A Shivering Wet Bike Ride With The Village Creek Indian Ghosts

I had not been on my bike for a couple days, and with the current Arctic Blast putting a temporary end to sizzling at above 100, today I thought I would have myself a might fine, very cool, time rolling my wheels with the Village Creek Indian Ghosts.

Well.

I should have heeded pre-bike ride advice I got from Miss Julie, who told me to wear long underwear, a sweater and galoshes.

Upon arrival at the Village Creek Natural Historical Area I was pleased to see all that I could see was dry, with no water puddles to dodge.

I had rolled my wheels about 100 feet when I realized I was underdressed. The wind chill factor caused by my high speed wheel rolling, on top of the only 30 some degrees above freezing temperature, had me shivering.

But, I did not give up, I persevered against the cold. Eventually I got to the formerly blue Blue Bayou. Those are my handlebars on the formerly blue Blue Bayou Overlook, now overlooking a Green Bayou.

At the Green Bayou Overlook I stood still til the shivering stopped and then began rolling my wheels again. My turn around point when I bike along Village Creek is at the point where the Bob Findlay Linear Park Trail passes under Green Oaks Boulevard. That is usually where I stop for my first drink of the bike ride.

Today I did not stop to hydrate. Instead of drinking I found myself pedaling as fast as I could make my wheels roll. Rain started off slow, but then turned to downpour deluge mode. By the time I had exited the Bob Findlay Linear Park Trail to re-enter the Village Creek Natural Historical Area I was a wet mess.

The rain stopped when I got back to the Indian Ghosts zone, but now I was soaking wet, and all that wetness caused another bout of extreme shivering. I pedaled slow so as to lessen the wind chill factor.

Eventually made it back to my mechanized transport device, loaded the bike in the back, hopped on board, turned on the engine.

And turned the temperature control slider from A/C to Heat.

Yesterday, when I was driving around Arlington with the A/C keeping me cool, had you told me today I would be driving in Arlington with the heat on, well, I would not have believed you.

Do these frigid temperatures in August portend ill for this coming winter? With temperatures well below zero? And a lot of snow.

I hope not.....

Star-Telegram Says Fort Worth's Accounts Are A Sloppy Mess

This morning Elsie Hotpepper pointed me towards that which you see here, an editorial in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram titled Fort Worth's bond accounts are a mess.

The first three paragraphs of the editorial...

An exhaustive and even painful cleaning process is being carried out at Fort Worth City Hall — not the scrubbing-the-floors type but the cleaning-up-the-financial-accounts type.

It’s painful because a team of employees working since Feb. 1 has discovered that the financial accounting on major debt programs, including bond projects and certificates of obligation going back almost four decades, has been just plain sloppy.

That’s not acceptable, because voters who are asked to approve a bond program must be able to count on the projects being done on time and the money properly accounted for.

_____________________________________________

Voters must be able to count on Fort Worth projects being done on time with money properly accounted for?

Since when?

The biggest  project currently underway in Fort Worth is the Trinity River Uptown Central City Panther Island Vision, known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

The voters were not allowed to vote on this project which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

The Star-Telegram says we should be able to count on projects being done on time.

Has the Star-Telegram not heard of America's Biggest Boondoggle? A project with no project timeline, with no projected project completion date.

The Star-Telegram editorial generated a couple interesting comments....


Aaron Harris
Is anyone who watched these folks surprised? This is but a small window into what you should expect to be reading about the new bonds approved last November for the City of Fort Worth. Some things never change.

Jennifer Talbert Frank
So after all of the begging for more money, more bond DEBT and all the bragging and patting each other on the back about how they're doing all these great and wonderful things, it turns out that NOT ONE of these idiots can keep decent track of the spending, the projects and the actual DEBT that has us in the hole to the tune of billions. Do you really think that they're telling you the truth about being only 1.7 million in the hole with these bonds? Seriously??? And the city council wants to vote themselves a raise? Oh hell no!!

