Downtown Fort Worth Is Looking Good, Except For One Glaring Eyesore: Heritage Park

I had to, I mean, I got to be in downtown Fort Worth this afternoon. I don't think I've been there since my mom and dad were here in January.

I'm about to utter words I've never uttered before. Fort Worth was looking pretty good this afternoon. I saw 2 new buildings by the Convention Center that I liked. That is one of them in the picture, next to the AT & T building.

I'd not driven by the new Convention Center Omni Hotel since the road opened between it and the convention center. At first I did not realize what it was, then looked to my left, oh, convention center, looked up and recognized the Omni Hotel, though not by the ridiculous balconies that stick out too far, those I could not see. I can see why having that new hotel right next to the convention center might add to the appeal. I've still not heard about many conventions being in town. I wonder how the new hotel is working out?

Lancaster Avenue now looks real good. It was such an eyesore for so long. Something has changed with the Water Gardens, maybe a wall has been removed, I don't know, but I don't remember being able to see into the main swirling drowning pool before, while on the road.

There are parking meters all over downtown Fort Worth now. It used to be easy to find free parking. It's not quite as bad as Seattle, but it's getting there.

I followed one of the Fort Worth Trolleys along Main Street. Something seems forelorn about them to me. I didn't see anyone on board. You don't see Fort Worth buses running around downtown. I wonder why? There are buses running all over downtown Seattle, both above ground and below. And they are free to ride in the downtown area. But you really do not see all that many people on the downtown Fort Worth streets. Likely the heat has something to do with that.

I was surprised by how far along the construction is of the now defunct new Tarrant County Community College on the banks of the Trinity River. Coming back from the Stockyards, on Main, the TCCC building looks impressive. It sort of bookends where the college ended up locating, that being in the defunct new Radio Shack Headquarters. From what I saw of the TCCC building, it re-inforced what I originally said, that this had the possibility of being Fort Worth's first signature building, something in Fort Worth that people elsewhere recognize as Fort Worth.

Heritage Park is still an eyesore of chainlink fence. Recently numbers to fix it, like $7 million, have been bandied about, with an over a $1 million study. I'll solve it for downtown Fort Worth for free. Take down the cyclone fence, then take down the wall that closes off the park from street view. Install lighting. Don't worry about the water features for now, that can be dealt with later. Install alarm buttons so people feel secure. Install camera surveillance for more security. Have members of the Fort Worth Gestapo, who are in the building next door, walk through the park regularly. Connect the park to downtown via a pedestrian bridge. The bridge would be the only large expense.

When I first saw Heritage Park it was the first thing I'd seen in Fort Worth that impressed me as being quite cool. As in very. That it has been allowed to get to its current sad state is bizarre to me.

Facebook OMG Morning Madness

When I went to bed last night all was calm in Facebook world. By morning I learned it was a calm before a storm.

In Facebook there is this "share" thing that asks "What's on your mind?"

At 5:26 pm I wrote what was on my mind, that Durango Jones "had a bruising falling down accident, on rocks, when his mom and dad texted him, telling him to 'be good at noon.' It was the directive to 'be good' that likely caused the collapse. Hours later, all makes sense again, yet the bruises remain."

At 7:19 pm Alma commented, "r u ok? U can get pretty hurt from a fall."

To which I replied at 8:13 pm, "All is good now. No aches. Thanks for caring." Soon after that I left the computer for the evening.

At 8:32 pm Beth commented to my comment, commenting, "she didn't say she cared..."

And that is when the fun started. I did not see Beth's comment or all those that followed til I looked at email messages. this morning, and saw way too many status comment ones from Facebook. When I read the emails none of it made sense to me. I didn't know what they were talking about.

So, I went to Facebook. Then it all made sense. Somehow Beth's innocuous, totally true, little joke turned into an angry debate about caring, not caring, to much mothering, how long someone has known me, how old someone is, who needs to simmer down, who's juvenile, someone being retarded, people living in Hicksville, someone needing to buck it up, someone being a buttinski and one person swearing at me in French.

All in all, quite an amusing wakeup on Facebook this morning. After the Facebook amusement, it was still dark. I went swimming.

Ziplining In New York Texas

That is a zipliner at NY TX Zipline Adventures. That is not me on the zipline. The zipline is located in New York. New York is by Athens in the part of Texas called the Piney Woods.

When I first learned of NY TX Zipline Adventures Eco-Friendly Zipline and Canopy Tours I blogged about it, because it sounded like a fun thing to do.

I then heard from Connie at NY TX Zipline telling me if I came to New York they'd give me a zipline tour.

