Surrender: Resistance is Futile

Over on FWCANDO Don Young wrote an interesting piece, advising Jim Ashford that resistance is futile, after Mr. Ashford objected to a few issues regarding the latest dirty dealings by Chesapeake Energy and Fort Worth's Ruling Junta. Go to FWCANDO to read what Jim Ashford said and the response to him.

---

Relax, Jim! Chill out, my friend.

We live in Age of Reason.

Ah, but I see you are skeptical? "Reason", like many other words, now have "new meanings" in Dirty Ol' Town. In this case, "Reason" means, whatever reason the gas drillers have is good enough for David, Susan and Sarah. Get it?

Call it, the "Pretend-Game"! It's fun for the whole family!

For example:

1) Protected Use, doesn't REALLY mean protection, it just means that gas drillers will have to pay for waivers or bribe city council to threaten public health and safety. No prob!

2) Free Money, REALLY means that hidden costs for health care, insurance, taxes, property marketability, etc. are shielded from you by the gas drillers and city. Until the bill comes due. It's kind of a, Don't ask. Don't tell, policy.

3) Clean Burning Natural Gas, isn't REALLY clean burning or natural when you factor in the production, processing and piping of it. Throw in disposal of the waste products and you begin to see more clearly.

4) Orderly Production of Minerals, is REALLY Sarah reminding you that "You are getting sleepy. VERRRY sleepy. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Now close your eyes. This is not a zoning change. Repeat after me...

5) Barnett Shale Philanthropy, is REALLY extortion, bribery, graft and hush money dressed up for a night at the opera.

6) Parkland Conversion, REALLY means that gas drillers just have to call in an extra attorney to get what they want.

7) Green-space isn't REALLY a place to hike with your kids, get in touch with the natural world and see some wildlife, it's Prime Real Estate for a future pad-site, compressor station or pipeline.

8) City Attorney, Assistant City Attorney and City Planning Director, aren't REALLY working for the City (you and me). They work for "the current occupant" who works for Chesapeake, XTO, Devon, Quicksilver, Etc. Etc. ad nauseam.

9) The FW Star-Telegram isn't REALLY a Newspaper. It's a Barnett Shale drillers business partner. (Durango note: I've been saying the first sentence in #9 for years)

10) Texas Railroad Commission is REALLY an aptly named excuse for state regulation of oil/gas drilling. They "railroad" you until you're "out of commission." Their message is brought to you by Chesapeake, XTO, Devon, Quicksilver, et al.

Get with the program, man! Once you get the hang of it, it's FUN! Just like all the rapists say, "Relax and enjoy it!"

Click on this City of FW link for more "pretend" words. (See p.3):

Don Young
FWCanDo
P.O. Box 470041
Fort Worth, TX 76147

FWCANDO

"God bless Fort Worth, Texas. Help us save some of it."

Monday at Tandy Hills With a New Camera

That's downtown Fort Wort in the picture. Looking west from the Tandy Hills. As I was taking pictures a jogger zoomed by. You don't often see joggers in the Tandy Hills.

Today is the first day I've used my new camera outside. Yesterday (Sunday) hours were spent, by me, trying to figure it out. There is just way too much going on for this Senior Citizen's deteriorating thought powers to absorb.

Just deleting photos was confusing. My computer card reader recognized the media card, but wouldn't cooperate with it, so I had to leave the memory card on the camera. It was so easy to delete pictures with my old, now dead, camera.

And then I remembered my previous lesson learned regarding new electronic products that require a computer program to make them work. And that lesson is don't use the program that comes with the products. Use ones I already have or that are built into Windows. As in Windows Moviemaker works way better than the clunky program that came with my camcorder.

About 4 in the afternoon, yesterday, I found that Windows Camera/Scanner Wizard made taking the pictures off the camera and deleting them totally simple. After that I figured out the video part of the camera and I slowly quit thinking about taking it back and getting something less challenging, more geared toward the elderly.

The water was running very clear in the Tandy Hills Creek, but it was not running enough water to make much of a waterfall at the Tandy Hills Waterfall.

I guess I'm happy now with the new camera. These type things always take awhile to get used to.

I'm out of here in a bit, heading to River Legacy Park to ride my bike to check out the state of damage there. Yesterday, I got an email from a guy named Jeff, as appalled as I was at what is being done at River Legacy. More dirty dealings with no public input. I'll see if I can get some good pictures. I've not been there in maybe 2 months.

