Clothing Optional Hippie Hollow Nude Beach in Austin

I've been working hard on trying to overcome my pathological shyness. So with gas prices so low it seemed like a good idea, at the time, to burn some driving down to Austin.

Why Austin, you ask? Well, near Austin there is a body of water called Lake Travis. And on that body of water there is a place called Hippie Hollow, where a human body visiting this particular body of water is not required to wear clothing, as in it is a clothing optional type of place, meaning people of all sizes, shapes, ages and gender are naked.

There are warning signs to caution those who might not realize they are entering a naked zone, as in signs saying "NOTICE: NUDE SWIMMING OR SUNBATHING ME BY OCCURRING BEYOND THIS POINT."

Now, yesterday was not the first time I've been naked. I take at least one shower every day and don't wear a swimming suit to do so. Yesterday was not the first time I've been naked outdoors. I have skinnydipped a time or two, among other things.

Hippie Hollow had some things viewable that I probably would have preferred to not have imprisoned in my memory. But there were some things viewable that I don't mind having seen. I'm hopeful the bad memories will fade.

A visit to Hippie Hollow is not free. In addition to the gas you'll need to burn to get there, you'll also have to pay a fully clothed park ranger 10 bucks before you can take your clothes off.

Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal California Connection

A discussion group on the San Jose Mercury News website was discussing controversies swirling about a new billion dollar football stadium that is going to be built in their area.

One of the people opining brought up the Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal and added links to my webpages that deal with that issue. They tried to link both to the main page that details what Jerry Jones did to Arlington and comments from around the world that mostly verbalize outrage over the worst case of eminent domain abuse in American history.

A San Jose Mercury News opiner then thanked me for the fixed links and added some interesting information about how Arlington got snookered by Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys, which you can read below....

"Thanks for this, Durango.

The stadium proposal in Santa Clara, California, probably won't require any eminent domain seizures because the land is already in our Redevelopment Area.

But your updated links make clear - or should make clear - to certain stadium boosters here: There is a real human cost to "plopping" an NFL stadium down anywhere. And in our neighborhood, there's a lotta denial on that subject.

Eminent Domain abuses aside, the Dallas Cowboys stadium has another cost as well:

"...After Dallas rejected a $425 million dollar subsidy the City of Arlington taxpayers approved an up to $325 million subsidy to pay for up to one-half of the cost of land acquisition, construction, and infrastructure required for the new Cowboy stadium."

http://business.baylor.edu/Tom_Kelly/cowboys.doc

Let's hope that the development of all of that seized land makes it worthwhile to somebody. Here in Santa Clara, we'll have nothing else to go with our $1B stadium except for a Convention Center and a theme park.

Here's how Arlington will pay that back:

AUSTIN, Texas -- Fitch Ratings has assigned an 'A' rating to the Arlington, Texas (the city) $312.7 million Dallas Cowboys Complex special obligation bonds. The financing is composed of three series:

--$136.9 million tax-exempt special tax bonds, series 2005A;
--$152.9 million tax-exempt special tax auction-rate bonds, series 2005B;
--$22.9 million taxable special tax and revenue bonds, series 2005C.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_June_27/ai_n14699827

Turns out that "A" grade is two grades down from AAA, or prime, and that means that Arlingtonians will be paying more to bondholders than they would for AA or AAA bonds.

Sounds like a raw deal to me.

If we hand a cash subsidy over to Dr. John York - we'll be selling bonds just for the privilege.

The lower our own bonds are rated, the more that Santa Clarans, now and in the future, will have to pay back to bondholders.

Golly, I can't wait."

Fort Worth & Texas Wesleyan University

Yesterday I was looking at my webstats and I saw my Eyes On Texas website was getting hits from the Texas Wesleyan University website. So, of course, I wondered what fresh hell this was.

I was quite surprised when I found out how they were linking to my stuff. It was in a totally delusional, far more delusional than even the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has ever been, description of Fort Worth. Describing Fort Worth as the cultural capital of the Southwest. And the top art and architecture city between the two coasts! And Fort Worth's zoo as ranked top in the country! Apparently Fort Worth is in a different country than San Diego, Seattle, New York City and Los Angeles.

I'll copy and paste the bizarro propaganda below.

