The Texas Dish That Is Incredible & Inedible

I don't know why I paid no attention to all the incoming DISH, Texas information when it first came at me. Barnett Shale burnout? Maybe. I picked up just the gist, that being more accusations of Barnett Shale activity poisoning the air, killing animals, ruining lives.

Maybe I tune it out because no matter how big the latest offense might be, it seems nothing is done about it.

This week's FW Weekly's cover article, titled "Sacrificed to the Shale" is the first indepth look I've had at what has people upset about DISH. And now that I'm up to speed on DISH I'm more aggravated by what is happening in DISH than I was about what happened in Arlington so Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys could have a new stadium.

DISH's first claim to notoriety came when the town agreed to change the name of their town from Clark to DISH (spelled with capital letters) in exchange for the DISH Network providing all DISH residents free basic cable for 10 years and a free DVR from the DISH Network.

The short version of what has gone wrong in DISH is several of the Barnett Shale natural gas exploiters decided the somewhat isolated Denton County town of DISH was a great location for gas compressors. I believe there are now 7. They are very noisy, 24/7. Like a jet engine type of noisy. Pipelines bring un-odorized gas to the compressors, where it is compressed, odor added and then pumped out on more lines.

Eminent domain was used to take land for the pipelines, leaving the property of several people in the DISH area with property sliced up and useless.

And then farm animals began to get sick and die.

And then vegetation, like hardy trees began to die.

And then people started feeling sick. Some moved.

And then it was discovered that emissions from the compressors put a dangerous level of nasty chemicals into the air.

No Texas regulating agency seems to do any regulating of these type bad behaviors.

The EPA, as in the Federal Government is starting to get a bit cranky about how lax Texas is regarding what is spewed into the air that people breathe.

So, there you have the short version. Read FW Weekly's article to get the whole picture.

Read Texas Sharon's Blog for a lot more info about the DISH Scandal and other nefarious Texas gas woes.

An Hysterically Laughing Baby & Skiing In The Desert In Dubai

I have a few corespondents who consistently send me amusing things to see and read. I always see and read their incoming because of their established track records of good taste when it comes to what is interesting and funny.

One of my regulars who sends me good stuff is Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast. Another is Miss BSM in Hawaii. She has been absent for awhile, I believe due to acting on a TV show. And then there is Miss CVB up in Washington. She sent me the "Laughing Baby" video you see above. I've never before seen a baby laugh hysterically like this kid does.

Speaking of video. Last night I went to watch my DVR recorded latest episode of The Amazing Race. I have the DVR set to record 2 extra hours past the scheduled time due to football games running long. Last night an extra 2 hours was not enough. The recording stopped with 15 minutes left in The Amazing Race.

I did get a good look at Dubai though. The Amazing Racers had to fly from Phnom Penh to the Persian Gulf and find the tallest building in the world. Unlike most of the racers I knew this meant go to Dubai and find the Burj Tower. At least one of the racers thought Persian Gulf was a country.

Once they got to Dubai they had to get to the top of the still unfinished Burj Tower to find their next clue. Scary looking skinny skyscraper.

I've heard of the Dubai indoor ski attraction. Now I've seen it. I somehow thought this was in a mall. Instead it was in its own free-standing, sloped building. Inside it looked like night skiing, complete with ski lift. Outside, the racers were sweltering in the desert 100 degree plus heat, inside, the mountain was barely above freezing.

The task at the snow zone was a Detour. To non-viewers that means a choice between 2 tasks with varying levels of difficulty. All the teams chose dig through snow to find a little itty bitty figurine. I think it was a tiny snowman. One team found the thing and then one by one the teams gave up and decided to try the other task, which was using the snow to build a classic snowman, with coal chunks for eyes, a carrot nose, I forget what else. Oh, yeah, they had to build the snowman out in the desert heat and get it done to some judge's satisfaction to get their next clue.

My recording stopped before I saw a desert snowman building attempt.

The Bright Blue October Sky Of Texas

I forgot there was a cat over at Miss Puerto Rico's who was relying on me to keep her fed and her water bowl full.

So, that's the view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony a little after 3 in the afternoon. The cat still had plenty of food and water, so I'm not too irresponsible.

As you can see it is another bright, blue sky day here in Texas. That recent unpleasantness of weeks of rain and fog and no blue sky is fading from memory.

