The Amazing Race & The Amazing Star-Telegram

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THE AMAZING RACE WITH DALLAS AND TONI MISSING

After a month of reading the Tacoma News Tribune and the New York Times it was a bit of a jolt this morning to find myself back with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram being my morning paper.

Both the Star-Telegram and the News Tribune are McClatchy newspapers. So, why does the Star-Telegram have so few columnists on its editorial page compared to the News Tribune?

And why does the Star-Telegram make Doonesbury so hard to read on their editorial page when the News Tribune does not?

Not once whilst reading the Tacoma News Tribune did I read any writer make some connection between Tacoma or Washington or the Pacific Northwest and some TV show.

My first day back and the Star-Telegram does it again in an article about my favorite TV show. A show I'd feared CBS had cancelled, that being The Amazing Race.

I'll copy and paste the Star-Telegram Amazing Race article verbatim with its Amazing Connection to Fort Worth.....

North Texas team to compete in 'The Amazing Race’

A brother-and-sister team with ties to Fort Worth will try to continue the success of North Texas contestants on reality shows when the 13th edition of The Amazing Race debuts on CBS at 7 p.m. Sept. 28.

Star Spangler (yes, that’s really her name), a former Dallas Cowboy cheerleader who lists her hometown as Fort Worth, and brother Nick, who performed in a recent Casa Mañana production of The Fantasticks, will be one of the 11 teams vying for the grand prize of $1 million.

In media materials, they admit to an uncommon level of competitive instinct, even with each other, which could make for some exciting TV.

One team the siblings will face is made up of geeky best friends Mark Yturralde, 41, and Bill Hahler, 42. The Comic-Con treasurer and student aid administrator from San Diego have been pals for more than 20 years and have auditioned for Race since the third season. The superhero and gaming aficionados said they left their toys at home during the race.

"We’ve got really teeny backpacks," Hahler said. "They are small. We wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anything to prevent us from putting that pack underneath the seat in front of us when we got on a plane."

Two couples teams look promising, too.

Married beekeepers and self-described hippies Anita Jones, 63, and Arthur Jones, 61, from Eugene, Ore., are the oldest — and perhaps most colorful — team on this season.

Among their mottos: "Don’t worry, be hippie" and "The hokey pokey is what it’s all about."
Ken Greene, a former St. Louis Cardinals and San Diego Chargers defensive back, now 51, will race with estranged wife Tina.

Starting at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the contestants will travel more than 30,000 miles in 23 days to countries like Brazil, Bolivia, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Yahoo! I'm Back in Texas!

Best flight ever. Everything went well. I had no trauma during the going through the security ordeal. No alarms went off. No body cavity searches. Nothing flying off a conveyor belt. No pants falling down. No oranges rolling all over.

Absolutely problem free. I attribute this to my little baby sister delivering me to the airport in a totally stress-free manner. That started it off good.

I was in Position 33 to board on my Southwest flight. My strategy for the first leg was to head to the back of the plane. I figured if it wasn't a full flight, that back seats had the best chance of having no annoying person sitting next to me.

However. It was a full flight. But the young lady who ended up sitting next to me was quite pleasant. So, the leg to Salt Lake City was easy.

That's the takeoff view of Puget Sound you see in the first photo. When we landed in Salt Lake City my plan was to move to the front of the plane. When I saw the entire front row was empty I took the window seat. Huge leg room. No pull down tray. No big deal. I can handle my little 4 ounce cup of Coke with no serving tray.

Eventually some sports jock guy took the aisle seat, leaving the middle seat empty all the way to Albuquerque. I was in flying heaven.

On the first leg we got a bag of cheese nips and a bag of pretzels with our 4 ounces of Coke. For the next leg, to Albuquerque we got 2 bags of peanuts with our 4 ounces of Coke. So, my protein needs were being met.

Below is the view of Salt Lake City whilst landing. It was the roughest, funnest, most roller coaster landing I've ever had. Great fun. I loved all the screaming.

In the below photo you see me enjoying my leg room in my seat at the front of the plane. This was the view during the leg from Salt Lake City to Albuquerque.


Below is looking at the Rio Grande River as we landed at Albuquerque. Albuquerque was not as green as the month before. The best leg of the trip was the final leg that ended in Dallas. Details below.

