Durango Texas: The Documentary

Last week a Director / Producer / Film Maker / Documentarian / Reality TV Maker contacted me to see if I'd be willing to be interviewed for a documentary about the Barnett Shale drilling.

Apparently it is what I've written about Chesapeake Energy and Aubrey McClendon that I would be interviewed about.

Trouble is, I don't know that I'm interview-worthy. It's one thing to be a blowhard spewing words in this venue. It's an entirely different thing to answer questions about a subject that I'm really not all that deep about, except for having my simple opinions.

There are people way more involved than I in objecting to all the urban drilling that is going on in the D/FW zone.

I think I'm afraid I'd be tongue-tied and stuttering, my mind gone blank like when I couldn't remember the code to turn off a security alarm a couple weeks ago.

And on an entirely different yet somehow related note. About once a week I get a comment from someone who sounds like a Chesapeake Energy shill, but claims he's not. This person calls himself 'wolfcry44'. I usually don't publish his comments because, well, they don't make a lot of sense.

Like this morning's. Mr. Wolfcry commented on my blogging yesterday about hiking in the Tandy Hills, getting gas and calling my mom. The comment was this, "why dont you post views different than yours."

I'll ignore the grammatically challenged parts of the comment and simply comment that it seems this person only reads the stuff that in some way references Chesapeake, totally unaware that the majority of my blog is not about that. Secondly, why would I post views other than my own on my blog? Why would I do that? And why is this person reading my blog in search of opinions other than mine?

Tandy Hills Hike And A Gas Call To Mom

Yet one more very pleasant Sunday in Texas this fine second day of November. It's in the 80s out there. 60 when I went swimming at 7am. I'm liking the time change.

Today I was talked into driving someone to an appointment near the Tandy Hills Natural Area. I thought, fine, I'll go hiking and maybe take some new video, perhaps of the Chesapeake Energy drilling operation that is taking the natural out of the natural area.

After I dropped the aforementioned at the aforementioned's appointment I saw I needed gas. The gas station nearest the Tandy Hills is the cheapest around my zone. As in today it was $2.06 a gallon. Practically giving it away these days.

Of course, as my long time reader may remember, whenever I get gas I call my mom in Phoenix. I'd gotten an email from my dad yesterday telling me my Mom was concerned because I'd not made a gas call in a long time. Mom answered on the first ring. She claims it's been 2 months since I've called. She may be right.

I told my Ma about my recent memory problems and that that might explain forgetting to make gas calls.

When I was talking to Mom I got a call from Tootsie Tonasket. I kept talking to Mom. But when that conversation finally ended I called Tootsie Tonasket. Soon into that my cell phone started making the dying battery noise. I knew I needed the phone working so the aforementioned could call me when the aforementioned's appointment was over.

So, I temporarily terminated my Tandy visit and came back here to charge my phone. And made rice pudding while I waited. And worked on a website. Then I headed back to Tandy and took the photos you see in this particular blogging.

The photo at the top is me looking towards the Chesapeake Energy desecration zone. The other photo is a look at the fall colors covering the Tandy Hills.

Texas Early Voting Breaks Record By Huge Margin

Texans early voted in record numbers. Early voting ended Friday. Millions of Texans have already done their voting duty. Other states with early voting have also had record breaking numbers.

Tuesday will be an interesting day. I'll have to remember to go to my polling place, the library, to see how busy it is. I need a new book to read, anyway.

Barack Obama is going to spend election night in Chicago at an event with thousands of others who managed to get tickets. Up to a million more people are expected to be on the streets of Chicago. Those people riot over all sorts of things, winning or losing a sports game, political conventions.

John McCain will be slumming it election night at the Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix. No word on if a million people are expected on the streets in Phoenix.

Meanwhile, over in Africa, should John McCain's opponent win, celebrations are expected to be huge all over the continent. I expect that might happen in other areas of the globe as well.

Say what you want about America's supposed fallen standing in the world, what other nation's election can cause people all over the world to want to celebrate?

Durango TV Blog

Sometimes I enjoy writing about something I've watched on TV. Usually I enjoy writing about it because in some way it has appalled or disgusted me. It's a good thing to vent.

But, except for the fact that I watched the TV show while in Texas it has nothing else to do with my life in Texas, which was what I thought the theme of my Durango Texas blog was going to be.

Sometimes I stifle myself from writing about something I've watched on TV due to it seeming somehow out of place. Well, dense boy that I am, the solution was obvious, but came to me slowly.

