SAD GAS AD

The gray gloom finally lifted. I am hopeful this is not just a temporary lifting. This morning when a cloud of fog burned off to reveal, once more, the fine Blue Sky of Texas, I felt uncharacteristically happy for a moment or two. I was starting to develop a very serious bout of SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) as the days of gray stacked up one after another. The air even managed to warm up a little bit. To 60. It almost makes me want to go swimming.

But instead of swimming I went to the balcony of the apartment which I've been tasked with looking after, basically feeding the cat, while the owner is in Puerto Rico attending to her bi-annual Puerto Rican Nationalist duties.

The balcony is on the third floor, in a building on the top of a hill, thus affording a good view of what passes below. It can be both entertaining and unsettling what one sees from that vantage point at times.

I don't know if it rises to the level of being unsettling, but it seems every Saturday there is this Fort Worth area car dealer who has a small plane flying over the freeway trailing a banner. I would think this would not be allowed as it is very distracting to be driving and to look up to try and read what is flying above you.

So, I was minding my own business, enjoying the balmy temps, sitting on the Puerto Rican's balcony, sipping a mint julep, when I heard the drone of a prop plane. And then the weekly Saturday Huggins Honda banner came into view. Is this not both visual and aural pollution?

As I sat on the balcony, slowly sipping my mint julep, and feeling evermore relaxed with the SAD symptoms fading further and further, I looked down to see a Fort Worth transit bus pass by. On the bus in bold letters it said "POWERED BY NATURAL GAS".

Well, also in my view from the balcony as I sipped my mint julep is a Chesapeake natural gas drilling operation. These drilling operations are all over this area, to the consternation of many and the profit of few.

So, I was thinking, as that bus passed, why no one local has proposed that since these buses are being powered by natural gas and since that is what is being sucked out from under us here in this blessed zone of Texas, why not use some of our gas to power our buses and remove the fares, the masses then more willing to use mass transit and less cranky about not getting any benefit from having to put up with all the noise, pollution and aggravation of all this Barnett Shale natural gas drilling. It seems perfectly fair and logical to me. Which means it will never happen.

Heath Ledger & the Olsen Twin

When the masseuse and the cleaning lady found they were unable to wake Heath Ledger why did they use his cell phone to call an Olsen Twin on the west coast 3 times before calling 911?

If I were to find someone who appeared to be dead, with myself not being a medical professional, I think I would err on the side of caution and call 911, unless it was totally obvious that the person was dead. And even then I can't imagine why I would use the dead person's cell phone to call an Olsen Twin on the west coast.

I fear this sad story is going to be one of those gifts that keep on giving, like the sagas of Anna Nichole Smith, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

Stephenville UFO Update

Apparently some citizens of Stephenville have grown weary of the UFO brouhaha and fear becoming a Texas version of Roswell, New Mexico, feeling somehow embarrassed by their perception that the rest of the planet perceives Stephenville as the new Flying Saucer Capital of the World. I think it'd be a better plan to just sit back and enjoy the attention while it lasts. Which won't be long, most likely.

Meanwhile a town near Stephenville, which was also under assault the night of the UFO invasion, that town being tiny Dublin, named after a town in Ireland, known in Texas as the only source of the original version of the state drink of Texas, that being Dr Pepper. The Dublin plant is the only Dr Pepper brewery which still makes the sickeningly sweet cherry flavored concoction with pure cane sugar.

So, the powers that be in Dublin, unlike those in Stephenville, see the media circus surrounding the supposed UFO as an opportunity, with the director of Dublin economic development, Sandy Reed and members of the Dublin Rotary Club, plotting how the UFO could be a good thing for Dublin.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that a Cleburne, Texas native, Jason Leigh, who the media, such as NBC Weekend, labeled an expert on UFOs, turned out to be a bit of a crackpot. What a shock. Seems that 10 years ago Mr. Leigh attacked a Veterans Affairs Center in Waco with his Jeep because he was cranky about his veteran's benefits. After a standoff that involved the threat that he had enough explosives in his jeep to turn downtown Waco into a flower garden, Mr. Leigh surrendered and eventually received a short sentence.

Don't Mess With Texas

One of the things about Texas that immigrants from other states, states like Oregon or Washington for instance, notice when they move to Texas is the astonishing amount of litter. It's everywhere. Floating in lakes, floating in rivers, blowing along highways, blowing across fields of green. It's everywhere.

In the Fort Worth Star-Telegram today there was interesting litter news. Among typically goofy Star-Telegram verbiage, as in this gem, "Since its inception in 1986, the acclaimed Don't Mess with Texas slogan has attracted celebrities like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Willie Nelson. And it has helped dramatically reduce litter across the state."