But first I've gotta tell you the weirdest part of this warped description of Fort Worth. In the second sentence in the first paragraph we read the following, "Historic Downtown provides interesting architecture and wonderful entertainment for locals and visitors." Note the "Historic Downtown" link. They are linking to my take on downtown Fort Worth! It is not a flattering look. The TWU verbiage also mentions the Water Gardens. That is a pic from my Historic Downtown webpage, showing a sleeping homeless person in the Water Gardens.

Below is the amusingly weird verbiage from the TWU website. But, before you read that, I gotta say, you'll learn in the first sentence that Fort Worth is a model of urban planning. For who I shudder to wonder? At the end of the weird verbiage you'll read mention made of Heritage Park in this amazing model of urban planning. Heritage Park is in downtown Fort Worth. It is closed, surrounded by ugly cyclone fencing, a rundown eyesore. Go here for a look at the current state of this park in this model of urban planning.

From the Texas Wesleyan University website-----

"Fort Worth is a model of urban planning; you can visit different sections of town and find a variety of activities in their own distinctive settings. Historic Downtown provides interesting architecture and wonderful entertainment for locals and visitors. Friendly police patrol regularly on horseback, bicycle or segway and greet the visitors. Charming, unassuming, and remarkably unhurried, downtown's centerpiece, Sundance Square is 14 blocks of redbrick streets and late-19th-century buildings and has attractions that include the magnificent Bass Performance Hall (the permanent home to major performing arts organizations of Fort Worth including the symphony, ballet, opera, and live theater), a couple of cowboy museums, and a pair of Art Deco movie theaters. After lunch, you can relax and cool down in the sculptural Water Gardens, an oasis in the center of town. Downtown is visitor-friendly with sidewalks that invite strolling on the streets which are lit up like a Christmas tree at night. Sundance Square's restaurants and pubs are the heart of downtown nightlife and visitors can mingle with the out-going locals.

Fort Worth is considered the cultural capital of the Southwest, with a thriving performing arts scene and three of the most impressive small art museums in the country. Wealthy patrons (mostly from oil money) and an enthusiastic city welcomed some of the world's most celebrated architects to create the Kimbell Art Museum, Amon Carter Art Museum, and Museum of Modern Art which have made Fort Worth as perhaps the top art and architecture city between the two coasts. In the park-like Cultural District, along with the three art museums are the spacious and beautiful Botanical Gardens with its Japanese Gardens, Casa Manana (a theater-in-the-round under a geodesic dome), the Museum of Science and Natural History and its Omni Theater, the Will Rogers Center and Coliseum (home of national rodeos), the Log Cabin Village from pioneer days, and the Fort Worth Zoo, ranked top in the country. Fort Worth hosts the second largest park land space of any U.S. city. The scenic, green-belted Trinity River Trails provide runners and families 35 miles of natural-surfaced and paved paths linking the various parts of town with the several parks dotted along the way, like the Heritage Park downtown and the wooded Trinity Park in the Cultural District."

Forbes Magazine Hot Royals

Why would Forbes Magazine want to designate who they think are the World's "20 Hottest Young Royals?" With only unmarried royals under 35 qualified to be considered for their Hotness.

That is the world's #2 Hottest Royal in the photo, Hot Harry. So hot he had to take his shirt off.

Harry is the son of the late Princess Diana. I don't believe any DNA testing has been done to determine, for certain, who the father is.

UK Royals took the Top 4 Hot Spots. I've only heard of the first 2. I'd heard of none of the World's other Hot Royals either.

I'm so ignorant I didn't know that Sweden, Germany, Greece or Denmark even had royals. I knew the Arab countries were big on having Kings and Queens. 2 of them are Hot. I'm not totally fluent in Arab, but I think one of the Hot ones is a boy and the other a girl. I can't tell by their names, but #6 is a Sheik. I'm thinking that is Arab for Prince. And then at #17 we have a Sheika. Which I'm guessing is a girl Sheik.

The Sheik is from Dubai, the Sheika from the United Arab Emirates. #18 is also from an Arab country, Jordan, but she isn't a Sheika, she's a Princess. Africa has only 1 Hot Royal, coming in in last place, a Princess from Swaziland.

Here's the entire list for you to commit to memory.

