Amtrak From Fort Worth To Tacoma

I'm pretty sure I'll be heading north to Tacoma next month. A pair of poodles await me. Among other things.

Years ago I rode Amtrak from Tacoma to Portland. It was awful. I've never been seasick or carsick. But I got trainsick. As in, by the time I got to Portland, I was totally nauseous, with a horrible headache that stayed with me all the way back to Tacoma, where barely a couple miles back driving on the freeway I had to exit and throw up.

So, I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to see if it was doable to take Amtrak from Fort Worth to Tacoma. It is doable. But totally, ridiculously bizarre.

First off it cost $418 one-way to Tacoma. And $414 to return to Fort Worth. That's $832 roundtrip. Flying is only about $350. Driving would even be cheaper. And funner, than Amtrak.

It's the convoluted route to get back and forth from Fort Worth to Tacoma that truly makes Amtrak bizarre.

I leave Fort Worth, July 16, on the Texas Eagle and 45 hours 30 minutes later I arrive in Los Angeles where I board a bus that takes me to Bakersfield where I get on another train, the San Joaquin and ride for 5 hours 10 minutes to Sacramento where I get on another train, the Coast Starlight and ride 19 hours 12 minutes to get to Tacoma, July 19, 4 days after I left Fort Worth.

And then the return to Fort Worth is even more bizarre. August 13 I get on the Coast Starlight, again, but this time it takes 19 hours 44 minutes to get to Sacramento (it's slower going south?) and then I get on the California Zephyr for a 48 hour 25 minute ride to Galesburg, Illinois, where I get on another train, the Southwest Chief and ride 4 hours 18 minutes to Kansas City where I get on another bus for an 8 hour ride to Oklahoma City to get on the Heartland Flyer for a 4 hour 14 minute ride back to Fort Worth for the end, on August 17, of a 5 day long return journey, where I would collapse and probably need to be hospitalized.

Well, it is now no longer a mystery to me why more people don't use Amtrak. One would think it would be feasible to run small passenger trains on a regular route, I dunno, like one heading through Fort Worth passing through Oklahoma City on its way to Denver and beyond.

There are train tracks all over this country. I've seen them. Why should it take way longer to take a train from Fort Worth to Tacoma than it takes to drive a car? I can drive there in 2 and half days. And that's with 2 motels stays. A train goes non-stop. It's 2200 miles when I drive to the Seattle zone. The routes Amtrak takes is thousands of extra miles.

The Farmer Got a Texas Wife

We are thrilled today in North Texas, thrilled I tell you. In yet one more example of what the Fort Worth Star-Telegram characterizes as Reality Shows love affair with Texas, spontaneous celebrations are likely breaking out all over North Texas, even more so in East Texas.

Why you ask?

Well, on some obscure TV cable station called, I think, CW, a farmer picked a wife. Bachelor farmers across the country are flooding the CW with applications to be the next farmer to get assistance in finding a wife.

The Farmer who so desperately wanted a wife is named Matt Neustadt. His fiance is named Brooke Ward. She is from somewhere in East Texas. The Star-Telegram has let us know countless times that Brooke Ward attended some college in Fort Worth. So, the celebrating will likely be quite big here in Fort Worth. I do not know, at this point in time, if there will be an official city wide celebration like there was the time a little known D.C. lobbying group put Fort Worth on some self-serving list of Most Livable Cities, or something like that. Most towns who got this bogus honor ignored it. But not Fort Worth, we had a celebration!

Radio Shack's Fort Worth Troubles

Last week a mouthpiece for Fort Worth's ruling junta objected to me suggesting Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision would likely turn into yet one more Fort Worth Boondoggle. Well, we had some prime Fort Worth Boondoggle material in the news today.

You are looking at what used to be Radio Shack's Corporate Headquarters in this photo, with what used to be Pier 1 Imports Corporate Headquarters in the background. Radio Shack's Headquarters was built with $86 million in tax breaks.

Radio Shack's Headquarters opened in 2005. To build their headquarters, Radio Shack used what was, to my mind, til the Dallas Cowboys out did them, the worst case of eminent domain abuse I'd witnessed.

Radio Shack booted hundreds of low income dwellers from their homes. Radio Shack also obliterated one of Fort Worth's few unique things, that being a free subway that ran from huge parking lots, also obliterated, to downtown. It used to be so easy to park downtown.

