Southwest Airlines to Tacoma

Today's trip to Tacoma started off bad. But by the time I landed at Sea-Tac it was the best flight north yet.

Due to flying Southwest I had to fly out of Love Field in Dallas. Love Field sucks compared to the easy to use D/FW Airport. Parking was not easy. Going through security was the worst yet, with the conveyor built moving too much through the scanner, resulting in my laptop almost being knocked off.

I was wearing sandals and they made me take them off. So, I was barefoot during the chaos of trying to deal with my 4 trays of assorted cameras, computers, power supplies and stuff falling out of my backpack.

By the time I got my sandals back on I was a sweaty mess. I wanted water. The first water faucet was broken. I was really was starting to hate Love Field. I got to my gate, then took off to find water. I was successful.

Due to checking in online I was in Boarding Group A, Position 43. Southwest does not assign seats. I was able to get a window seat.

The first leg of this journey was to Albuquerque. We were barely in the air when drinks were mentioned. About a half hour later the waitress, I mean, stewardess, took my order. I was thirsty. I wanted Coke. Full sugar. About another half hour went by and finally the drink orders began to appear in the distance. I felt like I was in Hell's Kitchen.

By then I was getting cranky. A half hour prior to the Coke arriving 2 bags of peanuts were given to each of us. Salty peanuts. This did not help the thirst problem.

Finally, the Coke arrived at my section of the plane. In the littlest plastic cup I've seen, maybe 4 ounces.

I was really cranky by then. And then it began to turn around. A short time later the waitress asked if I needed anything else. Was there anyway I could have another Coke, I asked. Sure, you can. So, she brought me another.

By the time we landed in New Mexico I was back happy. Most of the people got off the plane. Then a head count was made. Then we could move to a new seat if we wanted. So, I moved to the front of the plane on the right side. This was a mistake.

The new people began to file in. No one had taken the seat next to me. Good thing. Then the announcer said everyone was on board. I like the extra room of an empty seat next to me. And then this guy and his kid could not find 2 seats next to each other. One of the waitresses asks if anyone would give up their seat. She offered free booze type drinks. Someone took the offer. And moved to the empty seat next to me.

She turned out to be interesting once she got liquored up on the wine they kept bringing her.

I was back thirsty again. We went through the same process again. This time it was Cheese Nips and peanuts a half hour before the Coke showed up. This time the second Coke showed up quickly. Then, a half hour to go to Seattle, she asked me again if I needed anything. Another Coke would be great, I said, my throat is sore. Which it was, due to breathing Level Orange Texas Ozone. She said she'd bring me a whole can. Which she did.

By then I was liking Southwest Airlines. I'm easy to make happy.

And then we flew the closest to Mount Rainier that I ever remember being. And I was on the wrong side of the plane. I did get a good view of the North Cascades, including the Mount Baker volcano, near where I used to live.

That's what you see in the above photo.

Max & Blue and Kristin and Michele were there to pick me up at Sea-Tac. It felt like natural air-conditioning outside. Now I'm in my current basement apartment and I'm sorta chilly. I can't remember the last time I was sorta chilly. It's a good thing.

Tacoma vs. Fort Worth

Tacoma is to Seattle sorta like Fort Worth is to Dallas. Tacoma's population is around 200,000, Seattle's a bit over a half million, both in a Metro area of about 3 million.

Fort Worth's population is over 700,000, Dallas over a million, both in a Metro zone approaching 6 million.

Fort Worth, with a population over 3 times bigger than Tacoma, is in the early talking about it stage of building some sort of rail transit. Tacoma already has such a thing. That's one of the Sound Transit trains in the photo, near Tacoma's museums, like the Glass Museum. Tacoma does not call its museum district their Cultural District, though, like Fort Worth does.

Also in the museum area is Tacoma's new $300 million convention center. Fort Worth spent a bit over $100 million updating their outdated, seldom used convention center and had to fund it in 3 stages. A new hotel was built across the Sound Transit rail line from Tacoma's convention center. Fort Worth had to give tax breaks to get a new hotel for their convention center.

It is free to ride Tacoma's Sound Transit. It runs from a transit hub similar to Fort Worth's downtown transit hub, only in Tacoma instead of the T Train running to Dallas you have the Sounder train running to Seattle and beyond. Fort Worth tried to have a market at its downtown transit hub. The delusional locals claimed it was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place and other successful markets. And that it was the first public market in Texas. It quickly failed. This was the first Fort Worth Boondoggle that I got to witness. It was called the Santa Fe Rail Market.

Tacoma's transit hub has a Santa Fe Rail Market type thing with some differences, the main one being that it is successful. And that it actually does sort of resemble a small version of Pike Place.

Well, in a couple hours I'll be going from the ridiculous to the sublime. I expect to have a fresh blackberry milkshake within the next 24 hours. That's the main thing I'm looking forward to.

Shreveport Gets Gas From Haynesville Shale

Apparently Shreveport is looking at Fort Worth for answers to how to handle all the little problems that crop up when you start drilling for gas in an urban zone.

