Tacoma Flu Free Snow With David, Theo & Ruby

Yesterday I emailed asking if David, Theo and Ruby had taken their parental units to Seattle over the weekend to join the thousands of Puget Sounders walking through the new Highway 99 tunnel, along with one last walk on the Alaskan Viaduct.

I opined that I assumed a tunnel walk through had not taken place, because I had received no photo documentation of such.

Soon thereafter I received a reply from one of David, Theo and Ruby's maternal parental units, stationed at the time in Olympia, telling me that no tunnel walk through by David and the twins had happened, due to the twin's time being taken up working on recovering from a bad bout of the flu, with Theo's flu bout made worse with Strep Throat.

David, Theo and Ruby had been shot with this year's flu vaccine, and then, apparently, managed to find a flu strain not stopped by this year's vaccine.

In the initial reply to the tunnel inquiry I was told some snow photo documentation would be forth coming.

A short time later that photo documentation came forth, as promised.

Above is one of those photos, a time tunnel compilation photo showing David, Theo and Ruby on a sled several winters ago, next to a photo I am assuming was taken during the current bout of Tacoma and the rest of the lowlands of Western Washington being colored white.

And below is video documenting, I assume, Theo and Ruby back healthy enough to sled down a hill with big brother David...

Clyde Picht On Fort Worth's Metropolitan Inferiority Complex Sham

A couple days ago I got one of those ubiquitous Facebook notification notices. In this instance I was basically being told someone had come up with a new name for a Texas newspaper I sometimes make reference to, with that new name being Fort Worth Star-Telesham.

Instead of Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

I've long been aware I am not the only person who has read that particular newspaper to make note of the fact it is a bit of a sham of a real newspaper instead of a real newspaper of record of the sort one reads in most towns.

I have not read this Star-Telesham Can Fort Worth avoid becoming a Dallas suburb? City hopes tax breaks help article.

The comments and the original Facebooker who posted about this, that being Clyde Picht, told me pretty much all I needed to know about what this Star-Telesham article was about.

The first few sentences of what Mr. P. had to say. (I'll share the entire post further below)...

Clyde Picht February 4 at 4:38 PM · 
I've lived in Fort Worth forty three and a half years. In all those years it seems like Fort Worth has had a metropolitan inferiority complex. Now the "city hopes tax breaks help" land a major corporate headquarters. Maybe that will get us on a par with Dallas. Like giving tax breaks is a new idea? Hell, that's one reason I ran for (and won) a city council seat. In 1997 the council was ready to give Intel an abatement that would add up to over $100,000,000 if they completed all three phases of construction. Did they go to Dallas instead? No, they went to Puerto Rico. 

_______________

I thought that that Intel development went to Chandler, Arizona. Maybe both Arizona and Puerto Rico successfully got part of that Intel action. When I saw the Intel operation in Chandler, with my own eyes, it was no mystery why a corporation would choose to locate itself at that location, instead of Fort Worth.

Or why Fort Worth never seems to be in the running for much of anything. It does not take some sort of Doctor of Urban Development to see the problems with Fort Worth which would scare off a corporation looking to locate in a modern location.

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes when something like Heritage Park, a purported homage to Fort Worth's storied history, is a boarded up eyesore which has blighted the north end of Fort Worth's downtown for over a decade?

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes with its lack of a modern mass transit system?

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes with the obvious lack of competent urban planning resulting in HUGE tracts of housing on former open spaces, without adequate infrastructure in the form of everything from drainage, adequate roads, parks and that aforementioned modern mass transit system?

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes with city parks without modern facilities, but plenty of outhouses, with miles of city streets with no sidewalks, with no public swimming pools of the sort one sees multiple of in a town Intel did build in, such as Chandler, Arizona?

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes with something like the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, currently stuck in slow motion trying to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island? A congested eyesore with no current end in sight, with the ever changing project timeline now extended to near the end of the next decade.

Clyde Picht, wise observer of reality that he be, makes note of Fort Worth's metropolitan inferiority complex. I was not long into observing Fort Worth, up close, as reflected in the Star-Telegram, that it seemed to me the town seemed to have a massive inferiority complex, particularly with what seemed to me to be a bizarre fixation on Dallas that came across like a jealous sibling envious of its famous, more interesting, more dynamic, better looking, taller, big brother.

