$18 Billion Puget Sound Light Rail Vote

Each day up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest seems to bring yet one more fresh reminder of why I find things, at times, so perplexing in Texas.

Today's example of how different things are done here, as opposed to Texas, was the news that the voters in the Puget Sound region will soon be deciding whether or not to support a $17.9 billion plan to expand light rail, trains and buses.

The first stage of Seattle's new light rail system will soon be completed. When it's done you will be able to ride a train from north of downtown, through the transit tunnel, that runs under downtown Seattle, and continue all the way to Sea-Tac airport.

All the time I've been in Texas the only proposal I have seen that has had over a billion dollar price tag has been a rather bizarre proposal to build a grandiose transportation corridor from the Mexican border north through Texas. This proposal seems to be mostly hot air with little hope of being built.

One of Texas' slogans is "Everything is Bigger in Texas." From my observation that is only applicable to the size of the people. Other than that they seem to think a bit on the small side.

For instance, in Fort Worth, there is this Trinity River Vision Project. The local propaganda makes this sound as if it will be a transformative project that will propel Fort Worth to a wonderful, better future. It started off costing a bit over $400 million. The latest estimate has this likely boondoggle costing a bit over half a $billion.

Now, here is where it gets weird in Texas. Unlike Washington, the voters of Fort Worth have not voted on this twisted vision. Unlike citizens of Washington they have not voted to tax themselves for this supposed civic improvement.

Not only have they not voted to tax themselves, like some sort of welfare queen, Fort Worth is sucking Federal dollars to fund over half of their likely boondoggle. Yes, you read that right, you in the rest of the country, some of the money you have paid the government is being channelled to Fort Worth to help pay for a bizarre project that the people of Fort Worth have not voted on.

A project that will destroy the confluence of two branches of the Trinity River to create a little lake and some canals. To get the Federal dollars a totally bogus, not needed, flood control diversion channel was added to the project. You in the rest of the country have already paid to control flooding in Fort Worth, back in the 1950s, when enormous levees were built after a really bad flood did a lot of damage.

Meanwhile, up here in Washington, the voters will decide if they want to pay for a multi-billion dollar project to help relieve some of the traffic congestion. You in the rest of the country won't be expected to kick in a few bucks to make it happen. What a concept.

Tacoma's Cultural District & Fort Worth's

There is a town in Texas with so much culture they had to build an entire Cultural District to contain it. That would be Fort Worth, with an area of its 700,000 plus population town designated as "The Cultural District."

It's true. I'm not making it up.

Fort Worth's Cultural District is basically a few museums, a fair grounds and one theater.

Meanwhile, little Tacoma, where I am right now, a little town, less than a third the size of Fort Worth, has no "Cultural District."

But, though Tacoma does not have enough culture to assign the title "District" to it, Tacoma does have a cluster of museums in the south end of downtown. among other cultural amenities, like a new convention center. Due southeast from the convention center is the Tacoma Art Museum, next to that is the Washington State History Museum, across a Bridge of Glass, from there, is the Museum of Glass.

The setting for Tacoma's "cultural district" is quite scenic, with Mount Rainier hovering above, on a clear day, like today. There are a lot of restaurants and shops and galleries in Tacoma's "cultural district." The Glass Museum connects to the Thea Foss Waterway, which is a sort of promenade along the waterfront, with marinas with a lot of docked boats. A cable stay bridge and the Tacoma Dome anchor the south end.

The free to ride Sound Transit train runs through Tacoma's cultural district, along Pacific Avenue.

Tacoma's "cultural district" is quite aesthetically pleasing. It would be a stretch to say the same regarding Fort Worth's Cultural District. Sadly, even if Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision's Town Lake and canals ever get built, that still won't provide Fort Worth's Cultural District with any water-based culture. While Tacoma comes by water features naturally.

As for any sort of rail moving people to Fort Worth's Cultural District. Well, I don't know if they are still running, but there are these little green trolleys that Fort Worth bought from some place in Australia, that putter from the Cultural District to downtown to the Stockyards. I've never seen anyone riding one. They may be gone now.

Below is video I took today of a walk by Tacoma's museums and the Bridge of Glass and Thea Foss Waterway. Sadly, I took the video about 1pm. An hour later The Mountain was out.

Happy Birthday, Big Ed in Texas

Today is the Happy 39th Birthday of my best friend in pretty much the world, or at least Texas, Big Ed and his even Bigger twin, Wally.

