Flags At Half Staff For Policewoman Murdered In Arlington With Hay Pipes & Elsie Hotpepper Singing

I have seen a lot of fire hoses today. But that is not a fire hose that was laying on the ground in Veterans Park in Arlington today. Instead it is some sort of barrier made of hay-like material held in a hose shape by black mesh.

The "hose" leads to the Veterans Memorial, where, if you look close, you can see the flags are at half mast.

I wondered why, for a moment, and then remembered the rookie policewoman, Jillian Michelle Smith, only 24 years old, murdered Tuesday within 20 minutes of responding to a domestic violence call, where she was trying to protect an 11 year old kids from an armed man, who killed 2 others, in addition to the police officer, before fleeing.

The killer was later caught.

My phone rang as I neared Veterans Park. I had trouble getting the phone out of my pocket. By the time I was successful in that endeavor it had already gone to voice mail.

When I was securely parked I flipped open the phone to get the message. It was Elsie Hotpepper. A long, convoluted message about lies, betrayal and fraud. And then Elsie started singing some sort of jingle, like a parody of the Dr Pepper song. It was unsettling.

I called Elsie back, but I got her voice mail.

Then a few minutes ago Elsie Hotpepper called again. I successfully answered, because my phone was already out of my pants. Elsie sang her Elsie Hotpepper jingle again. It is quite catchy. And then she asked me a question. Or two.

And now let's change the subject to the weather. It is currently 70 degrees out there at 6 minutes before 5. I have my window open. I was overheated after talking to Elsie Hotpepper.

Sweet Tomatoes,..Etcetera...

My one longtime reader, Layla, a real sweet tomato, may remember that ever so once in awhile my imagination runs dry, or I'm just not in the mood to spew out voluminous words at rapid pace.

This morning I've got a lot of things that have crossed my mind to blog about. But at the forefront of my mind right now is I'm thinking of going out into this overcast, warming day and head to Veteran's Park in Arlington to go on a long walk. Followed by lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, my new favorite restaurant.

After Sweet Tomatoes, I'm going to Fry's Electronics, again, to see if I can find Dragon Speak, which is a program where you can talk into a headset and it converts your words to editable type, with a supposed 99.7% success rate, at 300 words per minute. Which is way faster than I can type. And about half as fast as I can talk. I estimate, if this works, it will amp up my blog spewing a minimum of three times. Oh, the horror.

I also want to see if Fry's has any sort of Walkman type thing. You know, those old-fashioned headset things where you can listen to the radio. Wal-Mart and Target no longer have such things.

I'm going from Fry's to Chinatown in Arlington to get stuff I forgot 2 days ago. I need to remember to make a list. After Chinatown I'm going to go by the new Dallas Cowboy's Stadium, which is almost completed, and maybe get a good picture or two. Maybe not. Last time I was there it was so congested with construction obstructions all I wanted to do was escape.

On my mind to blog about, today, likely this afternoon, is something I learned about this morning, that being that Dallas also is in some sort of deal to have Omni Hotels build them a convention center hotel. The deal has hit snags. I'm not getting why Dallas would have to go to any extreme measures, unlike Fort Worth, to get a convention center hotel, because Dallas actually has a lot of conventions and already has a lot of downtown hotels.

I have also been amazed at how many people come to my blog after searching for help about how to deal with "Only Child Syndrome." That's always fun to write about. Also, I am perplexed as to why, all over the world, people are looking for info about the "world's biggest butt." Yes, I did blog about that after I saw what I thought had to be the world's biggest butt at my local Wal-Mart Supercenter. But what causes people all over the world to keep searching for this? And they usually do the searching in packs. Look at my FeedJit stats and you'll likely see what I'm talking about.

Alma, my favorite Songbird of the South, sent me an email, this morning, with "Tips For A Better Life in 2009" that I thought was pretty good blog material, though it is one of those things that has likely spanned the globe a million times via being forwarded.

Also, I had it in mind to blog about how well my Chinese Herb Detox program is going. Last night I had another insomnia free sleep. What a difference that makes. This morning I took my blood pressure for the first time in awhile. I could tell it would be low. 123/68. I recently learned my little brother is on BP medications. He drives down to Mexico to get his pills. My little brother is actually my big brother. He's about twice as big as me and a little shorter.

