It Is Saturday June 27 In Texas & 105 Degrees HOT

I experienced none of this last summer. I was suffering icicles in Tacoma when my zone of Texas had its 100 degree days of the year. So, this is being my first HOT time for a couple years. Last year it did not get HOT til after July 20. This year it's not even July and we're HOT.

By tomorrow the pool will be even less refreshing than it was this morning. When we get a week or two of being over 100 news items will appear advising people that it is impossible to cool down their pools with ice. Evidently, every year, a lot of people try that. Apparently the amount of ice needed to lower the temperature in a certain volume of water makes it physically impossible to lower it enough to make a significant difference.

On good thing to make note of on the weather gauge, the humidity is down so far we no longer have a Heat Index temperature that is higher than the actual temperature.

And on a totally non HEAT related subject, when I logged in to write this blogging about it being 105, I saw that the previous blogging was number 1,500, which makes this one number 1,501. When I started doing this blogging thing I figured I'd last a month before I got bored with it. As I often am, I was wrong.

Texas Tarantula Terror With Hot Hiking & Texas License Plates

Like I said would happen, in a blogging earlier today, about 1` this afternoon, when it was only 102, I went to the Tandy Hills Natural Area. There was no breeze today. But as long as I keep moving the heat isn't too hot. But, if you stop walking for just the time it takes to take a picture, well, suddenly it goes to drenched in sweat mode.

I tried to take a picture of one of the remaining wildflowers, but every attempt turned out blurry. Why? I do not know. It perplexes me. I think it may be a heat related malady.

When I got back here I was mortified to learn that out in West Texas, in the metropolis of Wink, Jammin Mole had been Terrorized this morning by a Giant Tarantula. Homeland security eventually subdued the beast.

Back in my Tarantula free world, I hope, this morning I made a different sort of webpage on my Eyes on Texas website, one where I'm trying to be helpful. That often is not the case. This past week I've gotten 5 or 6 people asking me questions about Texas Personalized License Plates, and the "It's a Whole Other Country" one in particular.

Why do people think I'm the go to guy with such a question? The questions about rattlesnake skins and rattles, I sort of understand, due to the webpages about the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup. Or questions about next month's Parker County Peach Festival, those I understand. I understand why I'm getting the question, I mean, I don't understand why they think I'd have the answer.

As for Texas License Plates, I have no idea where these questions are coming from or what on my website would make anyone think I know anything about the subject. But helping people solve their problems is what I'm all about, so now I have the answers to the vexing Texas License Plate Questions.

Abrupt change of subject, returning to Jammin Mole and Wink. Earlier today I was surprised by an invitation from Jammin. Inviting myself, Gar the Texan and Mister Twister to Wink. This is what Ms. Mole had to say (she is commenting on a comment by Mister Twister regarding Wink in previous blogging you can read here)...

"Twister, if in fact you were expressing apathy for Wink, I'd leave it alone, BUT I'm sensing that you're actually expressing a sorta disdain for the place, making a prejudgment without having seen Wink in person. So, here it is...I'm cordially inviting you, Durango and Gar to come down to Wink in October for the Halloween Carnival and Spook House. It's only a seven hour drive and between the three of you, ya'll should be able to handle 2.5 hours of driving time each. If you like, I can even get you an Orbison T-shirt, but you'll have to supply your own shades."

Now, it's time for lunch.

Looking At Ads While Drinking Heavily & Stripping

A few days ago I think I mentioned I wised up regarding my search for the world's biggest of one specific subject.

This morning I was looking through this week's Fort Worth Weekly and saw an ad for the Mule Pub. In the ad there is a person who might have been a candidate for my search, if I were still searching.

The caption under the potential biggest candidate says, "Screw working out...drink instead!"

I know that has always been my philosophy. Lately I've been pretty much drinking all day long.

You have to in this heat. Since we've hit the 100 zone I've been taking 3 bottles of water with me when I go take a hike. All day long I'm wandering into the kitchen to get yet one more glass of water with ice cubes floating in it. It's not quite as bad as being in Death Valley when it's 124 where you pretty much have to be constantly sucking on liquid, but it's close to that. I think I'd be shocked if I figured out how many gallons I drink a day.

It's supposed to be around 100 by noon, so I'm thinking since it Saturday and I'm a creature of repetitive habit, I'll likely go do some heavy duty sweating and drinking on the Tandy Hills today. Due to issues previously discussed, I no longer make mention of my hiking attire.

Speaking of water, we've got a lot of Watering Holes here in my zone of Texas. Right in my neighborhood there is the Ozzie Rabbit Lodge. Ozzie Rabbit was Lee Harvey Oswald's nickname. Lee Harvey is buried near the Ozzie Rabbit Lodge. Apparently the Ozzie Rabbit Lodge is the east side's hippest watering hole.