So. When we landed in Albuquerque I decided to switch to the left side of the plane. At the front. This turned out to be a good move. As the new people boarded this hilarious lady bound for Little Rock took the aisle seat. She did GREAT witty repartee'. I've been sort of missing GREAT witty repartee'.

I told the Little Rock bound one that our goal was to keep the middle seat empty. We successfully did so til there were only 2 seats left and 2 people looking for them.

So, this totally beautiful blonde bound for Dallas takes the middle seat. I expressed my umbrage and told her she would need to hold our drinks due to taking the seat and our seat location lacking pull down trays.

She then whipped out a bunch of Southwest Airline freebie drink tickets and asked if we used those if she could get out of drink holding duty.

This eventually turned into a very fun flight to Dallas. Her name was Nancy. Like my very big sister. She has a vacation house in Taos that she and the husband go to about once a month. We shared our mutual admiration of the concept of having a buffer from relatives. She has the opposite situation from me. She lived in Alaska for years, with a buffer, and then ended up in Dallas, through events beyond her control, in the town where her mom and dad and several siblings live. She wants her buffer back, in a large part due to the pain the lack of a buffer puts her husband through.

The landing at Love Field was after dark, so the Metroplex was lit up. Big Ed showed up to pick me up, almost on time. The Dallas skyline was looking cool, not quite Seattle cool, but cool nonetheless. Lightning was flashing all around. Rain had been falling. The temps were in the 70s. Gas has fallen to $3.36 a gallon. And I'm finally where I'm not cold. But I did have to turn the A/C down when I got in this place. It felt hot in here. Way hotter than my deluxe living quarters in Tacoma.

Nice to be home. Thanks Michele and Kristin and Blue and Max. See you kids in 2018!

Shocking Georgia Bigfoot Sasquatch Hoax

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that yet one more time a proof of the elusive existence of a Sasquatch Bigfoot has proved to be a hoax.

Despite the promise of a California news conference at which photo proof and DNA testing results were to be presented, what actually ended up being presented was the fact that when the Bigfoot in the freezer was thawed it was found to be made of rubber.

As in it was some sort of rubber gorilla suit. It was sold by some tricksters, frozen, to a couple of gullible Georgians, who then proceeded to excite the world with what they had frozen in their freezer.

I blogged, skeptically, a few days back about this Georgia Bigfoot. I guess I'm not all that shocked this turned out to be yet one more Bigfoot Sasquatch Hoax.

A Stormy Departure From Tacoma

In more ways than one I'm having myself a stormy departure from Tacoma. It is very windy and raining heavily this morning. I don't know, yet, if this is messing up the flight schedules at Sea-Tac. I hope not. But if it is, being stuck, for awhile, at Sea-Tac waiting to get onboard and in the air wouldn't be a bad thing. Being onboard and stuck on the tarmac, that I would not handle well.

The photo is my view this morning from this upstairs zone of this multi-story abode. I'm fairly certain I will not be seeing The Mountain again during what remains of my stay in Washington.

Speaking of my stay in Washington. My favorite thing I got to do here was to finally see the aforementioned Mountain up close. My second favorite thing was seeing my grand-nephew for the first time. Third favorite thing was seeing my mom and dad and little sisters after a 2.5 year absence. My fourth favorite thing was BBQing. Fifth favorite thing was hiking around Point Defiance. Sixth favorite thing was all the blue sky days and how good the air smells, like Christmas trees. Seventh favorite thing was wandering around Seattle's downtown. Eighth favorite thing was going to a couple of Tacoma's seafood restaurants, Steamers and Duke's Chowder House.

Okay, I've grown bored of thinking of my favorite things. I forgot to mention the poodles, Blue and Max and all their amusing antics.

I was right in the middle of typing the above when I got an urgent alarm from my sister. The rain is falling heavy. The basement sump pump is not working. We went out in the downpour to see if the intake was plugged. I was barefoot in boxers and t-shirt and got sopping wet. A plumber is being called who it is hoped will get here before the basement floods.

All in all the morning has begun as a perfect metaphor for my entire month in Tacoma.

Below is a video metaphor for this morning's Tacoma rain.

Duke's Chowder House with the Girls

Tonight on my last night in Tacoma, Kristin and Michele took me Dukes Chowder House on the Tacoma Waterfront.

It is a wonderful northwest summer night. Cloudy and a few sprinkles, but not enough to stop us from walking the waterfront after we left Dukes.