As in I've started a new blog, all about TV. Durango TV. I think I'm going to have fun with this one.

If you haven't heard Sarah Palin getting punked by a pair of Canucks from Montreal pretending to be French President Sarkozy, go to my new blog and listen to it. It is pretty funny. My favorite part is when Sarah gets asked if Joe the Plumber is her husband.

Seattle Pike Place Market YouTube Video Debacle

I'd wondered why the number of viewings of a short YouTube video I'd made of my August 7 walk through of Pike Place Market last summer seemed perpetually stuck on 24 views. Today I found out why.

YouTube had made several of my videos "No Longer Available For Viewing" for apparently no good reason. Including the Pike Place Market one.

I had not intended to spend more than the time it took to eat breakfast making and uploading a video of this morning's swim. And now this YouTube debacle has wasted most of the day. And made me cranky. Lord knows it is hard to make me cranky.

I did manage to escape YouTube and go hiking at Tandy Hills today. It was hot. Some like it hot. I didn't use to. But I do these days. If you don't like it hot you shouldn't live in Texas.

November 1 Swimming in North Texas

Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour tonight. I hate hearing that reminder over and over again. And what tragedy would occur if, God forbid, you forgot?

Today is the 1st of November, a couple days til the election, a few more weeks til Thanksgiving, then a few more weeks til Christmas, then one week til the New Year.

Unless it is freezing I intend to go swimming New Year's Day morning. I've pretty much figured out if the average temperature for any given day is in the 50 to 60 degree range, the water is okay to get in. As in this morning. at midnight it was 65, by morning it was 60. This made the pool the most pleasant temperature it's been in a week.

So, I stayed in it a long time. And my videographer documented my first day of November swim. (The video was uploaded to YouTube the morning of November 1. The upload seemed to be successful but YouTube is saying the video is no longer available. Why I don't know. More Google incompetence maybe?) I'll try again with the video...Okay, finally got the thing to work. What a waste of time.

Giant Caterpillar Roller Blading At Village Creek Natural Historic Area

I decided to go roller blading at Village Creek Natural Historic Area today. Roller blading there is a bit more adventurous than Quanah Parker Park. At Village Creek there are 4 hills you get to go down and back up. The hills curve and cause you to cross 2 dams at high speed.

I had my all time worst roller blade wreck at Village Creek. I never thought I'd go back there again on roller blades.

But today I did. It was fun. Just like at Quanah Parker Park, I found I didn't go down the Village Creek hills as fast as I used to, due to my need to put on some weight.

People with a lot of weight are so lucky. They get to go down hills fast and they can go in real cold water and not even feel it and don't even need to swim, they just bob up and down effortlessly due to their built-in auto inner tubes. I wish I could put on weight like that.

Back to today's blading. So, I'm rolling along and I looked down to see this big fuzzy thing, like a caterpillar on steroids, which is what I figured it was, eventually it would become one of those gigantic bat-like Texas moths that like to chase me when I'm wearing my wool cap.

In the photo above I'm stopped right above the giant caterpillar. In the photo on the right you see the giant caterpillar walking across the paved trail.

I think it was chasing me.

A Fort Worth Chesapeake Energy Bus & A Leak

After seeing them on the streets for months, today I was finally able to get a photo of one of the Fort Worth city buses covered with a Chesapeake Energy ad.

The ad says "Thanks Barnett Shale for 83,000 new jobs." The logo of Chesapeake Energy is all over the bus. As well as the AskChesapeake.com web address.

I did not know the Barnett Shale had produced 83,000 new jobs. Now that the drillers are scaling back how many of those jobs have been un-produced?

A non-Chesapeake Barnett Shale natural gas drilling waste water disposal operation out near Aledo, that's in Parker County, west of Fort Worth, was shut down by the Texas Railroad Commission after drilling waste was found on the ground with evidence of an underground leak.

For some mysterious reason the Texas Railroad Commission oversees gas drilling operations.

Waste water from the drilling operations is stored in underground wells. The waste water contains salt, drilling chemicals, drilling mud and crude oil.

CES Saltwater Disposal was given a permit in May of 2007 to drill to a depth of 11,500 feet to pump waste water underground at the now shut down location near Aledo.

The shutdown disposal operation is near a housing development which gets its water from underground wells.

Why these people here in Texas, who rely so much on underground aquifers, would allow contaminated water to be pumped into wells, seems bizarre to me. Up in Washington state there is a serious problem with nuclear wastes at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation slowly migrating towards the Columbia River.