Oh, and Betsy Price, if you're so much for transparency, how could you have even thought to have asked the public for more bond debt when you don't even have a handle on the current finances?? If you're so into transparency, why in the WORLD are you so supportive of a water district board that has done nothing but keep secrets from the public about their water, water funds and pet projects - not to mention the E.Coli that was in that "clean and safe" Trinity River that you personally advocated for everyone to get in and go tubing. I don't think you'd know transparency if it bit you in the butt! You are right to be scared because you will NOT be re-elected!

Cold Front Brings Big Chill Brrrrr To North Texas

Brrrrr.

66 degrees when I woke up my computer based temperature monitoring device this morning.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, when I walked up the hill to Albertsons to acquire this week's Fort Worth Weekly, I was surprised by the chill in the air.

I then reached for my phone to check that device's temperature monitoring app to see that 83 degrees was what was making me feel chilly.

Yesterday, in the noon time frame, I drove to Arlington to Sprouts and then to Chinatown to Cho Saigon Market. At that point in time my vehicle's temperature monitoring device was telling me it was still HOT, as in 93 degrees.

At some point in time last night rain began precipitating. During the night the natural air-conditioning had chilled my interior space so much I turned off the ceiling fan.

I was in the pool before the sun arrived this morning. This was the first time in a long time that the water in the pool was warmer than the air. About 20 minutes into pool time rain started dropping. I am not a fan of swimming in a downpour.

I currently have my windows open. I do not recollect ever do this in August during any of my previous Texas summers.

And that concludes today's weather  report....

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Does Not Rip Itself Over America's Biggest Boondoggle

What you are looking at here is a screen cap of a section of last week's Fort Worth Weekly Static column. The section screen capped is titled "Star-Telegram Rips Itself".

When Fort Worth Weekly lost its renowned editor, Gayle Reaves, several months ago, the Weekly seemed to rapidly deteriorate. A few weeks columns went missing, such as the Static column.

Well, the past three weeks the Weekly seems to be back firing on all cylinders, with high quality cover articles and with the Static column back also firing on all  cylinders.

For example, two paragraphs from the Static column about the Star-Telegram ripping itself....

The paper also wants to talk to people who have stopped buying the Star-Telegram completely. That conversation is easy to imagine. “I stopped buying the paper because it kisses up to the downtown elite, the Basses, the gas industry, advertisers, and various sacred cows, and it offers mostly superficial, boring articles, mostly about Dallas.”

The Star-Telegram spends way too much time and money on silly consumer surveys. Seems like every other month they’re changing their layout, coverage, paper size, fonts, you name it, based on the latest survey. Here’s some free advice. Write interesting stories. Impact society. Ask tough questions. Take pride in your product. Stop sucking so much. You’re welcome.

___________________________________________

I have long opined that Fort Worth suffers due to not having a real newspaper asking tough questions, conducting what is known as investigative journalism.

That which is known as the Trinity River Uptown Central City Panther Island Vision likely would not have become America's Biggest Boondoggle if Fort Worth had a real newspaper asking questions from the start of the folly, such as asking, way back when the Boondoggle began, why this public works project is not being put to a public vote so as to secure funding like that which is done in other towns with successful public works projects?

Or when Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, with zero project engineering experience, was given the job of being the Boondoggle's executive director, asking by what criteria was J. D. Granger determined to be the best man for the job?

Or asking why it is going to take four years for the Boondoggle to build three simple little bridges over dry land?

Or asking why it is that America's Biggest Boondoggle has been boondoggling along for a lot longer than it took to build the Panama Canal, with so little accomplished in all the years of boondoggling?

If Fort Worth had a real newspaper editorials would have opined that if the Trinity River Vision is such a vital flood control and economic development plan, why is it being implemented in slow motion?

Another editorial might mention that fact that this vital project being built in slow motion is greatly increasing the cost of the project. Just all the extra years of paying the salaries of employees like J. D. Granger, who would long ago be off to the next job his mama found for him, has greatly added to the cost of the project.

If Fort Worth had a real newspaper that newspaper would have jumped all over the ridiculous claim that the Boondoggle's three simple little bridges are being build over dry land so as to save money and make construction easier.

Why would a real newspaper have jumped all over this ridiculous claim?  Because there will be no water under those bridges until the Trinity River is diverted into the ditch dug under the bridges. The ditch could and should be being dug at the same time as the bridges are being built.

