Saturday's April 25 Wildflower Love-In in Texas

This week's FW Weekly's Metro section has a nice article about a feisty Fort Worth pup that has grown up. That pup must be a prairie dog, I guess, because the article is about this coming Saturday's Prairie Fest, when the Tandy Hills will come alive with the sound of music singing to the wildflowers and a lot of people.

I did not know, til reading this article, that the first Prairie Fest took place on Don Young's front yard with a gathering of about 400 pissed-off environmentalists.

This year the City of Fort Worth is finally getting around to embracing the festival, which Don Young calls a "wildflower love-in."

At Prairie Fest there will be the aforementioned music, tours of the prairie and green power exhibits, plus food and beverages, including beer. There will also be around 20 landscape artists painting pictures of the landscape.

If the sun cooperates, the festival will be solar-powered.

Read the FW Weekly article here. Watch a video of some Triggerfish Prairie Fest music from last year, singing about losing paradise to a parking lot, below....

Confessions of a Texas Drug Addict

I've got me some major monkeys on my back. Real bad habits. I seem to regularly add a new bad habit.

My only drug addiction used to be coffee. Every morning. Laying on the floor, reading the morning paper and drinking coffee. And getting all perked up. Hence the addiction.

Years passed and the coffee addiction seemed to be all I needed to keep me perky.

And then I discovered endorphins. Endorphins are some sort of feel good chemical that gets released when you stress your body aerobically. After some experimenting with various methods of delivering the chemical, I found that hiking, biking and roller blading, for about an hour a day, were enough to keep me happy.

But, eventually, I realized I was addicted. If I don't get my fix, like today, I get edgy, I can't focus, I feel tired.

Like I did today. So, about 4 in the afternoon I took off to River Legacy Park to get my endorphin fix on the mountain bike trail. It was HOT. In the 90s. Felt good. First shirt off, biking, day of the year. You can see by the shadow of me taking a picture, above, that it is late in the day. The later afternoon light makes the green of the River Legacy woods look almost spooky. I liked it.

I pedaled a bit over 10 miles. I did the new section, once, that being the new section I mentioned yesterday, during my sad tale of a flat tire and a bobcat encounter. Today I was able to see that that new section's mile of twist and turns actually only gains you about 20 feet when it joins the existing trail. Yesterday I guessed 50 feet. It'll be a nice addition once it gets broken in.

I saw no wildlife, except for humans, today. No snakes, wild boars, bobcats, armadillos or squirrels.

I just realized I forgot to mention my other drug addiction. The post-coffee morning swim in cold water. I believe the jolt of the cold releases adrenalin, which in turn releases endorphins, which in turn causes me to start the day off feeling way better than just having that morning coffee perk going on.

I fear today may be a precursor for a VERY HOT SUMMER. I escaped Texas last summer during the only period that went over the 100 degree mark. Maybe I'll escape the heat again this summer. It just won't be in Tacoma. That's for sure.

Texas Heat Wave Sprouts on Target

That's a look at my current state of weather, via WeatherBug, from about 10 minutes ago. As you can see we are nearing 90 with the high today getting to 95.

I have not turned on the A/C in here. Yet. I did run the A/C in my vehicle when I drove up to Southlake at noon.

Swimming, this morning, was very pleasant.

I fixed the flat tire on my bike before the torrid temps arrived. But, I don't know if I'm ready, yet, to venture out and ride the newly tubed bike in this heat. That and I've got other stuff to do.

In Southlake I went to Sprouts Farmers Market, like I usually do on Wednesday, pathetic repetitive creature of habit that I apparently am. It was extra warm in Sprouts. Maybe due to way too many people being in there.

On the way back here from Sprouts I dropped in on the Super Target that sits with its back to the Super Wal-Mart where I first got a gallon of milk that was supposed to cost $1.98 but for which I was charged the outrageous price of $2.00. Looking at my blog stats, I can now see I am not alone. Others are looking for the reason why Wal-Mart is being odd with their milk price.

The reason I went to Super Target was to return a vegetable oil sprayer that did not work. At Super Target you walk into what at noon appeared to be a practically empty store where the employees out number the few customers. Unlike at Super Wal-Mart, at Super Target you walk up to Customer Service and you are instantly acknowledged and helped. It took all of 20 seconds to get my money refunded.

I then told the Super Target Customer Service person about my recent experiences with Super Wal-Mart Customer Service and the bizarre milk price scam. She was appalled. I told her I'd blogged about it a couple times. She asked for and wrote down my blog address. Unlike the minimum wage morons that Wal-Mart mans its Customer Service with, this Super Target young lady seemed quite sharp.

Sprouts today was also a good customer service experience. I must have bought at least 30 different items. As always, not a single price mistake. And super fast, efficient, checkout.