Years ago I made a webpage about an aspect of nonsense which I had thought ridiculous in the Star-Telegram, which I called Fort Worth's Green With Envy syndrome. A sort of subset of that massive civic inferiority complex.

Anyway, as promised, the rest of what Clyde Picht had to say about Fort Worth's attempts to lure suitors with tax breaks, including making reference to Fort Worth's over done penchant for TIFs. A civic behavior I don't really understand, which Deep Moat III has helped me understand a little bit better.

Clyde Picht's Facebook post in its entirety...


I've lived in Fort Worth forty three and a half years. In all those years it seems like Fort Worth has had a metropolitan inferiority complex. Now the "city hopes tax breaks help" land a major corporate headquarters. Maybe that will get us on a par with Dallas. Like giving tax breaks is a new idea? Hell, that's one reason I ran for (and won) a city council seat. In 1997 the council was ready to give Intel an abatement that would add up to over $100,000,000 if they completed all three phases of construction. Did they go to Dallas instead? No, they went to Puerto Rico. The city wants corporations to give high wages but they want to pay low wages.

When the city council majority voted to support a herd of fifty longhorn cattle in the stockyards to increase the tax base by millions I posted a web article suggesting that if 50 longhorns could provide so much economic impact to the stockyards, a herd of 2000 cattle could make the city flush. Nobody believed it, of course, and I doubt the cattle in the stockyards really pay their way.

So here we are today. TIF #9 is giving the Trinity River Vision, Central City Project, Panther Island debacle over $350,000,000, to support a project which has ballooned to over a billion dollars to increase the tax base by a billion when it gets completed and built out thirty, forty, fifty or one hundred years from now. Not being an economist all I can say is Gee Whiz!

Where do we get these geniuses at city hall that think bribing companies with tax breaks is better than providing a clean city with up-to-date infrastructure, good transportation, and a qualified work force? We already have a major transportation hub and low cost housing and qualified work force, so let's work on what we don't have and can the tax breaks.

Spencer Jack's Mysterious 1027 Washington Snow Tracks

What you see above arrived on my phone over night. As soon as I saw this I knew I was seeing Spencer Jack. And that Spencer Jack was standing on a flat open field covered with snow.

But, where is Spencer Jack standing I sat and wondered?

This did not look like Mount Vernon. The mound in the background looked too small to be Mount Vernon's Little Mountain. And where does Mount Vernon have a field this flat, near houses? On the west side of the Skagit River? No, can't be there, what with there being no hill at that location.

And then I realized where Spencer Jack was standing.

Maiben Park.

In Burlington. The Washington town I grew up in after moving from Mount Vernon where we briefly were located after moving from my Eugene, Oregon birthing location.

That mound in the background is Burlington Hill. This hill actually looks way bigger in person. Spencer Jack's grandpa and I spent many hours playing on Burlington Hill. Including pushing our bikes to the top for a dangerous high speed coast back down.

Behind Spencer Jack's right shoulder you can see a pink house. To the left of that house is the house I grew up in, 1027 Washington Avenue.

It never dawned on me prior to thinking about it due to seeing this photo, that growing up across from a city park, in a small town of a couple thousand, on a street with sidewalks, with the park having modern restrooms and running water, along with its picnic facilities, and a swatch of old growth forest, why eye witnessing a larger American city of over 800,000 with streets without sidewalks and parks without restrooms, but plenty of outhouses, so surprised and eventually disgusted me.

Wichita Falls, where I am now, is a Texas town much more like the American town I grew up in than the Texas town of Fort Worth, which was my disturbing introduction to Texas...

No One Swarms Over Fort Worth's Pitiful Panther Island Bridges

Monday morning the new Highway 99 tunnel under downtown Seattle opened to traffic, assuming there was any traffic able to move, what with the region's first snowstorm of the year wreaking all sorts of havoc.

Over the weekend there was a ribbon cutting event to mark the opening of the tunnel. Free tickets were issued to those requesting such, enabling the ticket holders to join a multi block line leading to walking through the new tunnel, then getting bus shuttled back to start, or walking back via the soon to be demolished Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Around 100,000 people took the opportunity to experience the new tunnel. You can read about this in the Seattle Times article about Pedestrians swarming Seattle as the Viaduct comes down.

I have been watching this long in the making Seattle development during the same time frame I have been watching a Fort Worth development following a similar timeline.