It is 74 out there right now. Windows open temperature. I left a patio door open the night before last. That morning was in the 40s. Which is about what it felt like inside here. The patio door is open right now. Must remember to close it tonight.

Due to the cool temps the pool was a bit bracing this morning, but I quickly got used to it. It should be warmer tomorrow morning.

Princess Annie's Flowers For The Tandy Hills Hobo

I saw photo proof of the Queen of Wink and Princess Annie ziplining in New York. But I saw no photo evidence of the visit to the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

I was suspicious about the Queen of Wink's Tandy Hills story, due to the fact that I was there during the time frame of the Queen and her entourage's visit. I was on the trails the Queen was on. We should have crossed paths. I can not figure out why and how that did not happen.

Now, yes, I may have earlier indicated that I was onboard for this trip to New York and getting scared at Thrillvania. But that didn't work out.

So, until today around noon, I had no real hard evidence that the Queen of Wink had actually been walking on the Tandy Hills.

An elaborate story had been told by Princess Annie of picking flowers, while at the Tandy Hills, and putting them in a bottle she found floating by Tandy Falls. Then putting the vase of flowers at the Tandy Hills Hobo's Campsite.

If I saw a vase of flowers, this would be the physical evidence I was looking for to prove the Winkettes were not pulling some sort of Balloon Boy Hoax on me.

Well, when I got to the Hobo Camp I saw the vase, well, actually it was a whiskey bottle. There was a nice floral arrangement in the whiskey bottle. Sitting in front of the vase were 16 bits of Royal Coinage, left I assume, by Princess Annie, for the Hobo.

What a thoughtful kid. I mean princess.

It is past the middle of October and there are still flowers blooming on the Tandy Hills. Today I saw a big group of purple flowers I'd not noticed before. They were clustered around a tree by the Hobo Camp.

The Queen Of Wink Flies Through The Trees With Ease

That is the Queen of Wink zipping along on a zipline, up high in the trees of New York, in East Texas, at New York Zip Line Adventures. A satellite powered tracking device guided the Queen and her entourage on their journey from Wink to the Piney Woods Region of Texas.

The Queen of Wink is a blonde and is true to her species in that she is a bit directionally challenged, hence the use of a GPS to guide the way.

The GPS worked perfectly to direct the Queen and Princess Annie to the Tandy Hills Natural Area where they hiked on the prairie for 3 hours.

Princess Annie used her Royal Prerogative and chose to ignore the "Do Not Pick The Flowers" warning signs, picking a bouquet, using a bottle that was conveniently floating near Tandy Falls for a vase. Princess Annie then put the vase of flowers in what she thought was a hobo's camp, that being the location where for a couple months a tent served as someone's home. The tent is now gone, but a chair and a tarp remain.

The Queen and Princess Annie liked what they saw of the Tandy Hills and want to come back when the trails are less muddy. I think I'll go there today and see if the trails are less muddy.

My Levi Johnston Twitter News Source

Once again, Levi Johnston is my news source via Twitter. The first time Levi was a news source was when I learned from him, via Twitter, that the Balloon Boy had been found.

And now I have learned from Levi, and confirmed elsewhere, that authorities now believe the Balloon Boy saga was an elaborate plot hatched by the fevered imagination of the kooky-banana father of Falcon, Richard Heene, to somehow better market his family for a reality show.

Apparently the Heene's, Richard and Mayumi, pitched a show that would have had stunts and hoaxes as its hook.

No charges have been filed yet. But the Larimer County Sheriff's office is going with charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, false reporting to authorities and attempting to influence a public servant.

The notorious Heene's Gang could face up to 6 years in prison and a half million dollar fine.

It has been determined, how I do not know, that all three of the Heene's boys knew of the balloon hoax. They won't be charged, because, well, they are little boys.

Now, to me, I'm thinking, was any great harm actually done? The Flying Saucer Balloon Boy Saga made for some really good TV. It's not like the Heene's Gang was killing trees and horses or robbing people of their homes to build a football stadium. I'm thinking, until the gas drillers, here in Texas, face some jail time for poisoning people, animals and trees and Jerry Jones does some hard time, with big fines, for somehow gaming the system to allow him to abuse the proper use of eminent domain in order to steal people's home, businesses and peace of mind, so he could build a silly looking football stadium, well, I think throwing the law at the Heene's Gang really is not a thing that makes a lot of sense to me.