In the photo, the pair known to those who know them, as the Goober Twins, are posing awkwardly in front of a rock formation known as Twin Rocks. If I remember right, this was somewhere near, or in, Capitol Reef National Park, in Utah. We were on our way to go houseboating with a group of malcontents on Lake Powell.

Wally is about twice the size now of the Wally you see in this photo. Big Ed has shrunk from the size you see in this photo. I've not seen Wally since 2004. But I get reports regarding his increasing heft. I'm at the Fremont Sunday Market all day on Sunday. That's in Seattle about 3 miles from where Wally lives with his first wife, Wanda. Maybe Wally & Wanda will show up. I hope I recognize them.

Pa & Ma in Tacoma

My parental units arrived a day early, last night, about bedtime. What followed was about 2 hours of my own personal Seinfeld episode.

The first thing brought in the house was a giant cooler. I helped my mom, who has trouble seeing, but does remarkably well, unload the cooler and figure out what was in it.

Apparently somewhere in Oregon they paid over $30 for 2 dungeness crab. They thought they were fresh crab when they bought it. But the crab was frozen.

As mom and I unpacked the cooler my dad brought in box after box after box of other stuff, til the living room floor was lined with boxes.

One of the boxes was stuff for me. It's a big box. They know I'm flying and should know this is not convenient. This is not the first time. The last time I saw Ma & Pa was a couple years ago in Phoenix. My mom loaded up my backpack with oranges. This caused all sortsa problems going through security, as in oranges falling out all over, while I tried to find my electronic stuff to put in the scanner tray. Somehow during the orange debacle my cell phone was lost.

There is a long history of trying to get me to bring big loads on a plane. I remember back late in the last century I'd flown to Vegas with a group, including Lulu. My mom and dad had been touring the country and met up with me in Vegas. We went out to the Luxor buffet. But on the way back my mom informed me she wanted me to take a huge box of Christmas presents for everyone up north, back with me on the plane.

When Lulu saw the box she was appalled. She drug it down to the hotel's customer service and shipped the box home via UPS.

I've no idea what is in all the boxes in the living room. Last night my mom was going through them and telling my dad he'd mixed things up. He'd deny, over and over again, mixing anything up. And then my mom would say, over and over again, sorry honey, I found it.

Keep in mind my mom has Macular Degeneration and can't see very well. The quality level of her vision seems to ebb and flow.

My mom and dad were under strict orders not to give anything, but their prescribed food, to the poodles. Previously my sister was appalled to learn my mom had been giving bowls of cheerios with milk to them in the morning and bowls of ice cream in the evening.

Last night mom had a huge bag of bones for the poodles. I told mom this was a no-no. That didn't stop her. The poodles gnawed the bones til nothing was on them. When I saw Blue's bone was breaking up, I wrestled it away from him.

My sister has a long to-do list for mom and dad. To keep them busy. One of the to-do things is to make strawberry jam. My dad can't hear and my mom can't see. She tells my dad what to do, so basically it's my dad who makes the jam. It is supposedly quite comical to watch this. I'm going to opt out of that entertainment.

I am securely located down in the basement. Mom and dad don't like stairs. Or so I've been told. From what I've seen nothing much stops them. I think there is a lock on the door at the top of the stairs...

McDonald's Cheeseburger Loving Poodles

The Poodles, in my temporary care, love McDonald's Cheeseburgers. They talk about them all the time on their Blog. I am under strict orders not to give them anything but what is on their vet prescribed diet. No matter how much they beg. I got a call a few minutes ago, from Washington D. C., from Max & Blue's primary caregivers, after they saw the below video. I think I'm in trouble....

Jogging in Tacoma to Fight the Cold

Have I mentioned it's cold here in Tacoma? Well, this morning I took my pair of poodles on a walk. That turned into a run. From that I learned apparently I am in running shape. Me and the poodles ran a long long ways this morning. I guess it has something to do with being at sea level. Ultra-fresh air and all those hikes I do back in Fort Worth in extreme temperatures.

This jogging thing also caused it to occur to me why people here are so thin as opposed to so noticeably fatter in Texas. Here your poor body burns a lot of calories just to stay warm. And because it's so cold it's more inviting to go outside and get physical than in hot Texas. And there are very few donut stands here. And frying food is frowned upon. For the most part. The only vegetable that gets fried here is a potato.