With that Fort Worth development being the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, more commonly known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Seattle began focusing on taking down the Alaskan Way Viaduct about the same time Fort Worth began focusing on what has always been an extremely murky Trinity River Vision.

The impetus for Seattle's tunnel vision began after the Nisqually Earthquake badly damaged the Alaskan Way Viaduct, near the start of this century.

Around that same time some Fort Worth schemers came up with a bogus flood control economic development scheme, poorly conceived, ineptly implemented, and never approved by a vote of the Fort Worth public.

In Seattle, in 2014, a boring machine nicknamed Bertha began tunneling under Seattle. Also in 2014 those aforementioned Fort Worth schemers, such as Congresswoman Kay Granger, her frat boy son, J.D., and Fort Worth Mayor, Betsy Price, were part of a bizarre explosive ceremony celebrating the start of construction of three simple little bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

The Bertha boring project was fully funded, to the tune of somewhere over $3 billion. Qualified adults were in charge of the Bertha boring project. About a year into Bertha's boring she hit a steel snag which ground the boring to a halt for a year.

The damage to Bertha, the repair, and the adjusted project timeline were all totally transparent to the public, including a round the clock live cam aimed at the Bertha repair operation. Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, around the same time Bertha hit that steel snag, the construction of those three simple little bridges ground to a halt.

For over a year in Fort Worth wooden bridge forms gathered moss, weeds and mold.

With no explanation as to what the problem was. Eventually slow motion construction of those three little bridges started up again, with the original astonishingly long four year project timeline now stretched into the next decade.

And, what with a total lack of transparency, it has never been revealed what the problem has been with the building of these three simple bridges.

The executive director of that which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle is Kay Granger's son, J.D., paid a salary over $213K a year, plus perks and an expense account. J.D. Granger had zero qualifications for being hired for such a project. He was a low level prosecutor who had graduated from a low level law school. It is not known if J.D. ever prosecuted a case. J.D.s embarrassing utterances in the press make it hard to believe he could possibly have the presence of mind to prosecute anyone about anything.

Why would grown adults think it a good idea to have a TNT exploding ceremony, with a lot of pomp and propaganda nonsense, which time has rendered ridiculous, marking the start of construction of three little bridges?

I could understand, maybe, if some sort of TNT exploding ceremony had happened back when Bertha began boring, what with that being a HUGE project, including rebuilding the Seattle waterfront. Yet no bizarre TNT ceremony in that town, a town which has long worn its Big City Pants.

So, if those simple little bridges ever get finished in Fort Worth will there be another ceremony? A ribbon cutting? Free tickets issued to the thousands wanting to experience walking across the little bridges before they open to traffic?

Fort Worth, well, those who run Fort Worth in what is known as The Fort Worth Way, well, it really is a Confederacy of Dunces, building bridges in slow motion, over dry land, connecting to an imaginary island, a project not fully funded, with a ditch possibly dug sometime in the next decade, with water added to the ditch, finally rendering a purpose for those simple little pitiful bridges.

Why does the Fort Worth public put up with this nonsense?

So, perplexing...

Spencer Jack Monitoring Western Washington's First Snowstorm Of 2019: UPDATED

Incoming phone text message yesterday, pre-Super Bowl, from my great nephew Spencer Jack and his dad, my just plain ol' regular nephew, Jason.

Message in text---

Spencer Jack and I are waiting for snow to accumulate. We are in the midst of the largest Pacific Northwest Puget Sound zone snow event of 2019.

The photo you see here came in along with the incoming text message.

Apparently Spencer Jack installed a snow gauge in order to measure the snow accumulation.

Spencer Jack and his dad were not the only Mount Vernonites from whom I saw photo documentation of this incoming blizzard. Spencer Jack and his dad's neighbor, Linda Lou, also photo documented a similar snow accumulation in her backyard.

This morning I read in various Washington online news sources that some schools were in delayed opening mode due to this rare snow dusting.

Texans who think they are weather babies when winter deals a cold slippery blow, well, Texans handle such much better than Western Washingtonians, at least that has been my experience. Western Washingtonians are bigger weather babies than Texans.

I never would have believe such could be the case, but my locations in North Texas since my arrival have seen harsher, colder winters than I was used to during all the years I spent on the west coast.

I never experienced an Ice Storm til I found myself slipping on one in Texas. With my first Ice Storm causing unwanted slipping and sliding happening two weeks after I arrived in Texas. This was sort of shocking. I have lost count of how many Ice Storms I have slipped on since.