A short distance from Radio Shack, Tarrant County College was building a new campus. It's design was pretty interesting. I commented a couple weeks ago that this building might finally give Fort Worth an iconic structure that people in other parts of the world might recognize as being Fort Worth.

A powerful local, last name of Bass, a man with demonstrably bad taste when it comes to architecture, objected to the design of the new college, a design which included a pedestrian bridge across the Trinity River to more college buildings.

Well, that Bass man has gotten his way, there will be no bridge across the Trinty, no campus on the other side of the river, no sunken plaza. In other words, all that made this building unique has been taken away.

But what about the college? Well, Radio Shack has been on hard times for a long time. It always seemed bizarre to me that they would build such a palace for their headquarters, structures that seemed totally at odds with the tacky, run-down, trashy look of Radio Shack stores.

Like I said, Radio Shack got $86 million in tax breaks from Fort Worth to obliterate those parking lots, get rid of the subway, evict all those people and build their headquarters.

And now, Radio Shack has sold its corporate headquarters to Tarrant County College for $238 million. TCC estimates they will spend another $80 million renovating the Radio Shack buildings into class rooms.

Meanwhile, back at the original new TCC construction site, the parts already under construction, will be finished and turned into mostly administration offices.

As for Pier 1 Imports, they also have been having troubles. Soon after opening their new headquarters they turned off a bright light that shot skyward, to save money. And now their headquarters has been taken over by Chesapeake Energy, which has enough energy to turn the light back on.

So, Radio Shack lasted less than 3 years in its new headquarters. It's estimated the taxpayers are out about $100 million.

Does all this sound boondogglish to any of you?

Soon, another Fort Worth tax break beneficiary will be completed, that being the Omni Convention Center Hotel. The thinking for subsidizing the hotel was that the lack of a good hotel near the convention center was the reason that not many conventions took place in Fort Worth's Convention Center. No hotel builder saw the economics as justifiable to build a hotel, hence the tax breaks. Other cities, like Seattle, that do get a lot of conventions, do not have to subsidize the construction of hotels near their convention centers.

So, I predict that soon after the Omni Hotel opens there will be noises that its losing money due to many many empty rooms. Two years later it will shut down. Fort Worth will then take it over and turn it into their new city hall.

Meanwhile in far north Fort Worth there sits another underperforming beneficiary of Fort Worth tax breaks, that being the customer shy sporting goods store called Cabelas. Now, when Cabelas decides it needs to shut down its underperforming store I'm thinking it'd be a great building to makeover into a north campus of Tarrant County College.

In the end the taxpayers do get something from these Fort Worth Boondoggles, besides getting it in the end.

Matt Damon's Fat

Way back in 1996 Matt Damon played a heroin addict in a movie called Courage Under Fire. He had to lose 40 pounds in 100 days for 2 days of filming for a movie that I don't think ever got released. Damon had to take meds for years after this, due to damage done to his adrenal gland.

And now, 12 years later, Matt Damon has gone the other direction, as you can see in the photo. While he appears nowhere near being obese, it is clearly obvious that Matt Damon has decided to contribute to the National Strategic Fat Preserve.

Matt Damon may be endangering his health, again, for a movie, this time one called The Informant.

Narcoleptic Poodle

My sister in Tacoma has a pair of poodles who think I'm their uncle. They are named Max & Blue. Max & Blue have a blog. This morning Max & Blue blogged about a Narcopleptic Poodle. And complained that my sister was also narcoleptic because she wouldn't get up and get them some grub. Max & Blue constantly crave McDonald's Cheeseburgers.

Go to Max & Blue's Blog and watch the video about the Narcoleptic Poodle. It is both funny and sort of sad.

Texas Insomnia & Saharan Dust Storms

I had a bad bout of insomnia last night, for the first time in a couple months. I'd been taking sleeping pills, but last night I didn't remember I'd run out of my supply of knock out pills.

Last night I was tired, I was yawning, I'd have no problem falling asleep, or so I thought. I watched Hell's Kitchen til 9. That may have been too stimulating. I was then at the computer til 10. Again, maybe too stimulating. Then I went to bed and read a book I've almost finished, "Voices From the Third Reich." Again, likely too stimulating.

I turned off the lights coming up on 11. At about 11:30 that idiot Puerto Rican I've mentioned before called. She knows I go to bed early. The phone ringing was too stimulating. Of course, I did not answer it when I saw who it was. And then a minute later the voice mail tone went off. Again, too stimulating.