So, this afternoon I decided to see if going jogging without the poodles could possibly warm me up. I took my camera along because I wanted to take a photo of the above house with the "Impeach Bush" and "No Iraq War" signs. A few of the neighbors of this house had similar signs. And flew the flag. Some Texans may think the west coast is full of left-wing pinko tree hugging hippie sorts. It is true that Tacoma and the west side of the mountains, in Washington, is a very liberal zone. A lot of free-spirited, well-educated, free-thinkers up here. Lesser so in Texas.

Above we see another anti-Bush sign. In 2004 I was up here to do a job for the former deputy mayor. The day he met me he took me back, in his Prius, to my apartment. When we got there he pulled in behind a pick-up. With Texas plates. He half-jokingly, I think, said "I need to get on the phone to the sheriff to have this guy run out of town." By the time he fired me I was to realize he did not have a very highly evolved sense of humor. This run the guy out of town remark was an early example of that.


See? This is an example of how very patriotic, yet rebellious, people are here. And how well everyone landscapes their yards.


One of the things I like about Tacoma, and Washington in general, is you don't have to go to a park for a park-like experience. Like these photos show, I left my sister's house to go on a jog. The landscaping surrounding the sidewalks makes it very pleasant, visually, and all the flowers smell good. Texans, take note. You could do this too if you got off your lazy big butts once in awhile. Okay, that was uncalled for. But it was what I was thinking and I'm in too big a hurry right now to self-censor. I've got a steak on the grill.


Above we are looking at a brick-covered street, out towards Commencement Bay. Commencement Bay is part of Puget Sound. Puget Sound is part of the Pacific Ocean. Tacoma has all sorts of water features, courtesy of Mother Nature. Fort Worth may some day have a small water feature, courtesy eminent domain abuse, if their Trinity River Vision ever gets clear and results in a little lake and some canals. Regarding the above brick-covered street. There are a lot of these in Washington. Fort Worth has a brick-covered street that's sort of bumpy, called Camp Bowie Boulevard. Long ago I asked a Fort Worth native why in the world they'd keep that bumpy brick road. She was a former reporter for the Star-Telegram and she actually told me that this brick road was a unique one of a kind thing. I was appalled. I'd already seen other parts of Texas with brick roads. This was the first time I realized there are a lot of Texans who do not see much of the rest of the world. Or their own state.


I jogged a couple miles. Back at my sister's I took a picture of her house. That's the car I'm driving around. It has a lot of electronic things in it that confuse me. If the photo were big enough you'd see a pair of happy poodles staring out the windows on the right. They are very very vigilant.

Above is a Tacoma Transit bus going by my sister's house. My sister can easily take a bus from her house to the Sound Transit train terminal a few blocks away, then ride that free train to the main transit hub and get on a bus to ride to Olympia, where she is a lawyer righting wrongs. You could try and do the same thing in Fort Worth. But it would be an exhausting ordeal. And not easy. I'm referring to the righting wrongs thing, not the taking a bus thing...

It's Cold In Tacoma

I'm on Day 4 of my temporary exile in Tacoma. I've seen The Mountain once. On Monday. It's been pretty much overcast, for the most part, since then. And cold. Very cold. It is only 59 outside right now at almost 2pm. Meanwhile, looking at WeatherBug, I see Fort Worth is nearing 100. Your sky there is likely blue, with an orange tint, not this dreary gray I'm being subjected to. At least it smells real good outside, I suppose I should be grateful for that.

The photo is the view from my sister's backyard. I took this photo just a couple minutes ago. The photo probably gives you a chill. The grayest skies you've ever seen are in Tacoma, but the bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle. I guess. I need to go 25 miles north to Seattle.

I did not bring cold weather clothes with me, mostly because the last time I was up here in summer, that being the summer of 2004, it was clear sky and lows in the 70s the entire month. To compensate for the lack of cold weather clothes I am currently wearing the only pair of long pants I packed, under those I have jogging shorts and under the jogging shorts I have boxers. I've got 3 t-shirts on with a long sleeve sort of cold weather shirt on top. And I'm still cold.

The first day here my sister told me she thought it was too hot in the house and she wanted to run the A/C. Most people here don't have A/C. With good reason. But the 3rd floor loft of this place, supposedly gets hot, hence the A/C units. It was so cold in here that first night I had to find a thick comforter to throw on the bed to try and stop the shivering.

I went to Lulu's this morning. She had her windows open. And she was running her furnace. These are the type things that cause us to call her Lulu. I asked her why she was running the furnace with the windows open. She said she wanted to take the chill out of the air. We went downstairs to her basement and stood by the furnace. That was pleasant.