I have experienced deeper snow accumulating a time or two in the lowlands of Washington, but, I have experienced almost as deep a piling of snow in Texas.

The biggest difference, winter-wise, between winter in Texas and winter in Washington is in Washington while a winter may come and go with no snow in the Puget Sound lowlands, all one has to do if one wants to go sliding on snow is drive a few miles to the east and you find yourself in a winter wonderland of white. In Texas there is no such option.

I have not heard if Spencer Jack's school was cancelled this morning. I suspect not.

I may see Spencer Jack next month. He is trying to convince his dad to fly with him south to Arizona to see his grandpa, great-grandma, and his favorite aunt Jackie and uncle Jack, along with cousins Christopher and Jeremy.

That and to hike to the summit of Camelback Mountain with his favorite uncle...

 New text message and snow photo from Spencer Jack and Jason---

UPDATE: Our backyard snow gauge was poorly engineered. Spencer's school has been cancelled and we shall install a different snow gauge today.The Monday morning backyards snow gauge view...

Priscilla Takes Me Back To Washington Mountains With JR & CJ

In December a package arrived at my doorstep, sent by Priscilla from my old home location in Mount Vernon, Washington.

On Christmas, well, actually Christmas Eve, that package was opened.

And what to my wondering eyes did appear?

Well, among several things one of the things was a calendar, with Washington scenery.

I did not get around to flipping the calendar to February til this morning to see the Washington scene you see here.

This is a scene of the sort it is impossible to see anywhere in any direction for hundreds of miles at my current location.

The mountain you are looking at is Mount Shuksan.

Mount Shuksan is in what is known as the Mount Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest, part of the Cascade Mountains, which range from British Columbia to California.

So, America, you own this scenery, what with it being a National Forest.

There are frequent forest fires in this National Forest. I don't know if any Washingtonians have been dumb enough to take our dumb president's advice to go rake the forest floor so as to prevent those forest fires..

There are two volcanoes in the Mount Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest. The aforementioned Mount Baker and the not frequently seen Glacier Peak. I only saw Glacier Peak a couple times whilst residing in Washington. To see Glacier Peak required doing some hiking, or mountain driving. The Glacier Peak volcano was about the same distance as the Mount Baker volcano from my Mount Vernon abode.

In winter the Mount Baker Ski Area is open for skiing, if there is enough snow, which there usually is, what with the Mount Baker Ski Area holding the world record for deepest snow at a ski area.

When skiing in the Mount Baker Ski Area you can not actually see Mount Baker, except maybe at the top of one of the ski runs which my ski level never allowed me to access. The Mount Baker volcano is to the south and the view of it is blocked by other large mountain masses. But, Mount Shuksan is visible from the Mount Baker Ski Area, hence some people erroneously assume it is Mount Baker.

In summer, after the winter snow pack melts enough, a road is opened to a large parking lot which overlooks Mount Baker, giving easy hiking access to the volcano, and to the switchback trail to the top of Tabletop Mountain, which is what you see below.

The above is one of my favorite photos I have ever taken. Sitting on top of Tabletop Mountain those are two of my favorite nephews in the foreground, Jeremy, known as JR, and Christopher, known as CJ.

In the middle of the photo there is a line of the type rock pilings I call Hoodoos. And in the background that is a fuller view of Mount Shuksan than the one on Priscilla's Washington calendar.

As you can see, much of the snow melts off Mount Shuksan during the HOT time of the year, leaving only a collection of glaciers behind.

Next month it is highly likely I will be seeing Jeremy. Most likely on Monday, March 11 and on Monday, March 18. Mondays are Jeremy's regularly scheduled dinner dates with his grandma, also known as Miss Daisy.

Jeremy's Monday night dinner dates with Miss Daisy always are topped off with a rousing bout of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Jeremy usually wins these games, unless grandma is having a particularly good night...

YouTubing Mary Kelleher Announcement Video

Last night a video showed up in my email. Nothing in the subject line. No message in the message area of the email. Just an attached video.

Due to a couple phone text messages earlier in the day I had reason to think this video might be showing up in my email. And that I might be converting this video into a YouTube video and then putting this video on a blog.

At that point in time I did not think that blog would be my blog, but this morning I figured why not put this YouTube video on my blog.

And so I did.

