Wichita Falls Troubled Bridge Over Peacefull Water Nearly Restored

On this latest day of my ongoing daily, seemingly apparent, recreation of the Groundhog Day movie, where it almost seems as if I live a version of the same day, over and over again, with some days there seeming to be some slight difference.

Or improvement.

On this first Thursday of the 2022 version of April, it was back to Lucy Park for some high wind communing with nature via fast walking for a few dozen minutes.

A change today at Lucy Park was seeing that the rehabilitation of the Lucy Park Suspension Bridge bridge deck is completed. Awaiting the installation of new side guards to keep bridge walkers from falling into the roiling waters of the Wichita River.

This extensive restoration of this major crossing of the Wichita River is taking place over actual water.

In Wichita Falls we do not wait for the river to go dry to do anything bridge-wise, you know, to imaginarily save time and money, like some other Texas towns, well, one Texas town, is known to do.

You can see above that the Lucy Park forest floor is getting ever more green, day by day. Soon one will not be able to see through the forest of trees.

Time is flying by so fast. April will be gone in an eye blink. Then May. Then the arrival of Summer.

A few months ago I was just about 100% I would be heading northwest this Summer, to return to Washington for the first time since Summer of 2017.  There was a reunion I felt sort of like attending, but that seems to have morphed into something I can't see the point of going to the bother of attending.

I may change my mind, which I have a tendency to do. Of late I am thinking if I am going to subject myself to being on a plane I would like the destination to be some place tropical. 

I hear good things about Bora Bora. And Singapore...

Singapore's Mali Drives Us From Penang To Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Project

A couple weeks ago my favorite Singaporean, Mali Wee, who I have known since the last decade of the previous century, posted on Facebook a photo of driving a car with the text saying something like "True Freedom. Driving."

Soon I learned Mali Wee was driving to Penang. Where is Penang I wondered? Another China town I had never heard of which Mali is visiting? Driving all the way to China from Singapore? This seemed unlikely.

And so I consulted Google to learn Penang is a town in Malaysia, within driving distance from Mali's home island.

Reading about Penang I soon found myself reading about the Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge. The article about this bridge was highly detailed, as to how it was designed, how it was paid for, and the actual construction, including delays.

And yet, even with a delay or two this actual Penang feat of complex bridge engineering was completed in about the same amount of time Fort Worth has been stuck slow motion building three simple little bridges over dry land, whilst pretending these pitiful bridges present some sort of complex engineering challenge and are of some sort of signature significance..

Oh, I forgot to mention, the Penang bridge is 24 kilometers, as in just about 15 miles, long. And built over actual water of the ocean sort. Deep ocean water with tides. And possible tsunamis. And so unique engineering was required so this long bridge could handle Mother Nature behaving badly.

No local congress person's inept, unqualified son was in charge of this Malaysian bridge project. Apparently Penang is not a backward backwater, but a modern city where public works projects are actualized efficiently. Unlike what is allowed to happen in an American backwater like Fort Worth.

So, seeing that this bridge in Malaysia has a Wikipedia article about it I wondered if the same was true for Fort Worth's imaginary signature bridges, known as the Panther Island Bridges, which have been trying to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, over dry land, for years.

Well.

On Wikipedia regarding Fort Worth hosting of America's Biggest Boondoggle one can only find one article, titled Trinity River Vision Project. The article has changed since I last saw it. With the changes changing the content to be total propaganda.

Propaganda so bad Wikipedia has a warning at the top of the article, which we screen capped at the top, along with the first two paragraphs of the propaganda.

First the warning....

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2015) The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. (June 2009)

Wow! This topic has had a notability issue since June 2009. Over ten years ago. The previous iteration of this Trinity River Vision Project article was extremely embarrassing in multiple ways. The example which sticks in my memory is the mention made of the imaginary island, describing among that imaginary island's attributes one attribute being the large colony of feral cats.

