoma a short time after this, talking to the guy who was Tacoma's Deputy Mayor at the time.

Tacoma was also on this list of cities and their urban villages. I asked the Deputy Mayor if Tacoma had a city-wide celebration after getting this esteemed honor. He laughed, and said, no, we just politely sent them a thank you message.

I then told the Deputy Mayor that Fort Worth had a city-wide celebration over this esteemed honor. You have to be joking, was his replay. Nope, not joking, said I.

I think the rarity of Fort Worth being the recipient of any sort of accolade is a big contributor to what seems like the town's civic inferiority complex. Part of that complex is caused by being linked to Dallas in a large metropolitan area known locally as the Metroplex. Dallas is the well-known, handsome big brother, whilst Fort Worth is sort of the homely sister, to use a metaphor.

My early years in Texas, living in Fort Worth, reading the local newspaper called the Star-Telegram, I made frequent note of the inferiority complex as manifested by what I called Green With Envy Syndrome, where that newspaper would opine that some perfectly ordinary thing would be causing towns far and wide to be green with envy.

Again, I am not making this up.

Years ago I made a webpage making note of multiple instances of Fort Worth's Green With Envy Syndrome.

I have been told that the Star-Telegram has dropped its Green With Envy nonsense. I know it has been years since I have seen an instance of the syndrome...

OneDrive Memory Of Enchanted Rock & Ralph The Swimming Pig

Another Microsoft OneDrive Memory from this Day, which I actually remember, something which does not happen too often with these alleged photo memories.

It was a Winter day, easily could have been in February, during a time when I took myself on a solo roadtrip. 

First night I stayed in Waco, and mountain biked the trails in Waco's Cameron Park.

Second night I stayed in San Marcos, and had fun exploring Aquarena Springs, site of the clearest water I have ever seen, and an abandoned amusement park that one could walk through.

Back during its heyday a pig named Ralph, known as The Swimming Pig, put on a show in Spring Lake. One could watch the show from above the lake, or venture into a submarine viewing venue. 

When I visited one could still climb down into the submarine viewing venue to look deep into the crystal clear water.

Leaving San Marcos I found myself in what is known in Texas as Hill Country. This is where one finds Luckenbach, and many other sites of interest. Eventually I found myself at Enchanted Rock State Park, which is where the above photo was taken, at the top of the rock, using my long-gone Casio digital camera, which had a feature now known as taking a selfie.

Leaving Enchanted Rock I headed south, eventually spending the night in San Antonio, and seeing the Alamo for the first time. That and San Antonio's Riverwalk.

The next morning I got a phone call which caused me to hurry back to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex as quick as possible.

Remembering that phone call, and all the other phone calls that day, is a memory I would have preferred not to have been reminded of today...

Visiting Durango Building In San Antonio Whilst Looking At The River Walk

I was looking through a folder of photos from last month when I came upon this one which I had forgotten about.

In July, whilst I was in Arizona, Bob Skywalkerman, via Elsie Hotpepper, sent me the photo you see here.

Apparently this Durango Building, if I remember the original text message correctly, is in San Antonio, which is a Texas town south of Austin.

San Antonio is known around the world for its River Walk.

That and San Antonio being the location of the Alamo.

The San Antonio River Walk walks for miles alongside the San Antonio River.

I do not know if this world famous attraction came about due to something called the San Antonio River Vision.

I am fairly certain the San Antonio River Walk was likely built in a timely fashion and involved no imaginary islands or imaginary signature bridges. Or employed an unqualified local congresswoman's inept son as the San Antonio River Walk's project manager.

San Antonio is a modern Texas American town wearing its Big City pants, unlike other Texas towns I can think of....

Is Fort Worth Happy To Be The Scrappy Little Sidekick Of Dallas?

Last night I read a sort of amusing article in the online version of Texas Monthly.

Texas’s Cities: One Big, Dysfunctional Family
CHRONICLING THE RIVALRIES OF HOUSTON, DALLAS, FORT WORTH, SAN ANTONIO, AND AUSTIN.

My Texas experience is only about a decade and a half long, so a lot of the rivalry stuff between Texas cities was nothing I had experienced, or thought.

However, I have long made note of one rivalry. That being what comes across, at times, as Fort Worth's sort of, well, inferiority complex, caused by Dallas being the big kid on the Metroplex block, with Dallas getting bizarrely demonized by many Fort Worthers.

Three paragraphs from the dysfunctional article, with the first paragraph mentioning the Fort Worth hating Dallas dysfunction, and with the third paragraph including another of the few mentions made of Fort Worth, with that mention being an example of the type thing that riles some Fort Wothers...

Small towns have their vicious football rivalries, but for sheer volume of insults and homerism, the five cities of the Texas Triangle offer the most fertile ground for discussion today. Here it is in a nutshell: Fort Worth hates Dallas. Houston hates Dallas and Austin. San Antonio hates Austin. Austin wishes all the rest of us would just go away, and Dallas pretends that none of the rest of us even exist.

Dallas and Houston are warring fraternal twins. Houston has always resented Dallas for being better at football, hates how global pop culture sees Dallas as the world’s oil capital when it is not, and thinks he is a little materialistic for Houston’s taste. (You know what really galls Houston about Dallas? Creator David Jacobs was inspired by Blood and Money, an epic true-crime tale that took place in Houston.)

With the exceptions of Austin, which Dallas loves to try to impress with a new-found impetus toward coolness, and scrappy little sidekick Fort Worth, the city gaslights every other Texas locale. But especially Houston. “Rivalry?” Dallas asks. “What rivalry? We don’t have a rivalry with Houston. Nobody up here ever even thinks of Houston.”

