Yet One More Reasonable Trinity Uptown Vision

Awhile back I was put in my proper place by a Trinity River Uptown Vision spokesperson for referring to this 'visionary' project as a likely boondoggle. Now hardly a week seems to go by where there is not yet one more letter to the editor in Fort Worth's most widely read newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that also refers to the 'vision' as a boondoggle.

The boondoggle's defenders paints it as a wide-ranging 'vision' that will transform Fort Worth, giving it a little lake, some canals, flood control (that is already controlled), wetlands restoration, recreational opportunities, like kayaking, (the little lake will be too small for power boats or skiing) but there may be developments like condos and restaurants on the canals.

One of the more observant Fort Worthers, Don Woodward, had a good letter printed about the Trinity Vision in this morning's Star Telegram....

Blind support for Trinity project

All the Republican and Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates say they are against earmarks.

John McCain boasts he has never sponsored an earmark, and vows to veto any ear mark that comes across his desk in the Oval Office. Sarah Palin turned against the infamous Ketchikan Bridge to Nowhere after it became a national symbol of wasteful spending. Palin told PBS’ Jim Lehrer, “We killed the bridge because we don’t want to pay for it and the rest of the nation doesn’t want to pay for it.”

Eyeing Rep. Kay Granger’s Trinity Uptown boondoggle, Palin might well have asked her, “Why should you have three designer bridges and I no bridge at all?”

In recently opening the funding floodgates for Trinity Uptown, John Woodley, assistant secretary of the Army’s civil works division, said that “the rest of the country is closely watching” this project. Indeed they are. And when congressmen from other states see their projects axed, who thinks they are not going to vote to kill Fort Worth’s Trinity Uptown boondoggle?

Col. Christopher Martin, commander of the Corps of Engineers Fort Worth division, said “It is a difficult process to get projects going in the United States anywhere. Trinity Uptown has been completed at light speed.” Granger, R-Fort Worth, was hailed as the “driving force who pushed the project through the byzantine approval process in Congress.” Shame on Granger!

Savvy Sarah way up north in the land of the Aurora Borealis saw the lights and cut loose from her bridge. How long will it be before our eminent domain-loving congresswoman receives the enlightening epiphany that her earmarked nepotistic elusive dream will be DOA in a McCain or Obama Oval Office? None is so blind as she who will not see.

— Don Woodard, Fort Worth

WaMu Washington Mutual Aggravation: Part IV

I think I understand why some people decide to rob a bank. As in this morning brought fresh HELL from Washington Mutual.

You may remember me mentioning 2 checks from the State of Texas were deposited on September 19, a few days before WaMu's meltdown.

I'd already endured one round of WaMu not crediting the account deposited and a check written on it. That one was no big deal.

This morning I found 2 letters from WaMu in the mailbox. Keep in mind it is now October 2, thirteen days after the deposit was made.

The first letter was written, according to the date at the top of the letter, on September 20, the day after the deposit was made. I got the letter today, October 2. This letter says...

"We are contacting you today to let you know that a hold has been placed on your account to allow time to collect the amount of the check(s) you deposited into your account.

From your deposit, $2,300.00 has been delayed.

On 09/23/08, $2,300.00 from this deposit will be available.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

We're always here for you."

Please note the line in bold & underlined above, saying on 9/23 the funds would be available.

So, like I said there were two letters from WaMu this morning. The second letter is dated September 25, 2008.

"You've had one (or more) non-sufficient funds (NSF) transaction that couldn't be covered by the available balance on your account at the time it was processed."

I'm not gonna bother typing the rest of it. The letter goes on to itemize the overdraft fee charges and then says, "The fees charged here total $0.00."

A chart below that details the check #, the amount, the action (returned), the fee ($0.00) and the date 9/24/08. One day after the other letter said the funds would be fully in the account.

So. I called my local WaMu branch. They told me to bring in the letters and they'd look into whether they'd made a mistake. In the meantime I called the party to whom the bounced check had been written, explaining the situation, she told me just to get a certified check and add $25 to cover the fee her bank will charge her.

I go to WaMu. The manager looks at the letters and the account, says they clearly made a mistake, makes me out a certified check. And tells me to get a copy of what is charged to the account of the party who WaMu bounced the check on and WaMu would reimburse me.

I'm thinking, how does that reimburse me? How do I get back the time this has taken? The gas I burned driving to WaMu. If WaMu can so casually throw about fees, why can't I? Like maybe $100 fee for wrongly claiming their were insufficient funds to cover a check that had been presented for payment.

I'm still not sure this nightmare is over. The party who I wrote the check to said she'd not heard from her bank, Wells Fargo, that a check had been returned NSF. I half except Wells Fargo to re-submit the check and for WaMu to then pay it, that it was a computer paperwork error that generated the second letter I got today.

But, the WaMu manager looked at the account and told me there was no other bad activity going on.