The Shreveport area shale is called the Haynesville Shale. I assume Haynesville is a town. I guess I think it's a town due to that 'ville' at the end of the name. I've no idea why the shale underneath me is called Barnett.

I discovered today what seemed to me to be sort of odd verbiage used to describe these shale operations. I first read it in the Star-Telegram and assumed it was just more of their patented goofiness. But then I read it elsewhere.

Here are some examples...

"Where is the Haynesville Shale? It sprawls across northwest Louisiana, covering the Shreveport area. A small slice of Northwest Texas is also in play."

In play?

And then, "In March, Chesapeake and another company announced that it could rival or exceed North Texas' Barnett Shale, the nation's hottest play."

Hottest play?

Another example, "The Haynesville Shale natural gas play has Shreveport residents scrambling to learn the ins and outs of mineral rights."

This use of the word "play" must be oil country lingo with which I am not familiar.

Level Orange Ozone Making Me Sick

I don't know if we are at a Level Orange Ozone Alert again today, here in Texas. The air appears to be a bit clearer this morning.

The past 3 days I've developed a cough and sore throat. Yesterday I was over at my local Puerto Rican's and she told me I was having an allergic reaction to the Ozone. She's an amateur doctor in her spare time. She also suffers miserably from bad allergies which require potent meds.

Last night Miss Puerto Rico prescribed Eucalyptus Aroma Therapy for my sore throat and cough. This meant we sat and passed a bottle of Eucalyptus back and forth. This did not seem to have any salubrious effect for me. But the fumes made me tipsy.

Starting at approximately 6:25 pm, today, I should start getting some relief from this Level Orange Ozone threat, as I fly away from this polluted zone to a less polluted, I hope, zone.

Actually, if this trip to Washington is like my other 2 summers back up there, I will be remarking, for several days, how the air smells so good, like Christmas trees. And then I get used to it.

In about 13 and a half hours I will be picked up at Sea-Tac by a pair of poodles named Blue and Max. Tomorrow I hope I get to take them walking the Tacoma waterfront. Or somewhere. Actually just walking in their neighborhood is fun. Nice and hilly.

Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind

I was looking at YouTube videos, trying to find something funny about Fort Worth, when I saw several titled "Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind." Country singer George Strait's name was attached to several of the "Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind" videos.

I figured someone was either being ironic or sarcastic asking such a question, due to, well, my thinking that the answer, from most people, to that question, would be no.

So, it turns out this is a well known George Strait song. Shows what an uncultured ignoramus I am a lot of the time.

Anyway, below is the video of George Strait singing about Fort Worth. The video is a series of photos of Fort Worth. In the first photo you'll see a construction crane hovering over the now defunct boondoggle formerly known as the future downtown Fort Worth campus of Tarrant County College.

I think the person who made this slide show was somehow making fun of Fort Worth. I couldn't tell for sure, but the videographer did insert a photo of Dallas that shows what Dallas will look like if Dallas builds its Trinity River Vision Project. Fort Worth copied the Dallas vision a few years after Dallas first had its vision. Fort Worth seems to have forgotten where they got their Trinity River Vision.

Enchanted Rock State Park

My elderly cousin, Scott, has been on a long road trip all over the country. When he passed through Texas he did so entering via the Panhandle, driving across North Texas as near to the Oklahoma border as roads permitted. And then he decided the entire state of Texas was boring scenery-wise. He did concede he had not seen very much of the state and so there was a chance something, somewhere in Texas might be something other than flat and boring.

I've seen more of Texas than my elderly cousin, Scott, has. I've seen parts of Texas that are quite satisfying in the scenery department. Enchanted Rock is one such place. Enchanted Rock is a very popular state park. Some days so many people show up you have to wait til someone leaves before you can enter.

Enchanted Rock is a huge pink granite dome. Indians thought it was possessed by spirits, hence Enchanted, due to the noises the rock made when the sun went down. Later, less superstitious sorts realized the noises were due to the rock contracting as the temperature dropped.

Enchanted Rock is in the Texas region known as Hill Country. The route to Enchanted Rock via Austin takes you to the Pedernales River Valley, right by the LBJ Ranch where Lyndon and Lady Bird are buried. During wildflower season this is a very scenic spot on the planet.

To get to Enchanted Rock, via this route, you go through the tourist town of Fredericksburg. It is sort of a German-themed town. It's a short side trip from Frederickburg to Luckenbach.

$11.2 Billion For President's Helicopter

It seems of late I can not go a day without one thing or the other making me think we live in a totally insane world. Today's fresh insanity came via the news that the price tag for a new fleet of Marine One helicopters, for the new incoming President, has risen to $11.2 Billion.

That's $400 million per copter for the fleet of 28 helicopters.

Why does 1 President need 28 helicopters, I could not help but wonder? For the most part the things are used only to ferry the President the short distance from the White House to Andrews Air Force base. Occasionally Marine One copters are used for other things, like flying over a town torn apart by a tornado.

When Marine One takes off there are always additional Marine Ones in the air as well, as a decoy, playing a sort of shell game to confuse would be assassins. Sometimes as many as 5 Marine Ones are used for this purpose. So, why the need for a fleet of 28 of the things?