So, now does the title of this particular blogging make sense? Texas Heat Wave Sprouts on Target. Makes sense to me.

Texas Accents Among Other Accents

When I first watched and listened to the Super Viral Susan Boyle YouTube video (if you have not seen this, stop reading this blog now and go watch it) I thought it was interesting how Susan spoke in such a thick Scottish accent that she was a tad hard for my American ears to understand. And then she started singing and the accent went bye-bye and the voice of an angel appeared in its place.

And then, after she was done singing and the audience calmed down enough for the judges to speak, I was struck by how different the English accent is, when well-spoken, from the more flourish-free American accent of Americans from some regions of America, like the Pacific Northwest.

Some versions of the English Accent, as spoken in the UK, are very easy to listen to. Is it called High English? I don't know. But it is easy to understand, unlike Cockney English, which can be funny to hear, but hard to understand.

Now, there are some regions of America with strong accents. Like Brooklyn. Or Boston. Or the South.

There are many variations of Southern Accents. Wikipedia has an interesting article on the subject. Even within a specific Southern Accent there are variations, like different types of Texas Accents.

There is an extreme version of the Texan Accent that I really have trouble understanding, almost as bad as Boomhower on King of the Hill. And then there is the lilting, warm honey Texas Accent that I can never get enough of listening to.

Gar the Texan is from the Midland-Odessa West Texas zone, same as where George W. Bush grew up. They have similar Texas accents, though Gar the Texan's can ebb strong and weak, particularly strong if he is having a case of the vapors. Gar the Texan is very articulate. When he uses polysyllabic words he pronounces them correctly, and thus sounds Texan and smart. With an accent.

Now, George W. Bush is not the most articulate man on the planet. When George W. pronounces a polysyllabic word he often gets it wrong. Such as when he tries to say "nuclear." I think the Texas Accent, combined with the mispronouncing, may have been part of what caused many to perceive George W. as not the brightest light ever to glow in the White House.

There are a lot of versions of English accents. I find the Canadian version very unpleasant. I think this may be partly caused by having lived most of my life near the border, with access to Canadian TV and plenty of Canadians. The Canadian Accent has this way of sounding as if they are inflecting everything they say with a self-doubting tone, even without adding "eh" to the end of virtually every sentence. It comes across, to my ears, as sounding insecure and unsure about what they are saying.

Some English Accents are so easy to listen to, like Australian. How does one accent variant end up sounding Australian and another Canadian? Canadians live mostly within 200 miles of America. Why have we not rubbed off on them more in this department? Well, to be fair, which is not my long suit, some Canadians do lose the annoying accent when they become American actors, like Michael J. Fox.

I find the Hybrid-English Accents very easy to listen to. Like Italian-English, they sound so charming. I can't think of any of the hybrids that don't sound like music to me. Russian-English, good thing. I like the Mexican-English Accent. Or any Spanish Speaking-English Accent, for that matter. Middle Eastern-English Accents sound good, with plenty of variations. Indian-English, as in the nation, not the Native Americans, can sound a bit insecure, like Canadian Accent, but the lilting, sing songy way of speaking Indian-English is quite pleasant to listen to.

As for Native American-English, it comes in a lot of versions. I have heard all sorts of Indian-American accents and have liked them all. Very easy to listen to. I once spent an hour talking to a Navajo at Monument Valley in Arizona. I can still remember his soft easy Navajo-American Accent. A lot of Native Americans pretty much lose any accent. That is particularly the case with a lot of Pacific Northwest Native Americans.

Why are there so many Indians and Indian Reservation Lands in Washington and so few in Texas? What did you Texans do with all the Indians?

Okay, I have started to digress. Time to stop talking about accents.

Wal-Mart's Milk Price Is Still Wrong

It seems like weeks now since I first blogged about Wal-Mart's Supercenters having big $1.98 signs above their milk, with that same $1.98 price repeated on the shelves for each type of milk, whole, 2%, 1% or skim.

I last bought milk last Friday, and blogged my two cents worth, along with a picture of the two cents I got for complaining to Wal-Mart's misnamed Customer Service.

It was on that day I learned why Wal-Mart is now making a lot of pricing errors. Because they no longer have a motivation to be careful, due to dropping their refund policy when they are caught making a mistake.

I do not know if it is true, or not, but one local told me the Texas State Legislature changed the law regarding pricing mistakes, removing the refund penalty that had provided a motivation for stores to not mislead their customers by putting one price on the shelf and charging another price at checkout.

Scandalous.

And now, today, Tuesday, 4 days after I last got milk at Wal-Mart, I did so again. This time fully expecting it to still ring up at $2, but this time I was armed with my camera to take a picture of the big $1.98 sign. The other picture is, obviously, today's receipt. Unlike last Friday, I did not go to Customer Service to get my two cents. There was a line. I wouldn't have bothered even if there had been no line. I was hungry and wanted to go home and make tacos.