If this project were properly engineered and fully funded, that is what would be going on.

The fact that the digging of the ditch will not begin until the three bridges are built just adds to the folly and is yet one more example of why this inept project has become America's Biggest Boondoggle....

Why Is Anyone Happy About The Return Of Blue Bell Ice Cream?

Count me out on jumping on the bandwagon celebrating the return of Blue Bell ice cream.

I saw several celebratory iterations on Facebook this morning, including the one you see here from the Dallas Morning News, suggesting a big carpool head south to scoop up Blue Bell when it shows up in stores in Houston and Austin.

Blue Bell's shoddy, sub-standard ice cream manufacturing practices resulting in listeria contamination was well known to Blue Bell company officials long before the fact that their ice cream could be deadly became publicly known.

Food & Drug Administration testing at Blue Bell facilities found that Blue Bell had likely been making people sick since 2010. Blue Bell did not pull its products until April 20, 2015, after it was known 10 victims in four states had contracted listeria, with three dying.

Read the Dallas Observer's BLUE BELL'S LISTERIA PROBLEM IS A STICKY MESS article and then tell me why you are all happy pants that Blue Bell ice cream will be once again available for public consumption.

Read the Dallas Observer article and its details of the various unsanitary practices practiced at Blue Bell which led to listeria contamination at Blue Bell's facilities before you buy yourself a container of  the new and improved, hopefully listeria-free, Blue Bell ice cream.

Seems a safer bet to switch from Blue Bell to one of the long established national brands which have never killed anyone. As you can see via the above map, Blue Bell contamination is pretty much contained in the South, with most of America safe....

Biking With The Indian Ghosts In Arlington's Village Creek Unnatural Historic Area

Today in the noon time frame the outer world was chilled to a temperature somewhere in the 80s. That's about the same temperature I have my interior A/C set to.

What with the chilly fall-like air it seemed to me to be a good idea to drive to Arlington to roll my bike wheels with the Indian Ghosts at the Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

The two most recent visits with the Indian Ghosts have been made annoying be the presence of a clear cutting operation spewing a lot of dust, noise and trail blocking trucks.

Today the clear cutters were gone, and what they left behind is not aesthetically pleasing. Above you can see my handlebars looking at a section of cut clear of brush.

I have been visiting the Village Creek Indian Ghosts for many years. This is the first time this type extensive  clear cutting has taken place.

If the name of this place is Village Creek Natural Historical Area, doesn't it seem a bit counter-intuitive to destroy the natural brush?

I can only think of a few reasons for doing this. One being that maybe some people were made nervous by the closed in, jungle-like foliage the paved trail passed through, fearing some evil doer might be lurking.

Was it thought the dried brush presented a fire hazard? If so, why now and not years previous?

Had some people reported being freaked out be a snake suddenly slithering out of the underbrush, onto the trail? Currently it would be a lot more difficult for a snake to slither without being early detected.

I'm sure come next spring the brush will quickly grow back to jungle status. But in the meantime, what are the armadillos supposed to do? Armadillos like their underbrush.

So do I....

Has Rain Fallen On North Texas Since June 1st?

A week ago, or maybe two, Spencer Jack emailed me that which you see here.

I am fairly certain that in the week or two since Spencer Jack sent me this Western Washington has had some rain fall.

Just yesterday I read a Washingtonian whining about rain being a bit of a bother at an outdoor wedding.

At my current location in Texas I can not remember the last time I saw a raindrop drip. Was it in June that the Texas drought came to an abrupt end? Or was that late May?

Vexing age related memory woes.

Time does seem to be flying faster all the time. Already half of August is gone. Soon getting in the pool will go from being refreshing to being chilling.

Followed by the dreaded Holiday Season....

Trying To Roll My Wheels In Gateway Park With Dead Fish Before Town Talk

It has been well over a month since I've rolled my mechanized wheels to Gateway Park to roll my non-mechanized wheels on Gateway Park's trails.

The last time I did so I saw work had begun on new trail bridges and the removal of the long time boarded up boardwalk eyesores which looked out over the Trinity River.