The feral cats and all the rest of that previous article has been replaced with what appears to be propaganda puffery lifted directly from the Trinity River Vision Authority website. Read the entire Trinity River Vision Project article to fully realize the level of propaganda nonsense, but for illustrative purposes of the propaganda we will copy just the first two paragraphs...

The Trinity River Vision Project is a master plan for 88 miles (142 km) of the Trinity River (Texas) and its major tributaries in Fort Worth, Texas. The river is of significant historical value to the City of Fort Worth, as the current central business district was developed in 1849 as an army outpost along its banks.

More than a decade in the making, the master plan was conceived by volunteers and community leaders before being adopted by city, county, state and federal officials. The goal of the master plan is to enhance and preserve the river's corridors within the city, so that they remain essential greenways for open space, trails, neighborhood focal points, and recreation areas. 

There are so many examples of stupid idiocy with no connection to reality in the above two paragraphs I am not going to bother elaborating.

Suffice to say, Wikipedia needs to delete this propaganda. And someone needs to write a reality, fact based article for Wikipedia about the Trinity River Vision Project Boondoggle.

Maybe I'll find the time to do so...

Post Valentine's Day Blues With Singapore Feeling Trumpy

I think I may have I learned something new this morning.

Flora Cheng has been my favorite Singaporean since way back in the last  decade of the previous century.

This morning, on Facebook, Flora posted that which you see here.

If you are unable  to read Chinese, let me translate  for you....

Heavy rain
Outside Temperature 27
Some people will be rest to 27
I don't have language.

I am sure that even if you are not fluent in Chinese you likely do know that Singapore, and most of the rest of the world, measures temperature using this thing called the Centigrade scale.

I do not know if 27 degrees Centigrade is extra hot or extra cold for a country located near the equator.

I commented on Flora's  post, using  the English language, because my fluency in Chinese is not as evolved as I  wish it was...

Durango Jones: 93 here last Saturday. HOT. Snow yesterday on Valentine's Day. BRRRR!!!!

Flora Cheng: Your weather has gone Trumpy.

Durango Jones:  Let us just hope the entire world's weather does not go Trumpy....

Flora Cheng:  Hopefully.

_______________________

I am guessing that our Dear Leader's name has become a descriptive word in Singapore.

Trumpy.

I am also guessing as to what Trumpy means in Singapore.

Is Trumpy Singalese for Crazy? Nuts? Unpredictable? Bizarre? Weird Unbelievable?

I suppose I could end the guessing by emailing Flora and asking what Trumpy means to her and her fellow Singaporeans....

No J.D. Granger Clone Executively Directed Singapore's Successful Marina South Vision

No. What you see here is not an artist's rendering of what the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Granger Bay Sands Resort might look like when, or if, it is completed decades from now.

What you are looking at is not a sad little pond in Fort Worth, Texas. The body of water you see here is Marina Bay in Singapore.

That would make what you are looking at the Marina Bay Sands, a Singapore resort complex which includes a hotel, convention and exhibition centers, theaters, concert venues, stores and restaurants.

Plus a casino is in the mix, due to Singapore deciding earlier this century to get into the casino business.

After an extensive search Singapore gave the job to project engineers from the Las Vegas Sands to develop the Marina Bay site, in what is known as the new business district of Marina South.

For our purposes we will refer to this as Singapore's Marina South Vision.

No Singapore politician's son was hired to be the executive director of the Singapore Marina South Vision.

Singapore is one of the least corrupt nations in the world.

On May 27,  2006 Las Vegas Sands learned they had won the job to develop Marina Bay. Construction began soon thereafter, in early 2007.

Marina Bay Sands opened way less than four years later, on April 27, 2010.

Another interesting fact.

Marina Bay Sands is currently the world's most expensive building, costing $4.7 billion in U.S. dollars.

I guess you get what you pay for. Literally.

Which leads me to wonder how can Fort Worth's relatively puny undertaking known as the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle be slated to cost around $1 billion? Is that high cost due to the slow motion, un-funded, poorly planned, incompetently directed method of project construction?

