Deep Moat III Takes Us To Venice In Cowtown Via Fort Worth Weekly

Deep Moat III moved to Fort Worth years after that which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle began boondoggling, way back early this century.

So, Deep Moat did not know that when this was first foisted on the Fort Worth public it was announced via a banner headline in the Sunday Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

"TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH"

I remember reading that like it was yesterday, wondering what fresh nonsense is this. I was still adjusting to the Star-Telegram's tendency to spout ridiculous hyperbole.

If I remember right touting a lame food court as being modeled after public markets in Europe and Seattle's Pike Place Market, came later, as also did the Star-Telegram touting that a sporting goods store would be the #1 tourist attraction in Texas.

Fort Worth being made into the Vancouver of the South is probably the most absurdly ridiculous thing I've read in the Star-Telegram.

Vancouver has mountains hovering over the town, along with bodies of water connected to the Pacific Ocean, along with a big river named Fraser. Vancouver has hosted a Winter Olympics and an extremely successful World's Fair called Expo '86.

Meanwhile, Fort Worth is currently sponsoring America's Biggest Boondoggle, which no one currently claims will turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.

Regarding America's Biggest Boondoggle, I told Deep Moat III that back when this started, back near the start of this century, early on there were  controversies regarding Granger property holdings which would benefit from the Trinity Uptown economic development scheme. If I remember right Granger, and others, had to divest themselves of holdings which might benefit from their scheming.

I do not remember where the news of the Granger controversial holdings was published. I suspect it was not in the Star-Telegram, what with that newspaper's tendency to not deal with real news requiring actual investigative journalism. I told Deep Moat the news about the Granger holdings may have been in Fort Worth Weekly.

That got Deep Moat III doing some deep Googling which took Deep Moat III back as far as 2005 in Fort Worth Weekly, to that year's Fort Worth Weekly Turkey Awards.

The Fort Worth Weekly Turkey Award awarded to that which 14 years later has become America's Biggest Boondoggle, is rather revealing, that all those years ago it was already obvious something was dire wrong with this development scheme.

The 2005 Do Turkeys Float Fort Worth Weekly Turkey Award...

When the Trinity River Vision plan was slowly being unveiled over the past few years, it seemed like a decent idea. Take 800 under-used acres on the north side of downtown and turn it into a playground with a lake, canals, 10,000 new housing units, and tons of new commercial and retail real estate. But there was a flaw in the plan (well, OK, several) that nature exposed: Half of the $435 million price tag was to come from federal funds, including $110 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a “floodway project.” It didn’t matter then that the Corps said it could do the flood control part of the project for about $10 million. Now, it matters. When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans and broke that city’s levees, federal flood control spending was, um, diverted — as it should have been. Fort Worth’s plan to spend $110 million on what’s really not much more than a high-end real estate deal is under water right now. What Fort Worth political leadership — Mayor Mike Moncrief, U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, and the Tarrant County Regional Water District — need to do is re-examine the whole Trinity River Vision project. For now, a water-logged turkey to all those who keep pushing this pricey Venice in Cowtown — for not being able to tell the difference between “flood control” and making a lot of money for their big-time real estate developer friends.

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Deep Moat III was particularly taken with the Venice in Cowtown concept suggested by this FW Weekly Turkey Award, commenting the following...


Venice in Cowtown, all the way back to 2005. 

What a great slogan for the new Fort Worth. I hope this meme sticks.

Forget horses and cows. We now want gondolas in a new waterfront development instead of levees and green space on the Trinity Trails for horseback riding from the Stockyards to Downtown. 

We want this instead of spending the millions needed to help neighborhoods with real flood control. 

Is this the new Fort Worth Way?

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Venice in Cowtown. That seems appropriate in multiple ways. Venice frequently has trouble with too much water flooding the town. Venice has spent a lot of money trying to control the water flooding the town. But Venice is slowing sinking as the ocean water level continue to rise.

Yeah, Venice is a good metaphor for Fort Worth...

Wichita Falls Late Sunday Biking To Sikes Lake Bridge Of Sighs

One day in I found myself liking this year's reversion to normal time, with the sun setting earlier than it set the day previous to the normal time reversion.

Sunday, with the sun soon in setting mode, I took off on my second bike ride of the day. With the temperature tickling close to 90, doing such was just too tempting.

My evening wheel rolling destination was Sikes Lake. The paved trail around Sikes Lake is 1.1 miles long. I roll around the lake multiple times. It is about a mile of wheel rolling to get to the Sikes Lake paved trail.

Last night on the third or fourth time passing over the Sikes Lake Bridge of Sighs the setting sun made the view particularly sigh worthy.

So, I stopped mid Bridge of Sighs to do some photo documenting. But, I had not brought along my camera, I only had the phone camera. I took multiple phone photos in multiple scene settings, as in 'sunset', 'autumn color', 'fireworks', 'candlelight', 'dawn' and others I am not remembering right now.

I think the version we see above was in 'autumn color' scene mode.

Last night I was not too surprised to see no gondolas passing under the Sikes Lake Bridge of Sighs.

Wichita Falls does not much try to be any sort of inland Venice.

I do not know why there are never any watercraft on Sikes Lake, such as kayaks and canoes. Or gondolas. There are signs forbidding swimming in the lake, and informing potential floaters kayaking is allowed only with permission from MSU. As in Midwestern State University, which is where Sikes Lake is located, on the MSU campus.

Apparently no one ever asks for permission to float a watercraft on Sikes Lake, or permission is never granted when someone asks to do some boat floating.

Or maybe I just have never been at Sikes Lake on an occasion when someone has been allowed to float on the lake...

Dodging The Sunday Rain In Wal-Mart While Visiting Venice Italy

The weather outside has been frightful, but inside my neighborhood Super Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, the weather was just delightful.

Sam's and Wal-Mart were my walking location on this drippy first Sunday of December. Sam's Club was particularly challenging walking, dodging the multiple orange cones and buckets catching water leaking from the roof.

The last few days I have been in Italy, specifically in Venice, virtually, with the always traveling Fort Worthers known as the Galtex's.

I have no clue what the grammatically, punctuationally proper way is to add an 's' to Galtex. It just occurred to me, maybe it is Galtexes? That does not look right.

I've been enjoying Glimpses of Venice, courtesy of the Galtex's.

I have never been to the Venice in Italy. I have been to the Venetian in Las Vegas. I'm sure they are very similar.

In a couple dozen years, when the fast-paced Trinity River Vision Boondoggle finally completes its long promised canals, maybe a little bit of Venice will seem to be in Fort Worth. Won't that be something?

The picture of the Canals of Venice, in the picture, I swiped from the Facebook page of Gail Galtex this morning.

Mrs. Galtex is very cute. I wonder if this causes a problem due to those notorious Italian flirters flirting with her? They are likely discouraged by Mr. Galtex.

Speaking of flirting. We flirted with a thunderstorm here around 8 this morning. I saw one flash and heard one thunderclap.