I Have Been Rejected By My Great Nephew Spencer Jack

I have 4 nephews. Of those 4, one has reproduced. The reproduction is the cutest little kid I've ever seen, named Spencer Jack. Spencer Jack has a blog. Since I live in Texas and Spencer Jack lives in La Conner, that being a very cool tourist town in Washington, the only way I have to check in and see how Spencer Jack is doing is to check in on his blog.

But I can no longer do that. This afternoon I went to check on Spencer Jack and was told, "This blog is open to invited readers only."

Yet one more party I've not received an invite to.

The rude message goes on to say, "It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation."

I don't know Spencer Jack's email address or phone number. By what means can I request an invitation? This could just maybe be the straw that breaks this camel's back in this hell I am living.

In the picture, that is Spencer Jack being held by his mom, Jenny, and my mom and dad, at Bay View State Park, in Washington, last summer.

In case you were wondering, and I'm almost 100% certain you weren't, Spencer Jack is so named because someone told my nephew you can't go wrong naming your kid after your richest relative. Spencer is the maiden name of my ex-wife, Loretta. She is Spencer's richest relative. Jack is my dad's name. I assume Jack was chosen for the middle name because it just sounds good.

And now, Spencer Jack's favorite Great Uncle, Durango Jones, can't check in on him. This saddens his Great Uncle. But somehow I think this sad situation will get rectified, just like my Google Nightmare did. I hope.

Spencer Jack had his first hot dog on the day I met him last summer. His dad owns a burger type restaurant in Anacortes. With, I guess, no hot dogs.

Do The Hustle In A Mao Jacket

I don't often listen to one of the Golden Oldies radio stations while driving. When the Beatles became Golden Oldies I realized I was one too. Some things are best not realized.

Today I had a strong need for contemplative solitude. I know of one good location for that, it being the best place to stand in Forth Worth, yes the same place I stood yesterday, the Tandy Hills Natural Solitude Sanatorium Area.

The temperature was only in the low 90s and there was a breeze blowing, but I was getting no wind chill factor. Very humid. Steambath humid. Ten minutes in I was a HOT, sweaty, wet mess.

After getting all wet I went to my Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market. For you who don't live in urban zones with 100s of Wal-Marts, the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market is different from the Wal-Mart Supercenter, that being the place where a guy rammed through the doors last week, in a hurry to get to McDonalds. I've not been back to see if that entry is still barricaded by upside down grocery carts.

Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market keeps its air-conditioning way too cold. Particularly for someone who is coming in from some ultra-HOT hiking. I was shivering in there.

As I left the Wal-Mart parking lot I turned the radio on. I hit a button and it went to a Golden Oldies station. The disc jockey, or whatever you call them now, it must be something different because they no longer spin disks. Anyway, the guy who tells you what song he is about to play said he was about to play Van McCoy's The Hustle.

I felt vaguely embarrassed as I thought back to The Hustle. I'd been in San Francisco on a roadtrip in a VW van. Post hippie era, but that sounds like a real hippie thing to be doing. The first destination of that roadtrip had been Reno, then, if I remember right, we headed to San Francisco, then up through wine country.

In San Francisco's Chinatown we all bought blue Mao jackets and hats. Home from that trip, back in Mount Vernon, one of my friends knew a Navy guy, fresh in from the Phillipines. In exchange for getting home cooked turkey dinner he would teach us how to do The Hustle. Back then there was this thing called Disco, with all these Disco Dances that you danced to Disco Tunes. It was a very tacky period in our nation's history.

It did not take us long to learn The Hustle. Easier for some than others. Not easy for me. We decided to make our Disco Debut the following Friday night. The four of us who had been in San Francisco decided we'd be real revolutionary and wear our Mao jackets and hat.

We all met up to wait in the line to get into Duffy's, it being Mount Vernon's only Disco. It was a fun place, very popular for a few years. At an appointed hour, I think maybe 8, the disco ball starts spinning and the music starts up. I don't remember how long we waited for The Hustle. Maybe we asked the Disco music guy to play The Hustle, I don't remember.