01. Prince William (Britain)
02. Prince Harry (Britain)
03. Zara Phillips (Britain)
04. Princess Beatrice (Britain)
05. Charlotte Casiraghi (Monaco)
06. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (Dubai)
07. Princess Victoria (Sweden)
08. Prince Azim (Brunei)
09. Prince Carl Philip (Sweden)
10. Andrea Casiraghi (Monaco)
11. Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis (Germany)
12. Princess Madeline (Sweden)
13. Princess Theodora (Greece and Denmark)
14. Prince Wenzeslaus (Liechtenstein)
15. Princess Tsuguko (Japan)
16. Princess Sirivannavari (Thailand)
17. Sheikha Maitha bint Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (United Arab Emirates)
18. Princess Iman bint Al Hussein (Jordan)
19. Prince Philippos (Greece and Denmark)
20. Princess Sikhanyiso (Swaziland)

Is Bush an Idiot?

That is the subject of a Scarborough MSNBC YouTube video that you can watch below. I'd not seen many of Scarborough's pieces of evidence regarding Bush's possibly idiocy.

Am I remembering correctly? Did there used to be a time when we would not have openly speculated on such a thing regarding a president? Is it somehow in bad taste?

I know a tempermental Puerto Rican who thinks one should not speak ill of the president. Or make fun of him. She thought it was in terribly bad taste to include Bush on a list of men who looked like old lesbians.

Yesterday I blogged some pics of Bush acting goofy at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, where he'd given a commencement speech and then proceeded to engage in some frat boy frolicking with the cadets.

This morning I see on my web stats that I've got a lot of people from the Air Force Academy looking at that particular blogging. I hope they don't take umbrage.

Now, watch the below video and see if you think Bush is an idiot.

Something Actually Funny From The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

This afternoon I came across something amusing. And it is from a source where I've seldom found them being intentionally amusing, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Well. Unbeknownst to me, the Star-Telegram has been running this little weekly video show on their website called DaFoWo Show. As in Dallas Forth Worth Show.

I tried to embed the video from this week, but that source code did not work. It's pretty funny, with one section tracking Fort Worth's current Gaydometer Reading. And another showing one of my kind, a hapless Northerner, coping with the Texas heat. You can view the video I could not embed at the Star-Telegram website by going here. I don't know how long it will be viewable til replaced by the next week's video.

I found an episode from a month or so ago, on YouTube that I am able to embed below. It's not quite as amusing as the current week's episode, but it's still pretty funny in a couple places.

Alma is the First Hurricane of the Year

Alma became the eastern Pacific's first named Tropical Storm of the year today. She is dropping a lot of water on Central America and is expected to become a hurricane before she hits Nicaragua late today.

It seems odd to me that so many hurricanes are named after people I know. Alma is one of the best Songbirds of the South, currently performing in various venues on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Alma does not like hurricanes.

I don't know what Alma's predicted trajectory is after she leaves Nicaragua and enters the Caribbean. I don't know if Alma is heading in Alma's direction.

George W. Bush Air Force Academy Commencement Goofiness

Yesterday Our Dear Leader, President George W. Bush, gave a commencement speech at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

During his speech Bush said the whole Iraq thing had been a learning experience, as in he said, "we learned from hard experience that newly liberated people cannot make political and economic progress unless they first have some measure of security."

Let's see, we invaded Iraq while bombing the hell out of the country in a program called "Shock & Awe." We then occupied Iraq, supposedly to make sure Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

Then, for some reason some Iraqis did not feel as if they'd been liberated, they felt like they'd been invaded and so they fought back, hoping to be liberated of the liberators.

I know if some other country didn't like America having weapons of mass destruction, which we do have, and if that country thought America's leader was a threat to the peace of the world, and if that country decided to invade America, with a Shock and Awe bombing of Washington, D.C., including the presidential palace known as the White House and if after the invasion that country captured our President, put him on trial and then executed him, well, I would be quite mad and I would become an insurgent doing anything I could to hurt the invaders.

And it would really make me mad to hear the leader of the country that had invaded America, and toppled our government, claim that we'd been liberated.

And on a totally different note. The photos in this post were taken yesterday during the graduation ceremony. Bush appears to be acting quite goofy, what with chest thumping a cadet and smoking cigars, among other things.

Meanwhile two more Americans were killed in Iraq yesterday during a battle at a place in Iraq called Donkey Island.

The Bluest Skies I've Ever Seen Are In Seattle

Click here for a July posting about Seattle's Blue Sky, including song Seattle.

