Food Costs, Gas Costs & Obesity

I grow tired of hearing the constant lamenting of rising food and gas prices. Not that I don't feel the pain. It's just that rather than whine, I don't know why people just don't do something about it if money is getting tight due to having to spend more on food and gas.

Take gas, for instance. There are some places you absolutely need to drive to, you can't avoid it. Other drives you can avoid. Like I used to think nothing of driving 50 miles round trip to Cedar Hills State Park in Dallas to go on an 8 mile mountain bike ride. I've done that dozens of times during my exile in Texas.

When the drive to Cedar Hills came to cost about 10 bucks in gas, that just seemed a really stupid thing to do. That and I used to buy an annual park pass, which I no longer buy, saving another $70, or whatever it costs now.

I'm pretty certain I'm spending way less on gas now than when it cost $1.29 a gallon. I used to like to drive up to Lake Grapevine, once more about 50 miles roundtrip, to hike or bike at Rockledge Park. Then I discovered Tandy Hills Park, with greatly superior hiking, only 4 miles from my abode.

Which leads me to the food cost increase.

Well.

It has been my observation, particularly here in Texas, that America could stand to go on a National Diet. There is way too much obesity. I saw a hugely fat little kid yesterday, swimming. To me letting your kid get that fat is a form of child abuse.

I've never been much of a junk fooder. But I do like cheese, the sharper the better. When cheese prices spiked I quit buying it, just on the principle of it. My own cooking is usually healthier than eating in a restaurant, so I do that seldom. It's way cheaper to eat your own cooking.

If the chubby people would cease going to fast food joints, or cut way back, they'd save money, calories and gas.

If the chubby people would get out of their car and walk a bit more they'd burn more calories and less gas.

I see fat people at the Super Wal-Mart riding in the motorized carts, due to being unable to walk, due to their heft, with their cart filled with awful stuff like packaged donuts, candy, bags of chips, frozen breaded chicken parts, frozen corn dogs, bacon, ice cream and assorted other things that you shouldn't be eating if you're obese, with no sign of fresh fruit, vegetables or anything nutritious and lo-cal in the cart.

It is my totally based on nothing guess that America could stand to cut back on what it collectively eats by 30% or more. If demand for food goes down, the price will go down, just like the price of gas would go down if the demand for gas dropped.

Other nations do not have the advantage that America has in this area. The American people are together carrying millions of tons of stored calories, sort of a food version of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

So, now, in this time of crisis, it is time for America to draw on its Strategic Fat Reserve and go on a National Diet. This will bring down the price of food, the price of gas and the price of health care. It's a win, win, win.

Stuck: The Movie and Fort Worth

I sort of recollect mentioning an oddity which regularly occurs in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, one where if there is even the most remote of a connection between Forth Worth and someone in the news, or on TV, the Star-Telegram will let you know.

Well, today there was an example of this that I would have expected the Star-Telegram to ignore, as it is one of those connections that you really don't want to have associated with your town.

A movie named Stuck opens today. Stuck is about a woman who runs into a homeless man with her car, impaling him in her windshield. She then drives home, parks in her garage, leaves the man bleeding and dying while she goes in the house to make whoopee with her boyfriend.

Stuck is set in Providence, Rhode Island and filmed in Canada.

And now the Fort Worth connection. On October 26, 2001, a woman in my Fort Worth neighborhood named Chante Mallard rammed into a homeless man named Gregory Biggs, impaling his head and torso in her Chevy Cavalier windshield. Mr. Biggs is believed to have lived for 3 days, stuck in the windshield while Ms. Mallard made whoopee with her boyfriend.

The Stuck movie version of this crime leaves out a lot of what Ms. Mallard did. The Star-Telegram's review of this movie made the Fort Worth connection in the first sentence, as in "Loosely based on an incident that occurred several years ago in Fort Worth." They might have added, being more true to the paper's usual form, that Ms. Mallard was born and raised in Fort Worth, in addition to committing her heinous crime in Fort Worth. I don't know where she is serving her jail time.

Go here to read a New York Times article about the 'incident' that Stuck is based on.

