Yesterday's Rainy Tacoma BBQ

The photo is from last night's rainy BBQ. I somehow managed to burn the steaks. In the rain.

Lulu and her first husband came over. They ate their burned steak without too much complaining. My sister would not take her burnt steak off the steak platter.

The steaks got overly well done due to my attention being diverted by my pizza making. The pizza turned out well. Though a bit deconstructed.

The dinner party turned even more macabre when Lulu took a huge fancy to the popcorn cake my mom made for my sister. The popcorn cake has gummy bears and M & M's stuck in it. Among other things.

The other dessert item my mom also made. Angel food cake with some sorta cream cheese frosting. That was good and I understood Lulu finishing up that cake. But the popcorn cake? That thing is just disturbing.

Gar the Fish in Texas

I know a Texan named after a fish that I thought was a Texas only thing, that being Gar the Fish and the Texan being Gar the Texan.

Both Gar the Fish and Gar the Texan look like somehow a big snake had mated with an alligator creating a very scary looking mutant.

I think the actual name of Gar the Fish is Alligator Gar. I think the actual name of Gar the Texan is Garland the Texan. Maybe he is named after the Dallas suburb of Garland and not the fish.

That is a guy named Tom Wingstad, from a Texas town named Draper, in the photo. Earlier this month he caught the Alligator Gar you see in the photo. He caught it in the Trinity River that flows through the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and my backyard. It took Mr. Wingstad 25 minutes to land the 200 pound monster estimated to be about 50 years old.

I have only seen an Alligator Gar once. At a creek crossing at Village Creek Historical Area in Arlington. I was roller blading, ahead of me, on a creek crossing, I saw a guy looking at something. So, I stopped and asked what he was looking at.

He pointed to the creek and said something like, "on this side I'm looking at a big Garfish and on that side I'm keeping my eye on a big Cottonmouth."

I looked at the Garfish first. I'd never seen anything like it before. I was appalled when the guy told me that Garfish are in a lot of Texas lakes.

And then I looked at the Cottonmouth. It was slithering towards us. Both of us decided it was time to stop gawking at critters and move along.

A couple weeks after that I was mountain biking at trails at Lake Grapevine called Horseshoe. I coasted out on a dock where there were a couple of bikinied sunbathers. They told me a few days earlier one of their friends had stepped on to the teeth of an open-mouthed Garfish. A quick visit to an Emergency Room followed.

So, I went from not knowing this critter existed, seeing my first one and then hearing an account of someone stepping on a Garfish, within a couple weeks. I stayed out of Texas lakes for a long time after the Garfish revelation.

And then this morning I read that a garfish has been caught in Kiwanis Lake in Tempe, Arizona. Garfish do not belong in Arizona. They can cause all sorts of problem to a lake's ecosystem. So, Arizona Fish and Game officials are on the case.

Roe vs. Wade & The Smithsonian Institution

I guess due to it happening so seldom, there are few things I enjoy more than someone telling me something I did not know. In the past 48 hours this phenomenon has happened twice.

On the way back from the airport, picking up my sister on her return from D.C., she was telling me about all the stuff they'd seen, including the Smithsonian. She asked if I knew why it was called the Smithsonian and I realized I had no idea. Nor had she til she was in D.C.

A wealthy Brit scientist named James Smithson, admirer of America and it's promise of bringing a bright different new future to the world, died in 1829. His will stated that should his nephew not produce an heir, that his entire fortune should go to the U.S. government to create an "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men." The nephew died in 1835, with no heir. President Andrew Jackson told Congress that the U.S. had received a windfall (worth millions in today's dollars}. Congress passed an act that established the Smithsonian Institution in 1846, during the Polk administration. The Smithsonian has grown to be the largest museum in the world. All thanks to a Brit who never saw America. But, apparently, got what America meant to the world. And still does.

And now the second bit of new info. For how long have we heard the phrase "Roe vs. Wade?" Decades, it seems to me. Well, this morning I was reading the online version of my old hometown paper, the Skagit Valley Herald.

And what do I learn? That the "Wade" part of Roe vs. Wade is yet one more Texas embarrassment to the rest of the county. The Wade in this famous Supreme Court decision is Henry Wade. A good ol' Dallas boy. A prosecutor, who during his tenure earned a rep as having an astonishingly high conviction rate.

Including prosecuting Jack Ruby.

And then a Dallas woman, known to history as "Roe" wanted to get an abortion. In Texas. The rest is history.

With a sad addendum.

Henry Wade retired, reputation intact. He died. Reputation intact.