Acclaimed slogan??? Who acclaimed this slogan? Is this typical Star-Telegram exaggeration? I'm surprised the article didn't say that states far and wide are green with envy over the Don't Mess with Texas slogan. And the slogan has dramatically reduced litter? Yikes. This means it actually used to be worse than it is now?

I've no idea how the following data was acquired, but according to litter surveys of the Texas Department of Transportation in 2001 1.25 billion pieces of litter were thrown on Texas. By 2005 the amount of litter had fallen below the billion pieces mark to a mere 827 million pieces of litter.

From 1995 to 2001 there was a 51% reduction in litter. From 2001 to 2005 litter was reduced 33%.

And now this truly astonishing statistic which sort of goes to show why it is still such a mess out there in Don't Mess with Texas land. 55 percent of Texans admit that they throw litter from their vehicles while driving the roads of Texas!

There is a Don't Mess with Texas website. It is not known how many Texans have visited this website or how many Texans know they are not supposed to Mess with Texas. I suppose one can extrapolate from that 55 percent who admit to being litterers and assume they have not been exposed to any of the acclaimed don't litter slogans or the Don't Mess with Texas website.

Now, go pick up after yourself.

Stephenville UFO Air Force Update

Eye witness reports of those who saw the Stephenville UFO claimed that Air Force type jets were chasing the UFO. Air Force spokesman denied that any U.S. military aircraft were in the area.

The Air Force has now changed its story.

The military now admits that 10 F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron were training between 6 and 8pm January 8 in the Brownwood military operation area, which includes Stephenville and Erath County.

Major Karl Lewis, spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at Naval Air Station Fort Worth told reporters he had no information as to how or why the original misinformation was dispensed. And he had no idea whether or not any of the pilots saw anything unusual.

It is not known if the pilots were asked if they saw anything unusual or the identity of the pilots or why this information is not available.

It is believed that the military was forced to change its story due to the Freedom of Information Act being invoked.

A Real Lulu

I just got a call from Lulu, in high umbrage mode, being pretty much incoherent. She just got back from her doctor who diagnosed her with Walking Pneumonia and prescribed all sorts of meds and an inhaler.

Last night Lulu somehow managed enough strength to write something in her Blog. But, she did not have the strength or presence of mind to realize she posted twice, the second one slightly different than the first.

When she called this morning I mentioned her double post. As she hacked away, likely blowing all sorts of bad stuff on her computer, she looked at her Blog and claimed to not see the double post. At great effort, on my part, I got her to focus long enough to see the extra post. Lulu then said she did not have the strength to fix it and asked if I would fix it for her.

And so I did. And when I fixed it I added the drawing of a sick person you see above. So, Lulu gets home from the doctors, and before she even takes her meds or sucks on her inhaler, she checks her Blog. She saw the drawing you see above and apparently this caused a major apoplectic fit. So, she called me demanding I stop whatever I'm doing and fix this at once. I told her to just go delete it herself. She claimed she couldn't figure it out. It would have taken way too long to help Lulu locate the delete button on her keyboard, so I just removed it myself.

Now, I guess I should be a bit more tolerant of Lulu's currently amped up eccentricity, what with her pretty much currently knocking on Heaven's Door. And it is not like I don't know she is extremely, almost pathologically, high maintenance. And it did give me something to blog about.

Speaking of Lulu's chronic illnesses. A few months ago Lulu and her first husband went to Maui. Lulu was sick when they left. He got sick there. It was the flu. They cut their vacation short, by what logic I've never understood. It would seem to be easier to be sick in a tropical paradise than in Tacoma in winter. So, Lulu had to push her so-weak-he-could-not-walk first husband through the airport in a wheelchair.

It is not known how many people Lulu and her first husband made sick by getting on a plane in such a contagious condition. They could easily have started an epidemic. Now that is something to get into a state of high umbrage over, sick people going out in public making other people sick. But to work yourself up to a state of upset over a little cartoon of a sick person, well, I really don't know what to say.

It is a wonderment to me that Lulu is not sicker due to what she eats when she's ailing. As in it is all chocolate derivatives. Primarily hot fudge sundaes, hot cocoa and s'mores. Lulu does not make her s'mores in the Girl Scout fashion over a fire. What she does is roast the marshmallow over the flames of her gas range top, sticking the marshmallow on a fork, getting it nice and toasty and then slapping it on graham cracker with a huge chunk of chocolate. I have seen this process repeated up to 6 times in one feeding.