I do remember the song starting up and about 8 of us hustling out on the dance floor where we did The Hustle. We were quite a coordinated dance team. When the song was finally over there was applause for our stunning performance. At least that is how I'm choosing to remember it. I certainly do not remember how to do The Hustle. Nor would I want to.

A Sunday Morning Glass Cactus Texas Headache

I am not a night owl. Night owling is so rare for me I can remember the precise date of the previous instance, that being December 5, 2008, when I did not get home til past 2 in the morning.

Last night I got home this morning, at around 1.

I had a sleep walking incident around 4. Apparently I wanted to go swimming. I made it partway to the pool when I became aware I was walking around wearing nothing but a stocking cap. I made it safely back to bed.

So, I had myself a wild night at the Glass Cactus at Gaylord Texan with Gar the Texan and the Queen of Wink and others. The Queen was more regal than I thought she'd be. Gar the Texan did not have any case of the vapors attacks. I'd not seen Gar the Texan in awhile. He's put on a few pounds, which has him looking healthier than when last I saw him. The Queen is quite the conversationalist and is a bit too quick with the wit for me to keep up with.

Summed up. I don't like waking up with a headache. No matter what the cause.

My Google Nightmare Is Over, Let's Go To The Glass Cactus At Gaylord Texan Tonight

It has stressed me out all day, this Saturday, having my main website suddenly a rogue menace, flagged by Google as a danger to the world.

I have fussed with this all day. Why I get so overwrought over such things perplexes me. But it's the way I am. Maybe it is because it feels so good when it all gets fixed.

Which it now is. Google is no longer warning people that I am a dangerous terrorist about to explode their entire world.

I am grateful that I am now back in the good graces of humanity.

In the midst of my stress I got an email from Gar the Texan, wanting my help with entertaining the Queen of Wink, in town to see her first waterfall and gawk at ancient hair bands. I'd not looked at my phone in awhile. I see that Gar the Texan also called me. He did not leave a message. Had he left a message I likely would have returned the call.

Gar the Texan's dilemma was trying to figure out how to properly entertain a Wink Queen. I know this would daunt me. What a challenge. It seemed Gar's two options were the Dallas West End entertainment district or Fort Worth's downtown. Neither all that entertaining to me.

So. I suggested that Gar take the Queen up to Grapevine, to Gaylord Texan and the Glass Cactus. Trust me, this is a suitable venue for the Queen of Wink. The photo at the top should ice the deal.

Hiking Tandy With Google Gunk On My Brain

Are there few things sadder than an empty swing? Right now I can think of dozens and they all involve me and this hell I'm living.

The empty swings are located at the civilized part of the Tandy Hills Natural Area, well, I guess it'd be more accurate to say the empty swings sit outside the Natural Area.

Google continues to have my Eyes on Texas website generating malware warning messages. On all of the hundreds of pages. Go here and you'll see what Google is doing to me. This morning Google told me they'd determined my website was clean of danger and the warnings were being taken off. But that it could take awhile.

Meanwhile, I learned from Twister that he'd gone to my website at some point recently and it set off his anti-virus program. My therapist, Dr. L.C. told me about the Google warning, but I made no note of it, just figured it was some random thing. I just learned from my therapist that this could have been up to 2 weeks ago that she warned me.

I'm assuming this will all sort itself out. But I did not need this aggravation.

Hiking the humid Tandy Hills helped a bit. My early morning swim came before I'd learned what Google had done to me. The Tandy Hills were pretty much dried out from yesterday morning's deluge, except for that humidity residue.

I called my sister in Phoenix while sitting in the shade of a tree, by that swing with no one swinging. She was my first live opportunity to vent regarding my Google trauma. I called Tootsie Tonasket first, but she wasn't answering. It is monsoon season in Phoenix. They got hit with one yesterday, just like we did here, only in Texas we don't call it a monsoon. So the Phoenix temps were 20 degrees lower than pre-monsoon, but now with extreme humidity. And a lot of mud.

I continued talking to my sister while I drove to Town Talk. I don't think I remembered to put on my seatbelt. At Town Talk I got some cheese, peanut butter, cinnamon, spinach and raspberries. The raspberries were in a semi-large plastic carton, 12 ounces for $1.59.

