A HOT MERRY CHRISTMAS

I am having myself a very Merry Christmas, so far, here in Texas, this year.

Blue sky has returned. Freezing temperatures are a distant chilly memory. Tomorrow it will be almost 80.

Today, it was so warm, whilst hiking the Tandy Hills, that it was necessary to shed my shirt. But I kept my Santa hat on.

I've got a chile relleno casserole baking right now, as I type. With a lot of extra cheese. The rice cooker just finished making the Mexican rice. The refried beans are ready in the microwave. A cherry pie sits ready to go into the oven.

From the above information you can figure out that, unlike Thanksgiving, when I pigged out at Zorro's Buffet, on Christmas, I decided to not go to a restaurant.

I'll be bringing Miss Puerto Rico her Christmas dinner a bit later. She thinks I'm a Top Chef. I'm not.

I called my Mom and Dad in Phoenix, this morning, to do the Merry Christmas thing. Dad answered. Mom is ailing. So, they won't be going to my Phoenix sister's for Christmas. I asked if this Mom ailing thing affected them coming to Texas in January. Dad said they're assuming Mom will quickly get feeling better.

Meanwhile, while we suffer with balmy warmth down here in Texas, my sister in Kent, Washington is so snowbound she can't make it the 20 miles to my sister in Tacoma for Christmas today. They are in Day 12 of ice and snow in the Puget Sound zone of the Pacific Northwest. With no end in sight. A new cold front blows in in a few days, knocking the temps possibly below the teens. More snow is expected.

So much for Global Warming. The Pacific Northwest winters are usually very mild. You can go year after year with no snow in the lowlands of the Puget Sound. What's happening up there right now is far from the norm.

Meanwhile, here in Texas, I hiked shirtless today on Christmas.

Galveston Police Beat and Arrest 12 Year Old Black Girl They Mistook For A White Hooker

Way too often something happens here in Texas that makes me feel sort of sick. Usually these turn into national or worldwide stories that makes the rest of the nation or the rest of the world feel sort of sick.

Around 2 years ago, at a little before 8 at night, Emily Milburn asked her 12 year old daughter, Dymond, to go outside their Galveston house to reset a breaker switch.

Unbeknownst to the Milburns 3 plain clothed Galveston police had been called to the area due to a call they'd received that 3 white prostitutes had been soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.

However, the cops were in the wrong area, they were 2 blocks from the house they were looking for, when they saw a little girl outside her house who they thought was a hooker due to the so-called "tight shorts" she was wearing.

Just as Dymond reached for the breaker the cop's blue van pulled up and the 3 cops rushed out and grabbed her, saying, "You're a prostitue. You're coming with us." Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started yelling, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the cops covered her mouth to shut her up. The other 2 beat her on the face and throat. Dymond's dad, Wilfred, came to her rescue.

After the beating, Dymond was hospitalized with black eyes and throat and ear drum injuries.

And now here's were it gets totally Texas weird. Three weeks later police went to Dymond's school, where she is a top student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant. Three grown men, not dressed as cops, assault a little girl, trying to take her away. She fights back. And she gets accused of a crime?

Not only did Dymond get arrested, so did her dad. Prosecutors actually had the gall to bring this to trial. Where the judge declared a mistrial on the first day. Even more sickening, a new trial is scheduled for February.

There is one smidgen of good news in this. The victims have filed a lawsuit in Galveston Federal Court against the officers. That these cops are still on the job is so obviously wrong. Why have they not been charged with assault? Tried, convicted and thrown in jail.

Dymond has constant nightmares where cops are raping and beating her and cutting off her fingers.

Regarding the lawsuit, the cop's lawyer had the raw gall to say, "Both the daughter and the father were arrested for assaulting a peace officer. The father basically attacked police officers as they were trying to take the daughter into custody after she ran off."

And, "The city has investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances," It's unfortunate that sometimes police officers have to use force against people who are using force against them. And the evidence will show that both these folks violated the law and forcefully resisted arrest.""

Even if these morons identified themselves as cops, before they began the assault, which they didn't, a little girl is going to be scared to death. We teach kids to fight back if this type thing happens.

If you hear your little girl screaming "Daddy" and you rush out to see 3 men beating your little girl what Dad wouldn't fight the perpetrators?

This latest Texas Outrageous Nonsense needs national exposure NOW. Sometimes the only way these people look in the mirror is if the rest of the nation shames them into looking.

Merry Christmas From The Dallas Morning News

This morning, sometime after 6, I got my first copy of The Dallas Morning News. My first Christmas present of the day.

It'd been a bit bumpy prior to the arrival of the first paper. I was thinking I'd likely be asking for my money back before I ever got a paper.