Why do these people here think that contaminated water underground is going to stay put? I see bad things in the future that are only being hinted at in the present. As in MAJOR ECOLOGICAL DISASTER.

Earthquake Shakes North Texas! Is Gas Drilling The Cause?

I thought Texas did not have earthquakes. I've been told that more than once. Where I used to live, in Washington, earthquakes were quite regular. That and mountains blowing up.

Where I lived, in Mount Vernon, we went through a series of localized earthquakes centered about 3 miles east of my house. It was day after day of quakes. I remember laying on my waterbed when one happened and the waves about tossed me out of bed. Another one I was sitting in my living room and I thought the windows were going to pop out. Another one I heard loud cracking and went into the kitchen to find a fault line had formed across my tile floor.

So, I thought my earthquake days were behind me. But then last night, coming up on midnight, we got hit with a series of quakes here in North Texas. The first struck about a half hour before midnight, centered 4 miles north of Grand Prairie. Grand Prairie is the town next to Arlington. I live in East Fort Worth, about 10 miles west of Grand Prairie. I think I felt the quake but thought it was a noisy truck.

The largest quake occurred just after midnight. A 3.0 centered 4 miles southwest of Irving. Irving is the town due west of Dallas where the Cowboys currently play football.

Several smaller quakes in the 2.0 range were felt, with the last shaker occurring around 3 in the morning.

Police were flooded with 100s of calls. Most people thought it was an explosion or a plane crash.

I remember when all this Barnett Shale drilling and fraccing started happening I thought to myself, good thing they don't have quakes here, as doing that much damage to the earth's upper crust would likely have a bad result up in Washington.

The same thought occurred to Fort Worth's wise sage, Don Young. Way back in August of 2007 Don Young wrote the following....

While vacationing recently in Marfa, Texas, I stumbled into a bookstore seeking shade and ran across an interesting book titled, Texas Earthquakes.

I thought to myself, We don't have earthquakes in Texas! The concept seemed counterintuitive. The authors of the book know better. Opening the book at random to page 70, I read the following:

"Three human activities that commonly induce earthquake activity are:

1) Injecting high pressure fluids into rock formations beneath the earth's surface.
2) Withdrawing large amounts of fluid or gas.
3) Construction of reservoirs and lakes."

Until very recently, the first 2 items have occurred only in remote parts of the state, away from densely populated areas. The Barnett-Shale play and subsequent fracing technology have changed all that.

According to the Texas Railroad Commission, in the year 2000, there were less than 10 gas wells in Tarrant County. Today, there are more than 1,000 with many more planned and thousands more in the immediate vicinity.

I'm not suggesting there is a serious risk from earthquakes in Tarrant County, there are far more serious risks from drilling, but, expanded gas drilling and injection wells in the north Texas region have moved us into uncharted territory.

To paraphrase Paul Harvey, "One fine day we may know, the rest of the story."

I fear we are doomed here in North Texas, doomed I tell you.

AT & T U-Verse Email Sending Solution

I keep seeing that people are coming to my blog looking for answers regarding how to send email using an existing email account with their new AT & T connection.

It wasn't easy, but I figured it out. No help from AT &T. I'd intended to post the solution, but I forgot.

There are several steps. I use Outlook Express. You may use a different email program that may require a different solution.

First off, log into your AT & T account. Find your way to your email account.

Click on 'options'. You'll see it on the upper right.

Now click on 'Mail Addresses' under the 'Management' heading.

Now click on 'Add'. Then enter the email address you want to be able to use as a sending email address. You will be sent an email to verify this address.

Now, back at Outlook Express. Click on 'tools', then 'accounts', then the email address you want to use and click 'Properties'.

Under the 'Servers' tab you'll need to make your Outgoing mail (SMTP) "smtp.att.yahoo.com".

At the bottom of the 'Servers' section check off "My server requires authentication".

Then click 'Settings'. Under Settings select 'Log on using'. Then enter your AT & T email address as the 'Account Name'. Enter your AT & T password in the 'Password' field. Click 'OK' and get outta there.

Now, click on the 'Advanced' tab. For 'Outgoing mail (SMTP) enter '465'. Put a check mark underneath that where it says 'This server requires a secure connection (SSL).

Hit 'OK' and you're done. You should now be able to send email using a non AT & T email address.

I know it sounds like an awful lot of bother. And it is a bother that AT & T should not make us go through. But it doesn't really take all that long. And after you get it done it works just fine.