Lulu informed me I am going with her to Battleground on Friday to set up for a show on Saturday. I must acquire some cold weather clothes before then. Lulu and I went dumpster diving at Goodwill and St. Vinnies today. I guess I should have done some clothes shopping there. Lulu bought a broken aquarium and a rusted tv tray. She says they'll bring a lotta bucks. She paid $5 total for the junk. It didn't seem worth that much to me. Apparently I don't know the proper value of junk. That or I'm too cold to think coherently.

Tacoma News Tribune vs. Fort Worth Star-Telegram

My one longtime reader may remember me having a comment or two about the Fort Worth daily to which I subscribe, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The Star-Telegram is part of the McClatchy chain of newspapers.

During my month in Tacoma my daily paper is the Tacoma News Tribune. It is also part of the McClatchy chain of newspapers. Supposedly a chain of newspapers on hard times, hence a lot of cutbacks on employees and the size of the newspaper and the amount of reading material in the newspaper.

At least that's the excuse the Star-Telegram has been giving for their incredible shrinking paper.

The first issue of the News Tribune, that I read upon arrival, had a News Tribune columnist answering reader's inquiries regarding the shrinking size of the News Tribune. I figured, interesting, the Tribune is annoying people in the same way the Star-Telegram is. At least that's what I thought when I read the headline. But no, the Tribune readers were making note of the paper appearing to have not so many pages as years gone by, they were not complaining about the loss of features or columnists or a crummy TV guide.

The Tribune writer explained that the reason their paper is smaller is due to fewer ads.

Now, that is a huge difference between these two papers. At the same time that the Star-Telegram's content has been shrivelling, the amount of space devoted to ads has soared. Sometimes full page ad after full page ad. This morning's Wednesday edition of the Tacoma Tribune had some sections with only 1 or 2 ads! And they were small.

Like the section that contains the editorial pages and letters to the editor, there were only 2 small ads in a 6 page section. The front page section is 10 pages, with 11 ads, 2 of them full page. Except for the full page ads, the others were small.

No wonder it took me a half hour, or more, to read the Tacoma News Tribune. I'm lucky if I can milk the Sunday edition of the Star-Telegram for 15 minutes. Often I'm done with their daily after about 5 minutes. A shorter amount of time than it takes to write this blog.

Another nice thing about the Tacoma News Tribune. Absolutely no mention of Barnett Shale. And no full page Chesapeake Energy ads. And the News Tribune writer talks about TV like a sophisticated adult, instead of sounding like some sort of wonderstruck bug-eyed Gomer fresh from the sticks, marveling that someone on some TV show had, at some point in time, lived in, visited or knew someone who had lived in or visited or was married to someone who lived in or visited Tacoma or anywhere else in Washington.

Hiking Point Defiance Park & Mount Rainier

I believe I mentioned in a late night blogging, yesterday, that The Mountain came out yesterday afternoon, here in Tacoma, and the rest of the Puget Sound area.

My temporary poodles, Blue & Max took me and their primary caregivers on a hike at the beach at Point Defiance Park. The beach in particular was Owens Beach. It is located near the Vashon Ferry Dock and Anthony's Homeport Restaurant.

In the video below you'll see all that is mentioned above. And maybe more. If you live in Tonasket please do not watch the video. Well, you can watch, just don't listen.

Chesapeake Blog Snares Ex-Star-Telegram Reporter

Reliable sources back in Texas have reported to me, up in Tacoma, that down in Texas, Chesapeake Energy has recruited a new shill, an ex-Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter named Jack Douglass.

My sources tell me that Douglass has indicated that he is out to discredit those who dare exercise their Constitutional right to speak out against something to which they object. Like their peace and quiet and personal safety being compromised.

Jack Douglass is going to use a Chesapeake Energy blog as his venue in what appears to amount to a propaganda smear campaign. You can view the early propaganda output here. Click on "Recent Posts" to view more propaganda. It appears no one is commenting on this regurgitation of the Chesapeake party line. Yet. Chesapeake will likely soon hire some sub-shills to do the fake commenting.

Meanwhile, the ex-employer of Jack Douglass, in the aforementioned Star-Telegram, on July 21, 2008, had an article titled "Fort Worth residents stepping up in pipeline fight," acknowledging that not everyone in Fort Worth is "Behind the Shale," in Chesapeake propaganda-speak.