I Am Not Being Miserable In Texas On The Morning Of The 15th Day Of February

Looking through the bars of my patio prison cell at the dawn of the morning of the 3rd Wednesday of the 2nd month of 2012 I think I see an optimistic shade of blue in the sky.

This morning as the sun arrives the outer world is already heated to 54 degrees, heading to what the weather predictors predict will be a high of 71, today, with a chance of lightning strikes.

With it already being February 15, over half the month is already history. Soon it will be Spring and cold temperatures will be a thing of the past.

After an exhausting, miserable day yesterday, a miserable day that had followed a miserable night of miserable insomnia, last night I slept like the proverbial baby. I start Wednesday feeling recovered from yesterday's litany of woes.

Speaking of woes. Last night I had a very close encounter with Jane Fonda in a dream/nightmare. This was not the Jane Fonda of the Barbarella era who visited me, but the Jane Fonda of 2012. We had an interesting conversation about the importance of moisturizing, among other topics.

Elsie Hotpepper has gone missing again. I will send out a search party today.

I Am Being Mr. Miserable In Texas Today

I am almost certain that this too shall pass, but right at this point in time I'm feeling the most miserable I've felt this century.

I think I may have a fever, with my immune system in overdrive trying to fix me.

I'm running on about 2 hours sleep, if that, a throat that is sore, a head that aches, an energy level that is low.

Yes, I am being Mr. Miserable.

Years ago that was my theme song.

Mr. Miserable.

I forget the words. Something like I'm Mr. Miserable, with followup lines that seemed amusing back when I could remember them.

I gave up trying to sleep around 5 this morning. The following hours were spent laboriously adding new images to a website. The image originator, based in Los Angeles, did not do what he was supposed to do with the images. So, I get to fix them.

I will spend a few hours doing image fixing and then I'm going to medicate myself with herbal tea and hope to find some peaceful Nirvana.

Peaceful Nirvana will likely prove be elusive.

Happy Valentine's Day From An Insomniac With Bad Cursive Skills

I am up well before the sun on this 2nd Tuesday of the 2nd month of 2012, also known as Valentine's Day.

It is a very dark view from my primary viewing portal on the outer world this morning.

My computer based weather advisor has issued a Dense Fog Advisory. There does appear to be some fog, but I would not, currently, call it dense.

Last night I had myself a bad bout of insomnia. Real bad. This is not good. I need to be firing on all cylinders today so I can finish an annoying website making project that suddenly became difficult yesterday afternoon.

During one of the brief periods when I did fall asleep last night my phone woke me up with a spam text message.

Changing the subject from my litany of woes to something else.

I was surprised this morning to read in my old hometown newspaper that teaching cursive writing is no longer part of the Washington State Curriculum of Common Core State Standards.

Apparently learning cursive writing is yet one more casualty of the computer age.

I am left handed and have never had very good handwriting. I so seldom hand write anything anymore, that when I do, it is borderline illegible, no matter how hard I try to write nice.

So, if you get a Valentine's Day card in the mail from me today and you can not read what I wrote, you now know why.

Walking Around Fosdic Lake In A Misty Drizzle Thinking About Catching A Dungeness Crab

I did not realize it til I left my abode that a fine drizzling mist was moistening the outer world at my location.

The fine drizzling mist was very much like what frequently happens in a coastal zone, like my old home port in Washington.

I did not want the fine drizzling mist to drizzle on my camera so I took a photo from the Oakland Lake Park picnic shelter, looking through the bars, whose function I don't understand, at Fosdic Lake.

I was hoping going on a walk would make me feel better. It didn't.

I grow very weary of whatever it is, allergy or virus, that is making my respiratory system not function correctly.

Sister Jackie & Nephew David

Yesterday, on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, I was unable to reach my sister to wish her a happy birthday.

This morning on the Blue & Max blog I saw that my sister is up in Tacoma, which explains why she was not answering her land line in Arizona.

For her birthday my sister got Dungeness Crab at Pike Place Market in Seattle.

I have not tasted Dungeness Crab since the last time I was in Tacoma.

I miss fresh seafood.

Catfish does not qualify as seafood.

Monday The 13th of February Is Cold & Dripping In Texas

Looking through the bars of my patio prison cell on this Monday the 13th of February you can not tell that last night's falling ice has melted and turned into falling rain.