I'll likely return here full of righteous umbrage. Speaking of righteous umbrage, I just got email from Don Young with a good dose of righteousness. I'll hit the publish button and then blog about Don Young's latest.

Super Super Bowl 43

It was this morning in the Dallas Morning News that I learned that the Pittsburgh Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII. That is also when I learned I missed watching all of what is being called one of the Top 5 all time Super Bowl games.

I made it through the first quarter and well into the second, when boredom started to set in and I retreated to my computer.

The commercials were not living up to Super Bowl hype this year. Reading online and in the paper this morning I see I'm not the only one who was non-plussed. Apparently the second half had better commercials.

A few of the ads seemed borderline, well, wrong to me. Like a Bud Light ad that had some corporate workers brainstorming as to how to cut costs. All over the office there were bottles of beer. How many offices have you seen where beer is consumed during work? So, a young guy suggests they save money by cutting out the beer. The next thing you see is him being thrown out the window. The technical term for this is defenestration. Basically its murder. There were several things wrong with that commercial.

More than one ad had someone getting run over by a bus. Another had a guy able to magically remove a woman's clothes. You had to go to a website to see how that turned out. I didn't go there. The Clydesdale beer ads were okay.

I think maybe Super Bowl commercials have jumped the proverbial shark. I see TV Guide has taken over the Jump the Shark website. It's not the same.

Before the game, Jennifer Hudson sang the Star Spangled Banner. I believe it was the best national anthem singing I've ever heard. The Bruce Springsteen halftime show was about the best I remember, too.

And, apparently, if I'd made it to the 4th quarter, the football game ended up being as good as Jennifer and Bruce were. I just did not have the stamina to watch that much football.

Super Bowl XLIII All Day Today On NBC

Why do they use that pretentious Roman Numeral way of numbering Super Bowls? Wouldn't it be easier to just call it Super Bowl 43?

We don't even use Roman Numerals for something as important as President of the United States.

As in our dearly departed former leader, George W. was not known as XLIII. He was known as 43. As in the 43rd President of the United States.

What percentage of avid football fans can count in Roman Numerals? I can't help but wonder.

I knew that the Phoenix NFL team is in the Super Bowl. I knew this due to my Phoenix sister telling me they are all now Phoenix fans, meaning her husband and my nephews and, I guess, my sister. I generally don't pay much attention to the sports pages. But this morning I bothered to find out that Phoenix, well, Arizona, is playing Pittsburgh today. Apparently Arizona is the underdog with Pittsburgh expected to win.

I usually enjoy the commercials, and sometimes the halftime show. Last year I did not find the commercials amusing. I don't remember the halftime show. I blinked during Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction, several Super Bowls ago, and had to download video of it to see what the fuss was all about. Much ado about nothing, it appeared to me.

When Seattle was in the Super Bowl, for the first and only time, a couple years ago, I actually watched both the game and the commercials and halftime show. I was appalled by the game. If a casual non-football fan can spot referee errors, well, that's pathetic. If all Super Bowls were like that one, I really don't get why people watch.

Even though I don't care for football and don't see what it is that people find so interesting, I have been known to have or go to a Super Bowl Party. On the West Coast the Super Bowl starts up about 3 in the afternoon. Here in the Central Time Zone it starts up at 5.

I was so used to West Coast start times for live events, I've never gotten used to the Central Time Zone and live events. Like the Academy Awards on the West Coast start at 6 and are over by about 10. Here it starts at 8 and goes til midnight. I've never made it to the end of an Academy Awards Show in Texas. That may be partially due to the fact that anymore I find the Academy Awards show even more boring than football.

It seems to my memory that usually the President's Annual State of the Union address is the first Tuesday after the Super Bowl. It is not scheduled this week, near as I can tell. I think on the West Coast the State of the Union came on at 7, making it 9 here.

Maybe the State of the Union is so bad this year our new President is choosing not to tell us about it. Someone needs to remind him that he is constitutionally obligated to inform the nation of the State of the Union, once a year. He can do it by written report if he isn't in the mood to give another big speech so soon after his last one.

Now, I must start to prepare for my Super Bowl Party. You are welcome to come. But I may kick you out when that game runs too deep into my bedtime.

Rockledge, Lake Grapevine, Costco and a Camera

Well, I've had me a good day. It started off with French Toast topped with Lemon Curd and went uphill from there.

Oh, I forgot about my YouTube distress. I guess I blocked that out and went on to have that good day thing happen.