When I was convinced on Saturday to subscribe I was told delivery would start on Thursday, as in tomorrow. But then I got called by The Dallas Morning News customer service center on Tuesday and asked if I was getting my paper on time.

I told the caller that delivery wasn't supposed to start til Thursday. She told me, no, it was supposed to have started on Sunday.

I told her I've not seen any papers. She read me my address. They had it wrong. I gave her the correct address. She said delivery would start on Wednesday.

Wednesday came. No paper. So, I called the number I'd been given to call if a paper didn't show up. After going through a sophisticated phone tree I got a real person, explained the problem. And once more found they had the address wrong. Corrected it again. Was told delivery would start this morning and credit would be applied to the missing days.

So, I finally got a paper after way too much interaction, including, what I assume is my delivery guy, calling hours after I'd called customer service, to ask what my address was. At that point I sort of figured I was dealing with massive incompetence, worse than the Star-Telegram, and that I'd never see a paper.

Speaking of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I know I can't make any final conclusion based on reading one day, and that day being Christmas, about The Dallas Morning News. But, based on just this one day, The Dallas Morning News is HUGELY better than the Star-Telegram. It took me twice as long to read as the Star-Telegram's biggest day, that being Sunday. The Dallas Morning News has WAY more content. WAY more local stories. A lot more color pictures. More detailed Weather Page. The type on Doonesbury is big enough to read without squinting.

The Dallas Morning News, at least today, was like reading the Seattle P-I. It is a Big City newspaper. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is not Big City worthy. It's a small town paper. A bad small town paper. That I'm well rid of.

Christmas Eve: Texas Drunk, Post Office Clunk & No Snow

The last time I went to Oakland Park the trees were still being colorful. Now, a week later, there is little color to be seen. Killed by deep freezes. I went to Oakland Park after visiting my regional Post Office..

Why did I have to go there you ask? Well, for the 2nd time in 2 months, the mailman has put a card in my mailbox telling me he was sorry he was unable to deliver a package. That I could request re-delivery. Or pick it up myself.

Requesting re-delivery has never worked. I learned that last Christmas. Last month it was a frozen thing shipped from Houston. There is no excuse that makes any sense for not leaving a package. There are locked parcel boxes next to the mailroom. Many a time a package has been left there.

So, I called the regional Post Office to complain. I got the Postmaster. He sympathized with my pain. He said, "Can I be honest with you?" Sure, I said. He told me he was Old School, that he would never do such a thing, but the new mailmen cuts corners all the time, to make their jobs easier.

Long story short, I was on my way to my destination, I would be sort of in the area, so I dropped in at the regional Post Office and got the package.

I've always thought the Post Office gets a bum rap. I don't think I've ever had a letter lost. And it only cost 43 cents to mail an envelope thousands of miles. But you pay the Post Office a lot more than 43 cents to ship something and you don't know what's gonna happen to the package you carefully wrapped.

So, after the Post Office ordeal and after going on a walk at Oakland Lake Park I was driving down Randoll Mill Road and I saw the Holiday Liquor Depot. It has a big parking lot. The parking lot was totally full. People were parking on the sides of the entry driveways.

I'd never seen it like this. Was Christmas and all the bad economic news driving people to drink?

Holiday Liquor Depot sits on the border of a wet and dry zone. Just north of the border it is dry. This means there are 3 liquor stores at the first freeway exit to the wet zone, Holiday Liquor Depot, Majestic and Big Daddy's. The first 2 were very busy. Big Daddy's not so much.

Out of curiosity I felt I had to check out what the inside of Holiday Liquor Depot was like. It took awhile to find a parking spot, but people were coming and going fast, so it wasn't all that hard. I walked in to find the place packed. There were at least 10 cash registers working, each with long lines.

I had no idea Christmas drove so many people to drink so much. Christmas doesn't drive me to drink. The only thing that drives me to drink is being trapped with annoying people. It can put me in a better mood. And to sleep.

That's the Holiday Liquor Depot parking lot in the picture above. Under the Holiday Liquor Depot sign it says, in capital letters, "UNBEETABLE." Were they drunk? Or did they mean to make that mistake?

World's Biggest Butt At Wal-Mart Supercenter

I just finished blogging about Snowzilla up in Alaska. The giant Snowman put me in mind of something I saw yesterday, that being Christmas Eve Eve, at my local neighborhood Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The store was packed with so many unseemly looking characters it was like being on some sort of set for a science fiction movie. So many of the people seemed like caricatures. Some looking like they were trying out to be the poster person for White Trash of America.