All that Fort Worth, and those in the rest of America who Fort Worth expects to help pay for their boondoggle, get for that billion bucks, is a short flood diversion channel, a little lake, three plain bridges over the flood diversion channel. Plus the removal of levees which have kept the downtown Fort Worth zone flood free for well over a half century.

Also, how can the small multi-purpose arena, which Fort Worth voters recently voted to help fund by charging $1 to rent a livestock stall, cost almost half a billion dollars? Look at what Singapore wrought  for $4.7 billion, compared with Fort Worth's puny half billion dollar arena.

Marina Bay Sands has a well done website which gives one a real good idea of what $4.7 billion buys in Singapore. Screencap of that website below....

Go to the Marina Bay Sands website and you will see what that is atop those three hotel towers.

Oh, why make you look for it, I'll just go find a photo of Singapore's version of a Rockin' the River Happy Hour Float venue....

The Marina Bay Skypark, atop the Marina Bay Hotel, featuring the world's highest and longest infinity pool, along with other amenities, like restaurants, with a view.

I wonder how many things there are in Singapore which make other towns, far and wide, green with envy....?

The 2nd Tuesday Of February Dawns Bright White After A Night Of Too Much Repartee

When I looked out my primary viewing portal on the outer world at the pre-dawn darkness on this second Tuesday of the second month of 2012 a bright flash of white temporarily blinded me.

When the temporary blinding abated I could see that the sun was beginning to light up what appears to be a partly cloudy sky.

Last night, when I turned off my TV, Mitt Romney was leading in Colorado. By morning Rick Santorum had won Colorado. And Minnesota and Missouri. And not by a small margin.

Methinks the Republicans are messing up real bad and the result will be 4 more years of Barack Obama.

Last night, for the first time in a long time, I exchanged multiple messages with Wee Cheng in Singapore. Wee asked me if Obama was a Republican or a Democrat. Wee said she likes Obama.

Last night, in addition to Wee, I had multiple messages going from various sources. Both my monitors were popping up with messages. Facebook  messages, Facebook comments, blog comments and email.

It can get confusing. When making rapid comments I tend to go short, succinct and snarky. And try to be a bit amusing and possibly witty.

Trouble is, if it is multiple messages going on to multiple people I lose track of who I need to be totally literal with and who can handle obtuse humor. With the non-literal, banter is more easily exchanged, With the literal I can go off the rails, with those earnest types confused.

By 11, last night, I was tired of too much messaging and went to bed, where I think nightmares caused the erratic messaging to continue.

I am looking forward to today being a message free day. If you email me, Facebook me or comment me and I do not reply, that is why.

Up Before The Sun With Yap Wee Cheng In Singapore

As you can see from the view from my patio, the sun is no where to be seen, with me up way before the sun was scheduled to appear. The only thing lighting up the place was the flash from my camera.

A microburst near the Ballpark in Arlington, on Tuesday, sent a couple people to the hospital. I heard thunder in the distance for awhile yesterday, but had no up close weather action that I noticed.

This morning I heard from Tug. I don't know who Tug is, but Tug commented on my blogging about Elsie Hotpepper replacing her Peptomobile with a Bartmobile. In a very good example of how gullible I am and how, at times, I pay no attention to details, Tug told me that the Peptomobile was a Chevy Impala, while the Bartmobile is a Crown Victoria. All I noticed was one was pink and the other was yellow with Bart Simpson on the hood.

I remember thinking it didn't make a lot of sense to me when Elsie told me it was the same car with a new paint job. But, like I've said before, Elsie Hotpepper is a character, prone to doing colorful things. And I'm gullible, usually believing what I'm told, unless I've got a good reason not to.

On a totally non-Hotpepper note, I got a Facebook message today from someone I've not heard from in around 9 years. Maybe 8. It was around the time George W. invaded Iraq that I quit hearing from Yap Wee Cheng. Wee lives in Singapore.