I lay in bed, over-stimulated, wondering if the Puerto Rican had called, all angry, due to reading something I may have said about her in my Blog. So, I got up and listened to the voice mail. I quickly deleted it when I could tell she was drunk and was calling me at almost midnight to tell me she'd watched the finale of Desperate Housewives again. That it was real good. That I should watch it.

So, back in bed, any sleep impulse totally evaporated. I tossed. I turned. The overhead fan made me chilly, so I turned it off. Still not asleep, coming up on 3am, I turned off the A/C and turned the overhead fan back on.

Sometime just after 4am I feel asleep for about 15 minutes. During those 15 minutes I had a nightmare involving my deceased grandma and me trying to help my now shrunken grandma navigate the kitchen floor at the house I grew up in, in Burlington, Washington. I woke up overheated.

I fell asleep again sometime after 5am. This time the nightmare was a Nazi stabbing another Nazi and another Nazi telling him to stop and the stabbing Nazi then slicing his own throat. Of course I woke up instantly and then laid there pondering what the significance of this nightmare was. I'm still pondering.

Sometime about 6am I heard the Star-Telegram hit my front door. So, I got up, made coffee, laid on the floor drinking the coffee and read the paper, what little of it there was worth reading. Then I got on the computer, saw how much Google money I made yesterday and then proceeded to blog my grumpy disdain for that recurring Star-Telegram inanity of pointing out Texas connections to people in the news. No matter how trivial.

It's gonna be a very long day. I am constitutionally unable to take naps. My first chance of being able to sleep will come sometime past 9pm this evening. I will need to brave going to Wal-Mart today to get a fresh supply of knockout drugs. I'd rather be a drug addict than suffer through another night like last night.

This is the last WWII book I'm reading. I must cut down on the amount of stimulation I subject myself to.

And as if my personal misery weren't enough, today north Texas is being blighted by a dust storm that has blown in from the Sahara Desert. That's in Africa for those of you who didn't know when the American Civil War took place. I hate it when we get a Saharan Dust Storm here. It makes me sneeze.

Texas Under Represented on Reality Shows

Only a few days left in the month and the likely cancellation of my subscription to Fort Worth's #1 newspaper. I don't know what I'll do without it, it's like a gift that keeps on giving.

Today, in the first paragraph of an article titled "Area stylists on 'Shear Genius' cut to the chase for us" the Star-Telegram's TV writer, Robert Philpot, had this to say about a Bravo Reality Show about hairdressers, called Shear Genius.

"Reality TV's love affair with North Texas gets truly snippy tonight as Dallas area hairstylists Daniel Lewis and Matthew Tully are among the contestants on season two of Shear Genius, Bravo's haircutting competition."

Now, I'm thinking the above is just yet one more example of how the Star-Telegram repeats nonsense without questioning its premise. Like how over and over again the Star-Telegram trumpeted that a sporting goods store, being built in Fort Worth, would be the biggest tourist attraction in Texas. Or when the Star-Telegram over and over and over again trumpeted a lame little food court called the Sante Fe Market as being the first public market in Texas and being modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market.

So, let's look at the Star-Telegram's bizarre premise that Reality TV has a love affair with Texas. First off there are almost 30 million Texans. There are about 300 million Americans. So, Texas makes up about 10% of America's population.

So, all things being proportional, Texans should make up about 10% of the people on Reality Shows.

Do Texans make up 10% of the people on Reality Shows? I don't think so. Anymore than Cabela's is the top tourist attraction in Texas or the now closed Sante Fe Rail Market ever in the slightest resembled either a public market or Pike Place Market.

I would say Texas is being under-represented. Maybe that's why the Star-Telegram makes such a big whoop-de-doo whenever anyone on any show has any remote connection to Fort Worth, North Texas or Texas.

On the main TV page Philpot repeats his obsession, again, in a blurb about Shear Genius, saying "North Texas is represented by Frisco's Daniel Lewis and Dallas' Matthew Tully." In case we missed it the first time we got this important information.

And then in another blurb, this one about Farmer Wants a Wife, we learn that "Texas Christian University grad Brooke Ward has made it to the final two...."