One was a throwback to the 60s. Long hair, beard, tie-dyed shirt, looked dirty, a stereotypical Hippie. The only thing of this century about him was he was ranting into a cell phone.

Yesterday's Wal-Mart anthropological expedition saw the biggest concentration of Texas Big Hair that I've seen in a long long time. Texas Big Hair is often coupled with really bad, heavily done makeup that looks like you'd need a trowel to scrape it off.

One old lady looked like Bette Davis in her last years. Painted on eyebrows, garish makeup, Grand Canyonesque wrinkles, unnatural looking brown hair that must have been a wig.

But the thing I saw yesterday that will forever linger in the dark recesses of my mind, that being the location where things get stored that I wish I'd never seen, was what was the Biggest Butt I have ever seen in my long long life. This may have been the Biggest Butt in the World.

This Big Butt defies description. But I will try. The Big Butt was on a short woman, maybe 5 foot 2. I turned a corner and came face to butt to it. I'm sure my jaw dropped.

The Big Butt stuck way way out, like several feet from the woman's back. As the woman walked the Big Butt did this strange motion of bouncing up and down. Slowly. This created the illusion that her legs were very short.

I really do not understand how this Big Butted woman was able to walk. It appeared as if the weight of that humongous Big Butt should pull her backwards.

Looking at that Big Butt raised all sorts of questions. Like how did she get those stretchy looking pants on? How did she get in a car? That Big Butt was so Big you'd need a hole in the ceiling for your head. It'd be like sitting on a 5 foot tall cushion. It had to be a convertible. But it was so cold yesterday. Then again, with all that insulative adipose tissue it's likely impossible to get cold.

The Big Butt woman was with a man. A classic Jack Spratt. Skinny little guy. He was pushing the cart. If they'd not been moving so slow I would have kept them under surveillance til they left the store, so I could see how the Big Butt could get in a car.

Why does one let oneself get in this type condition? It's one of the more perplexing questions (for me) of our times. Almost as perplexing as where the hell did those billions of bailout dollars go? See, I've got my priorities in proper order. The economy comes first. Then Big Butts.

I need a real small spy type camera so I can photo-document it when I see something like the World's Biggest Butt. In the meantime, I may go to Wal-Mart again today. It's actually highly entertaining, in an Anthropological Expedition sort of way.

Snowzilla in Alaska

For days I've been reading about this giant snowman---up in the only state bigger than Texas, known as Alaska---that's been dubbed "Snowzilla". Supposedly appearing overnight, with no one taking credit for rolling the balls to make the man.

Snowzilla has appeared the last 3 years in the Anchorage front yard of a junk dealer named Billy Powers. Billy claims to know nothing about Snowzilla. However he seems quite smitten with this year's mystery Snowman, asking a reporter if he'd "seen him." And telling the reporter that "he's handsome." He being the Snowman, not the reporter. Maybe the reporter is also handsome, I don't know, that wasn't part of the story.

Each year, when Snowzilla appears, he's bigger, and apparently, more handsome, than the year before. This year he has grown to being 25 feet tall.

Due to all the Alaskans wanting a personal look at Snowzilla, it creates a serious traffic jam.

This year the city said Snowzilla was a public nuisance and a safety hazard, due to being so big he could become an avalanche. A cease and desist order was issued and tacked to Power's door.

City officials said Snowzilla increased traffic to the point of being dangerous and that Snowzilla, itself, was unsafe. Due that avalanche danger, I suppose.

Anchorage's Mayor, Mark Begich, issued a statement saying the city stands behind its moves to take down Snowzilla, saying, "This property owner has repeatedly ignored city attempts to find ways to accommodate his desire to build a giant snowman without affecting the quiet, residential quality of the neighborhood. This is a neighborhood of small homes on small lots connected by small streets. It can't support the volume of traffic and revelers that are interested in Snowzilla."

The mayor's office claims that for 13 years Powers has been running an illegal junk and salvage operation from his home in violation of land use codes. And that he owes Anchorage more than $100,000 in fines and other charges.

Powers claims it is the city that is the problem, not him. That he's jumped through every goofy hoop they've sent him, that he's never been confrontational, that some of the city's charges are unfounded and just plain outrageous.

The city says it will take no further action against Powers. Til after Christmas.

Meanwhile, here at my location in Fort Worth, no snow, not freezing and no chance of a White Christmas tomorrow.

Home Zone Phone

I had very helpful, pleasant phone time with one of my favorite bright lights, from my old home zone, this morning.

It's a mind clearing thing to talk to someone who has observed the same phenomena, as I have, to find you both perceive the phenomena in the same way. This leads me to believe that others who have observed the same phenomena have likely come to similar conclusions.