Then when I was up in Washington last summer I heard from Connie again. And now another year has gone by, I've still not made it to New York. And I've heard from Connie again.

Once more telling me, "I have not read you blog in some time. If you are still coming my way, call me for your zipline tour. It is a blast! Your two free tickets are waiting on you."

The last time I heard from Connie I asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to go ziplining with me. If I remember right Gar the Texan volunteered. But, when I got back from Washington, last summer, I had so much stuff going on I totally forgot about New York.

Volunteers?

The Blue Max Coneheads

Max and Blue are both being coneheads, but they are still keeping up with their blogging. Blue is feeling better. He did some jumping, against doctor's orders. Blue is going to get his surgical staples replaced. Stapling a little poodle seems wrong to me.

Max's condition sounds less dire than Blue's. Blue is a bit more delicate than Max. Blue is a purebred. Max is only part poodle, but it's the dominant part.

Both my sister, who, incidentally, Blue and Max take care of and Gar the Texan informed me that that text message from my parental units that said, "be good at noon" likely was intended to say, "be home at noon." Something about the text predicting function. I don't do texting. All I know is how to read one if someone sends me one.

I called the PU's Arizona landline about half past noon, my time. They weren't home, so I left a message saying I had been good at noon, but now that it is half past noon can I start being bad again.

My back continues to be pain free, but I've found other injuries from this morning's brutal fall. I landed on my right side. It was very rocky. Somehow I got a big bruise on the top of my forearm. I believe I tumbled and rolled onto my arm, reaching out to stop the fall. There are cuts on my thumb, too. I don't know why I did not notice these injuries til hours later. Post-traumatic stress, most likely.

I had a bike wreck back in the late 1990s, up in Washington, out on some National Forest land on the Olympic Peninsula. Worst bike wreck ever. When I hit the mud my thumb got bent back. It took at least 6 months to quit hurting. The same thumb took the hit today. The pain is slightly deja vu, but this is not going to turn into a long term pain. I hope.

Below is YouTube video from last summer in Tacoma. Blue and Max like McDonald's Cheeseburgers, but I was told not to give them any while they were in my care. I always do what I'm told...

Taking A Fall & Being Good At Noon In Hot Texas

I had my bad brain freeze up this morning. That has not happened in a while. With a bad brain freeze I'm unable use my imagination. It just goes blank.

To thaw the brain freeze I decided to go unusually early to the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium Sauna Area. Even though it was early, it was HOT.

As I was walking along, on a downhill, rocky path, my phone went off with a text message noise. I reached for the phone, flipped it open and slipped on the loose rock, totally falling down, hitting hard on my right hip, wrenching my back real bad.

When I got back vertical my back was in full backache pain mode. I thought, first total brain freeze, and now my back is out. Yet more misery in this hell I am living. My back has not gone out in a long long time. I was telling someone, just a couple days ago that I never get backaches anymore, due to, I thought, yoga, stretch and exercise ball routines I do religiously. I thought when I said that that I was possibly jinxing myself.

When got stable enough to walk, it was very hard to get to the top of the hill. Each step brought a gasp of pain. I got to where the trail is relatively flat and the walking became less painful. I was pretty sure I'd put my back out. That can take a long time to recover from. So, I'm happy, now, a couple hours later, to be able to type that my back is not out. No pain. And the brain freeze has melted.

And what was the text message that caused all this havoc? Well, it was from my mom and dad. It said, "be good at noon." What in the world does that mean? It perplexes me.

A Taste Of Sedro Woolley Post Tandy Hills

Before I forget, Spencer Jack's grandma sent me a link to a video of Spencer Jack driving to Costco while singing the Beach Boy's Barbara Ann. What a cute kid, but he's too young to be driving. And he was not wearing a seatbelt.

I've been up since around 4 this morning. I was in the pool around 5. It was very dark. This made for minimalist swimming attire, which is my preferred mode.

Around noon, after way too many hours spent on the inner workings of the Internet, I took off for the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium Sauna Area to get in some HOT HUMID hiking. In the picture we are looking north. The white building is a bit north of Town Talk, which is where I went when done hiking.

As I slowly drove away, with my seatbelt on, one of the Fort Worth Gestapo was driving rapidly south on dead end Ben Street, barely stopping at the intersection with View Street, where I was stopped.

I found some odd stuff at Town Talk today. Jars of soy butter. For 50 cents. I got some more Cascadian Farm Organic Spinach. It seems an odd thing to find in a Fort Worth surplus store.