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To change the subject from Lulu, which is always a welcome relief, my Internet connection was uncooperative for a couple hours today. The problem was my router. It is so annoying to feel so dependent on something and to feel like it's such a major thing when you can't connect to the Internet. It's like some sort of addiction. I don't think it is healthy. And the trend line is ever worse. Like years ago when I went up north first thing I'd do was set up the computer wherever I was staying so I could do email and work on websites. Then about 4 years ago I started lugging a laptop with me, which is not easy, particularly switching planes involving long walks through an airport, carrying a big carry-on and the laptop. Or using the restroom facilities. Try standing at a urinal with heavy items hanging off your back and neck.

I flew north right after Katrina, leaving D/FW late, like 10pm. The plane was full, to my surprise. with Katrina refugees. I was seated next to a refugee mom and one of her kids. The two older kids sat behind us. They were heading to Bremerton to her sister's. We switched planes in Vegas. Previously this had always involved moving to a plane at most 2 gates over. This time the gate was way at the other end of the airport. And the moving sidewalks were not working. I'd asked if she'd like help getting to the next plane, not knowing we'd be hiking what seemed miles.

So, I was carrying my big backpack and my laptop and one of the kid's bags. I had one kid with me. He and I moved fast, got separated from the mom and the other kids. Went back and found them. They had to stop because the little girl had to throw up. Made it to the gate. Benefit of helping, she watched my stuff while I used the restroom facilities.

We got to Seattle at 3am. As soon as we landed I called Lulu (Oh Good God, we are back to Lulu) to make sure she was heading to get me. I got her voice mail. I helped the Katrina victims get to baggage claim, helped them get all their giant duffel bags. I had not reached Lulu and the refugee had not reached her sister.

Gradually the airport emptied til we were all alone, just me and the refugees. Finally Lulu called, said she'd slept through the alarm, that she was 20 minutes away. Eventually, after what seemed hours, Lulu drove up. I gave the Katrina refugee my cell number and told her to call if her sister did not show up. I took over driving from Lulu and drove to my sister's house in Kent. My sister was on vacation at Yosemite, the keys were hidden in the BBQ out back. Lulu drove away and I pretty much passed out from exhaustion, vowing to never travel with that damn laptop again.

I've been back 3 times since. With the laptop.

I am Woman Hear Me Roar

After a long cold tiring day, I decided to succumb once again to my cathode ray addiction and sit down for some TV viewing, intending to watch my favorite nonsensical show, Prison Break, and then catch the last half the South Carolina Democrat Presidential Primary Debate.

But, before I get to the debate, and what a debate it was, I must mention Prison Break. For the most part the show is filmed here in the D/FW zone of Texas. Currently most of the show takes place in a prison in Panama. I discovered after going for Tex-Mex for lunch at Esperanza's in the Stockyards that a part of Fort Worth's history was being used as a prison. I was surprised I had not read mention of this in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram because that paper never misses a chance to brag about anything remotely brag-worthy. Like if at any point in their life a person somehow touched Fort Worth or its environs that newspaper will say something like "Fort Worth Native, Bill Paxton", or like yesterday the Seattle band Foo Fighters was in town. One of the band members lived in Fort Worth for a short time when he was a toddler. The article labeled the guy (I can't remember his name) a Fort Worth native. They actually interviewed him and asked what he remembered of Fort Worth. "Nothing" was his reply.

So, it was surprising to me that the Star-Telegram did not have a big article talking about Fort Worth becoming a mecca for major Hollywood productions, with cities far and wide Green with Envy. Ironically, the one and only reference to the Stockyard Ruins being used as a TV set was a little blurb that said something like "The Fox TV Show, Prison Break, is using an abandoned Dallas area meat processing plant as a prison." Now if you knew how obsessed many Fort Worthers are over Dallas, referring to something taking place in Fort Worth as being in the "Dallas area" is pretty much a misdemeanor here, maybe a felony.

I remember reading the reference to the show using a Dallas area abandoned meat processing plant and wondering where it was. So, I was quite surprised to be driving in the Stockyards zone, driving by the old Swift-Armor meat plant that I call the Stockyard Ruins and seeing a guard tower where none existed before. And then it dawned on me what it might be. I Parked and made my way to a viewing point through a gate and was looking right at the Sona Prison in Panama, complete with palm trees that died in our first freeze here of the year.

Speaking of dying in a big freeze, back to last night's debate. So, I was watching Prison Break, came to the first commercial, switched over to CNN to see if the debate was being interesting. I never went back to Prison Break. I got to the debate right when Hillary and Barack started their now infamous verbal battle. I believe this was the wildest debate I've ever seen and I pretty much watch them all. Usually the crowd is told to be quiet, not to applaud, not to boo, warned that violators of this policy might be removed.