I don't trust them. Why didn't I bail on this bank way back when I first started reading about their problems? Oh, I remember, up til this month, I've never had a problem with them.

Sarah Palin vs. Joe Biden Tonight in VP Smackdown

I'm betting that tonight's debate is going to be a train wreck of historic proportions.

Joe Biden will likely make a bad gaffe or two. But handle the mistakes well.

Sarah Palin will likely say a thing or two, so astonishing, that the audience either gasps or giggles or both. She will get tongue-tied in an impossible to parse string of circular verbiage that will have eyes rolling.

There will be a foreign policy question where Sarah Palin will so obviously demonstrate that she is out of her league that the calls for her to step down will grow loud by the time the debate ends.

Sarah Palin may be asked if she believes in witches. This will be a dangerous mindfield for her to navigate without an explosion.

Sarah Palin may be asked again to explain how living in Alaska, close to Russia and Canada, gives her foreign policy experience.

Sarah Palin may be asked to defend her position that victims of rape should not be allowed to have an abortion.

Sarah Palin may be asked a lot of things tonight with answers that will astonish, perplex, upset, amuse, appall and maybe disgust the majority of Americans watching. There will be millions of us.

Below a blurb from yesterday about Sarah Palin and today's debate...

Chesapeake Energy Makes Mother Nature Weep in Fort Worth

Incoming from Don Young about something interesting that has showed up on Scott Avenue, near where Chesapeake Energy is making big holes in some special ground. On Monday I blogged about what is happening on Scott Avenue.

Below is the message from Don Young....

Near the entrance of the newest Chesapeake Energy pad-site in east Fort Worth, Texas, an anonymous artist has installed a painting of, I think, a weeping Mother Nature.

The large canvas is tied to a utility pole at 2900 Scott Avenue. It is festooned with all manner of jewels and other objects. There is a purse attached to one corner and a scene of feeding pigs in another. A skull and other icons are depicted.

Just down the hill, giant earth-raping machines, their motors screaming and their exhaust filling the neighborhood, carve away at what was, last week, one of the most beautiful hills in Fort Worth.

What does the painting symbolize? Who is it directed at? Mayor Moncrief? Chesapeake? The mineral owner? The Gas Drilling Task Force? The city staffers who permitted the gas well? The children of the future? You and me?

Washington Mutual Deserved to Die

Well, by this morning WaMu had credited their erroneous fee that I whined about yesterday. But their customer service person, Eric, never called back to explain what caused their mistake, which he said he would, after he looked into it an talked to his manager.

Do I get to charge WaMu a fee for wasting my time?

I hadn't paid any attention to Big Ed's WaMu nightmare that occurred when I was up in WaMu's home state of Washington. And might I add, I'm embarrassed now that WaMu is associated with Seattle and my former state. Washington businesses, from Starbucks to Costco to Nordstroms are known for their great customer service. I don't know what happened to WaMu.

WaMu arrived in Texas about the same time I did. Maybe it was Texas that ruined them.

So, at the end of July Big Ed opened a WaMu account, making an initial deposit of $1000 with a check from a Fortune 500 company. Big Ed was given the usual counter checks to use til his new debit card and checks arrived.

But, Wal-Mart and other wouldn't take the WaMu checks. 12 days after opening the account Big Ed wanted to get cash, he was near the WaMu bank where he'd opened the account. So, he went there. They wouldn't give him any of his money. They told him it would be available the next day.

Then his new checks and debit card finally arrived. With the wrong address on them. So, now it was another wait to get the corrected card and checks.

So, I Googled "Customer Complaints about WaMu" and found a flood of them. Many within just the past week or so, with complaints like mine. What WaMu has done to others makes my little problem with them, or even Big Ed's look like nothing.

Go here and read what WaMu has done to some of its customers lately.

The Feud Between Dallas and Fort Worth

I was reading through a Mobil Travel Guide, looking for info about the South Texas Gulf Coast, among other things.

The Dallas and Fort Worth entries amused me. The description of each town is the type verbiage that can get some Fort Worth people downright cranky. Fort Worth has had a long history of being in the shadow of Dallas. There is a lot of overcompensating due to this. Go here and read some examples of some in Fort Worth's attitudes towards Dallas and towards their own town.

Quoting from the Mobil Travel Guide about Dallas....

"Dallas is a well-dressed, sophisticated city that tends towards formality. The cultivation of Dallas's urbane cultural persona began in 1855 with the arrival of French, Swiss and Belgian settlers looking to build a Utopian colony. Among them were scientists, artists, writers, naturalists and musicians. The ideal colony did not last, but the nucleus of culture remained on in this young community on the frontier. Today, Dallas thrives with a booming arts and culture scene, ballet, symphony, opera, theater and numerous museums...."