But now, in the era of DNA testing court reversals, Henry Wade has had 19 of his convictions overturned. The evidence now shows that he zealously prosecuted, well, what amounts to being victims, putting who knows how may innocent people behind bars.

The process of releasing the innocent victims of Henry Wade continues.

While the rest of the nation is growing aware that Texas put a lot of people, wrongly, behind bars, that realization is not really dawning all that brightly in Texas quite yet.

In other words, I had to read about Henry Wade in my old small town newspaper. I did not read about Henry Wade in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Or the Dallas Morning News.

Meanwhile, the innocent victims of malicious prosecutions are gradually being released from the Texas Gulag. This is an issue to me. I have known a victim of malicious prosecution. And it shocked me then and continues to shock me now. And, as God is my witness, someday I will figure out a way to bitch slap back those who perpetrated a malicious prosecution mis-carriage of justice on a friend of mine.

That which you do to the least among you, you do unto me, I always say. When I am in Jesus Durango mode, that is.

Raining, Cold & Gray Tacoma July Day

I tell non-Washingtonians, who think it rains all the time here, that they are wrong. that summers are usually quite nice.

The last summer I was here for a month, July/August 2004, I saw no rain, I saw few clouds, I saw The Mountain out pretty much every day. I was not cold once I got past the first few days of getting used to it being in the 70s.

I'd settle for the 70s right about now. I'd been staying in the basement here. or what I call The Arctic. Last night I moved to the upper loft, what I call The Tropics. My sister thinks it is too hot to live up here. However, the temperature has yet to get as high as I keep my A/C in Texas. Right now the thermometer on the A/C unit, in here, says it is 68. At 2 pm. While I see you in Fort Worth are at 96 heading to a high of 102.

We got in the low 50s overnight here. And this morning, to add wet to cold, it started raining. It's been raining ever since. Rain here does not fall like Texas rain. Texas rain comes in downpours and gets its wet business over quickly, sometimes dumping 5 inches in a half hour. In Washington the rain falls in slow motion. It can take 5 hours to dump half an inch.

So, I am quickly developing a case of Seasonally Affected Disorder. As you can see in the photo, this weather disorder has piled on top of all the other things bothering me and has me being a depressed, bed-ridden nutcase, trying to stay warm in my new little army cot that I fell out of twice last night. But slept remarkably well in. It was the tropics, afterall.

Mom and dad have gone til tomorrow. Or so we've been led to believe. Tonight we are making homemade pizza and BBQing steak. Rain permitting. I'm hoping between the pizza oven and the BBQ, I will at some point today feel some heat. I guess I could go take a hot shower. But that is sort of counter-productive, when you're done you have to step back out into the icy icy air.

This is the first time I've ever been back up here when I've thought to myself the following stunning thought. I miss Texas.

Doonesbury & the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

You may remember me mentioning that I am up in Tacoma. And that I'm reading the daily Tacoma News Tribune. And that the News Tribune and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram are both part of the same newspaper chain, that being McClatchy.

You may also remember me mentioning that the Star-Telegram has been shrinking, ever smaller, for quite some time, with fewer and fewer features and columnists.

Both of these papers have the Doonesbury strip on their editorial pages. When the Star-Telegram had its most recent makeover they shrunk Doonesbury so small you needed a magnifying glass to read it. After readers complained, Doonesbury was made a bit bigger. But it is still hard to read. Sometimes I have to get it under bright light to be able to read it.

So, one would think that the Tacoma News Tribune would have a similar itsy bitsy version of Doonesbury. You would be wrong. It is about twice the size of the Star-Telegram version, I can read it without my reading glasses in natural light.

I think this incompetently sized Star-Telegram version of Doonesbury is a perfect metaphor for what is wrong with Fort Worth's bad newspaper of record, what with their apparent 'Readers Be Damned" editorial philosophy.

To read Doonesbury in all its glory, go here.

Hugh Hefner's Girls Next Door

You may remember me mentioning, yesterday, that I'd not watched TV for over a week and I was not missing it.

Well. Last night I was in my new living space, in what we call The Tropics, due to me being now on the top floor, where, supposedly, it is Hotter than the frigid zone, down in The Arctic, aka the basement. Though it was not quite tropical, as in I had to shut the windows due to it getting chilly, it was much closer to what I'm used to in Texas, though still colder than I keep my place with A/C.

In other words, I slept great and though I went to bed feeling miserable, with a very sore throat, I woke up feeling my usual self for the first time since I've been north.