No Ice Storm.

I went into nocturnal mode last night fairly certain that I would not be easily mobile this morning due to a thick coating of slippery ice.

Currently at my location on the planet the outer world is being heated to only two degrees above freezing.

That is cold.

My interior space heating device is working hard this morning to counteract the frigidity of the outer world.

I did not get any endorphin stimulating aerobic activity yesterday. This has me feeling a bit unsettled this Monday morning. If rain continues to fall I may need to resort to walking under a bumbershoot later today.

I must go attend to Elsie Hotpepper's need to get properly dressed now. I will talk to you later.

A Storm Of Ice Is Hitting My Windows While I Am Having Trouble With The Air That I Breathe

You are looking at a very rare evening view through the bars of my patio prison cell, this 2nd Sunday night of February.

I am more than just slightly appalled that due to the fact that I did not blog today about any endorphin inducing hiking endeavor that I have been getting emails, phone calls and text messages inquiring as to my well being.

Well, I am being fine.

I did not feel like going out in the COLD today. I am currently enduring a very annoying respiratory woe that is affecting the ease of breathing. I have never been an allergy sufferer.

Til now.

I also have never breathed air polluted by the pollutants that pollute the air that I breathe where I am now doing my breathing.

Special Weather Statement
From The National Weather Service

A few minutes ago ice began hitting my windows.

I really am not in the mood for an Ice Storm. But, I think an Ice Storm may be what is currently happening.

The National Weather Service has issued one of their Special Weather Statements, shouting the statement all in CAPITALS...

...WINTER WEATHER EXPECTED FOR NORTH TEXAS...

A MIX OF SLEET AND SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OCCUR OVER MOST OF NORTH TEXAS THIS AFTERNOON INTO MONDAY MORNING. A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR ACCUMULATIONS OF ONE TO TWO INCHES HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR AREAS ALONG AND NORTHWEST OF A LINE FROM EASTLAND TO WEATHERFORD TO DENTON TO MCKINNEY TO PARIS. SOUTHEAST OF THIS ADVISORY AREA...THE REST OF NORTH TEXAS WILL SEE A MIX OF SLEET AND SNOW THIS AFTERNOON INTO THIS EVENING...BECOMING SLEET MIXED WITH RAIN NEAR MIDNIGHT AND THEN ALL RAIN BEFORE SUNRISE IN ALL AREAS EXCEPT THOSE NORTH OF INTERSTATE 30 AND EAST OF INTERSTATE 35. BY MID MORNING THOSE LAST AREAS WILL CHANGE TO RAIN AS WELL. ACCUMULATIONS NEAR THE WINTER ADVISORY AREA MAY REACH UP TO THREE TENTHS OF AN INCH...BUT WITH WARM GROUND TEMPERATURES THESE ACCUMULATIONS SHOULD ONLY AFFECT ELEVATED SURFACES SUCH AS BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES. EXERCISE CAUTION WHEN DRIVING...BECAUSE IT MAY BE HARD TO SEE ANY ICE ON ROADWAYS BEFORE REACHING IT. AS THE ATMOSPHERE CONTINUES TO WARM OVERNIGHT. PRECIPITATION WILL CHANGE TO RAIN AND THE WINTER WEATHER THREAT SHOULD END BY SUNRISE MONDAY WEST OF INTERSTATE 35 AND NORTH OF INTERSTATE 20...AND BY MID MORNING IN ALL AREAS. AS WITH ALL WINTER EVENTS...THE SITUATION HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CHANGE. IF ACCUMULATIONS ARE EXPECTED FARTHER SOUTH...THE ADVISORY MAY BE EXPANDED.

The Sunny 2nd Sunday Morning Of February Is My Sister's Happy Birthday

I am up well after the arrival of the sun on this sunny 2nd Sunday of the 2nd month of 2012.

Currently it is 27 degrees in the outer world at my location. Same temperature as yesterday morning. And just like yesterday morning, that local purveyor of misinformation, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is misreporting the temperature as being 56 degrees.

A possible ice storm is on its way for Monday morning. I do not like ice storms. I never experienced an ice storm until I experienced Texas.

Changing the subject from ice storms to something else.

On this day many years ago my sister who now lives in Arizona was born. At that point in time the hospital where babies were born was one street over from where we lived. I remember me and my two other siblings sitting on the curb of Fairhaven Avenue in Burlington waiting for our dad to come to a window and show us our new baby sister.