If you did not already know it, this video with the title of Mary Kelleher Announcement Video announces the fact that Mary Kelleher is in the running to take back her rightful seat on the Tarrant Region Water District Board.

Will Mary Kelleher win in a landslide like the first time she was elected to the TRWD Board?

This time current board members, Jim Lane and Marty Leonard, are also on the ballot. The last time Jim Lane and Marty Leonard got themselves re-elected the shady vote total results resulted in being part of the biggest election fraud investigation in Texas history.

Anyone have any clue what happened with that election fraud investigation? It sort of surprises me that Jim Lane and Marty Leonard are back on a TRWD Board election ballot.

But, such is just part of that which is known as The Fort Worth Way...

I won't be voting for Mary Kelleher this time. I also won't be voting for Jim Lane or Marty Leonard. Only voters living in a small slice of the area in which the Tarrant Region Water District operates are allowed to vote. This sort of odd version of gerrymandering may be yet one more subset of that notorious Fort Worth Way...

Heading East On Way To Arizona In About A Month

In a little over a month I will be seeing the view I am seeing in the photo you are seeing here.

Lounging post swim at one of the Sun Lakes pool locations.

I booked the bird outta here this morning, flying east at around 5 in the afternoon on March 5 before switching to a bigger bird to fly west to Phoenix. Then returning to my current location two weeks later, if all goes according to plan and an idiot does not cause a total shutdown of air traffic or some other similar stupid lunacy.

It seems like I was just in Arizona, but it was way back last year that I last saw mountains combined with blue sky, cactus and palm trees.

I am Miss Daisy's favorite driver, so I guess I am looking forward to driving Miss Daisy to all the places I have driven Miss Daisy to on previous drives.

One of the highlights of my visits to Arizona is always the drive south to Maricopa, where I get to see Penny at my favorite Maricopa McDonald's. That and go to the Maricopa Aki-Chin Casino where I usually win a small fortune at a slot machine the operation of which requires constant supervision, due to modern slot machines bearing no resemblance to the slot machines I was used to in the previous century.

I think I am going to enjoy being in a somewhat HOT climate, what with this COLD winter I have been shivering through...

Trinity River Vision Imaginary Flood Control Project Update

Last week Deep Moat III emailed me a link to some information on the Trinity River Vision Authority website, with that link going to the...

Quarterly Project Status Report | September 2018

THE TRINITY RIVER VISION/ GATEWAY PARK / PANTHER ISLAND TRINITY RIVER VISION FLOOD CONTROL PROJECT UPDATE

Is this the online version of the hard copy quarterly propaganda reports which America's Biggest Boondoggle has been sending to mailboxes four times a year, for years?

I don't know.

I would make the assumption that those quarterly propaganda reports, slick full color multi-page productions, are no longer having money wasted on them, what with there being so little to update anyone on regarding that which has become an extremely slow motion public works project which the public has never voted on in any sort of legitimate way.

So, I looked at this online propaganda which details, supposedly accurately, financial aspects and project status aspects of this Fort Worth embarrassment which has been limping along most of this century, with little to show for the effort.

This PROJECT UPDATE report is divided into multiple sections....

PROJECT FUNDING SPLIT WITH TRWD BOND OPTION

PHASE COMPLETION WITH TRWD BOND OPTION

STATUS OF PHASE ONE

CENTRAL CITY - TOTAL PROJECT EXPENDITURES: LOCAL VS FEDERAL MATCHING

PROJECT SCHEDULE

You can go to the the TRVA website to read it all, in its full propaganda glory, but let's look at a couple of the propaganda's sections, such as the PHASE COMPLETION WITH TRWD BOND OPTION.

I have no idea what that means. "TRWD BOND OPTION".

But, Phase 2 of this PHASE COMPLETION WITH TRWD BOND OPTION section has a classic piece of the Boondoggle's propaganda, with Phase 2 telling us "Three new traffic bridges over rerouted flood control bypass channel (dry-land construction to save cost)".

That and a PROJECT COST of $81 M, a % OF PROJECT COMPLETE of 54%, with a COMPLETION DATE of 2020.

Re-routed flood control bypass? There is no current flood control bypass in existence. So, how does one re-route something which does not exist? And how many times must it be repeated that those three pitiful little bridges are not being built over dry land in order to save money. There was never any other option but to build those bridges over dry land, since there will never be anything but rain runoff running under those bridges until the cement lined ditch is dug under the bridges, with the Trinity River diverted into that cement lined ditch.