So, I went up to the Southlake Costco for the free sample lunch. It was being real good today due to all these vendors were pushing Super Bowl goodies. Everything from Meatballs to Chicken Wings to Fajitas to Hot Damn Tamales to a new Kirkland Signature brand energy drink that made me gag.

After Costco it was off to Lake Grapevine and Rockledge Park to do some hiking along the beach. There are a lot of big boulders which makes for good exercise. There were a lot of people there today, due to the warm temperatures. Lots of bikers, hikers, boaters and guys fishing.

I saw one disturbing scene of 3 grown men with a group of little boys. They were high up on the cliff. There used to be a fairly good trail along there, but the flood of a few years back did a lot of erosion damage. Now, it is just scary. I turned on my camcorder and aimed it at them, expecting one of the kids to fall.

To get around a washed out part, they had the kids sliding down a makeshift trail, one guy at the end of the slide and another down below, I assume to try and catch a kid if he fell too far.

I shouldn't be too judgemental, I guess. I was known to put my nephews in danger, a time or two, when they were little, but never like this. I do remember nephew Joey and me hiking up Sauk Mountain in the Skagit Valley when the trail was covered with ice and it was snowing, lightly. We made it to the top. Joey brought up that nephew in danger incident when I saw him this past summer. He remembers it fondly. I remember it as what the hell was I thinking?

I forgot to mention. I finally got a new camera. Today Costco had the Canon one that I wanted. I'd narrowed my search down to a Canon and a waterproof, shockproof Olympus. The battery for the new camera is charging. I probably won't get around to figuring it out til tomorrow.

Today's pictures were taken with my video camcorder. I see something, shoot a few seconds of video and then extract the "picture" in Windows Moviemaker. It works fairly well, as a stop gap measure til a new camera could be found. Which it was, found I mean, at Costco.

After Costco I went to Sprouts Farmers Market and got all sorts of good stuff. Including giant Texas Red Grapefruits. I was down to only 4 remaining of the huge supply of grapefruits my mom and dad imported into Texas from Arizona with them, earlier in the month. I still have lemons and oranges from the mom/dad delivery.

It got warm today. I have the windows open. It's time to close them. The sun is starting to set. It goes down fast here.

We're Sorry, This Video Is No Longer Available

Help!

YouTube is worthless in the help department. Yesterday I uploaded a video to YouTube. It took way longer than usual to process. When it was done and I clicked on it I got the message you see on the left, telling me the video I just uploaded is no longer available.

I deleted what was no longer available and uploaded again. Same result. So, I uploaded the video via this Blogger program's video upload. That also did not work.

This morning after wasting an hour trying to figure out what was wrong I asked someone else to try and view the video on their computer. It worked.

So, it's some problem on my computer? I deleted the temporary internet files. Ran the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware program that fixed a YouTube problem when I was up in Washington last summer. This time this was not the fix.

I tried the video in Firefox and Google Chrome. Same "unavailable" message.

I looked in YouTube's useless Help Center. Under "error messages" I found the "We're Sorry" message. YouTube said this message occurs if the uploader (me) has deleted the video. Or if YouTube has removed it due to it being in violation of terms of use.

I did not delete the video and it was not in violation of terms of use.

Then I found that about half of my videos bring up the "We're Sorry" message. About half work fine. So, if it's something on my computer causing the problem, why do some work?

It's vexing and has wasted way too much time this morning.

I've got to get out of here, away from this computer. I think a walk by water would be salubrious. I'm guessing Rockledge on Lake Grapevine would be the best for that purpose. It'll be in the 60s. I won't go swimming. Oh, great, the YouTube video I made of Rockledge at Lake Grapevine, that one still works for me.

Is there a good alternative to YouTube? If so, please let me know.

January 30 Roller Blading at Quanah Parker Park

Today is a perfect example of how I've come to be slightly addicted to at least one aspect of Texas.

And that aspect is the weather.

Two days ago we were covered with a sheet of ice and the temperature, when the sun came up, was 20.

That was Wednesday.

Today is Friday. I did still see some ice in a couple places, today. But today our temperature, here in Fort Worth, got to 65. I doubt any ice lasts til the sun goes down in a few minutes.

So, today I was able to go roller blading at Quanah Parker Park in shorts and t-shirt. And I overheated. Not to the remove the shirt point. But, close.

I took video of blading today, held the camera at eye level. YouTube is processing it right now. When I saw the video I saw I need to clean the lens. I've not done that before. If you watch the video below, you'll likely also notice I need to clean the lens.

I need a new video camcorder I've decided. The one I've got is sort of antique. I think I bought it back in 2004.