Maybe I feel better because I turned on the TV last night. I'm not familiar with the local TV lineup, so I ran through channels looking for Fox News, MSNBC, Bravo or anything familiar.

I eventually found Bravo. But the show on Bravo was that Project Runway one that I don't find very interesting, due to it being all about making a dress. That and there just is not much comedy or drama.

Then I happened upon this bizarro thing on E!, called The Girls Next Door. It's all about 82 year old elderly man, Hugh Hefner and his 3 live-in girl friends in the Playboy Mansion, I think. Maybe they live next door, and not in the mansion, hence the name of the show.

Apparently, Viagra has revived Mr. Hefner, hence the 3 girl friends. Hefner claims 80 is the new 40. Which pretty much means I've not been born yet. I'll inform my mom when they return here.

There have been 4 seasons of this show, with a 5th to start in October, God willing. I assume last night what I saw was a re-run. It was all about the girls posing for an anniversary issue of Playboy. It was a historic issue, as one of the girls said, she thought, because, as far as she knew, this was the first time the Playboy had the front view of the posers on the front cover and the back view on the back cover.

Hugh wanted the girls to pose for the second anniversary issue in a row on his giant revolving bed. The girls didn't like this. It seemed to me Mr. Hefner, in his dotage years, did not remember they'd posed on the bed before.

One of the girls talked Hefner into letting each of the girls have her own photo shoot with a theme of their choosing.

But, before we saw that we saw the revolving bed shoot. And yes, it was quite clear the girls were all buck naked. Instead of the usual blurring of the naughty bits, some sort of airbrushing thing was done that rendered the girls into Barbie dolls. The nipples were missing and there were no butt cracks.

Despite the attempt at censoring for those offended by such things, it took no imagination at all to fill in the missing pieces. I sat there thinking this was so stupid. Who are they doing the censoring for? If you chose to watch this show you know what it's about. If you are such a prude that a bare boob or butt upsets you, why are you watching this?

Where it truly troubled me is I thought a pubescent boy could happen upon this and this could be the first naked woman he's ever seen. It imprints upon his imagination. And then, one day, he sees a naked woman in person and is totally horrified to see she has these nipple things, unlike the girls he saw on Girls Next Door.

Anyway, I watched about 15 minutes of this high class entertainment and decided I was over stimulated and turned off the TV and the lights and went to sleep.

Point Defiance Hike With Close Ferry Collision

My one reader may remember me mentioning going hiking at Point Defiance a couple times since I've been in Tacoma. And that I went again on Saturday, that time to take video of the hike.

My first day here we walked the beach at Point Defiance and I tried to take a photo of the crystal clear water with my old-fashioned digital camera. That did not come out well. But video of the same water did show how clear it is.

On Saturday, there were dozens of boats of all sizes in the water, from little kayaks to regular fishing boats to yachts to ferrys to container ships.

In the video below you'll go on a hike through old growth forest, spend a little time on the beach, see some very clear water, a lot of boats and a near collision with a ferry. Very dramatic.

Me, McDonald's and Tacoma

I have only been in a couple McDonald's in Texas. Maybe 3. My fast food experiences in Texas have not been pretty. It's not just McDonald's. I had a very unsettling experience at a Taco Bell in the rattlesnake town of Sweetwater.

The last Texas McDonald's I've been in was in 2001, when my mom and dad were here, I mean there---I'm here in Tacoma right now, not there, in Texas. We were on our way to Waxahachie, they saw a McDonald's and wanted an ice cream cone. The machine was broken. That was the same problem with the very first Texas McDonald's I'd been in, up in the Panhandle, in a town the name of which I've long forgotten.

I just remembered, I have been to a good Texas McDonald's, that being the one I call the "World's Most Unique McDonald's" on my Texas website. That was also during my mom and dad's 2001 visit.

So, why am I babbling about McDonald's? Well, an odd thing happens when I'm up here in Tacoma. I seem to go to McDonald's a lot. There is a very well run one near where I'm staying. It's called the Chihuly Glass McDonald's due to some Chihuly Glass being on display. I use the drive-thru. Even if the line of cars is long, it goes very very fast.

On Friday I went thru the aforementioned drive-thru to find that on Fridays you get a free iced latte, along with the 2 bacon cheeseburgers I got from the Dollar Menu.

The last time I was here, on the way back to the airport, Lulu and I went to the Chihuly McDonald's and I got a Fish Sandwich, in addition to something on the Dollar Menu. I had a 3 hour layover in Phoenix. I knew I was going to be picked up by my mom and dad and sister and likely taken to McDonald's All You Can Eat in Phoenix.