I wonder how much money those 2 extra pennies, or 1% surcharge, has added up to for Wal-Mart.

Flat Bobcat Encounter at River Legacy Park

Well, I've had me a day. I got up well before the sun did today. That had me in the pool early. About 11 I decided to try and ride the River Legacy Park Mountain Bike Trail. I figured it's been enough days since Friday's rain, that it should be dried out.

The first time around was uneventful, wildlife-wise, except for one brief encounter with a skinny green snake.

Somewhere between the 3 and 4 mile mark I came upon a turn off to a new trail. I'd just been there last week and saw no sign of this new trail. The trail twisted and turned, tracked back and forth, I had no idea what direction I was going. And then after about a mile of slightly slow going, due to the new trail not being broken in yet, it rejoined the original trail. I think I maybe gained 50 feet after twisting and turning around for a mile.

On the second time around I quickly came upon the biggest, as in overweight type big, guy I've ever seen on a mountain bike. No, I did not get a picture. I asked if I could pass. He was pleasant. I don't see how that guy could manage some of the ups and downs.

About a mile later my front tire suddenly went wobbly. It quickly went totally flat. It was not long before the Big Guy came up behind me. I was surprised. I think he'd taken shortcuts. He offered to help. I said thanks, but I'm just gonna walk it out. There are those shortcuts, I figured it'd be about a mile of pushing the flat tire. I was right.

About a minute after the Big Guy's offer of help, I came upon my first bobcat in a long time. He was a big one. He did not seem too nervous about me. I talked to him and he seemed to be doing some sorta growling thing. I was able to get my camera out and take a lot of pictures. Eventually he slowly walked away from me as I continued to snap pictures. He only walked about 10 feet, to sit in the shade of a small tree.

So, I ended up going about 7.7 miles with my bike today, with 1 mile of it being on foot. I did not like being on foot. It is a very warm day. The sort of very warm spring day that brings out the snakes, like Copperheads. It is not easy to spot a snake in the grass. Especially when it is tall green grass.

2009 Fort Worth Prairie Fest Urgent Request

It is just 6 days til April 25 and the 2009 Prairie Fest.

Don Young has sent out an Urgent Request for help. If you can help there something thirst quenching in it for you.

Below is Don Young's Urgent Request

Success has caught up with Prairie Fest. The biggest little green fest in Texas has grown about 30% larger than last year and is still growing. We need your help pronto.

Canopies, also know as pop-ups, are urgently needed. Size must to be 10' x 10'.

If you can loan us one or two, please contact me immediately. There's a beer/wine ticket in it for you.

Thanks a mil!

Don

If you can help, call 817-731-2787 or email.

Luling Watermelon Thump & Watermelon Medicinal Value

For quite some time I have noticed a big drop in the number of spam emails I get from people offering help in improving the condition and performance ability of a special part of me.

Speaking of that, did you know that a Texan has discovered a Natural Viagra? Watermelon. Bhimu Patil, director of the Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center at Texas A & M University, at College Station, claims watermelon has more citrulline than previously believed.

Citrulline is an amino acid that relaxes and dilates blood vessels, the body converts it to the amino acid arginine, which is a precursor for nitric oxide, an oxide which is a key component in a key male component.

No one knows how much watermelon one must eat in order to gain any possible salubrious affect. Watermelon is 92% water and 8% sugar. It is rich in lypocene, an antioxidant which gives it its red color. It is fat free. It contains Vitamin A, C, and a lot of other things that are good for you, especially citrulline.

While you are contemplating eating some watermelon you'll be happy to know that the 56th Annual Luling Watermelon Thump will take place June 25, 26, 27 & 28 down south in Luling, Texas. Luling is on Interstate 10, about 50 miles east of San Antonio and about the same distance south of Austin. That'd make Luling about 230 miles south of my location in Fort Worth.

Thousands of people come to the Watermelon Thump. There's a Carnival, Beer Garden, Lots of Food, Magicians, Fire Eaters, Street Dances, Arts & Crafts, Melon Judging, a Rodeo, Parade, Watermelon Eating Contest and, of course, the World Champion Seed Spitting Contest.

On Thursday you can go to the Thump for free, including the Entertainment and Dance. On Friday and Saturday it'll cost you $2 General Admission, $20 for the Dance/Concert. Kids under 11 admitted free. Admission is free on Sunday.

Lee Harvey Oswald Is My Neighbor

This coming November it will be 46 years since Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby. The JFK Assassination remains controversial with way too many unanswered questions. Or things that don't make sense.

I have mentioned before that had you told me 15 years ago that in 2009 I would be living within walking distance of the gravesite of Lee Harvey Oswald I would not have been able to imagine a scenario where that would make sense.

But, here I am.