Gas Prices. What Are You Going To Do?

A cottage industry seems to have sprouted up giving people advice about what to do, travel-wise, what with gas costing a little more than last summer. Like here in the D/FW Metroplex, in the local papers and on the radio, I've heard advice to stay close to home and visit the local attractions.

And then a few days ago in the New York Times I saw a pretty goofy variant under the title, "The 31 Places to Go This Summer." The article starts off with, "Traveling this summer may sound like a cruel joke: airlines are getting worse, gas prices are creeping toward $5 a gallon and the euro continues to go up, up, up. It's almost enough to make you stay home. Almost."

And then proceeded to offer 31 suggestions. I'd been to quite a few of the suggestions, so I slightly know whereof I speak. One suggestion that made sense, yet oddly named, as in the label was "Pacific Northwest." The suggestion was to ride AmTrak and stay in Glacier National Park.

Another suggestion that sort of made sense, if you were already in Washington, was to take the ferry to the San Juan Islands. I have not done that since the summer before I moved to Texas. Walked onboard in Anacortes and for only 4 bucks you could ride to all the islands. Lulu informed me yesterday that it now costs something like 60 bucks to take your car and one passenger out to Friday Harbor in the San Juans. She did not know how much a walk on now costs.

As for goofy gas and money saving suggestions, one was houseboating on Lake Powell. I've done this twice. No matter which marina you find your boat, it is gonna be a long drive to get there, even if you fly into the nearest airport and rent a car. And renting a houseboat is not cheap, as in over a couple thousand bucks for 4 days. And you pay for the gas. The houseboats do not get good gas mileage.

That is a Lake Powell pic at the top. Me in the lotus position high atop a redrock bluff in a place we called Bobcat Cove, misnamed because it was a Mountain Lion, not a Bobcat, that I heroically saved everyone from in the middle of the night. You can read all about that trauma here. That is me being the Captain of what I came to call Hell Houseboat in the photo on the left.

Another goofy suggestion was to go to Monument Valley. Now, Monument Valley is very cool. And the drive there goes through some great scenery, like the Painted Desert. But once more, there is driving involved. Monument Valley is in a rather isolated location.

One of the suggestions was to go to Las Vegas. I can get behind this. Easily flown to and once there you don't have to drive. Lulu would suggest you fly to Vegas and then rent a car to drive to Lake Powell. Or Monument Valley. I think I make mention of why Lulu would suggest this in the Lake Powell link above. Or just click here.

# 1 on the NY Times list is Texas Hill Country. Been there done that. I wouldn't suggest it. Unless you've not seen hills before. I believe Texas Hill Country is #1 on the list due to the list being arranged in no particular order, not due to it being in order of supposed merit.

The Western Road Trip suggestion goes through some nice scenery, starting in Vegas and having you go to Bryce Canyon NP en route to Capitol Reef NP. Why it has you skipping the North Rim of the Grand Canyon or Zion NP, I do not know. But, once more, a lot of driving would be involved.

I can get behind the suggestion to visit Portland, Oregon. But it makes no mention of nearby Mt. St. Helens. Another suggestion is to drive Highway 101 along the Oregon Coast. I've not done that in a long time and would love to.

Anyway, go here to check out the rest of the list in the New York Times.

George W. Bush Eminent Domain Abuser?

This morning I Googled "dallas cowboy stadium scandal" and was surprised to see this search string brought up 644,000 hits. I was a little less surprised to see that this very blog Googled #1 for that search striing with my Eyes on Texas website Googling #2.

But what really surprised me was some of the info this search string brought up. As in I did not know that there had been eminent domain abuse in Arlington prior to the outrageous, should be criminal, abuse that was done to get land for the new Dallas Cowboy stadium.

None other than our Dearly Beloved Leader, George W. Bush, was part of what New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof described "as a sordid tale of cronyism, of misuse of power, of cozy backroom money-grubbing -- a more pressing threat to American business than outright criminality." He called Bush's dealings appalling. "Even Kazakhstan," he said, "would blush at such practices."

Go here to read the New York Times article titled "Bush and The Texas Land Grab."