At least the propaganda, in this instance, has dropped the claim that the bridges are being built over dry land to both save money and to speed up construction. What with the construction of those simple bridges now having been going on for over four years, starting way back in 2014 with a then incredible four year project timeline to build the simple bridges, now supposedly not projected to be finished until sometime in the coming decade.

The latest PROJECT SCHEDULE for America's Biggest Boondoggle is the last entry in this latest Project Update.

So, according to the above PROJECT SCHEDULE something called the Town Lake is the last thing scheduled to arrive, around a decade from now, in the year 2028, about three decades after America's Biggest Boondoggle began boondoggling.

Til seeing this PROJECT SCHEDULE I did not know there is a Bypass Channel North, and a Bypass Channel South, with the southern bypass ready to do its bypassing in 2025, a year after the northern bypass begins bypassing.

One can not help but wonder why it takes so long for the Town Lake to show up in town, that and why this little pond is given such an odd name.

Town Lake? Why? Because the pond is in town? Why not call the pond Panther Pond, thus in sync with all the other stuff to which the Panther name has been attached?

Panther Pond has such a nice ring to it...

Texas Not Ending Testing Vehicle Emissions Or Prohibition In 2020

I saw this this morning on Facebook via Tacoma's Queen V, she being the breakout star of The Real Housewives of Tacoma.

Apparently my old home state of Washington is ending vehicle emissions tests in 2020.

When I lived in Washington the county I lived in, Skagit, did not require one have ones vehicle tested for emissions each year before being allowed to continue to drive legally.

If I remember right only the heavily populated counties in Washington required vehicles getting tested for emissions at the point in time when I still lived in the state. That would be counties like King, Snohomish, Pierce and Spokane. For all I know testing for vehicle emissions had spread to every county, but I suspect not.

When I was first in Texas and learned I needed to get something called a vehicle emissions test as part of a vehicle registration I remember thinking to myself what fresh Texas hell is this? Likely finding out about this fresh Texas hell soon after being introduced to the bizarre concept of dry, damp and wet areas of Texas designating where and what type alcohol could be sold, and where it could be sold and when such could be sold.

Regarding the dry, damp and wet thing I remember being amazed that a remnant of something long gone in most of the rest of America, that being Prohibition, was not long gone in Texas. Eventually I learned other areas of the South also had not totally ended Prohibition, to various degrees.

I long ago gave up trying to understand why the South, and Texas, seems to lag behind the rest of America in so many ways.

I wonder how long after areas of America, such as the west coast states, began trying to combat air pollution by trying to reduce vehicle caused pollution by making vehicles meet some sort of emissions standard, that states like Texas began requiring vehicles reduce emissions to be allowed on the state's roads.

And now one of the west coast states is apparently realizing vehicle emissions testing is no longer vitally needed in order to reduce pollution. That and likely it was realized that forcing vehicle owners to go through this annual nuisance, was just that, an annoying nuisance, the reason of which had been obviated by greatly improved vehicle emissions greatly reducing air pollution.

I remember the first time I was in Los Angeles, at 13 years old, being shocked to see and have my eyes stung by smog for the first time. Such had not yet come to the Pacific Northwest, other than smoke from forest fires.

At 13 years old, and many visits to Southern California in the years that followed, I did not realize that there was a range of mountains to the east of Los Angeles, because the air pollution blocked seeing the San Gabriel Mountains. I remember going to Disneyland on Christmas of 1994 and seeing those mountains for the first time, hovering in the distance like the Cascade Mountain foothills did in my home zone of Western Washington.

Eventually smog did come to Western Washington, at times blocking being able to see the mountains to the north, south, east and west. Sometimes a pink haze hovered over Puget Sound when looking north towards Canada.

And now, apparently the Washington air pollution has improved enough, or vehicle emissions have improved enough, or a combo of both, that vehicle emissions testing is ending in Washington in 2020.

I do not think vehicle emissions testing will be ending any time soon in Texas, because I have been in Texas for around 20 years and I have yet to see the air clear enough to see any mountain range, no matter what direction I look.

And, I have heard nothing about any plan to finally end all aspects of Prohibition in Texas. Well, except, I did read recently that there is some effort to end the Texas Blue Laws which prohibit some alcohol type selling on Sundays....