Like I mentioned yesterday, in response to an emailer who suggested this was indicative of a small town mentality. Yes, it is. You New Yorkers ever read this type verbiage in the Times? Seattleites? Ever see this type stuff in the P-I? Los Angelenos, ever see it in the LA Times? Chicagoites, ever in the Tribune? San Fransicsans, ever in the Chronicle? Portlanders, ever in the Oregonian? Anyone, anywhere?

Oh yeah, I can see the LA Times having a lead paragraph read "Reality TV's love affair with Southern California gets truly snippy tonight...."

Pearls of Wisdom from Rush Limbaugh

I don't remember why, but I get an email every weekday from Rush Limbaugh. It's an email newsletter about that day's radio show.

I'd not listened to Rush Limbaugh for a week or so, til today, while pedaling my bike. I pedal pretty much everywhere these days. Keeping me fueled is cheaper than keeping fuel in my vehicle.

Mr. Limbaugh was being particularly amusing today. If only he'd tone down his ranting about liberals I would find him totally bearable. That particular ranting just seems way over the top, he so demonizes liberals, you'd think they were a scourge like Nazis.

An 80 something long time listener, first time caller, waited for over 2 hours to get to tell Rush that he looked good in that cowboy hat in the photo above. Rush Limbaugh has trouble accepting compliments. It can make him stammer. A stammering Rush Limbaugh is amusing.

One of the things I do agree with Limbaugh about is we share an aversion to whining doom and gloom mongers. They are almost always pretty much ignorant and so the world becomes voodoo nonsense to them as they stumble about in their empty little brains, being afraid of the world they live in. But not afraid to spout their nonsensical ignorance driven drivel.

Yes, I'm talking about you, you Latina Hothead.

So, here is one of Rush Limbaugh's Pearls of Wisdom from today's "Rush in a Hurry" newsletter.

Pearl of Wisdom: "I instinctively do not have a pessimistic view of the future of this country. I can find for you times in our recent past where gasoline prices have gone up identically in terms of percentage increase. Because of my advanced age of 57, I've been through these things and worse. The country is better today than at any time in my life, economically and with opportunity."

There have been times when gas has gone up by 50% in 6 months? I had no idea. Of course, Rush Limbaugh makes millions of bucks a year. He can afford to put gas in his tank. He doesn't even own a bicycle. Today he went on and on about his lifelong aversion to walking. He's hated it ever since he learned to do it. He estimates he walks no more than 10 feet a day. This came up when he questioned a statistic in some article he was quoting which said the average American walks over 900 miles a year. Rush figured that was over 2 miles a day and seemed unlikely.

Seemed unlikely to me too. Then again, I easily walk over 2 miles a day. Walking and biking are currently my only means of transport. I gave up on roller blades due to one bad fall too many.

George Carlin and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

My one long time reader may remember me making mention of an extremely weird oddity in my local inept newspaper of record. That being that if there is any remote connection between a person in the news and a location in north Texas, especially Fort Worth, the Star-Telegram will let you know that important fact, no matter how tenuous the connection may be. Like a person on American Idol may have visited Fort Worth at some point in time. This paper will let you know that important fact.

So, on Sunday George Carlin died. In an example of how hard it is for newspapers to compete with TV and the Internet, timeliness-wise, the George Carlin obit did not show up in the Star-Telegram til today.

That is understandable. What is not understandable is the Star-Telegram George Carlin obit's inclusion of the weirdest example yet of this paper's twisted need to make that all important Fort Worth connection.

Here's the Star-Telegram's front page George Carlin obit.....

"Comic George Carlin, who's being remembered as a counterculture hero, died Sunday of heart failure at age 71 after a long career on stage and in TV and film. But he had Fort Worth connections that predate his fame: He honed his act here in the late 1950s, when he was a DJ at the now defunct radio station KXOL."

He died. But he had Fort Worth connections? I am not making this up. The above paragraph is word for word what is on the front page of this failing newspaper. My longtime reader may remember that I heard from the guy who writes about TV for this paper. He told me the Star-Telegram does this type idiocy so as to give its readers a local connection to a story, unlike that evil paper in that evil town 30 miles to the east.

In reaction to one of my previous diatribes on this subject someone emailed me that "Fort Worth seems to have a small town mentality, which would seem to be like some sort of civic mental illness in a city of almost 700,000 population."

I couldn't have said it better.

Fort Worth Video

I've no clue as to what the point of this video is. The only thing about it that I do know is you get to see what some of Fort Worth looks like. From a hearse.