The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex also has a lot of restaurants, so many that they add up to being the world's highest number of restaurants per capita. Why is such information always stated as "per capita" I typed and wondered? I believe "capita" means head. Maybe it's Latin.

In the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex we are also very proud of having the world's highest number per capita of women working in the stripping industry. Over 4,000 are gainfully employed doing that hard job. There are a lot of strip clubs here. In Washington there were very few such establishments, and none as elaborate and big as those here.

In FW Weekly the listings for strip joints is coyly under the heading "Cabaret." The Fort Worth Gentleman's Club was this year's FW Weekly critic's choice as Best Strip Club 2008. You have to wear proper dress to enter this club. I have no idea what proper dress in Texas might be. The Gentleman's Club has a real good seafood buffet on Wednesdays. Not that I will admit to knowing this from personal experience.

Rick's Cabaret was FW Weekly's reader's choice for Best Strip Club and FW Weekly's critic's choice for Best Exotic Dancer (China) and Best Place to Nurse a Hangover in 2008.

Both Illusions and Main Stage make reference to sleeves being required, with Illusions insisting that sleeves are required after 6 p.m. Does this mean long sleeves? Is it tank tops they are trying to ban?

The Texas Cabaret gives us a better idea of what proper attire must be with their rule of "No cut-off shirts or cut-off pants." So, I'm thinking if you wear a nice pair of cargo pants shorts and a shirt you'll be properly attired. To play it totally safe I suppose one would wear regular pants, as in slacks, not jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt, buttoned to the max. I wonder if I still own such things? And why are they so picky about what men wear while the women have very little or nothing on? That's perplexing.

Today I Am 34 Years Old

Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast, is always sending me good, funny, upbeat stuff via email. Alma is the opposite of a toxic person. She is more like a daily happy tonic.

Some of this morning's messages bordered on the bizarre, with those bizarre ones, for the most part, emanating from Facebook world, that being a world who's charm has not quite revealed itself to me, yet. As in I don't quite get it.

Maybe it has something to do with it being something like 2 decades now I've been, in some way or the other, social networking via a computer.

And then there was a blog comment this morning that said I looked like a thuggish, gangster porn star. I'm not quite sure what that is, but I liked the sound of it. Then again the source of this compliment was someone with demonstrably bad taste in multiple areas, so I suppose I must consider the source and not be too thrilled at being described as a thuggish, gangster porn star.

Back to Alma. This morning she sent me a link to a website that calculates ones Virtual Age. I took the test and learned I am a virtual 34.5 year old with a life expectancy of 97.5. A 34.5 year old thuggish, gangster porn star.

Life is good. And now it's time to go swimming.

Flashing Stop Signs With Freshwater Seafood & A Blogging Moment Of Silence

I was observing a Blogging Silence in memory of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

To find myself appalled to be getting emails and one phone call asking if I am all right.

Yes, I am all right. I got up at a reasonable time this morning. I went swimming after the sun had lightened up the place. And then the morning was consumed by website nonsense and doing a background criminal check for Tootsie Tonasket regarding yet one more boyfriend of dubious character.

It was well past noon before I got away from the computer. I decided to walk around Oakland Lake Park. There is a stop sign I always see on my way to Oakland Lake. It is solar-powered. You'll likely need to click on the picture to make it bigger to see them, but I can tell you there are flashing red lights around the perimeter of the sign. Why? I do not know. It's a 3 way stop. 2 of the 3 stop signs have the solar-powered flash lights. It's not a particularly busy or hazardous seeming intersection.

And then at Oakland Lake Park I saw yet another of the signs I've mentioned before, those ones that tell you that there is a fish consumption advisory for this body of water. I had not noticed, previously, that the sign directed me to a State of Texas website. To a website about seafood. Doesn't seafood come out of saltwater? Not a polluted landlocked lake?

So, I followed the sign's directive and visited the website to find no mention of freshwater fish. The verbiage mentions oysters, clams, mussels, scallops and crab. I am fairly certain none of those can be caught in Oakland Lake. I have no idea what "molluscan" is. Below are the words one reads when one goes to the website one is advised to go to....

The mission of the Seafood and Aquatic Life Group is to protect the consumer from disease or other health hazards transmissible by oysters, clams, mussels and scallops and crab meat produced in or imported into Texas. The Seafood and Aquatic Life Group also protects recreational fishers from disease or contaminants found in fish and other aquatic species caught in Texas' lakes, rivers, bays or nearshore state waters. We carry out this mission by classification of shellfish growing areas, certification of molluscan shellfish shippers and crab meat processors, and testing tissue samples from fish and seafood harvesting areas.