Way back in the last century is when I first heard from Wee. She emailed me when I was being Dr. Durango to ask me a lovelorn question about her ex-boyfriend, Teck Seng. Teck was returning to the island from London. If I remember right I told Wee I thought she should give Teck another chance.

And so she did. Within a couple years Wee and Teck got married and had a baby. I think I have some pictures. I'll be right back, hopefully with a picture of Wee. And maybe the baby.

Well, I found several pictures from Wee's Wedding Album. But, I could find no picture of Wee's baby. I remember she sent me one.

Prior to the Iraq Invasion Wee emailed me all the time. Even called me a couple times here in Texas. I tried to contact Wee over the years through where she worked. I can't remember where that was now, but it was a government thing, historical records, maybe.

I'll reply to Wee's Facebook message. It will be interested to hear what she's up to now.

I Do Not Ship Saddles From Texas To The United Kingdom

Internet World can be such a strange place. As long as I've been connected via this means to the rest of the world I've gotten odd questions that come at me for no apparent reason that I can understand.

Like someone in Singapore named Wee Cheng asking me a lovelorn type question about her ex-boyfriend, Teck Seng, coming in from London, wanting to rekindle their dead relationship. I told Wee to go for it. Eventually Wee and Teck got married and reproduced. I got invited to the wedding. Wee Cheng quit speaking to me because George Bush had invaded one country too many for Wee's taste.

The weirdest question I ever got was a lady in the UK seeking medical advice about something to do with her uterus. I guess this was what I deserved for calling myself Dr. Durango and having a website called Dialing Doctor Durango.

But, Dialing Doctor Durango was obviously not serious and I obviously was not a real doctor. This was the period of time when I realized you can not go wrong overestimating how stupid the vast mass of humanity actually is. I have since slightly mitigated that view.

However, this week it happened again. An odd email, I mean. Once more it was from the UK. Some guy named David had been at my Eyes on Texas website. Somehow the fact that this website, in large part, has to do with Texas must have meant, to David, that I must sell horse products.

Below is David's email...

Good Day,

I Am David James and I will like to know if you do sell Any of the following products:

• Saddles
• Horse Float
• Load Float
• Horse Walker
  

If you do then, I will like to know some of the sizes and price range of those that you have in stock at the moment? As soon as you reply me with those information I will get back you to with the quantity that will like to order so that we can proceed from there.

For the payment, I will like to know if you so take major credit card as method of payment?

Thank you and do not forget to include your Name and Phone number when getting back to me.

David.

Okay now. Well, I've pretty much given up replying to these type questions, politely explaining I have no horse stuff for sale. The majority of these type questions are in reference to the webpage I made about going to the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup. I have probably had 2 dozen inquiries over the years, asking for stuff like rattlesnake skin, venom and rattles. As recently as last week I got asked how much my rattlesnake skins cost. And oddly enough, this question also came from the UK. I think, maybe Darwinian selection had the top notch Brit brains moving to the colonies, leaving the UK with a big brain drain that evidenced itself in the subsequent generations.

Of course, I am going on very flimsy evidence to be making such a harsh conclusion.

Alice Tonasket and Wee Cheng

Yesterday I mentioned an email I got from someone who felt I'd hurt her feelings and disrespected her home away from home, that home being Scarborough Faire. I got an email from another person yesterday in which the emailer asked me who my most memorable out of the blue emailers have been. I could only think of two who I actually remember by name, mostly because they both became constant emailers.

One is Alice Tonasket. She'd been at my webpage about Mount Carmel and the Branch-Davidians and somehow thought I had something to do with that debacle. She was rather inarticulate back then so it was really hard to understand what she was asking. It sort of seemed like she was interested in joining my church. So, I replied to her. Told her it cost $200 to join my church. She decided to pass on the offer.

Alice is well known in her local zone for her home brew. Alice makes about 4 kegs worth of beer a month. What she doesn't drink she sells, bootleg style, bottling it herself in classic old beer bottles that she makes labels for. Alice calls her beer, "Alice Doesn't Drink Here Anymore Ale."

