It's Bedtime

It's not even 5pm but I'm feeling like it's bedtime. But I must stay up for 3 more hours to watch the finale of Amazing Race. I could set the VCR to record it but I somehow usually screw that up. So, why am I dead tired? I think it must be because I've been up since about 3am. I woke up then and about 4am I decided if the Sunday paper was here I was going to get up, make coffee and read the paper. And so I did. I'm not sure I can manage to string together words in my current condition.

We'll see.

In the Sunday paper there was a lot of info about the Stephenville UFO. It's been so long ago now but I can see I then blogged about this and posted it at 4:41am. The morning seemed to pass fairly quickly as I did various tasks, most computer related.

About 7am I took the meat off a couple chickens because I'd decided I wanted to make Chicken Tortilla Soup today. That decision sort of determined how the next few hours went. Yesterday I'd decided I wanted to go to Tandy Hills Park today and take a photo of a tower.

That tower being the Fort Worth Space Needle, modeled after towers in Seattle and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. This may seem a bit goofy and may not seem to your eyes to look anything like the Seattle Space Needle or that tower in Paris. Fort Worth has a long history of building things modeled after things in other places. The Fort Worth Space Needle is Fort Worth's second major homage to Seattle, the first being a public market in Fort Worth claimed to be modeled after Pike Place in Seattle. You can read all about that here. Another big Fort Worth project that has not quite gotten started yet is called the Trinity River Vision. Basically they want to take a perfectly fine river and turn it into a lake with canals. For awhile they were claiming it would make Fort Worth the Vancouver of the South. Then I think someone from Fort Worth actually went to Vancouver and realized how goofy it was to think turning a river into a lake with some canals would make Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South. Seems more like Fort Worth is trying to copy the success of San Antonio's Riverwalk. Which, I guess, would then make Fort Worth the San Antonio of the North Part of Texas.

So, after I got my pics of the Fort Worth Space Needle (that's the pic at the top) I headed to Arlington to Chinatown to get vegetables for my tortilla soup. The vegetable buying was uneventful. I always enjoy going to the Hong Kong Market. Usually I am the only non-Asian in the store. It always makes me feel very tall when I'm there. It's a very well run store, the clerks are all whizzes, sort of the anti-Wal-Mart. I got giant red peppers today. And some more Chinese Garlic. Among other things.

So, I'm going from making a rude Wal-Mart remark in the above paragraph to now telling you I left the Hong Kong Market and headed to the Super Wal-Mart across from the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium. As I headed in that direction I remembered I wanted to take pics of the industrial wasteland that the south side of the stadium will face. I think visitor's at the Super Bowl of 2011 are going to be appalled when they see this. Maybe there are plans to use more eminent domain abuse and clean it all up.

So, Wal-Mart went fast, in and out very quick. Then headed back here to make the tortilla soup. On the way back here I needed gas. When I get gas I call my mom in Phoenix and tell her how much it cost. If I don't make a gas call within a reasonable amount of time my mom calls me and asks why I'm not buying any gas. So, our gas conversation was going fine, but my phone started doing the bloop bloop noise. And then it made an explosion noise. I'd forgotten the short bloops bloops indicated the battery was low. So, I got back here and plugged the phone in and called my mom back to tell her I'd figured out what was causing the bloop bloop.

Then as I was finishing up the tortilla soup I started getting calls. And voice mails. When I finally got around to listening to the messages they were from this former alien heading back to her home country whom I guess I said I'd take to the airport tomorrow and she was getting a bit concerned that I was going to bail on her. I don't like taking her to the airport because she requires a high level of fortification to get on a plane. Well, actually, she requires that for just about anything. She flies out at 9:35am. I'll drop her off 2 hours earlier. She will be drunk. I don't know how she manages to get through security. The last time I provided this service I swore it'd be the last. My issue that time was with the return pickup. Of course, she was a bit tipsy, having been in Miami for 4 hours with her sister. Back at D/FW one of her pieces of luggage turned up missing, this turned into a big brouhaha, much of it in Spanish with Puerto Rican swear words flying about the airport.

Okay. I can not type another word. I'm exhausted. And the Chicken Tortilla Soup wasn't all that great.