On the spinach package I read, "Back in 1972, we started growing fine organic fruits and vegetables on a small farm in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State."

The box also invites the spinach eater to stop by Cascadian Farm in Rockport, WA. Or visit their website, www.cascadianfarm.com. I have driven by there many a time. But I've never stopped. Also on the spinach box it says "distributed by Small Planet Food, Inc., Sedro Woolley, WA."

It is a Small Planet. I lived in Sedro Woolley for a short time. It's about 5 miles east of where I grew up, in Burlington, and about 5 miles northeast of Mount Vernon, where I lived before moving to Texas. Yes, I lived in a Metroplex in Washington, cluster of towns on a much, much smaller scale than the D/FW Metroplex. But with a lot more fruits and vegetables, so much so that spinach gets sent to Fort Worth all the way from Sedro Woolley.

I just remembered, I heard from someone in Sedro Woolley this very morning. And the morning before that, now that I'm thinking about it.

Spencer Jack Invited Me To Read His Blog, While Blue & Max Look After Evie & Marley

Yesterday I think I mentioned that my favorite great nephew, Spencer Jack, was not letting me look at his blog. It was by invitation only.

Well, today Spencer invited me to his blog. Spencer has grown a bit since I last saw him. That is Evie, with whom Spencer is enjoying a Popsicle.

From what I saw on Spencer Jack's blog it appeared he was at my sister Nancy's, in Kent. I saw my mom and dad, brother, his latest wife, my ex-wife and nephew Joey. I don't think I saw Spencer's mom. She must have been taking the pictures.

Evie and Blue and Max take care of my little sister, Michele, and Kristin and Marley. Marley is a new addition. My little sister does not have enough going on so she has foster kids. I can't even take care of myself, properly, and my little sister takes care of 2 little kids and, currently, 2 extremely ailing poodles, while during the day she goes to Olympia and does legal things.

That is Max playing with Marley. Currently both Max and his brother Blue are recovering from being operated on. Blue had bladder stones that could have ruined his kidneys.

Max tore his ACL. I have no idea what that means. But I think, maybe, it has something to do with a leg joint. Whatever it is, Max is currently wearing one of those plastic guards around his head.

Blue and Max are supposed to do no jumping or running for 2 weeks. I have no idea how this is accomplished. I need to ask my sister if she realizes what happens with those poodles when the mail arrives. Utter chaos.

Ukrainians Save Me From Brute Force Hack

That is a pair of Ukrainian soldiers you're looking at it in picture. I think I've mentioned the Ukrainians before. My webhost, which is based in the United States, has Americans handling customer support if you call. But if you submit a support ticket, it goes to the Ukrainian support center in the Ukraine. The Ukraine is now a country. It used to be part of the Soviet Union.

The reason I submit a support ticket rather than call is because it takes less time and usually eventually the Ukrainians solve the problem. A lot of seriously fractured English is usually involved.

I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but recently one of my websites developed a problem so serious that Google pretty much banned it from the Internet.

So, I contacted the Ukrainians, who I'm sure work in a very secure bunker likely guarded by soldiers like you saw above. Saturday they went right to work on the problem. This morning I got a message from Dmitriy Pavlov. It is not as fractured as they often are. However, following Dimitriy's instructions did not work, because his instructions did not match with the reality on my webhost control panel.

Below for your confusion is Dimitriy's message in which I learn I was hacked by brute force....

Thank you for waiting. Our administrators have completely cleaned your account from all malware. During investigation we have found that your account was hacked due to bruteforce attack on FTP. Due to not very strong FTP password hacker was able to get it and used FTP access for adding harmful code inside your files. To get more information you can check FTP logs in files ftp.logs and wrap.log, which located inside your FTP root directory. You will see that a lot of different IP address were tried to access your account. To protect your account we have already changed FTP passwords for all accounts. To get FTP access back you need to change passwords back. For creating FTP password we suggest to use some password generator like at "goodpassword.com". To change FTP password you should login at manage.9webhosting.com, then click manage button for your hosting plan. After this please click on FTP Manager icon and then click on little notepad icon nearly with caption "password".

Also we have found a lot of files and folders with unsecured permissions. Full list of them you can find in file permissions.list, which located inside FTP root directory. We are suggesting to use 755 permission mask for folders and 644 mask for files in your account. For checking/changing permissions please use following steps:

1 Go to webshell in your control panel
2 Find certain folder
3 Click on little folder icon left from folder name (or simple on file name)
4 At right side you will see permissions table
5 Choose needful permission mask
6 Click change

Kind regards,
Dmitriy Pavlov
Technical Support

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.