Gar The Texan Has The Lowest Alexa Ranking Of Anyone I Know

I don't have the slightest idea what use it is, but there is this website called Alexa that generates what are called Alexa Rankings.

If your website gets an Alexa Ranking in the Top 100,000 apparently that is a good thing. Sort of the Internet equivalent of having a Top 20 TV Show in the Nielsen Ratings.

I'd not paid much attention to the Alexa Rankings due to not knowing what good it did me to pay any attention.

So, today, Sunday, I was bored. I decided to look at my Alexa Rankings.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that this very blog you are reading right now has an Alexa Ranking of 404,876, meaning there are only 404,875 websites and blogs, in America, that get more traffic than this one.

Then I looked at my Eyes on Texas website's Alexa Ranking. 242,002. That seemed like a good number.

Next I looked at my TV blog's Alexa Ranking. 196,477! I've only 96,476 to go and I'll crack the Top 100,000. Which is supposedly a good thing to do.

I was curious as to what the Alexa Rankings were for other blogs with which I am familiar.

So, I looked at Gar the Texan's Alexa Ranking. 18,280,372.

How about the Queen of Wink's blog? 5,056,098. Apparently the Queen of Wink gets a lot more blog traffic than her ex-classmate from decades ago, Gar the Texan.

What is Twitter's Alexa Ranking you can't help but wonder? After all it was down for hours this morning. It must have a bad Alexa Ranking. No. Twitter is #12.

What can we possibly do to get Gar the Texan's Alexa Rankings up to a Queen of Wink level?

I'm In My 3rd Decade Of Computers & 2 Decades Since Loma Prieta Quake

How can it be 20 years since the last bad San Francisco earthquake? Known as the Loma Prieta quake, due to it being centered near Loma Prieta peak, the 6.9 quake struck on October 17, 1989.

I was in Bellevue at the time, in a computer store, buying a now antique Intel 286. The tv in the store was tuned to the 3rd game of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics.

Candlestick Park, I think it was Candlestick, started to shake. The ABC play by play guy, Al Michaels, said, "We're having an earth...." with the feed dying before he could say "quake."

I forget the name of it, Embaradero maybe, but a double decker overhead highway came crashing down during the Loma Prieta quake. I believe that is where most of the fatalities occurred.

Seattle's waterfront has a very similar overhead highway called the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The Viaduct was badly damaged during the last quake to strike Seattle. The Viaduct needs to come down before Seattle has another bad quake. It has been known that the Alaskan Way Viaduct was not sound ever since the San Francisco quake. Two decades later and the Viaduct still hovers above the Seattle waterfront.

Though it is still standing, the Alaskan Way Viaduct is now slated to come down. Several $billion are going to be spent building a tunnel under where the Viaduct now stands.

Somehow it seems like it should be difficult to build a tunnel right up against a waterfront. But, I know nothing about the engineering of such things. I remember when the bus/rail tunnel was built under downtown Seattle I thought it would end up being leaky and scary during a quake.

As usual, I was wrong. I believe I've read the Space Needle and the bus tunnel are the safest places to be in Seattle during a quake.

Anyway, 20 years since the Loma Prieta quake. 20 years since I bought a 286 computer. It didn't even have a color monitor. Amber. It replaced my Commodore 64 which had replaced a Vic 20. The 286 was followed by a 386, from Gateway, with my first color monitor attached to a PC. That was followed by a Pentium 90, also from Gateway. Ironically my computer history grows hazy the closer I get to the present. I know the Pentium 90 died before I moved to Texas and the computer that moved with me to Texas soon died. Or maybe it was replaced by the one I built with the help of Gar the Texan in, I think, 2002.

Til today I did not realize I have been playing with computers for over 2 decades. I remember way back when computers were suddenly the BIG THING. I was camping at San Clemente State Park in California when I heard on the radio that Computers were Time Magazine's Man of the Year. That was the final straw. I had to get a computer and learn what the fuss was about.

How bizarre to look back now and remember that that first computer was a Vic 20. Very primitive. Worked with a slowpoke dot matrix printer. I don't remember what the monitor was. I know the Commodore 64 had a color monitor. Maybe the Vic 20 plugged in to the TV.