So, why in the world did I go to McDonald's before going to the airport? It perplexes me to this day.

In the meantime, today I had a McChicken and a Bacon Cheeseburger. From the Dollar Menu, of course. No, I did not want a drink or fries with that. If you're giving away Iced Lattes, I'll take one of those.

No TV No Missing It

I thought I had a few "Don't Miss" TV shows. But, apparently I was wrong. I've not watched TV since I've been in Tacoma. Or the day before I flew up here. I'm not missing it.

I had programmed myself to watch certain shows, like some sort of moronic robot on auto-pilot. Like Bravo's Flipping Out. I have not watched since Jeff Lewis fired his lying assistant, Chris Elwood, who happened to be his executive assistant, Jenni's, husband. They've probably gotten divorced in the episodes I've not seen.

And then there is Kathy Griffin's: My Life on the D-List. I thought I couldn't miss that funny show. I guess I was wrong.

I was afraid Lulu would get me addicted to the lastest version of Big Brother. But, she ain't watching it.

It's not like I'm wanting for TVs here. There's one of those big new-fangled flat panel things in one room. Every bedroom has a TV. But I've not turned mine on.

Speaking of my bedroom. It had been in an apartment in the basement, that I called The Arctic. Well, my sister got home last night, from a week in D.C., where she experienced high temps and horrible humidity and got drenched in a downpour. I would have thought she'd get back here and find it chilly. Particularly since the temps here are being record-breaking lows. As in it got down in the 50s last night and only 69 during the day.

But. When my sister got home she thought it was way too hot in here. While my mom and dad, from Arizona, and me, from Texas, are quite chilly all the time.

Due to this Hot House, my sister was not able to sleep well last night. So, this morning I suggested I move up to the upper loft, known as The Tropics, while she could move to The Arctic. She jumped at this idea, incredulous that I could find it bearable to be in The Tropical Attic. Unbearable? When it's 10 degrees, or more, colder than I keep the A/C back in Texas.

So, I am now up in "The Tropics." I am still a bit chilly. There are 2 A/C units in here, should, God Forbid, we get a heat wave with temps in the low 80s.

The TV appears to be smaller in The Tropics than the one I didn't watch in The Arctic. I likely will not watch this one either.

I'm thinking I may be in the process of making a serious life change, in more ways than one, with one being dropping TV, Cold Turkey. I tell you, I think I'm already reaping benefits from not subjecting my feeble little brain to the corroding evil of the cathode ray.

Does a Flat Panel TV have a cathode ray? I suspect not.

Fremont Sunday Market In Seattle

On Sunday I got up at 3 am to get picked up by Lulu at 6 am to be in Seattle in the Fremont District at 7 am to be at the Fremont Sunday Market which opened at 10 am.

It was a long day. But a lot of fun. Due to letting it be known that I would be there Lulu and I had a few visitors drop in. Some I'd not seen in years.

Fremont used to be a town, then it became a district of Seattle. Then it seceded from the Union and declared itself the Independent Republic of Fremont. When the Soviet Union went bye-bye, Fremont bought some Lenin statues and some old missiles.

In other words Fremont is pretty much ground zero for the lively Seattle counter-culture. There are a lot of galleries and restaurants and shops in Fremont.

A canal runs through Fremont connecting Lake Union with Puget Sound, taking boats through the Ballard Locks in order to get them through the varying water elevations. Fort Worth may one day have a lake, but unlike natural Lake Union, if their Trinity River Vision ever becomes clear and they dam up a perfectly fine river to create a little lake and some canals. Fort Worth will need no locks for its canals.

In Fremont, a bridge crosses the canal that has to open up to permit big boats to pass. This created a huge traffic jam as we were leaving the Sunday Market yesterday.

I'd not had Rainier Cherries in a long time. Bought some yesterday. They were better than I remembered.

Fremont has this really cool, large, environmentally friendly, organic oriented grocery store that has apartments built above, parking garage below, with elevators taking the apartment dwellers down to the grocery store. I got really good pizza, some natural coke made with cane sugar and an almond stuffed croissant at this store. It has a very big outdoor eating zone. I was impressed. Only thing close to this, in my zone of Texas, is Central Market. I think the Fremont grocery was called PCC. I may be wrong.

Lulu was in fine form yesterday. She's like the Queen of the Market. I may do Fremont again next Sunday. Maybe. You'll see a lot of Lulu in the video below....