Okay, YouTube is having a hiccup and keeps saying the video I uploaded is "No Longer Available For Viewing." This seems to happen a lot anymore with YouTube. It sort of makes one want to find an alternative to YouTube.

The YouTube video below still is not working on my computer, but I've been told it works on other people's computers. I've no idea why. I'm deleting my "Temporary Internet Files."

Senior Citizens & Screaming Kids at Zorro's Buffet

I went to Zorro's Buffet today for lunch. It was good. Friday is seafood day. I had a lot of shrimp. Apparently I am funny when I separate the shrimp from its shell. A lady one table over couldn't quit laughing. I did not find anything funny. I found it messy.

There were at least 3 tables with screaming kids today. I don't like listening to screaming kids. How come you have to get training and a license to drive a car, but no training or a license before you reproduce? That is just wrong.

Another thing that was just real wrong today at Zorro's Buffet was this. Towards the end of the Zorro's stay I glanced down at the receipt. To my shocked eyes I saw I'd been charged for one "adult" and one "senior."

I believe I must have been the "senior." Due to the other adult not possibly looking like a "senior."

So much for my delusion that I look like a vital, youthful, young lad. Apparently I'm a grayed out, grizzled geezer. And due to that, today I saved a buck.

I want a refund. In the meantime I'm going roller blading. I don't know if senior citizens should be roller blading.

Big Downer For Big D

Big D as in Dallas. Another Big D, that being Denver was in the #1 top spot in a new Pew Research Center national survey that asked Americans where they'd like to live if they could.

San Diego was #2, with Seattle in the #3 spot.

Detroit was at the bottom of the list, with only 8% of Americans wanting to move there. Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Minneapolis also did not do too well, occupying the bottom 5 positions with Minneapolis doing the best of that group with 16% thinking that town was a place they'd want to live.

It seemed to me that Dallas did pretty well, coming in at #16 with 24% of Americans saying they would like to live there.

Fort Worth was not on the list, but the actual question asked if they'd want to live in a particular city or its surrounding area.

Fort Worth does not like thinking of itself simply as an area surrounding Dallas, and why would they, what with Fort Worth being the envy of cities and and towns far and wide causing a widespread green with envy epidemic.

I first learned of this Pew Research Center survey in this morning's Dallas Morning News. The headline was "Big Downer for Big D," with the sub-heading being "So Americans rank us just mediocre, huh? Well, y'all don't know squat."

The article is amusingly tongue in cheek, both pointing out good things that are in Dallas, and making fun of some other things that have to do with Dallas, like their hapless football team. That doesn't play in Dallas.

I don't know if the hard copy edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had an article about the Pew Research Center survey. I saw no mention of it on their online version. That paper tends to keep this type information from its readers due to it sort of contradicts the party line about Fort Worth being the Center of the Known Universe causing that envy epidemic problem I mentioned above.

I also saw no mention of this survey in the online Seattle P-I. But they are used to being at the top of such things, so it's no big deal. Had Fort Worth been near the top we would have likely had a city wide celebration, like we had when an obscure Washington, D.C. lobbying group put Fort Worth on a list of America's supposedly most livable communities. Tacoma/Pierce County was also on that list. But had no city wide celebration. Because they knew it was a bogus award.

Zombie Problem In Austin Texas

The capital of Texas is having some sort of Zombie problem.

Sort of like the plot line of the current season of 24 on Fox, some sort of terrorist type pranksters hacked into the network that controls roadway warning signs in the Austin zone.

I don't know if a War of the Worlds Orson Welles type panic ensued in Austin, with people seeking escape from the Zombies.

I doubt it. Austin is a pretty sophisticated town, from what I've seen. I'm pretty sure most Austinites know there is no such thing as a Zombie.

Now if these terrorist type pranksters hack into the network that controls Fort Worth's roadway warning signs, with a Zombie warning, well, here you might have a few people panicking.

I remember when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas, February 1, 2003, the roadway warning signs had a message of the sort that would not have crossed my mind as possible til it happened. That event seems so recent, but it's already 2 days away from being 6 years ago.

If I remember right, an hour or so after the Shuttle disaster the signs said something like "Watch For Falling Space Shuttle Debris." I vaguely recollect seeing people looking up, watching for falling debris, long after the explosion. When people started finding pieces of the Space Shuttle is when the sign was changed to the message you see in the picture.

I found no debris, and unlike a lot of people I did not hear or see anything that morning. I was laying on the floor reading the paper and drinking coffee, totally unaware that something very bad was happening above me.