It is 99 right now, heading to a predicted high, this Friday, of 102. It was 95 with a Heat Index of 100 when I went walking at Oakland Lake. It did not feel particularly hot. A breeze blew, there are trees with some shade.

But, as I walked I realized in less than a month it will be a year since I flew up to Tacoma to spend a month feeling so cold, in so many ways. I realized today, as I walked comfortably in the heat, that by the time I flew up north last July 20 I was so used to being out in the extreme heat. I keep my A/C at around 80. And that feels cool. The temperature never got to 80 my entire time I was in Washington last summer. I remained cold the entire time I was up there.

I remember towards the end of my stay one of Washington's most obese residents, wearing a coat of at least 400 pounds of insulative blubber, called and asked how I was feeling. I said I was feeling cold. Because I was. That bloviated gasbag had the gall to tell me I had had plenty of time to acclimate, that I was not the only skinny person in Washington and that I only complained about being cold to get attention. Which was pretty much projection from a person who constantly engaged in attention getting behaviors. I said something like, "oh yes, I feel so good now, I'm getting attention because I'm cold." Geez, I'm glad I'm rid of that idiot.

Michael Jackson & Farrah Fawcett: A Pop King & Queen Gone

I turned on the TV during lunch to find myself quickly feeling sad to learn that Farrah had died. This was not too shocking to me. Farrah's condition was well known. I liked Farrah Fawcett a lot, going back even before her Charlie's Angels days, when I first saw her in the bizarre movie Myra Breckenridge.

And then in the last hour to first hear Michael Jackson had gone into cardiac arrest, then a coma, then when I click on a news website I see that the King of Pop is dead.

I'm sad about Farrah due to thinking she really was one extremely special woman who suffered a miserable last couple years. I'm feeling bad about Michael Jackson due to thinking what a sad life he lived. He had no one who could tell him no. No, Michael, you do not need to have your face altered, you look fine.

Sad day. Hopefully this bumps the governor of South Carolina off the TV screens.

Wink Delivers A Texas Christmas In June

Christmas was pretty bleak this year in Texas, not that I'm complaining. When it comes to Christmas, I'm pretty much Jewish. I've never been a fan of the holiday. Am always glad when it's over. I don't send anyone a Christmas card. I may get a card or two. I don't buy anyone a Christmas gift or mail anyone anything. I don't think anyone mailed me anything this past Christmas. I may be remembering wrong.

So, imagine my surprise upon going to the Post Office today and opening the P.O. Box to find a note telling me a box too big to stick in the box was awaiting me at the service counter.

There was no line, I walked up and handed the nice Post Office Mail Lady the note and she soon came back with a BIG BOX. The return address on the BIG BOX was Wink, Texas. Wink is the West Texas where Jammin Mole resides and Gar the Texan used to reside til he was asked to leave town. I think there were issues with his mullet style hair, what we in the Pacific Northwest call a Pocatello Doo, due to people in that isolated Idaho town having a fondness for the mullet style.

Anyway, I digress. So, I hauled the BIG BOX to my vehicle, got back here and with great struggle, in the 100 degree heat, managed to get it inside to air-conditioned comfort. I was so thrilled at the unexpected surprise BIG BOX that I decided I had to photo document this rare moment. The first picture, above, is the BIG BOX.

I studied the intricate wrapping and taping on the BIG BOX a long time to figure how best to open it. Eventually I decided on a course of action involving a knife. Soon after that I was lifting a variety of objects out of the BIG BOX. I arranged some of the objects to facilitate a photo.

In the BIG BOX there was a real cool Roy Orbison t-shirt, from last weekend's Roy Orbison Festival. There was a book. A cool little cowboys card. And I don't mean Dallas Cowboys, I mean little boy cowboys. And then there was a bird house in the BIG BOX. With the shape of Texas carved on one side. And a business card so I can arrange to have the Roy Orbison Museum opened for me next time I'm in Wink.

The above is on the bottom of the bird house, confirming that the BIG BOX came from Jammin Mole. I was pretty much 100% certain of that, but this confirmed it.

The Roy Orbison t-shirt was an X-Large. I was afraid it wouldn't fit. But as you can see, it fits. It's also really really long. Like a night shirt. If I was a pajama user this might be a nice substitute on a cold night. That's the Wink Birdhouse that I'm holding.

So, I've really been having myself one HOT BIG DAY in Texas. Up before 3 in the morning, swimming in the dark, virtually going to New Braunfels and the Schlitterbaun, hiking at the HOT Tandy Hills and getting a Christmas present in June from Wink.