Stephenville UFO Photo Update

The Stephenville UFO photo that appeared on Friday, taken by a Kentucky truck driver, has now been identified as a MFO, a serious downgrade from UFO status. A MFO is a "Misidentified Flying Object".

Scientists who have examined the photo have decided the object in the photo is a little-known atmospheric phenomenon known as a sun dog, so named by Native Americans back long before UFOs started visiting. A sun dog is caused by ice crystals suspended in the air, reflecting sunlight through high clouds.

Those who claim to have seen the Stephenville UFO are being interviewed by members of the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON. MUFON is having people draw what they think they saw. The data will be studied and eventually MUFON will make a determination as to what occurred in Stephenville.

Barbecue & Longhorns

I'm going to the Fort Worth Stockyards today. I think. It is very very cold out there, in the mid 20s now at 10am. Cold weather feels way colder in Texas than it used to feel up in Washington. The Stockyards should be well stocked with people today due to the Stock Show taking place in another part of town. I'm planning on taking video, hopefully of the Fort Worth Herd. The cows and cowboys should be on the move, even though it is cold.

It's been so cold I've been unwilling to go outside for any aerobic activity, so I'm starting to atrophy. And go stir crazy.

While at the Stockyards I had planned on going to Riscky's Barbecue for All You Can Eat ribs. Only $7.95 for the next 2 weeks. They are real messy, but you are supplied with a roll of paper towels. But Riscky's is fun only if you can Eat All You Can while sitting on a picnic table at their outside patio where you can watch herds of people, cows and horses walk by. By afternoon the prediction is a high of 45. I somehow don't think that will be a comfortable temperature for sitting outside eating messy barbecue ribs.

Yesterday's post about the Stephenville UFO has been getting a lot of kooks (Freudian slip, meant looks, not kooks) from all over the world. This morning someone from Hiroshima was looking at it. But it is the Russians, not the Japanese, who seem to be way too interested in the Texas UFO. Maybe it was a Russian military experiment gone awry.

Stephenville UFO Photo Evidence

UFO mania continues unabated here in Texas, almost as fervently as the post-mortem mourning over the recent Dallas Cowboys tragedy that has much of this region reeling. It is not known, at present, if the Stephenville UFO had anything to do with the Dallas Cowboy's loss in their first playoff game of this century or if Jessica Simpson is in anyway involved in either the Cowboy loss or the Stephenville UFO.

What we do know is a Kentucky truck driver snapped a photo of the UFO. You can see that above. Below, near the end of this post, you can see our exclusive seen only here photo of a UFO.

It has been reported that some Stephenville citizens have begun wearing aluminum foil helmets to protect their heads from potential UFO initiated death rays. Those who have seen the UFO report that it is a large silent cigar shaped object flying low and fast with lights of changing colors rotating counter-clockwise escorted by other objects that look like military aircraft, like helicopters.

Stephenville town secretary, Cindy Stafford has taken to wearing a green alien mask. One of the town's car dealers has put up a sign offering to make a deal on a UFO trade.

Media from around the world have descended on Stephenville including representatives of a Washington based UFO research group some members of whom think the government conspires to keep the UFO reality a deep, dark secret.

I snapped this UFO photo yesterday, not realizing til I saw the Kentucky truck driver's UFO photo that what I saw was not some sort of sun-related cloud phenomenon, but in actuality was an invading alien from a galaxy far away.

Size Matters Not

I am currently being vexed by about 300 email spams a day. The trend seems to be more and more of it. I’m vexed because it is annoying, I’m vexed because it takes time to deal with it, I’m vexed because it has caused me to miss email I wanted to see, I’m vexed because I don’t understand the underlying economics of the spam and I’m vexed at what most of the spam is selling. I mean, what is the motive? Who is sending this stuff? And why? Do some fools actually click on the spam links and actually buy stuff?

About 10% of the spam deals with trying to repair my bad credit, trying to get me a new mortgage, trying to end my chronic obesity, trying to get me to update a bank record at a bank at which I have no account, or fix my Ebay or PayPal accounts.