A little over a year ago at the Fremont Sunday Market, in Seattle, I got 3 large flats of organic raspberries. For free. 2 of the flats made it to my mom and dad's raspberry canning operation. The third flat went to waste in a fat pig's refrigerator. Despite not wanting to, I had to let that third flat go. I don't like getting into a fight with a demanding fat pig. One could get squished.

Google Is Harming My Computer

I've had a bad bad thing happen. This morning I checked on my Google Webmaster Tools to see a big warning in red, "This site may be distributing malware."

I then Googled a search string that brings up the affected website to see that searchers were being warned that, "This site may harm your computer."

Clicking on the link brought up another warning that sounded dire.

In the Webmaster Tools, under the warning in red it said, "Status of the latest badware review for this site: A review for this site has finished. The site was found clean. The badware warnings from web search are being removed. Please note that it can take some time for this change to propagate."

So far the "badware" warnings are still there. I have been wondering why I've had a big drop in website visitors of late. Usually about 80% of searchers come to the website via Google, followed by Yahoo and Bing. Currently most are coming from Yahoo, then Bing, with Google trailing.

I don't know how long this warning has been scaring people off my harmless website. It seems like recently someone said something about seeing a warning. And someone on Facebook said clicking on a link to a photo brought up a "pollutant" warning.

I looked at the source code for 6 webpages the Webmaster Tools pointed me to. Each had a line of code that I had not inserted. The code is:

Now this is interesting, earlier I'd copied and pasted the troubling code in this spot. Hours later I look at the blog and see white space where that code had been. This must seem some dire, evil code to be removed mysteriously.

I have no idea what megastatistic is, but Googling it I found that Google does not like it. I have now removed that code. I hope I found all the instances of it.

During the course of trying to figure out what has gone wrong and fix it, I learned that on January 31, of this year, Google had a malfunction that put the "This site may be distributing malware" warning on every link on their search engine, world-wide, including Google's own webpages. This was quickly fixed.

I have no idea how much AdSense revenue I've lost due to this. For the past several days I have noticed a decline.

Anyway, very frustrating day. I hate stuff like this.

Seeing Birds and Fort Worth Mounted Policewomen

For weeks now I have been seeing Fort Worth Mounted Policewomen patrolling my neighborhood. I did not get a good photo opportunity until today.

Usually it is a solo cop on her steed that I see, a few times it has been a pair of lady mounted cops.

I have no idea what the purpose of doing this is. I see where they park the big horse trailer the horses are hauled in. Keeping horses is expensive. I know this from personal experience. Fort Worth has a lot of budget woes. The city cut back on library hours. Yet can somehow pay for horsebound cops.

I came upon the Mounted Policewoman today at a stoplight on Woodhaven Boulevard. The horse had the right of way. This gave me an opportunity to get out my camera. That is the picture to the right, taken as she slowly ambled down the street.

The cop and the horse presented a bit of a road hazard, walking slowly, basically blocking a lane. I think I mentioned, previously, that in recent times I was stopped by one of the Fort Worth Gestapo, because I was driving too slow in a quiet residential neighborhood and did not have my seatbelt on.

Well, the Fort Worth Mounted Policewoman was moving slow, on a busy street, not a quiet residential neighborhood. The Policewoman was not wearing a seatbelt. Or a helmet. I know a citizen can make a citizen's arrest. Can a citizen give a cop a citizen's ticket?

To take the picture at the top, I'd passed the mounted cop and looped back around her to take that picture, as she took a left, without signaling, nearly having a head-on collision, clearly illustrated in the photo. I was appalled at the disdain for public safety so wantonly on display.

After I was finished with photo documenting this latest Fort Worth police outrageous behavior I continued on my way to Oakland Lake Park to partake in some high humidity hiking. The temperate was a very pleasant low 80s, but this morning's rain had amped up the humidity.

There are a lot of waterfowl on Oakland Lake. Ducks and geese and others alien to me. People have fun feeding the birds. The birds get used to getting fed. Today I stopped to look at the birds and the pair in the picture were sure I was going to feed them something. They made a bee-line towards me. As I got out the camera, apologizing to them for my lack of food, they figured out I was not reaching in my pocket for food and turned their backs on me and waddled away, making scornful noises as they waddled. I'll try and remember to bring them something to eat next time I visit their home.