I ate way too much. I had some tomato juice concoction with 2 giant prawns, a black olive and a bean. Way too much hot fresh sourdough bread with butter. And then the appetizers came. A hot crab dip and mussels in a broth that you dipped bread into. I was pretty full when the halibut and chips arrived.

Like I said, after we were done with Dukes we walked the waterfront. That's Michele walking out on the dock where parasailers take off. Kristin was raised a landlubber in the Midwest, so floating docks in deep saltwater unnerve her a bit.

There are several restaurants over water on the Tacoma waterfront. That's CI Shenanigan's below.

Katie Downs, below, is another fun restaurant on water. They do good pizza and seafood. And beer.

Okay, that's enough with the Tacoma restaurants over water. It's time to start packing. I've got so much to pack. Oh, I forgot, I'm already done with the packing. Out of here a bit past noon tomorrow. Back in Texas a bit before 9, Central Time.

YouTube Flash Sound Solution

After about a week of being frustrated and trying solution after solution, found by Googling "flash audio not working," I finally found a solution that worked.

Fixing my ability to send email continues to vex me. But that's led me to using Google's Gmail. Which I may find I like better than Outlook Express.

The solution that worked for me with the YouTube/Flash audio not working was a free program from something called Malwarebytes. It was a quick download. Installed it. Ran it. It took about 5 minutes to find a lot of mistakes. It then removed most errors and had to restart to fix a few others.

After the re-boot I had sound again working in YouTube. And probably fixed a lot of other problems I was not aware of.

The Malawarebytes program is free for the initial scan and fix. If you want it to do a resident constant scanning you pay a one-time fee of something like 29 bucks.

You can download the Malawarebytes program here if you're being vexed by the no YouTube audio problem. It may work for you too. This was much simpler than all the other fixes I was trying, like editing the registry.

Cold in Tacoma and Additional Whining

It got down to 58 last night in Tacoma. That is 24 degrees below what I keep my air-conditioner set at in Texas.

This morning someone I'll call Anonymous, called me up to ask if I wanted to go to Starbucks. I declined, saying I had stuff to do. Like what? Anonymous asked.

Well, I know better than to go into any details about anything with Anonymous because all you'll get is a bunch of judgemental comments. So, I tend to keep info to a minimum when talking to this person.

Then Anonymous asked how I was this morning. I know this seemingly innocent type question is loaded, when asked by Anonymous. So, I chose my answer carefully, or so I thought, and went with a safe weather comment.

As in I said I was very cold this morning and wish I had a furnace.

To which Anonymous went into judgemental mode on even something as simple as my opinion of the temperature, telling me I'd been here long enough to be acclimated, that I only complain about the cold to get attention. This from a person who has never lived in another climate and has no first person knowledge as to how long it takes to acclimate. As in it took me a long time to acclimate to the heat of Texas.

Like I said, it got to 58 last night.

As I hear this fresh condemnatory verbiage from Anonymous I'm thinking to myself, oh yes, I am so happy now, I am getting attention due to saying I'm cold. I thought to myself why does Anonymous give herself permission to judge my relative state of warmth and then characterize my discomfort as somehow being feigned due to wanting attention? That just strikes me as bizarre. Usually I can switch perspectives and at least have some clue as to the why of what is coming out of someone's mouth. It's perplexing when I can make no sense of it.

Like I said, it got to 58 last night.

I suspect, as I often do when hearing such a thought expressed, that what I'm dealing with is a bit of projection. In that Anonymous is always doing all sortsa odd little things to get attention. And so she projects that script on to others. It's a really bad script and should be removed by a good anti-virus program. Or a shrink.

I reminded Anonymous that I weighed 25 pounds less than the last time I was in this cold state and so I, unlike others more blessed, do not have a large insulative layer of adipose tissue helping keep in my body warmth and keep out the cold.

To which Anonymous replied that I am arrogant to think I'm the only skinny person in Washington.

At which point I'm thinking to myself, change the subject, there is no reasoning with anyone who operates out of what I believe is called a contaminated parental ego state.

And so I got Anonymous off the phone and went about what I was doing before I was so rudely, and I do mean rudely, interrupted.

In 25.5 hours I should be in the air. Where the air is clear and the people are nice. Til I land and the air is hot and the people say howdy a lot.