Well, last night apparently there was no such warning, that, or the moderator, Wolf Blitzer, realized that what started as a debate had turned into a World Federation of Wrestling Match and crowd participation only helped with the spectacle. So we had loud cheering, clapping, booing, hissing. And a lot of laughing.

There has been sniping between the Clinton and Obama camps for a couple weeks now. Last night was the first time the pair directly shot barbs at each other, rather than through their surrogates, like Mr. Bill. The best zingers where when Barack accused Hillary of being a lackey for Wal-Mart to which Hillary accused Barack of working for Chicago slumlords.

All in all, I think John Edwards won this debate. Obama seemed a bit shell-shocked, like he was being hen-pecked. Hillary once more seemed to be the toughest of the three. And not in a good way.

This morning I finished Dick Morris's book "Because He Could" where he pretty much shreds Bill and Hillary. One part of the book details the Clinton's epic fights that many witnessed over the years. Another part pretty much made a real good case that it was Hillary who caused the worst of the Clinton scandals, the worse being refusing to let Bill settle the Paula Jones case out of court, which then led to Bill committing perjury, which then led to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Hillary was completely the cause of Travelgate, as well, despite the Clinton denials. Anyway, it is a good book. I recommend it.

Update: I liked the Morris book I finished this morning so much that this afternoon I got his latest book, the one where he counters Hillary's "Living History" book. His is called "Rewriting History". So far I'm only a few pages in and there's some good stuff. Like a section of Hillary's more bizarre bouts of getting caught in really weird lies. Like when she claimed to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary, he being the recently deceased first climber of Mount Everest. Trouble is Sir Edmund became a known name well after Hillary Clinton was born. And then there was the incident where Hillary made up a bizarre story on the Today Show, telling Katie Couric that Chelsea had been jogging around the Twin Towers when they were struck on 9/11. Trouble is Chelsea said later that she was miles away on the other side of Manhattan watching the nightmare unfold on TV, just like most of us experienced it.

MLK DAY & Civil War Re-Enactments

It is a cold and drippy Martin Luther King Day here in Texas. And once more I am dead dog tired having been up since 4am. I brought the Puerto Rican Terror to the airport early today. And just like I said she would be, when I mentioned this yesterday, she was deep into her cups. I think it was wine this time. At 7am. She called me from San Juan a few hours later and sounded sober. I think she prefers the second leg of her Puerto Rico trips to be sober because she is in a little prop plane in which the ride has turned scary a time or two, particularly the last time, on her return, when it had to make an emergency landing, and the rest of the journey to San Juan had to be in a taxi that went over the speed limit all the way to the airport. She called me when she got to San Juan and insisted I bring a bottle of vodka to the airport when I picked her up a few hours later. I'm passive aggressive, though, so somehow I forgot the booze.

Lulu called today when I was up at the north end of the D/FW Metroplex in the boomtown of Flower Mound. Lulu is being deathly ill with a cold. She sounded awful. I wanted her off the phone, she was not pleasant to listen to, like a wheezing, stuffed up old man is how she was sounding. Lulu has developed a somewhat deep voice in her later years, sort of like what happened with Lucille Ball. I believe Lulu's voice is now quite a bit deeper than her first husband's, which sort of makes their world more logical these days since she has always been the macho one in that relationship. Though he is 100% purebred German and has a nasty Nazi-level temper when provoked, when he yells it is rather high pitched and thus not all that intimidating. Now Lulu does not even have to yell and her voice is intimidating. All Lulu has to do is give you the look and you know there's gonna be trouble.

So, change of subject and I'm being too lazy to insert a horizontal line to make note of a change. So, it's Martin Luther King Day. There were interesting transcripts of phone conversations between MLK and LBJ in the paper today. They were quite supportive of each other. Interesting in the context of the odd brouhaha between Miss Hilllary and Mr. Obama of late over who gets credit for the advances in Civil Rights during the 60s.

I think since I've been in Texas I've only seen the results of the Civil Rights Movement, I've not seen a single incident of the type which made it necessary. I have been to a Civil War Re-Enactment, the Civil War was sort of a major Civil Rights Movement. I don't know if Martin Luther King would have approved of Civil War Re-Enactments, but I'm pretty certain he approved of the results of the Civil War.

The last of these Civil War Re-Enactment photos may be a bit disturbing. The wounded get brought to the field hospital where amputations take place. They make it look very realistic, including sawed-off limbs and rats sniffing about. The soldier getting cut on contributes to the realism by screaming real loud. And some of the women in period costume get the vapors and swoon. Quite a spectacle. And you can observe it all while gnawing down on a BBQ turkey leg that you can purchase for only $3. (U.S. currency only, no Confederate notes allowed)

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.