(The photo of Mount Rainier is the view from my big sister's place on Lake Meridian in Kent)

I believe I am heading that way in July. I've not been in Washington for over 2 years. When I'm gone this long it is a bit of an adjustment returning to the Evergreen State. First off, I'll be going from temps in the 100s to temps where the locals think they are having a heat wave when 2 days in a row temps are in the 80s. I'll feel very chilly. Til I acclimate.

Second off, the people will look to me like they've had the air let out of them. I first experienced this driving back for my mom and dad's 50th. It was in Colorado the people seemed to start looking deflated. And then I went into a Super Wal-Mart in Ontario, Oregon and it looked like everyone had just come from a 2 month stay at a health spa.

2004 was my last time in the Northwest during summer. That time Lulu plucked me from the airport and drug me to downtown Seattle to Pioneer Square to deliver some of her fabulous jewelry art to a gallery. I'd not been back in 3 years and I could not get over how many people were out and about in lively downtown Seattle. And how the vast majority looked like they'd had the air let out of them.

Fort Worth is so proud of being named the Liveliest Downtown in Texas. I wonder what a Fort Worther thinks when they see an actual lively downtown like Seattle's? With all its deflated people. It must be perplexing.

I'll be staying at my little sister's in Tacoma, where I'll play uncle to her babies, two cute poodles. The bulk of my time will be spent working with Operation Lulu. That should be fun. It always is.

(That is the Tacoma Dome in the pic, with Mount Rainier behind it. Both built with no eminent domain abuse.)

At some point in time my mom and dad will show up. I've not seen them in over 2 years. Today I learned I'll get to install some ceiling fans and chandeliers in my sister's house. I've not done something like that in awhile. I hope I don't electrocute myself.

I hope I manage to get over to Eastern Washington. I've not done that since 2004. I love spending time in Washington's Bavarian Village known as Leavenworth. When I first moved to Texas I read of a town here called Muenster, that promoted itself as if it were a Leavenworth type thing. It isn't. Leavenworth is Disneyesque in its attention to detail. Muenster was more like no one there knew where or what Bavaria is. Muenster did have a dusty German bakery and a German pizza parlor. I've no idea what that means.

It's the fresh fruit I really wanna go to Eastern Washington for. I've not had a good apricot in 4 years. I love apricots.

In Texas you can buy blackberries for about 3 bucks for a few ounces. In Washington blackberries grow everywhere. I intend to eat a lot of blackberries and have a lot of fresh blackberry milkshakes. And seafood. In Texas seafood is called catfish. I want cod. Or halibut. And some fresh out of the water dungeness crab. And oysters.

Since I moved to Texas all the berries that grow in Washington have now become known as Super Foods. I grew blueberries on my rooftop deck and never managed to eat all that I grew. I did not know, at the time, that they were Super Foods. Where I lived farms grew blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. But no blackberries, because they grow wild everywhere. It amazes me that blackberries are something you buy in a grocery store here in Texas.

I'll be blogging and doing a lot of video when I'm up north. I'm sure my thousands of readers will be eagerly anticipating that. I know I am.

Hulk Hogan Car Wreck

Hulk Hogan's son, Nick, is doing time for being underage while driving drunk and speeding, resulting in a wreck that left his friend, John Graziano, in a coma that he has not come out of.

Nick's wreck took place in Clearwater, Florida. On Sunday Hulk Hogan was driving his Mercedes and got into a 7 car pile-up. Also in Clearwater, Florida. I don't know if Hulk Hogan was drunk and speeding. I do know he is old enough to consume alcohol.

I also know jail conversations between Nick and his dad have been recorded and you can listen to them. In the one I listened to, Hulk Hogan trashes the guy that his son put into a coma. Nick says the guy in a coma was very negative.

On the recording I listened to there was not the slightest hint of remorse that the victim was in a coma. Instead, Nick was wanting his dad to help arrange for him to have a new reality show when he gets out of stir. A reality show detailing his comeback from being in jail.

Nick's main concern regarding his reality show was that he wanted to make as much money on it as possible.

Is there a petition somewhere we can sign to keep this kid from making money from doing jail time for being underage and driving drunk and putting someone in a coma?

You can listen here to Hulk Hogan and his jailbird son discuss the son's victim and his future. The son's future, I mean, not the victim's future. The two Hogan's don't seem to give a rat's ass about the victim.