The other 90% of the spam deals with (I insert a warning here, the following may not be suitable for young readers even though this is not Family Day, read the ‘Startlegram’ post to get the Family Day reference), as I was saying, the other 90% of the spam deals with concerns about my most private of parts. There is concern about its size, with endless offers of ways to end my embarrassment regarding my most delicate of shortcomings. And then there is also a lot of concern about how well my most private of parts performs, with multiple offers of multiple ways of amping up my most private part’s performance to top notch performance standards that will meet the most exacting needs of the most critical of critics and have those on the receiving end singing my praises and recommend me to their friends, neighbors and co-workers.

What further vexes me is no one else I know gets these offers. How did the annoying spammers discover I am in need of this help? Who told them? Was it you? Well, it needs to stop. I have learned to live with all my various shortcomings and all my various performance problems and I’m not going to grow any bigger or perform any better at my ripe old age so just drop these attempts to fix me.

Not that I don’t appreciate the concern.

Wild Wild West

Last night the phone rang just as I was getting ready to go to Krogers to get a gallon of milk (skim, $3.50). It was Lulu. I put her on speaker phone so I could continue putting on pants and shoes. Lulu stayed with me as I left my place and headed to my van. These are like little virtual trips to Texas for Lulu, a world away from her idyllic paradise in the shadow of Mount Rainier.

As I drove into the Krogers parking lot I saw a Fort Worth police cruiser pulling in, lights flashing, siren blaring. As I got out of the van I saw the cop slowly approaching the store. As I got closer to the entry I saw a huddle of people around a woman, a slightly obese stereotypical Texas woman looking a tad unkempt. As the cop approached her she put up her arms in the position you see on TV when a cop puts on the handcuffs. Apparently she had had experience with the procedure. On the ground in front of the woman was a spilled grocery bag that seemed to have spilled out what looked like pharmacy type products.

Within a couple minutes I'd bought my milk and was exiting the store, still talking to Lulu. I'm quite the multi-tasker, able to talk on the phone while going through the self-checkout. When I stepped back outside I was surprised to see that the incident had escalated. There were now 5 polices cruisers with lights flashing, with an equal number of officers. There was a fire truck with firefighter emergency guys doing something to the woman who had wanted handcuffs that looked like some sort of tubing, as if she was on an intravenous drip. She was sitting on the ground, conscious, no handcuffs.

It was quite noisy and must have sounded dire and scary to Lulu who was screaming something along the line of "what sorta hell hole do you live in?" I explained it was not a hell hole, it was east Fort Worth, Fort Worth, known locally as Where the West Begins, with that wild west tradition held up regularly by incidents like the one last night at Krogers.

I was almost back to my van when I saw a MedStar ambulance drive by. I said to Lulu I think they called in an ambulance but it missed the entry. I saw it then turn around and head into the parking lot.

I saw nothing in the morning Star-Telegram about last night's incident. Just like I never saw anything about an incident of a couple days ago when I returned from hiking Tandy Hills Park to see 2 female cops, slowly making their way to a closed dry cleaner, guns at the ready, speaking into those shoulder communication devices you see on cop shows.

I've grown used to the occasional notice being put on my door telling me there has been yet one more armed robbery in the neighborhood, advising that caution be taken when out after dark. Since I've been in Texas I've happened upon one murder scene, after the fact, several murders have occurred in my neighborhood, including that nationally reported one of a few years back where a woman, I think it was a woman, ran into someone who got stuck in her windshield, so she drove home and parked in her garage and left the victim to slowly die. And then got rid of the body. I think, if I remember right, her defense was she was tired and didn't notice the man stuck in her windshield til a few days later.

I probably should get a gun and holster if I'm gonna keep living here. Or some mace. Can the general public buy tasers?

Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo

Click here for 2009 Fort Worth Stock Show
Rodeo & Parade Info

The Fort Worth Stock Show is currently open for business. The Stock Show is pretty much like a state fair only it's held in the depths of winter. It started off on Saturday with the world's biggest non-mechanized parade. That means there are no motorized vehicles pulling anything and a lot of horses making messes. I've been to the Stock Show Parade twice. It's an entertaining parade except for one slightly jarring note. That being that the parade route is not cleared of vehicles parked on the side of the road. So in many places along the parade route you share space with a car while trying to get a good look at what is passing by.