Well,  as you can see here, at least one of the boarded up boardwalks has now been almost completely removed.

I was unable to make it to the other boarded up boardwalk, that being the one at the east end of the park.

Why was I unable to make it to the other boarded up boardwalk, you ask? Good question.

Well, the Gateway Park paved trails have been rendered unusable due to the ongoing supposed trail "improvements". Such as that which you see below.

I was looking at the messed up trail near the now gone boardwalk when a fellow biker stopped, saw the messed up trail, looked at me and said "that sucks" before continuing on, over the mess. I followed him. After about a minute I saw him heading back towards me. As he passed he said it is totally blocked ahead. Soon I came upon the blockage, which you see above, where a bridge is being replaced.

Before I continue on with the trail tale I need to show you what I found floating in the Trinity River when I zipped across the Beach Street crossing.

A BIG fish, dead in the water. Is the Trinity River killing fish like the rivers in my old home zone of Washington is, up north, due low water levels and consequent high water temperatures, too high for fish used to cold water. I have no clue what brand of fish it is we are looking at above. But I am fairly certain it is not a salmon, sturgeon, trout, cod, halibut or blowfish.

So, leaving the dead fish behind I eventually made my way to the entry to the Gateway Park mountain bike trail. Closed. I continued on past the closed sign, not on the mountain bike trail, but on the paved trail.

The paved trail has a huge amount of what looks like beauty bark spread over and beside it. Why? I could not figure it out. Again I came upon trail bridges removed, with the replacements  underway. I was able to get past these instances, unlike the first encounter. Soon I came upon a section where the mountain bike trail has been obliterated, along with some paved trail removed.

What is going on here? Why isn't this trail improvement project being engineered in a way which keeps the trails open while the improvements take place? How long are the Gateway Park trails going to be unusable? Who is behind this seemingly ineptly run project?

One would think America's Biggest Boondoggle  might be ramrodding these Gateway Park improvements, due to the inept way the project seems to be being mishandled.

Anyway, after a frustrating bike ride in Gateway Park I was off to an increasingly rare visit to Town Talk, where I had not visited in well over a month.

The Town Talk treasure hunting did not yield anything too wonderful today. A lot of corn tortillas, carrots, kielbasa and a couple other things I am not remembering right now.

Seattle Might Use Eminent Domain To Return A Beach To The Public While In Fort Worth...

Today we have an extremely twisted variant of our popular series of items I read in west coast online news sources, usually the Seattle Times, which would likely not appear in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

What you see here I saw in the Seattle Times and it is something I have seen in the Star-Telegram.

The use of eminent domain to take private property.

Texas, or maybe it is just Tarrant County, uses a unique version of eminent domain.

In Washington, and elsewhere in America, eminent domain is used as a last resort to take private property for the common good, for things like building a highway, hospital, school, park and other things deemed needed for public use.

In Tarrant County I have witnessed eminent domain abused to take private property for a mall parking lot, for a corporate headquarters, for a sports stadium and for a badly executed economic development project which has abused eminent domain to take private property to build an un-needed flood diversion ditch and three little bridges.

The worst eminent domain abuse I have witnessed is that which took place in Arlington to build the Dallas Cowboys a new stadium. Texan's homes were bulldozed to smithereens while the owners had not yet had their case heard in court. This provoked widespread outrage, but no criminal charges. I long ago documented this on a Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal webpage.

Now. Contrast how eminent domain is abused in Tarrant County with how and why eminent domain is proposed to be used in Seattle via the Seattle Times Sell or we use eminent domain, Seattle mayor tells owners of beach lot article....

The long battle is continuing over a 60-foot-wide beach lot where Northeast 130th Street dead-ends into the Lake Washington shoreline.

The latest salvo came Thursday from Seattle Mayor Ed Murray.

He has ordered that the city cut a deal with the two owners adjoining the lot on each side. Then it can revert to public use as lake access.

The opening offer will be $400,000, says a spokesman for the mayor.

And if those negotiations fail, Murray plans to ask the City Council for an ordinance to wield that special hammer reserved for government agencies — eminent domain.

To put the $400,000 in perspective, a nearby unbuildable lot on the same street — Riviera Place Northeast — is currently offered for sale at $119,950.