Fort Worth is the scrappy little sidekick of Dallas?  Well, the scrappy part of that line is sort of a compliment, isn't it? I would take it as such if someone called me scrappy. Calling me little, that I would not like so much.

That paragraph where we learned Fort Worth is the scrappy little sidekick of Dallas took me some parsing before I think I figured out what was being said.

If I am right the writer is suggesting that Dallas plays mind games with most other Texas towns by acting as if Dallas does not feel any rivalry with them, with Austin and Fort Worth being exceptions, with, Austin being an exception because, apparently, Dallas hopes to impress Austin that Dallas is also a cool town, and with Fort Worth being an exception due to the town being the scrappy little sidekick of Dallas, like a little buddy.

I may have totally misunderstood that scrappy little sidekick Fort Worth gaslighting paragraph.

Could an article like this Texas Monthly article be in Washington Monthly about the dysfunctional rivalry between Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, Spokane, Yakima and Olympia?

Likely not. I don't think one would read a line about Tacoma being the scrappy little sidekick of Seattle. Or Spokane hating Seattle. Or, well, you get the point....

On The 3rd Thursday Of 2014 Walking Around Fosdick Lake Thinking About Moving To A Scottsdale Condo Tower

If you are guessing you are looking at the backside of Fosdick Lake Dam in Oakland Lake Park in Fort Worth, Texas, you would be guessing correctly.

Fosdick Dam is reputed by some, well, by me, to be the world's most eco-friendly dam, what with all those trees you see growing out of the dam.

Yester morning I skipped my regularly scheduled hot tub hydrotherapy session. I don't remember why I skipped. It may have been temperature related.

This morning I did not skip my regularly scheduled hot tub hydrotherapy session.

After feeling full of salubriousity after the hot tub hydrotherapy I called my mom and dad. Mom answered the call, which is the norm. I had called yesterday and got the answering machine. I asked my mom where they'd gone to when I called yesterday. My mom did not remember.

Mom told me my favorite nephew Chris, aka CJ, he being my oldest Arizona nephew, sold his house in Tempe and has moved to a condo tower in downtown Scottsdale. Downtown Scottsdale would be an extremely nice place to live. I can not think of a D/FW Metroplex equivalent. The closest I can come, in Texas, is San Antonio, if there were a condo tower on the River Walk.

The walk around Fosdick Lake bears some resemblance to San Antonio's River Walk, what with both involving water.

As you can see, the Fosdick ducks enjoy swimming around the Fosdick Fountain. I do not recollect previously seeing as many ducks as I saw today on Fosdick Lake. A whole lotta quacking going on.

I saw multiple instances of the blue harbinger of spring you see below, sprouting from the Oakland Lake Park grass.

I wonder if renowned Fort Worth horticulturist, CatsPaw, can identify this blue beauty?

All in all, I am having myself a mighty fine time on this 3rd Thursday of 2014.....

4.6 Magnitude Supposedly Rare Texas Earthquake Shakes San Antonio This Morning

4.6 Magnitude Quake 50 Miles South of San Antonio

Texas seems to be constantly shaking from earthquakes.

Yet each time we feel the earth move here in Texas it seems I read how rarely Texas has earthquakes.

In the past few years I have experienced earthquakes centered in all directions all around me.

But, I have not felt the earth move.

I often felt the earth move, at times quite violently, when I lived in the shaky state of Washington.

This morning, at 7:24 am, an area about 50 miles south of San Antonio got popped with what the U.S. Geological Survey says was a 4.6 magnitude earthquake.

The earthquakes that have rattled my immediate vicinity have been puny little shakers. Most people seem to credit the Barnett Shale gas drillers and their fracking cracking with causing the local quakes.

A 4.6 level quake is a bit more serious. If you were at the epicenter of a 4.6 quake you'd be feeling a lot of motion and likely hear a lot of noise.

This morning's Texas quake was centered near the town of Campbellton. Faint tremoring was felt as far away as downtown San Antonio. The shaking was strong enough in San Antonio that a downtown federal building was briefly evacuated.

And once again, the earth has moved in Texas, where earthquakes are rare, with me not feeling it.

Men's Health: Five Of The 10 Fattest Cities Are In Texas

Being obese is stigmatized in most of the modern Western world, though those thus endowed were seen as a symbol of wealth at other times in history, and still are in many parts of Africa. And possibly Texas.

The current issue of Men's Health Magazine has yet one more of those ubiquitous lists, listing, this time, the Fattest Cities in America, from #1 to 100.

From the Men's Health website...

"Go to Google Maps, type in "United States," and you'll be reminded of just how big Texas is. But what you can't see is the size of the state's citizenry: Five Lone Star cities are among the nation's fattest, with Corpulent Christi at the top."

Joining Corpulent Christi in the Top Ten from Texas are #3 El Paso, #4 Dallas, #7 San Antonio and #9 Houston. All received a Grade of F, except for Houston, which got a D-.

Also on the list from Texas, but extremely lean, is Austin, at #97. Getting an A grade, along with Seattle at #98. Only Seattle, Washington, D.C., Burlington, Vermont and San Francisco are skinnier than Austin.

Other Texas towns on the list are # 13 Lubbock with a D- Grade, #54 Arlington with a C+ and #66 Fort Worth with a B-.

Some optimistic Obesity News for Texas is that NBC's Biggest Loser reality TV show is going to help Texas lose some of its poundage, promising to help America's 2nd biggest state shrink.

Currently, I am in Fort Worth, which, according to Men's Health, is almost as skinny as Austin. I am guessing it is all those natives constantly hiking all over the Tandy Hills that keeps Fort Worth from ballooning to a Dallas/Arlington size of bigness.