The Socialist City of Seattle

This morning I guess I was surprised to read that starting January 1, 2009, Seattle is implementing a 20 cent per bag fee. I assume this applies to both paper or plastic bags.

Already this is causing big changes in Seattle stores as checkout people get to deal with the wide variety of personal shopping bags people are bringing into stores.

I've had trouble adjusting to the no cell phone use while driving law here in Washington. I don't know what the penalty is. I forget about the no talking law about half the time. If I remember I put the cell phone on speaker phone mode and just appear to be talking to myself and not into a phone.

I don't know if the no car cell phone use law is state-wide or just a Seattle/Tacoma thing. By the next time I return here in a decade or two, I expect that talking in cars and listening to the radio will be banned. Talking and listening can be very distracting and I'm sure has been the cause of at least one wreck somewhere.

After a year or two of the anarchy of people bringing random shopping bags into stores Seattle will likely mandate that specific type bags only be used. And then those will be found to cause some environmental hazard after which it will be mandated that all bags revert to paper, due to trees being a very recyclable resource.

Canada's Inferiority Complex Ends With Triatholon Silver

This morning I read a column from the Sunday Tacoma Tribune by a guy named Peter Callaghan. He's funny. The column was about his random thoughts about the Olympics. He seems to take the Olympics about as seriously as I do. And shares my Bob Costas aversion.

In the second paragraph Callaghan writes, "What's with Canada's inferiority complex? It's like they're all from Tacoma." He goes on to say he likes the Canadian coverage better than NBC, but that it gets tedious listening to the announcers make excuses when the Canadian fails, "which is often."

Sample excuses offered by the Canadian announcers were things like, "Was your suit too tight?" "Did you have to get up too early?" "Or is it the bad air?"

And then Callaghan writes, "And they have to tart up the slightest accomplishment. A swimmer who doesn't drown is dubbed the Canadian Michael Phelps."

So, last night, during hot dogs and strawberries and grilled corn (delicious, best corn ever) we sat down in front of the Flat Panel and watched the Olympics on Canadian TV. It is so much more watchable than NBC. Very little of that non-stop blathering and constant need to have some bizarre narrative, like Lucy's grandma died at 99 a week ago and Bob Costas is sure Lucy was thinking of grandma during that back flip into the pool.

The event we were watching was the Triathlon. I'd not seen this before. It started off with what looked like 100 guys jumping into a lake at the same time with a giant pagoda looking over them. They swam for quite a distance, like a synchronized line. Then the line gradually broke up and became a sort of thrashing triangle. On and on they swam.

During this we were informed of the story of the Great Canadian Hope who none of us America-Centric Americans had heard of, a guy named Simon Whitfield. We were quite a ways into the swimming before we realized there was an American or two among the swimmers.

After the group was done swimming for miles and miles they one by one got out of the water and ran to a bike which they pushed to the start line and hopped on, slipping their feet into shoes already attached to the pedals.

The bike course went on for miles, I mean, kilometers. They had to repeat this course, I think, 6 times. For about 300 feet, I mean, 100 meters, or so, they pedaled in front of cheering people in a grandstand.

I gave up watching after the first time around. I did not make it to the running part. It seemed like the Canadians were covering pretty much every second of this race. With a break for local Canadian news out of Vancouver, which was amusing in itself, with a Brit accented Weather Girl with very unfortunate helmet hair.

This morning I learned that the Canadian Triathlete, Simon Whitfield, he being the Great Canadian Hope, came in second, getting a silver medal. I'm sure the Canadians were quite happy.

Back to that Callaghan guy. I thought his comment that Canada had an inferiority complex, in the same manner as Tacoma's, was interesting. I've not noted manifestations of Tacoma having a civic inferiority complex due to being in the shadow of its more robust Seattle partner in the Seattle/Tacoma Metro area. I've long made note of how Fort Worth comes across in its media as having a massive inferiority complex regarding how it feels about its Dallas partner in the D/FW Metroplex.

I can see where Canada is sort of like Fort Worth and Tacoma, not quite the success story of its nearest neighbor. But that's nothing to have an inferiority complex over. There are a lot of really good things about Canada, Fort Worth and Tacoma, even though they are a bit overshadowed by America, Dallas and Seattle.