I've been to the Stock Show & Rodeo twice also. The first time being barely after moving here. We had rodeo tickets. I'd not gotten over my aversion to country music by that point in time and so the rodeo was pretty much torture for me. It's held in an ancient colisseum called the Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium. The Stock Show used to take place in the Stockyards, but for some unfathomable reason it was moved to Fort Worth's Cultural District. Yes, Fort Worth has so much culture an entire district had to be built just to contain it. The Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo runs from Jan. 11 to Feb. 3.

I highly doubt I'll go to the Stock Show this year. Last year's Stock Show Parade was cancelled due to an ice storm. Here in Fort Worth they call this Stock Show weather.

I did go to the latest State Fair of Texas. It's in Dallas. I'd gone to the State Fair once before and enjoyed it a lot. The second time, not so much. By 5pm I was tired of it and bailed. This year's State Fair of Texas seemed like it'd been taken over by car dealerships. It was a major turnoff. But I did get some good video of the Midway. Midway is State Fair Speak for carnival.

Click the play button twice to start the
video of the State Fair of Texas

Stephenville UFO

I was peacefully minding my own business sipping on some salubrious Tension Tamer tea, watching the remaining 3 Democrats debate in Las Vegas when my peace was rudely shattered by my cell phone's annoying ring. I then had to hunt down the phone and saw it was Lulu. All day long I had been plagued by incoming calls with the caller not I.D'd, saying only "private number". These calls came in about once an hour. I don't answer calls when I don't know who is on the other end. The 8th time this happened the caller left a voice mail. It was Lulu. I called her back. She'd somehow messed up her cell phone settings again.

Anyway, so Lulu called disrupting the undivided attention I had been paying to what had been a somewhat entertaining debate. Hillary was acting sort of macho tonight, while John Edwards almost had a teary moment to two. Barack Obama is very articulate.

Oh, back to the Lulu call. Her first husband had told her that UFOs were invading the Texas town of Stephenville. Lulu wanted to know if I was close to there and if I'd seen any UFOs. This was the first I'd heard of the UFO invasion. I told Lulu I would keep an eye on the sky. And then I tried to once more concentrate on the debate. But I couldn't. Those trivial issues those candidates were yammering about paled in comparison to the UFO invasion spectre Lulu had raised.

So, off went the TV and to the Internet I went, Googling "Stephenville UFO". And what to my surprised eyes did appear but link after link about the Stephenville UFOs. Stephenville is down in the Dinosaur Valley/Creationism Museum area. UFOs don't seem much of a stretch.

I'd put some links to the articles in this post but that's a lot of bother and you can just Google it for yourself. It's my bedtime.

Pedal Pushing

I pedaled the mountain bike trail at River Legacy Park today with Miss Brady. On the way to Arlington, while still in Fort Worth, east Fort Worth, on Meadowbrook Lane, stopped at a light, I looked up and was surprised to see the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, the roof support arches clearly visible in the distance. So, apparently the new stadium will be visible from Fort Worth. I'm guessing you'd have to be up in one of the many tall skyscrapers in Dallas to be able to see the Dallas Cowboys Stadium from Dallas. Visible from the ground in Fort Worth, but not in Dallas, I'm assuming. I suppose I should drive over to Dallas to see if I can see the stadium lest I opine something erroneous. But that would be way too much bother so let's just assume you can't see the thing from the ground in Dallas.

Back to pedaling. Went just under 9 miles. It's fun to have someone to bike with. Since I've been in Texas that's been rare. When I first arrived in Texas a fellow Washington transplant known as Big Ed would go biking with me. But there was an incident each and every time, usually a flat tire. On the final bike ride with Big Ed he managed to come up with something quite novel to ruin the bike ride. Somehow while going up a short hill Big Ed got his baggy shorts hooked on one of his pedals. This ripped his shorts off him. He was not wearing underwear. Somehow, using his t-shirt and his ripped shorts, he was able to cover himself up enough to make it back to cover without getting an indecent exposure ticket.

And then there was this Texas native I met years ago, a west Texas boy, born and raised in some town named Bug Butt or something like that, out by Midlands/Odessa. I refer to this person as Gar the Texan. Had not heard from him in awhile, til recently. He's a Libertarian. Ran for Congress on the Libertarian ticket and lost. A couple years ago Gar the Texan married an ex-communist from the former East Germany. She may have been born after East Germany ceased being communist, so maybe she isn't an ex-communist. I'm almost 100% certain she's not a former Nazi.