Over time I learned Alice has a bit of an amnesia problem. This made it sort of fun to play with her. She is easily confused. Currently she is emailing one of my pseudonyms named Igor and has forgotten that Igor is me. She now thinks Igor is my brother. So, she emailed me yesterday complaining about my brother Igor being mean to her.

Alice lives in a very small town in an isolated part of eastern Washington (the state, not the city), but, even though it is a small town, Alice is surrounded by constant Soap Opera turmoil and drama. A couple years ago Alice's Soap Opera was spinning out of control. I suggested she use her MySpace webpage to deal with various issues. For a slight monthly fee I agreed to create several MySpace characters and write blog postings for Alice. The various characters then opined in with their two cents on Alice's issues.

It did not take long for the targets of Alice's disdain to feel the sting of her pointed tongue. The zenith was reached when one of the targets showed up at Alice's house threatening Alice with the law if she didn't stop telling the truth. Of course, Alice blogged about this the next day, thoroughly chastising the trouble causer. Who is now a meek lion afraid of the Roar of Alice, rather than the other way around. The days of Alice the Meek have long vanished.

Alice now finds herself the recipient of new found respect among all the characters in her cast. It has become common for Alice to hear pleas of "Please don't blog this." To which she warns "Don't do it if you don't wanna read about it."

And then there was Wee Cheng from Singapore. Way back in the 1990's I had a website called Dialing Doctor Durango. It was supposed to be a tongue in cheek know-it-all advice type thing. But, for some reason way too many people took it serious. I finally killed that website when I learned it'd been listed as one of the top 20 medical websites on the Internet on some German university website and then got an email from a woman in the UK asking me for medical advice about her uterine tumor. That was enough. It had to stop.

But, long before I killed Doctor Durango I heard from Wee Cheng. Asking me for relationship advice. Anyone who knows me knows I'm the last person you'd wanna be asking for that type advice. Wee's ex-boyfriend, Teck Seng, was moving back to the island from London and he'd let Wee know he wanted to get back together. He'd broken Wee's heart. Wee didn't know what to do. Her mother told her to take him back, that if she didn't she'd end up like a cuttlefish. This stuck in my mind because I had no idea what a cuttlefish was. Wee explained it's a dried up stinky fish that is used in Asian cooking.

So, I told Wee to give Teck Seng a chance. And so she did. The romance re-bloomed. Wee agreed to marry Teck. I was invited to the wedding. I did not attend.

The Wee Cheng/Teck Seng wedding was probably 4 or 5 years after I'd first started exchanging emails with Wee. She'd send me things in the mail, like antique postcards. One time she asked me if I could ship her some wonderful cheese she had in Japan. It was Cheez Whiz, you know that stuff you spray out of a can. I shipped her 3 cans and some real cheese. Shipping was expensive so I took the cheapest option, basically a slow boat to China. By the time it got there Wee'd found Cheez Whiz in Singapore. I never heard how the real cheese faired.

Wee called me a couple times. She's a teeny little thing but her voice is real deep and very guttural and her English is very hard to understand.

Wee's mom died before she got married and before she had a baby. So, Wee's mom never knew that Wee did not end up like a cuttlefish. The last I heard from Wee Cheng Seng was in 2003. Her husband Teck Seng is very anti-American. He works for some high tech company and was stationed in California for a year. Hated the Americans he worked with and pretty much everything else about America. Why, I do not know.

So, when King George invaded Iraq Wee Cheng emailed me in quite an irate mood, as if I had anything to do with what George did. She told me if America invaded any more Asian countries she would not have anything to do anymore with anything American. I replied, in full umbrage mode, and asked if that meant she'd be giving up the Internet, it being an American invention of Al Gore's, after all.

I never heard from Wee Cheng again. I hope she's all right. I tried to contact her after the 2004 tsunami, she liked to vacation on those beaches in Thailand. But I never heard from her again.