Go here to read another article on the same subject which references the NY Times article and is titled "Taking Propoerty, Bush's landgrab -- and the New York Times."

How did this guy get elected? Both as the governor of Texas. And the U.S. President. It's perplexing.

And what is wrong with the city of Arlington?

Who was it who said something like "That which you do to the least of us, you do to me?" Oh, yeah, Jesus. I've seen a lot of churches in Arlington. I've not paid close enough attention to ascertain if they are Christian churches. With Arlington's civic bad behavior regarding how the city allows its citizens to be treated, I suspect these must not be Christian churches. How did that happen in the Buckle of the Bible Belt?

Texas Tomato Salmonella

Great. I've not bought a tomato for quite some time. Mostly because I'd not seen any that looked all that good.

Actually the only real good tomato seems to be one I grow myself. Which I tried to do at my first location in Texas. That's how I learned about locusts. I did not successfully grow any tomatoes in Texas to the eating stage. Actually that isn't true. They did grow to eating stage, but it was the swarm of locusts that got to eat them.

Anyway, so I bought some nice deep red-looking roma tomatoes. Grilling burgers with tomatoes and onions with real sharp cheese seemed a good plan. And so I did so.

And now I learn there have been 17 hospitalized victims of Salmonella in 9 states, including Texas, that is being called the "Tomatoes Salmonella Outbreak." I guess in Texas it would be called the "Texas Tomatoes Salmonella Outbreak."

It's been almost 24 hours since I consumed the possibly contaminated tomatoes. I did thoroughly wash them before slicing. At least I think I was thorough. I have read that washing the tomatoes takes care of the problem. Why aren't they washed before they end up in a grocery store?

Tommy Lee Jones and the Barnett Shale

Several energy companies, including one called Chesapeake, have been drilling holes in north Texas for several years now, tapping into this thing called Barnett Shale and using a controversial water process to fracture the shale and release natural gas.

As the drilling advanced right into the heart of the Dallas/Fort Worth urban zone there began to be an ever louder level of protest, particularly when places like Tandy Hills Park were threatened.

The threat to Tandy Hills led to the forming of a group known as the Eastside Rabblerousers. The group grew ever larger and ever louder. They began to help people all over D/FW fight back against the gas drillers. The main leader of the Eastside Rabblerousers, Don Young, along with others, started a well done website to help them wise people up to the drilling issue.

The Eastside Rabblerouser's success led to what is happening now. It's one of the strangest things I've seen. The energy companies, mostly Chesapeake Energy, for several months now, have been running a massive Orwellian, Sovietesque, Goebbels Worthy Propaganda Campaign.

Many of Fort Worth's public transit buses have been totally covered with signs saying things like "Thanks Barnett Shale for our Strong Economy." This when the city of Fort Worth has had to make massive layoffs of city employees due to a huge budget shortfall.

Dozens upon dozens of Chesapeake billboards litter the landscape almost on the scale of their drilling rigs. At some points on the freeway there are more than one Chesapeake billboard in a row hammering home the propaganda. The billboards repeat the messages on the buses, things like "Friends of Barnett Shale" and "Barnett Shale Helps Our Schools."

The propaganda slogans are repeated in full page ads in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, almost daily.

And then a couple weeks ago, new Chesapeake billboards appeared with actor Tommy Lee Jones being a shill, like you can see above with him saying, "Let's get behind the Barnett."

So, our lead Eastside Rabblerouser decided that maybe Tommy Lee Jones needed to be wised up as to what it is he is shilling for. This led to a letter writing campaign, with the letters sent to Tommy Lees Jones' residence in Texas.

Don Young sent me a copy of his letter to Tommy Lee Jones. It is a very good letter. I'll paste the last 4 paragraphs and you can go here to read the entire enlightening letter.

I’ll end this letter by telling you about the latest news from Chesapeake: I recently learned that they are proposing an 18" gas pipeline that will run through the front yards of four blocks of a residential street near my home. This is a quiet, well-established neighborhood.