The Mobil Travel Guide mentions Dallas's cultural amenities while their description of Fort Worth somehow forgot to mention that Fort Worth has so much culture they had to build a district just to contain it.

The Mobil Travel Guide description of Fort Worth is funny. And so true....

"Fort Worth has been a rival to its sister city Dallas since the 1870s. When the railroad that ran through the area failed and Fort Worth's population dropped from 4,000 to 1,000 a Dallas newspaper wrote that Fort Worth was a place so dead that a panther was seen sleeping on the main street. In response to the insult, Fort Worth called itself "Panther City" and the feud began. A virtual dividing line between East and West runs between the two cities, with sophisticated and fashionable Dallas on one side, and proud and simple Fort Worth on the other..."

Chesapeake Energy Drilling in Downtown Fort Worth

Below is a Dallas CBS news segment about the first Chesapeake Energy Barnett Shale drilling site in downtown Fort Worth. Yes, you read correctly, they are drilling for gas in downtown Fort Worth. In this video you'll get to see the drilling rig in operation, hear some Chesapeake Energy people explain it, get some looks at downtown Fort Worth, including some longhorns and see a local news lady with really big hair....

Charter Communications Missing Channels Solution

Well. I've had me a day. It started with dealing with an off shore WaMu bank customer service center that specialized in gibberish.

It ended, well, it's not quite the end of the day yet, but by late late afternoon I'd solved my problem with Charter Communications lack of communicating as to why I can no longer watch Bravo or TCM.

Oh, Charter had explanations. But they were GIBBERISH.

So, this guy knocks on my door. He's from AT & T. Selling their new cable tv, phone and internet service. He quickly made quite a good case as to why I should dump Charter.

The number one thing that sold me is when the guy said AT & T does not use off shore customer support because they don't want to piss people off, they want to create good word of mouth. Like this blog.

Come October 14, AT & T will show up here and will install DVR's for 2 TV's. Converter boxes for 2 TVs. The Internet connection stuff and anything else needed. For way less than I've been paying that inept Charter Communications.

Once I'm up and running with my new AT & T system that is gonna be one fun call to Charter overseas to tell them I'm cancelling their crappy service.

America Not Number One In Alcohol Consumption

This afternoon I came across a list from the World Health Organization ranking the World's countries by how many liters of pure alcohol are consumed per capita per year in each country.

The United States did not do too well on this list. We aren't even in the Top 40. Little Luxembourg is the World's top consumer of booze at 15.56 liters per capita per year. The United States is #43 at a measly 8.44 liters. Luxembourg drinks almost twice as much as we do.

Australia drinks more than we do, coming in at #38 with 9.02 liters per. It's not much of a shock that Russia is drunker than us, #27 with 10.32 liters. France is drunker than the Russians at #17 with 11.43 liters. The United Kingdom almost cracked the Top Ten at #11 and 11.75 liters.

I guess it is no great surprise that the Irish are #2, drinking 13.69 liters of pure alcohol per capita per year.

America's neighbor to the north drinks less than we do, #50 with 8.00 liters. Maybe the Canuch's relative sobriety is due to excessive beer consumption with its lesser amount of alcohol than something like vodka.

Our neighbor to the south is way more sober than even the Canadians, coming in at #96 and only 4.50 liters per capita. Maybe the Mexicans don't drink their tequila and save it all for export.

It's a 4 way tie for most sober country at #197 and 0.00 liters of pure alcohol consumption per capita per year. The 4 totally sober places on the planet are Bangladesh, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and, this one is a surprise, one of the American territories, the United States Virgin Islands. I find that hard to believe.

You can look at the entire list by going here....

Washington Mutual Aggravation, Part II

I called Washington Mutual this morning. Once again, like I said yesterday, their account verification system is haywire. After a couple tries it gave me a hit #2 option to access a live banker.

I did so and got an Indian, I think, by Indian I don't mean Native American.

I explained the problem with them assessing a fee on a returned check that should not have been returned. I had to repeat myself multiple times due to each time the live Indian banker missed the drift.

Eventually he put me on hold. When he came back on he told me he was transferring me to his assistant manager, Eric.

I got to explain the problem again. Eric sounded as if he might have been an American in America. Eric eventually concluded the 2nd $12 fee was a mistake and he'd credit it back. I once more asked why the check was returned to the WaMu account on which it was drawn, with that account having plenty of money to cover the check. Eric said it did appear that that should not have happened. But that he couldn't verify it without seeing the other account.

Since I had that other account's verification info Eric agreed he could look at it. He did so and saw that 2 checks had been deposited on the 19th. But that he'd have to talk to his manager to figure out why the check drawn on that account was returned on the 25th, which, maybe coincidentally, was the day WaMu was taken over by the Feds.

Eric said he'd call me when he had an answer. So far, no call, and no crediting back to the 2nd account of the erroneous fee.

I hate banks and offshore customer support centers.