Last week I finished a book titled Oswald Talked by Ray and Mary La Fontaine. It was a rather difficult read, hard to follow the minute details at times. This was no conspiracy nutjob book, it was more of a looking back at investigations and conclusions and running them through the filter of new information released in the 1990s.

Reading this book, now that I'm living in Fort Worth, I recognize the places mentioned, like Ridglea West Elementary or Arlington Heights High School or Montgomery Ward.

When Oswald made it back to America after trying out the Soviet Union and finding it not to his liking, he returned to Fort Worth, with his Russian wife, Marina. They moved to a little house near Montgomery Ward, just west of downtown Fort Worth, near what Fort Worth calls "The Cultural District." I believe that house was destroyed in the 2000 Fort Worth tornado.

One of the key characters in the Oswald saga, one who later contradicted the "official" FBI version of the assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald, was this well-off Russian emigre' named George DeMorenschildt. Years later George DeMorenschildt committed suicide, but not before writing down his opinion about Oswald. George DeMorenschildt felt guilty about betraying Oswald by sort of throwing him under the bus to the Warren Commission. So he wrote "I am a Patsy."

There is an amusingly descriptive paragragh in I am a Patsy that describes DeMorenschildt's first trip from Dallas to Fort Worth to meet the Oswalds.

"Someone gave me Lee's address and one afternoon a friend of mine, Colonel Lawrence Orloff and I drove to Fort Worth, about 30 miles from Dallas. We drove over the dreary, sewage-smelling miles separating the two cities. Texas does have lovely open spaces, but here they were degraded and polluted. After some searching, we found a shack on Mercedes Street in a semi-industrial, slummy area, near Montgomery Ward."

So, in 1962 the drive between Dallas and Forth was like he describes it? Dreary, stinking of sewage? Polluted open spaces? I first set eyes on Dallas and Fort Worth in 1981. On that visit I drove between the two towns. By that point in time I would not have described it like DeMorenschildt does, so there must have been a lot of improvement over the 2 decades that separated my drive and DeMorenschildt's.

Who wants to meet me for a beer at the Ozzy Rabbit Lodge? That's a cozy little bar down by Lee Harvey's gravesite. When my mom was here she was appalled that someone would open a bar and name it after Lee Harvey Oswald.

Was anyone reading this blog, there at Dealey Plaza, that infamous November day? Anyone see JFK and Jackie in Fort Worth that morning?

Only Child Syndrome: Case History #2

I've blogged about Only Child Syndrome several times.

Every day people from all over the world come to this blog seeking relief from dealing with the Syndrome.

Whenever I blog about OCS it seems to generate a lot of interesting comments. Many of them amusing. Some, inadvertently so.

Only Children who developed the Syndrome make the funniest comments. Always denying the existence of the Syndrome, while at the same time exhibiting, verbally, classic OCS attitudes.

And then you have the Only Children who get it and are working on it. I like them.

Now, I have never said that all Only Children develop the Syndrome. But, all the Only Children I have known have had the Syndrome to varying degrees. But, I'm sure if I knew 100 Only Children that there would be several totally Syndrome-free. Some parents are good parents, no matter if they have One Child. Or a dozen. Other parents have One Child, and, though they may mean well and not realize they are creating a monster, that is what their bad parenting does.

Two of the worst Only Child Syndrome cases I have known were very similar in how the Syndrome manifested itself in them. Which was ironic, because they had so many things in common in addition to both being Only Children.

They had the same first name, they both had alcoholic fathers, they were born within days of each other, in the same month, they were both overweight, with one being morbidly obese, they both had a history of imaginary boyfriends. They both were infatuated with me. (shudder) They both were unkempt, and, well, let's just say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this eye always saw the opposite of beauty when his eye beheld this particular pair.

And how did Only Child Syndrome manifest itself in this pair? They both required a lot of attention. Both had at least 2 personality modes. One being a semi-normal acting mode. The other being what I would call performance mode, as in acting up to get attention. Both were extremely neurotic, bordering on being paranoid much of the time. Both lacked self-awareness, with no sense of how others viewed them.

As it is with a lot of Only Children, a big deal must be made over birthdays, even well into adulthood, when most of us have reached the point where we prefer the day to be ignored. Both were known to throw elaborate parties for themselves. Homage had to be paid, or you risked a rage.

Which is another thing this pair of Only Children shared in common. Anger management issues. Both could fly into nonsensical rages when some random present moment thing would trigger a neurotic reaction. Very unpleasant to be around.

Both had a highly evolved sense of entitlement. That could lead to any number of bad things.

Both were extremely over-bearing, very opinionated, but both lacking the intellectual ability to reason their way out of the arguments they created. Both using the foot-stomping temper tantrum method of getting their way in a disagreement.

Obviously, I see neither of these particular Only Child Syndrome cases anymore. Which is a good thing.