I Did Not Get Struck By Lightning While Swimming This Morning

A cold front was supposed to bring me a storm last night. That didn't happen. But, this morning the cold front has arrived. It is only 69 out there at half past 8 in the morning.

On my way down to the pool, a little before the crack of dawn, I thought I saw flashes in the distance. But I heard no rumbling. And it was not very cloudy.

I was about 10 minutes into the pool when dawn began to reverse itself with the sky growing dark. Then it got very windy. Still, no visible lightning, no thunder. Then the power went out, making it suddenly darker and a lot quieter, due to the lack of power shutting off the noisy fountain and waterfall.

About 15 minutes after the power went out the storm moved into my neighborhood. The lightning strikes were still about 5 miles away, but I started to think maybe it was time to get out of the water. I've been wary of combining water with lightning ever since I saw a building burn due to a lightning strike a few weeks ago.

So, I got out of the water. The power came back on at the same time the lightning was directly overhead. That seemed odd. One strike was earth shakingly close.

The National Weather Service has issued a Flood Watch Alert. I suspect this may have some flood weary Haltom City people staying home to keep an eye on their creeks.

A Visit To My Wal-Mart McDonald's Car Crash Site

The entry to the Wal-Mart I frequent most frequently was barricaded with upside down grocery carts as the first line of defense, with bundled up cardboard as the second line of defense.

I blogged 2 bloggings ago that a car had attacked my neighborhood Wal-Mart this morning, smashing through the doors in a hurry to get to the McDonald's inside.

From the outside I could not figure out how the car got inside. The doors looked completely intact. I asked the Wal-Mart worker who was stacking bananas if he was in the store when the car crashed in. He said he was. I asked how the car got in, because the doors were intact. He did not know. I told him the Star-Telegram article said much chaos ensued. I asked what the chaos was like. He said there were people running all over and yelling. And that it was real loud.

The interior barricade to keep you out of the crime scene was a string of those orange cone like things Wal-Mart puts on the floor when the roof leaks or someone spells something, plus a shopping cart or two with signs taped on saying, "No Customers Beyond This Area Thank You".

I got my goods and found a check-out. My usual self check-outs were not working due to being in the crime scene area.

I asked the lady checking me out if she was in the store when the car came inside. She said she was. I mentioned the chaos and asked her to describe it. She said it was very loud, with people running and yelling for people to get out of the store. So, she and others ran outside. There she saw police trying to handle the guy who had done the damage. She said he was Asian, small, acting crazy and doing Karate moves on the police. I have trouble understanding the local dialect's version of English, sometimes, but I think she said the guy was running around the parking lot before police could catch him.

I asked her about the doors, asking how did the car get in without breaking the doors? She said the doors were totally destroyed, but that they had someone fixing them right away with new doors. So, that mystery was solved. Yet, strangely, as you can see in the picture, the doors do not look destroyed. And yet the car is inside, trying to make his own McDonald's drive-through.

Incoming Texas Cold Front & The Tandy Tent

The headline is "Cold front may bring severe storms to North Texas".

This from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The first paragraph says:

"A cold front is heading our way, bringing with it the possibility of strong to severe thunderstorms tonight."

Reading on, I learned this "cold" front may drop temperatures a whopping 4 to 5 degrees, creating a daytime high of around 94 degrees, which is normal for this time of year.

I guess the air-conditioning will still be running tonight, despite this frigid cold front.

A day or two ago someone commented, regarding me, on Facebook, saying that, "Even though you are bald, old and fat, none of that matters. Because you've got a good heart and personality." To which someone else said, "He may be bald and old, but he is not fat. He's an exercise fanatic".

I did not mind someone saying I was bald, old and fat, because they said it in a very nice way. But, calling me an exercise fanatic? That is just inappropriately rude.

If I were a fanatic I would have gone swimming this morning. But, I did not. But, by noon I was feeling withdrawal pains from no endorphins. So, I went to the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium Homeless Shelter Area to go on a long, vigorous, mind-clearing hike up and down the hills in the mid-day heat. Does that sound fanatical to you?