People up in my old home zone are trying to dig out from the worst winter storm in a long long time. The old home zoner I talked to this morning is snowbound until the big thaw comes. The big thaw may start up there today. That's when it gets nasty.

I remember losing my downspouts during a big thaw. They came down with a huge crash. Awhile later, as the thaw progressed, there was an explosive noise followed by the sound of water. A pipe that I did not realize was frozen, with the freeze causing the pipe to crack, began spewing water at high velocity when it thawed.

This was inside the house, in the basement, but outside the heated part of the house, sort of an exercise room, storage room combo. It was fairly easy to get the water shut off and the pipe isolated. After the disaster passed, I put in a shut off valve in the ceiling so the water to those pipes could be cut off during a freeze.

By the way, that's a small part of the Skagit Valley in the photo. One of the most beautiful spots on the planet. If you've never seen it, make plans. But not in the winter. Aim for spring so you can see all the flowers, like tulips, in bloom.

Alan Young, GMC Dealer Closed Down

In the first instance, besides Washington Mutual failing, of myself actually seeing an example of the economic meltdown, today's news brought word of another business, with which I had done business, failing.

The Alan Young GMC dealership in North Richland Hills was shut down on Monday after General Motors Acceptance Corporation cut Alan Young's credit, stopping him from being able to buy and finance cars from GMC.

Alan Young is the first dealer in the Fort Worth, Tarrant County zone to go under since cars sales dropped hugely following the Wall Street Meltdown.

I feel a bit sorry for the 55 employees who have lost their jobs. But not all that badly. Because among those 55 are likely Alan Young mechanics who incompetently "fixed" my van on more than one occasion.

Alan Young had to replace the fan control switch for the heater/AC 3 times. Alan Young fixed something to do with the fuel pump, only to have it fail again within a short time, with Alan Young not assuming responsibility for making the repair. Alan Young messed up my transmission and then tried to claim it was already like that.

I complained to GMC about the Alan Young dealership. I do not believe it was an "honest" shop. An employee of Alan Young's told me that there were a lot of problems with repairs.

I really am not a fan of the auto maker bailout.

Freezing Rain Pain in Fort Worth & Wal-Mart Carolers

The photo is what the Tandy Hills will likely look like by morning. Freezing Rain is predicted to start falling after midnight, lasting til a couple hours past daybreak. By morning we could be totally ice-covered here.

It is my least favorite Texas weather thing. I experienced my first Texas Ice Storm within the first week of moving here. We had gone to the Stockyards for lunch, wearing no jackets because it was warm to us who were used to cold northwest type weather.

We came out of a restaurant, the now deceased Riscky Rita's, to find the temperature had plummeted by a lot of degrees. As in it felt like it was freezing. By early evening it was 15. We didn't know what to do with the pool, or the outside water valves.

By morning an ice storm had coated everything with several inches of ice. You went outside at great risk.

On a totally different note. I just got back from my Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market. As soon as I opened my vehicle's door I heard loud Christmas music. As I got closer to the source I saw it was live carolers. A group of maybe 12. Led by an old Santa-looking guy. They had a pickup with hay in the back and some sort of keyboard. It was an all-white group of carolers singing in a mostly African-America neighborhood.

Somehow the scene evoked the new spirit in America, at least what I hope is the new spirit. That we are all one, all in it together and all here to help each other. Or maybe the carolers were simply lost. They were packing up and leaving by the time I left the store.

Second Day of Winter in Cold Fort Worth

The low today was 26. It is now almost 5 and 30. As in 5 the time, 30 the temp. The high today was 31. It's been another cold, gray day in Dirty Ol' Town.

That's the view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony at about 3 this afternoon.

I forgot to mention, it's windy. Currently the Wind Chill Factor is making it feel like 20 out there.

I could have it worse. This morning I was writing a card to send my aunt up in Potholes, Washington. That's in eastern Washington near the Columbia River. I looked up her current temperature. It was 6 at 9 this morning. With a lot of snow.

Despite the frigid Arctic climate I did my usual hike around the Tandy Hills, today, a little after noon. I'd already been out and about and thought I was dressed warm enough. I wasn't. I didn't have a "hoodie" on, so there was some serious skin exposure in the neck zone. I did not hike as long as I usually do.

Tomorrow the sun is supposed to make a slight appearance with the high being 60. And no freezing. I hope I'm not disappointed by an incorrect forecast.

UPDATE: WeatherBug just went off with a National Weather Service Warning that freezing rain will start falling early Tuesday morning, continuing til 10am. That sounds like an Ice Storm. I don't like Ice Storms.