A Cold October Sunday Morning In Texas

It was 47 when I got in the water this Sunday October morning. The water was warmer than the air. The coldness made my sore thumb feel better. That's a good thing. I don't like having a sore thumb. It makes typing difficult and the mousing painful.

Twitter is not working this morning. I'm guessing the Twitter servers are being attacked. Google's Blogger is acting up this morning, too.

The last time Twitter was attacked, Facebook was attacked on the same day. Facebook seems to be working fine this morning.

I just heard from my therapist, Dr. L.C. that she is having a bad weekend. So, I didn't want to burden her more by asking what she can do for my sore thumb.

Today is the last day of the Texas State Fair in Dallas. Yesterday at the Cotton Bowl at Fair Park, which is where the State Fair of Texas takes place, Texas beat Oklahoma in the annual Red River Rivalry football game. Apparently this has been going on for years, I believe Oklahoma comes down from Norman and Texas comes up from Austin to meet on neutral ground in Dallas.

I have no clue what I'm going to do today. I'm lost, lost I tell you, without Twitter.

Lulu & Durango Back In As The WWWeb Turns???

You are looking at the entry page of the first website I was ever involved with. "As the WWWeb Turns..."

I thought it was "Lulu & Durango in As the WWWeb Turns" but I obviously am remembering wrong. I also didn't remember it saying "a soap opera@friendship.com."

But, this took place over 14 years ago, in 1995, so I guess it is understandable my memory is a bit tainted.

"As the WWWeb Turns..." was picked as a Cool Site of the Day. Back when being Cool Site of the Day was a really cool thing to be.

Lulu's husband at the time, let's call him Geff, well, unbeknownst to me, he took email exchanges between myself and Lulu and turned them into a website. He added a lot of links and photos, which he often gruesomely altered. Giving me an over-sized forehead, for instance.

I believe there were only 4 editions of As the WWWeb Turns. I spewed out a lot of email. Lulu had trouble keeping up. And Geff seemed to be lollygagging regarding updating this phenomenal website. At the time I did not realize Geff was making the webpages the old-fashioned way, via editing it all in HTML with no web editor. Geff is a really bright guy with an extremely good eye for detail, hence the ability to create a webpage by typing in HTML code.

One day I got a call telling me to come down to Gig Harbor, where Geff and Lulu lived at the time. I did as told. When Geff got home I was shown a graphic and some primitive HTML for a website Geff had made for me called "Dialing Doctor Durango." Basically Geff was wisely putting the website making ball in my court.

I knew there was no way my disorderly mind was going to master HTML. I quickly found a web editor called Hot Dog that made making a webpage somewhat easy. Within a month I'd uploaded Dialing Doctor Durango to a server in Seattle called Wolfenet.

Dialing Doctor Durango started off with me answering faked questions. Then it got picked as Funky Site of the Day. Not quite a Cool Site of the Day level of coolness, but it caused me a lot of incoming email questions.

After about a year I'd grown tired of Doctor Durango due to way too many people asking way too many serious questions because they thought I was a real doctor.

I changed the website to "The Durango Files" and made Dialing Doctor Durango a part of the new website and made it obvious I was not a real doctor.

The Durango Files survived the first year, or so, of Texas and then I let it go, got a new domain, durangotexas.com and soon forgot about my doctor years.

Til today when I got an email from Lulu. My one longtime reader may remember the trauma I went through in August of 2008, up in Tacoma, when Lulu turned on me, for no reason apparent to me. It took me months to get over it. Eventually I did and the incident faded in to memory. Today's email from Lulu directed me to her blog. I'd not read Lulu's blog for awhile. I did not get what I was supposed to see, at first. I read down through a long questionaire thing, in which one of the questions had Lulu saying she missed someone. Was this what I was supposed to see, I wondered?

And then I saw the next post. It was all about As the WWWeb Turns. Lulu suggested that since we no longer speak, maybe we could do email and revive the long dead online soap opera. Now, to discerning eyes, if one were to have been reading both our blogs over the past year or so, there has been somewhat of a revival of an online soap opera, though far more complex and convoluted than As the WWWeb Turns ever was.

I've no idea what Lulu has in mind. I rarely do.

Stayed tuned, I've no idea where this show is going....