All these years later I'm sitting here wondering why me and my siblings had to sit on the curb and did not just get to go in the hospital to see our new baby sister.

I must try and remember to call my sister today. I am not sure but I think she may be up in Washington at this point in time.

The Shivering Saturday Shadow Of The Tandy Hills Thin Man

In the picture of the Shivering Shadow of the Tandy Hills Thin Man you can sort of see that I am bulked up under layers of insulalative outerwear.

It was about one degree above freezing when I stepped from the heated comfort of my vehicle parked atop Mount Tandy today, slightly before noon.

A brisk wind blew which blew in a Wind Chill Factor that had the air feeling way below freezing.

And yet, despite being blown breezy and cold, I found the fast-paced hill hiking today to be very exhilarating.

I just finished a very long-winded blogging part of which listed 15 reasons I think Fort Worth is strange.

Another reason, added to the 15 other reasons I think Fort Worth is strange, is the fact that on such a beautiful Saturday, as today, that I saw absolutely no one hiking the hills. In a location that is at the heart of a town with a population of well over 700,000.

I think I have opined before that if the Tandy Hils were located within a couple miles of the downtowns of Denver, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Boise or most other big towns in America, the Tandy Hills would be alive with people.

I grow tired of being perplexed way too much of the time.

Fort Worth Does Not Love Being Naked Or Being Strange Or Mind Having Billion Dollar Boondoggles

Fairly regularly I'll read something in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and think to myself, well, that is something I would never read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Such as a story on the front page of yesterday's Seattle P-I.

An article titled "Seattle loves being (mostly) naked."

The article is quite short, and includes a Texas reference and a slide show of examples of Seattle getting naked.

Below is that short article...

Seattle loves being (mostly) naked 

For a city that doesn’t see much sun, Seattle sure likes being naked.

This weekend is no exception — unless you count that this time, there’s underwear involved. The Cupid’s Undie Run event is happening Saturday in Fremont, meaning you shouldn’t be surprised if you folks dashing down the street in their skivvies.

The event raises money for the The Children’s Tumor Foundation, and it’s sold out. (Meaning you shouldn’t be surprised if you see lots of folks dashing down the street in  their skivvies.)

But really, what’s to be surprised about? Seattlites love affair with stripping off their clothes might be bizarre, but well documented at this point. For instance…(this is where the slide show is if you click on the article link above)

Other cities have tried to get on board the naked train, with varied results. (For example, see: “Hey, Houston! It’s only a naked bike ride if you’re naked.” )

The Undie Run is aimed to raise $50,000 for its cause. Thursday evening, it had $40,000 to go.

_______________________________________________

It really is a puzzle why repressive, conservative Seattle is so liberal about doffing clothes in public, while free-spirited, liberal Fort Worth is so conservative about the public doffing of clothes.

At the end of the article about Seattle's naked quirkiness is a link to another article the likes of which I don't think would show up in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

15 (real) reasons why Seattle is a strange city.

Can you imagine the Fort Worth Star-Telegram risking printing an article titled "15 (real) reasons why Fort Worth is a strange city"?

I don't know if the local collective civic inferiority complex could handle such an article.

It would be much more likely that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram would have an article titled, "15 (real) reasons why Fort Worth is the Envy of the World."

I don't know if I can come up with 15 reasons Fort Worth is a strange city, but I will try...