In other words, America, Dallas and Seattle are gold medal type places. Canada, Fort Worth and Tacoma should be quite pleased to be silver medal type places. And nothing stops them from aspiring to gold medal status. It'd be a great thing to see Canada become a Superpower. Fort Worth, not so much.

It's Dreary in Tacoma. And Raining.

The rain has been constant today here in Tacoma. Last night and this morning lightning was striking. It's like spring in Texas without the tornado drama.

So, this morning, due to the rain, Lulu's first husband could not ride his Huge Harley to REI to do whatever it is he does there. This left Lulu without a car.

So, I drove to the Lulu House, ostensibly to take photos of some of her apparently fabulous jewelry stuff and to go to WOW'S for lunch with Frank and Virginia, them being the well-known, constantly sparring partners, who live their own little Univision Telenovela.

But, eventually I was to learn the real reason Lulu lured me to her lair was so that I could drive her to Safeway. There was no WOW'S.

Before Safeway happened I learned, inadvertently, that Lulu was about to slur me on her blog in a most horrendously malicious way by describing me as a 4 year old with attention deficit disorder in dire need of Ritalin and with a mad compulsion to talk to strangers. And that I have no sense about how to operate a successful market stall because I engage the people in conversation, thus wasting time from the all-important transactions.

Well. I'll just say this about that. I lost track of the number of times Lulu wandered from her booth on Sunday, taking with her the stash of change-making cash. The worst incident came a bit after noon when I had 4 women wanting to buy bracelets, necklaces and magnets from me. All with $20 bills. And me with no change.

I didn't know what to do. It was embarrassing. And then Lulu sashayed up ( I wanted to say waddled up, but that somehow seemed mean ) and as she sashayed she was stuffing her face with Kettle Korn from a Giant Bag. I could not get her to focus on the problem at hand. Or her hand out of the Kettle Korn.

One of the customers walked off in frustration. After about a half hour of this madness I was finally able to make change for the first lady, who then walked off, obviously, and quite righteously, seriously offput. The 3rd and 4th long-waiting customers seemed to find it all amusing. As did Lulu as she just stood there stuffing popcorn into her pie hole.

As for the issue of me engaging the people in conversation. Well, from that we learned where many of them were from. We learned Lulu should make more skeleton stuff. We learned some of them read our blogs and I got invited by an Austin artist to an event in Dallas.

There was one slight problem caused by me talking to one person in one minor incident when a lady was overcome with joy about seeing JP Patches and would not shut up about it. All I did was ask her what the deal was with the big fake red noses so many people had. On and on she went, quite animated. I eventually escaped by saying I was off to take photos of the new JP Patches statue. I thought the lady left when I did, but Lulu claimed she came back and Lulu had to shoo her away. I don't believe Lulu's account.

So, back to the real reason I was lured to Lulu's today. The Safeway trip. I've wondered how Lulu goes from having a few hundred dollars by the end of Sunday and then no money by the end of the next day. Well, the grocery shopping at Safeway was instructive. One chicken at $1.99 a pound for over 10 bucks. One box of 12 chocolate chip cookies, $5.89. 4 donuts, $3.26. 2 magazines at about 6 bucks each. 1 package of bacon for $5.99, with a buy one get one free deal of equal or lesser size. But Lulu got only one, not understanding that she'd be paying $5.99 for that one package. I did not get too pointed about this mistake because I think Lulu could maybe not eat so much bacon. I'm forgetting some of the stuff. Oh, one Starbucks Grande Vanilla Bean Frappacino, with whipped cream. Those cost about $4. And was sickeningly sweet. Particularly with donuts and chocolate chip cookies.

The total for 2 puny bags, filled mostly with junk food, was about 50 bucks. Or 50 magnets in Lulu Currency. All in all, the Safeway excursion was a real eye opener. I now know how Lulu can end up broke so quickly. And, also why she's not quite the dainty little thing she used to be in her younger years. Donuts, bacon, cookies and Starbucks do not a dainty girl make.

I'm outta here in less than 48 hours, not that I'm counting. I will continue to engage strangers if I feel like it. And I'll never do one of those Lulu's Shows again without a pocket full of dollar bills. And a mute button. For Lulu. I won't even talk about the bad Lulu behavior that occurred in front of about a dozen customers when my ex-fiance' called. Let's just say it was very embarrassing. And loud. Like a 4 year old having a tantrum....