Marine One copters are equipped with anti-missile devices. They are heavily fortified.

The original estimated cost for the new fleet was $6.1 Billion. The price tag keeps rising because new bells and whistles keep being added.

Apparently, anywhere in the U.S. or the world that Air Force One goes to, the Presidential Limousine and Marine One helicopters also go. I've no idea how they get the copters to far away places. Maybe the copters can be stuffed inside an airplane.

Do China, Russia, the UK or France go to such elaborate expensive lengths to ferry their leaders around the planet? I remember reading, long ago, so my memory might be a bit bad, but I think it was back when then Vice President Nixon flew to Moscow where he had an infamous confrontation with Soviet leader Kruschev called, I think, the Kitchen Debate, that when Kruschev met Nixon upon landing in Air Force One, called Air Force Two when the VP uses it, that Kruschev was embarrassed to see the American leader traveling in a fancy jet, while he tooled around the Soviet Union in an old propeller powered plane.

What that has to do with this $11.2 Billion worth of Presidential Copters I don't know, but it somehow seemed to relate.

CNN & NPR Interview FWCanDo

Fort Worth's Top Rated Rabble Rouser, Don Young's, continuing Don Quixote-esque battle against the Chesapeake Energy windmills is going national, with incoming investigations into gas driller's dirty dealing in the Fort Worth zone, courtesy of CNN and NPR.

Below is Don Quixote Young's email regarding CNN and NPR....

FWCanDo will be interviewing with correspondents from NPR (National Public Radio) and CNN next week at CanDo HQ. We will also escort them on guided tours of Dirty Ol' Town.

Both media giants just happen to be in town the same days to shine a spotlight on the multi-tentacled, Barnett Shale phenomenon.

http://www.npr.org/

http://www.cnn.com/

FWCanDo is very grateful for this opportunity to remind a mass audience that not everyone in Texas is related to Jeb Clampitt or J.R Ewing or even, Tommy Lee Jones. Some of us are not blinded by money.

There are real people here who have grave reservations about natural gas extraction, production and marketing, both urban AND rural.

There are many people who believe that what's on the surface of the Earth, where we live, work and play, is just as or more valuable than the fossil fuels that lie beneath.

There are many people in Fort Worth and around the USA who are demanding that the natural gas industry abide by the same rules and laws as other industries.

It's time to end local, state and federal exemptions for a dirty, dangerous and arrogant industry that is degrading our safety, our water, our air and our quality of life.
Stay tuned and stay involved.

Don Young
FWCanDo
P.O. Box 470041Fort Worth, TX 76147
http://www.fwcando.org

"God bless Fort Worth, Texas. Help us save some of it."

Palo Duro Canyon State Park

Palo Duro Canyon is the Grand Canyon of Texas. It's also where Charles Goodnight started a huge ranch that continues to this day. Charles Goodnight's life helped inspire Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park is the setting for an over the top Texas spectacle called "Texas".

"Texas" is sort of an outdoor musical drama telling the story of the settling of the Panhandle.

Palo Duro Canyon is near Amarillo.

That part of Palo Duro that you see sticking up in the photo is called The Lighthouse. You can hike or bike to The Lighthouse. It takes about 4 hours to hike roundtrip. Much faster to bike.

Palo Duro Canyon has great mountain biking. Several years ago I talked Gar the Texan into learning how to mountain bike. This had mixed results. And a lot of bad wrecks. Gar the Texan's parental units live near Palo Duro Canyon, I believe in a town called Canyon.

Below watch video of me and Gar the Texan mountain biking to The Lighthouse in Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

Pull Up Your Pants

For those of you who live in other parts of America, like the West Coast, for instance, you'd be shocked by what parts of this part of America look like.

I was at a location today in south Fort Worth, near Interstate 35. Heading east of I-35 on either Seminary, Rosedale, Berry or Lancaster, you'll go through some sections of Fort Worth that could be used as movie sets representing 3rd, 4th or 5th World Nations. Til I moved to Texas, the only other place I've seen things like this, is in Mexico.

So, I was driving along, enjoying the scenery, imagining I was in another country, far far away, when the above amusing billboard popped into view.

"Grandma says: Pull 'Em Up!" The billboard also says "HipHopGovernment.org." I went to that website and was assaulted by rap music. I don't quite get the connection of that website to Grandma and the pants.

I don't know if this wearing your pants halfway to your knees thing is just a Texas fad or if it's plaguing the rest of the country as well. It looks so inconvenient having your pants off your butt. It makes the person sort of waddle. Are they proud of their underwear and want to show it off? Is that what it's about?

Last week I was out on my resident Puerto Rican's balcony and we saw a guy walk by with his pants down, totally exposing his very nice boxers. They appeared to be silk. So, the Puerto Rican told me that earlier that week she'd been driving Boca Raton. That's a street near here. And these two guys were working on a car, when one of the guy's pants fell down. He had no underwear on. And he could not quickly pull his pants back up because he was holding onto to something critical to the car repair. So, the Puerto Rican got a good long look at the guy's bare butt. She said it was traumatic. It was not a butt you'd wanna be looking at, she said. Fat and flabby. The opposite of yours, she said.