I am so looking forward to tomorrow. I'll be looking at Austin. And hopefully wide awake sometime closer to the crack of dawn. See you then, or maybe sooner.

Other Natural Hikers At Tandy Hills Natural Area Today

Incoming from Don Young. I do not know if the event DY describes occurred before, after or during my noonish hike at the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

Regardless, below is what also went on at the Tandy Hills today......

Debora and Don Young led a prairie tour today at THNA for a group of 18 enthusiastic folks from around the Metroplex enrolled in a Permaculture class. The class was organized by Meadowbrook resident and Prairie Fest volunteer, Kirsten Huber, who helped kids make seed-balls at Prairie Fest.

The Permaculture Design Certification Course instructor is Illinois resident, Wayne Weiseman. Read more about Wayne and the course in the attached document.

This is the first time a Permaculture course has been offered in the Fort Worth area. The Permaculture ethic exemplifies the essence of what it means to "go green". We should all be grateful to Kirsten for her passion and vision that made this happen. Fort Worth and planet Earth are better off thanks to her effort.

Hot Tandy Hills Natural Area Hiking

I would think I would be a bit tired by now, having been up since sometime before 3 this morning. But I feel fine.

I made my virtual trip, as planned, this morning, to New Braunfels and Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort. I found out later I also need to go to Austin. I thought I'd already done that, but I hadn't.

Then around noon, with the temperature approaching 100 it seemed like a good time for some heavy duty sweating, so I went to the Tandy Hills Natural Area. Again.

Yesterday. Or was it the day before, the light bulb finally came on and I realized I'd made a mistake by blogging so often about my search for the planet's most overly developed backside, which led to way too many people, from all over the world, coming to my blog for no good reason.

Well, another light bulb finally came on regarding bloggings in which I mention what clothes I am wearing or not wearing for a particular activity, like hiking the Tandy Hills Natural Area. Now, the ads that those bloggings generate are not as worthless as the ones generated by the search for the over-sized derriere, but still, I decided to cease at once mentioning certain keywords that brought me certain type blog visitors.

This should have dawned on me before, due to a lot of people come to this blog via searching for info about Austin's Hippie Hollow, it being a rather free-spirited location on Lake Travis. That one I don't mind so much, but when I see that this blog now Googles #1 when someone looks for info about a certain type of hiking, with Texas in the search string, well I don't want to be the #1 info source for that, even if it is just in Texas.

I really need to start thinking things through better before I create these little nuisances for myself.

Anyway, back to today's HOT hiking. I wanted to know how much water I lost today, so I weighed myself before I left. 176. I drank two 16 ounce bottles of water while hiking. When I got back here and weighed myself again, I was at 173. Which would seem to indicate I contributed 5 pounds of moisture to the humidity while hiking up and down hills today.

So, I'm glad I followed my physical therapist, Dr. L.C.'s advice today, and went hiking at my usual time, rather than yesterday's late afternoon jaunt which she felt wreaked havoc with my sleep pattern. I should learn to always follow doctor's orders...

Texas Skinnydipping In The Middle Of The Night With A Fort Worth Water Report

I think I may be going to have myself one ultra-hellacious day today. I woke up about half past 2. I was fairly certain I was not going to fall back asleep. So, at 3 a.m., I got up.

I checked email, read the news, saw the Scrabble Queen of Washington had played 3 words, so I played 3 words.

I got bored preparing for this morning's virtual trip to New Braunfels and Schlitterbahn, so a bit before 5 it seemed like a good time to go for a relaxing skinnydip.

The air temperature is 80 this morning. The pool was warmer than the air. Even though we are currently suffering with a Level Red Pollution Alert, I saw stars twinkling above me. That is not the moon behind me in the photo, it's a big round light.

On the way out of the pool I got the mail. There was one odd thing in the mail. A bi-lingual publication from Fort Worth. The 2008 Drinking Water Quality Report. In a city so pinched for money it has cut back library hours, this seemed an odd thing to waste money on. On page 2 under "A Message from the Water Director" there is a full color photo of the "Water Department Leadership Team." Why didn't they save a few bucks for the city by foregoing the color photo?

Also on page 2 of the "Water Report" it says "Mailing this report to our customers is a federal and state requirement. It also is posted on our website."

In all my years of drinking water in Washington I never received an annual "Water Report." Did this federal mandate come along after I moved to Texas? Or is this a mandate that only applies to places that get their water from sources that require extensive treatment?

I have long found it a bit disturbing that the drinking water here comes out of reservoirs that are also used for recreation, like boating and swimming. Where I lived in Washington, Mount Vernon, the drinking water came out of a reservoir that was totally closed off to human access by a chain link fence.

It's a puzzlement. I can see that so far today, I'm being all about water.