Anyway, it's time to get ready to get out of here. Sorry to disappoint my one longtime reader, Layla, my one, self-described, adoring fan, that I wasn't in the mood to blog this morning. Maybe I'll feel more word-worthy this afternoon. After I have my daily Chinese Herb Detox Tea.

Foggy Fort Worth...etc.

Today started of with a zero visibility fog cover which had everything wet with slow motion drizzle, like a stereotypical day in the Pacific Northwest. But from what ocean is this Fort Worth fog coming?

I was in the pool, in the drizzly fog, before 8 this morning. I liked it. The view in the photo is well after the fog began to lift, taken about 2pm from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony. That's my official weather reporting station.

I left here about noon. When I got back here I was shocked, shocked, I tell you, to see "Pool Closed" signs on my pool. Apparently the city of Fort Worth has closed all the pools in the city. Why I do not know. Last summer they were all closed due to the outbreak of some parasite. I was in Tacoma when that happened. But why close them now? No one but me is swimming. I'm taking this very personal.

Neither rain, nor ice, nor bitter cold has kept me from my appointment with my pool. And now I'm to be stopped by the city of Fort Worth?

At noon my destination was Arlington, driving through the fog to Veteran's Park to do some walking and its attendant thinking. Walk/Think time is very important. At Veteran's Park a big statue has been added to the new Veteran's Memorial. It was impressive. Obviously that is what you see in the photo. That and the fog.

After I'd had enough walking I went to Chinatown to the Hong Kong Market. I got a lot of good stuff. There was something sort of disturbing going on in the Hong Kong Market though. The store has the usual piped in Muzak. It is usually Chinese sounding music. Today I could tell it was Christmas music classics. In Chinese. I heard Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, White Christmas, Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. All in Chinese with the music part sounding very country western.

It is supposed to get back into the 70s for the next couple days. In the 70s and me without a pool. Life should not be this difficult.

Veteran's Park, Fry's and a Bad Router

Today started off okay. I went swimming early. The water was cold. I liked it. That's not my swimming water you see in the photo. That's a pond at Veteran's Park in Arlington. Those are turtles sitting on the log. I like turtles, but not in water I swim in. I've had a turtle incident or two. Their heads look like a snake when they are swimming towards you. Not a good thing for a snakeaphobe to see.

A few hours after swimming I needed to go to Fry's to get a new network router. That's when the fun began. I like Fry's. I've bought a lot of computer stuff there. I've returned a lot of stuff to Fry's. They are always good about it.

On the way to Fry's I went to the aforementioned Veteran's Park in Arlington to go on a walk. I like Veteran's Park. I see some odd things there at times. Like Disc Golfers. And people dressed like pirates pretending to do battle with each other. Within the past year a Veteran's Memorial has been added to Veteran's Park. It's a nice memorial, except one thing about it sort of disturbs me. As in there are these two marble-like boxes that look like coffins. I don't know what else they could be intended to be.

Today as I walked along the paved trail I saw something amusing. Apparently yesterday someone was walking with someone named Sara and Sara got grumpy. So, Sara's co-walker made note of her grumpiness by chalking a message onto the sidewalk for all to see. I think I'll start leaving chalk messages when I experience moments of inappropriate grumpiness. I would have needed a whole box of chalk when I was up in Tacoma last summer.

Veteran's Park has this rather cool section of the park called the Wildscape. This is a demonstration zone showing Texans how they can landscape using native to Texas plants that require less water and less maintenance. Parts of the Wildscape are paved, other parts are bricked, other parts are a boardwalk and the rest is just a natural trail.

The Wildscape has a lot of flowers and herbs and things that grow what look like berries. One of the berry bushes has these clumps of whatever it is in the most unnatural shade of purple. My photo does not do justice to the color.

So, after I was done at Veteran's Park it was time to go to Fry's. I bought a router. Or so I thought. But, I had been misdirected by a Fry's employee, few of whom speak anything but an Indian dialect of English.

I left Fry's and headed to Arlington's Chinatown to get goodies at my favorite Asian Market. That went well. Got back here and quickly figured out I'd not been sold a router. So, back to Fry's. It is about 15 miles from here, maybe 20. Got to Fry's, got rid of the non-router, got an actual router. Got back here, plugged it in and all is well again in Durango World.

It doesn't take much to make me happy.