Thanks to Chesapeake, nearly every tree on that side of the street will be cut down and new trees can never be planted over the pipeline. Some of those trees are over 100 years old. Most of those homes have kids and old folks living there who will miss those trees. Homeowners will never be able to recoup the value of their homes that sit 4 feet above a disaster waiting to happen.

This unbelievable scenario is no longer an isolated incident in Fort Worth. Why? Because companies like Chesapeake want to make more money and their ad campaign featuring you, Mr. Jones, is helping them do it.

I hope you will accept my offer to give you an unvarnished tour of Fort Worth in the near future. I want you to see with your own eyes how companies like Chesapeake Energy are turning Fort Worth into a Dirty Ol’ Town.

Sincerely,
Don Young
Founder, Friends of Tandy Hills Natural Area

Bill Clinton Slimes Todd Purdum and Vanity Fair

While mountain biking today, before I got a flat tire, I heard Rush Limbaugh going on and on over Bill Clinton ranting over something. But I caught the tail end of the the Limbaugh ranting on this subject, so I didn't know what it was Clinton had said or what it was about.

Hours later I learned it was an article in Vanity Fair by Dee Dee Meyer's husband, Tood Purdum that set Clinton off, when a campaign event attender in South Dakota asked Clinton about the article. Clinton blamed Purdum for his Whitewater Woes, among other things. With Bill, it is just never Bill who is the cause of his problems. Bill seems to have a very low opinion of the husband of his ex-press secretary. Dee Dee Meyers no longer speaks to Bill Clinton. I imagine after hearing Bill describe her husband as a lying, dishonest, sleazy slimeball she'll be even more disinclined to speak to the man.

Interesting to me, among many interesting things, in the Vanity Fair article Purdum does not mention Whitewater, but he does describe current Clinton shenanigans that when I read Purdum's description of them, I thought, geez, it's like Whitewater on a Grand Scale.

Read the Vanity Fair article here. Watch the video below to hear Bill Clinton's reaction to the Vanity Fair article. Judge for yourself who the slimebag is, Bill Clinton or Todd Purdum. I've made my choice.

Bobcat & Mountain Lion Encounters

Five days ago, hiking at Tandy Hills Park I had a close encounter with a very large cat. We stared at each other til I started to move forward which spooked the cat into running away. I'd previously seen a large tannish colored cat in the distance. Til then, I really didn't believe the rumors that such an animal existed in the park. I don't know what type cat this was. I'd read that panthers have been spotted. Here in Texas they usually call mountain lions, panthers. In the northwest they were usually called cougars.

Long ago a Dallas reporter visited Fort Worth and wrote that the town was so lifeless that a panther was spotted sleeping at the courthouse steps. Or was it city hall? This long ago story is why Fort Worth is called Panther City and why it's baseball team is the Cats. So, apparently there is a long history of panther encounters in Fort Worth.

What perplexes me is, though this cat did look like a cougar, it was only about twice as big as a very big housecat. The cougars I've seen in zoos or stuffed in museums have been quite large. Way bigger than the cat at Tandy Hills. This cat at Tandy Hills was just a little bigger than a bobcat.

Which leads me to yesterday's encounter at River Legacy Park, my first with a bobcat in quite some time. My first encounter with a bobcat was on the River Legacy Park mountain bike trails. I'll admit it scared me. At that point in time I was sure it wanted to eat me. I was to learn later that there is no record of a bobcat attack on a human.

So, my subsequent bobcat encounters did not scare me. My strangest bobcat encounter occurred on the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Trinity River at River Legacy. As soon as I turned onto the bridge I saw a bobcat walking on to the bridge at the other end. He kept walking towards me and I kept pedalling towards him. We passed in the middle, both looking at each other, he not saying a word, me saying "Hello kitty."

I did not have my camera with me during my Tandy Hills panther encounter. I did with yesterday's bobcat, which is the source of the photo above.

Below is video taken by Dave of Dallas of a bobcat encounter at River Legacy Park.

The Chicken Crossed the Road. Why?

Incoming from the Songbird of the South known as Alma:

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.......

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...

ANDERSON COOPER - CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.

THE LATE JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth?' That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&^(C% .reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

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.