1. The downtown park that celebrates Fort Worth's Heritage, and beginnings, is a boarded up, cyclone fence surrounded eyesore.
2. A billion dollars is being spent on a public works project to build a little lake, some canals, an un-needed flood diversion channel and other nonsensical things, in a Boondoggle called the Trinity River Vision that the public has not voted on.
3. The freeway exits to Fort Worth's top tourist attraction, the Fort Worth Stockyards, are un-landscaped, littered, weed infested eyesores.
4. Fort Worth holds its annual county fair type event, the Fort Worth Stock Show, in the dead of winter.
5. Until it was obvious to even the most clueless of fools, many in Fort Worth, with the help of Star-Telegram propaganda, pretended that a sporting goods store, Cabela's, was the top tourist attraction in Texas.
6. The Tandy Hills Natural Area semi-regularly floods with un-natural raw sewage spills.
7. Fort Worth is the biggest town in America with no real grocery store or department store in its downtown.
8. Fort Worth has more miles of roads without sidewalks than any other town in America with a population over 300,000.
9. Fort Worth is the world's experimental test tube for urban natural gas shale drilling, with more holes poked than any other city in the world.
10. Fort Worth is thought, by some in Fort Worth, to be the Envy of the World, which makes the World Green with Envy.
11. Fort Worth regularly gives tax breaks to corporations to build new corporate headquarters in Fort Worth that the corporation then can not afford, such as Radio Shack and Pier One Imports.
12. Fort Worth allows Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the Trinity River in which raw sewage is known to flow.
13. Fort Worth is a city that considers it to be perfectly fine to have city parks with picnic facilities with no running water or restrooms, such as Oakland Lake Park, Quanah Parker Park. And others.
14. Fort Worth has the lowest public transit ridership of any city in America with a population over 500,000.
15. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

I am absolutely shocked I was able to come up with 15 reasons Fort Worth is strange.

#15 on my list may be the #1 reason Fort Worth is strange.

Fort Worth is likely the biggest town in America that does not have a legitimate newspaper of record acting as a watchdog for the citizen's of the town it serves.

Instead the Fort Worth Star-Telegram acts like a propaganda organ for the oligarchy that controls Fort Worth.

I think Don Woodard said it well in the award winning documentary Up a Creek, talking about the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Mr. Woodard opined something like "the Star-Telegram could put an end to this project tomorrow, if it wanted to."

Instead the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has not devoted any ink to doing any investigative reporting of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, the nepotism that gave J.D. Granger the job of running the project, J.D.'s mother Kay's use of earmarks to get federal funds for the project that gave her son a job or any of the other questionable aspects of the TRV Boondoggle that would be questioned by the newspaper in a town with a real newspaper.

If it wanted to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram could likely insist on seeing the financial records of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Those records, detailing all the money spent on things like junkets, hotel stays, expensive restaurants, liquor, parties, vehicles, electronics, plus the hidden details behind deals, like that which ended up with a Wakeboard Park being part of the Vision, and helping a struggling restaurateur, Tim Love, open a million dollar restaurant, in the form of the Woodshed Smokehouse, would all come out in a town with a real newspaper.

A town with a real newspaper of record would have an entity acting in the public's interest willing to look under the rocks hiding something like the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's shady deals.

At least Fort Worth is blessed to have Fort Worth Weekly, which does a good job covering some of the nefariousness, but there is just too much nefariousness for one weekly, with limited resources, to cover, even with someone formidable at the helm, like Gayle Reaves. She being one of the local Kay Granger antidotes who occasionally gives some hope that all is not lost in this troubled location on the planet and that voices of reason do exist living above the Barnett Shale.

I'm done now. For now.

The Sub-Freezing 2nd Saturday Of February With Gar The Texan Stuck On The Tarmac Trying To Get To Vegas On Spirit Airlines

The view is frosty looking through my primary viewing portal on the outer world this 2nd Saturday of the 2nd month of 2012.

According to my computer based temperature monitoring device the outer world at my location is currently chilled to the sub-freezing degree of 27.

In some sort of ironic, metaphoric example of how ill-served Fort Worth is served by its pseudo newspaper of record, the Star-Telegram, that confused excuse for a newspaper is reporting, currently, that it is 56 degrees in Fort Worth.

Reporting that it is currently 56 degrees in Fort Worth is a perfect example of why you should never believe anything you read in that newspaper, unless you can verify it with your own eyes.

Yes, it is sunny and 56 in the not frozen world of the Star-Telegram. Well, they did get the sunny part of the current conditions correct.

Below is the correct current conditions in Fort Worth.

Note that the wind chill currently has the Real Feel being 11 degrees. Methinks I will be wearing multiple layers when I go wherever I go today to get my daily endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation.

On a sad, non-weather related note. Yesterday Gar the Texan informed me he was flying to Las Vegas for the weekend. He did not mention he was flying on Spirit Airlines. This morning, on Facebook, I saw that Gar the Texan learned what a horrific experience flying Spirit Airlines is. Usually that boy over-researches anything he does or buys. How did he miss the memo that Spirit Airlines is to be avoided?

Very perplexing. While I ponder my perplexation, I will not be going swimming this morning.