Anyway, Gar the Texan got a mountain bike and roller blades and hiking boots. He'd never been on a hike before so I drove him to Dinosaur Valley and Turner Falls Park. Hiking he was able to do, for the most part, but biking and blading, not so good. He claimed to have health issues. Slight exertion did seem to quickly leave him wheezing for air and green of color. Which made little sense to me because he appeared to be in good shape, not overweight, except for carrying an excess load of hair on his head due to his unfortunately out of date (since fixed) Billy Ray Cyrus type mullet.

The first time I tried to bike with Gar the Texan was at Lake Grapevine on the Knob Hill Trail. We made it up one slight hill when his Southern Belle Beulah Routine kicked in. He pushed his bike back to my van after he recovered sufficiently to move.

The second bike incident was at Horseshoe Trails, also on Lake Grapevine. Gar the Texan did better this time til he lost control and flew over his handlebars, triggering a Major Beulah Attack. I got him stabilized on a bench and I pedaled back to my van so that I could rescue him and get him to an ER and then Krispy Kreme where he was able to eat enough doughnuts to stabilize his blood sugar.

The third bike attempt also went badly. I figured maybe paved trail would work better, so we parked at the Fort Worth Stockyards and pedaled the Trinity River Trail to downtown Fort Worth's Heritage Park. But I'd forgotten that there is a slight incline to get up to Heritage Park. Gar the Texan pushed his bike up the slight incline and then had a Beulah Attack. Heritage Park commemorates the founding of Fort Worth. Though Gar the Texan is a Texan, hence the name, it was not until he saw Heritage Park and read the signage that he realized Fort Worth had once been an actual fort. When he recovered that time he wanted to go to Hooters. With his health issues I thought Hooters would be way too stimulating so we went to Booger Red's and had Buffalo Butt Beer instead.

I only went roller blading one time with Gar the Texan. That did not go well at all. It was a nice paved trail by his house, smooth, easy to roll on. But he only made it a few wobbly feet before collapsing on a bench in full Beulah Attack Mode. After he recovered he wanted to go to Chili's and consume adult beverages to hasten his full recovery. So we did so and got subjected to listening to his barber discuss her problems with her roommate's love life. As far as I know this roller blading incident is the last time Gar the Texan did anything physical, other than getting married.

America's Team Post Mortem

Well, I said yesterday that I'd make note of anything goofy in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram regarding the Dallas Cowboys losing on their first step to the Super Bowl.

I am disappointed to report that I read nothing that even came close to the air-headed goofiness that I told you about on Saturday. The paper did have an entire section devoted to the disastrous sudden death of America's Team, with the big headline on the front page being "THEY'RE HISTORY".

The headline on one of the front page columns today is "TITLE HOPES WASTING AWAY--AGAIN--IN LOSERVILLE". In the column, the writer, Randy Galloway, did come up with a slight bit of goofy overwroughtness regarding Tony Romo in which Galloway wrote "Tell me again that what Tony Romo does with his personal life on his own free time should not be held against him. Tony is about to receive a harsh and negative lesson in the power of public perception. His otherwise harmless Mexico beach trip just became toxic. It will haunt him through the next season, if not forever."

In case you missed it, Terrell Owens, I think that's his name, covered the expenses for a short vacation in Cabo San Lucas for Tony Romo and a few of his friends, like Jessica Simpson. I really don't see what this has to do with the football team losing a game, but it's been an issue here ever since the tabloid's paparazzi got some pics of Tony and Jessica. Now Jessica Simpson is a sweet cute Dallas girl. It isn't like he was down in Mexico canoodling with someone unsavory like Britney Spears.

Reporters asking Terrell Owens about Tony Romo and the Mexico trip, after the game, apparently drove Mr. Owens to tears while he defended his quarterback.

The Cowboys did not play during the first week of the playoffs, apparently the team was told to relax, have fun. What was the guy supposed to do? Toss footballs every day to keep in shape for the big game? I would think going swimming with Jessica Simpson would be great training.