The lot had been publicly used for 82 years as beach access.

Then, due to inept document handling back in 1932, ownership went recently to Holmquist and Kaseburg. The city fought them in court, and lost.

In March, the two put up a chain-link fence and security cameras, recently replaced by a more aesthetic wooden fence.

But a sign still warns, “Private property. No trespassing.” Another sign punctuated, “WARNING. Security Cameras in Use.”

___________________________________________

Now, doesn't that sound like a much more civilized way to use eminent domain to acquire property for public use? Negotiate before bulldozing. What a concept.

In the Seattle case, that property had been used by the public since way back in the 1930s, til legal shenanigans took the property away from the public, which now has the city threatening to use eminent domain to return the property to public use.

But, my favorite part of the article was the part where the two "owners" replaced a chain link fence they had installed to keep the public out, with a "more aesthetic wooden fence."

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, a park in the town's downtown, built to celebrate Fort Worth's heritage, hence named Heritage Park, had been a boarded up, chain link fence surrounded eyesore for years. With, apparently, no one thinking it might be a good idea to make the eyesore less so by surrounding it with a more aesthetically pleasing wooden fence....

Spencer Jack Sings To Me In Spanish While The Skagit River Shrinks Below Measuring

Last night Spencer Jack called to wish me a tardio happy birthday in Spanish, singing...

Feliz cumpleaños a ti
feliz cumpleaños a ti
feliz cumpleaños queridoa Durango
feliz cumpleaños a ti.

I tell you, this younger generation and their multi-lingual ways leave me feeling so ignorant.

After Spencer Jack was finished singing a Spanish happy birthday to his favorite great uncle he passed the phone off to his dad, he being my favorite nephew Jason.

Yesterday Jason and Spencer Jack sent me photo documentation of the incredible shrinking Skagit River.

I blogged about this in Spencer Jack Takes A Drive Where The Skagit River Used To Flow on this very blog you are reading right now. And also in Spencer Jack Tour Of Washington's Shrinking Skagit River on my Washington blog you are not reading right now.

When Jason and Spencer Jack read my blogging about the photos that they sent me they realized I did not notice the significance of a particular part of one of the photos, that being the photo of the Skagit River as it flows under the Riverside Bridge which connects east and west Mount  Vernon.

It was the river depth marker that I missed, which you see above. When I went back and looked at the picture I had a Bart Simpson reaction, as in Ay Carrumba!

The Skagit River is flowing below, well below, the river level marker that usually has the river marking how deep it is. In flood mode, if I remember right, I have seen this marker go above the 24 foot mark. Well above it.

Jason told me his and Spencer Jack's photos did not do justice to showing how much the Skagit River has shrunk.

I asked Jason if the river is murky now that it is so low and flowing so slow.

Jason said the river is crystal clear, that you can see the river bottom.

And that there is absolutely no litter, or tossed refuge, exposed on the newly exposed sandbars.

Jason told me the Skagit water is so clear he could not imagine it being a problem drinking water right out of the river.

I asked Jason if he'd read my bloggings about the recent e.coli woes of the Trinity River.

He had.

Jason asked where the e.coli comes from. I told Jason the local propaganda has it coming from farms, as in blaming cows.

Jason then said, but we have a lot of dairy farms in the valley, with a lot of creeks draining in to the Skagit River, but the river is un-polluted.

Jason asked me what I thought the actual source of the e.coli was.

Incompetently run human sewage treatment plants was my answer. It really is the only answer which makes sense in explaining the sad polluted state of the Trinity River.

Yet where is there any effort of significance to clean up the Trinity River? I remember when the rivers of Western Washington were returned to non-polluted status with the building of modern water treatment facilities.

I explained to Jason that Texas is a place which still uses outhouses, that even the Dallas Cowboy stadium is surrounded by hundreds of outhouses.

People who live in the more modernized locations of America have trouble believing the Dallas Cowboy stadium is surrounded by hundreds of outhouses. Maybe I should go photo document this once again.

Methinks maybe it ain't possible to have a river running free of e.coli in a place where thousands of outhouses dot the landscape...