A Stormy Thursday In Texas With Ruts At Quanah Parker Park

You're looking at a stormy, possible tornado spawning, 1pm view of today's Texas sky, looking east towards Dallas, standing on the parking lot of the Eastchase Super Wal-Mart.

The series of storms has hit worse in locations other than mine. All I've experienced is a little wind and temperature fluctuations.

This morning we were headed towards 80. And then the front from the north pushed back the front from the south, in the storm equivalent of a Civil War battle, dropping the temperature to currently being 60.

It's the confrontation between HOT and COLD that brings about a tornado watch.

While all this weather battling was going on, since none of it was producing falling water, I went to nearby Quanah Parker Park to walk off some of my morning's aggravations.

Quanah Parker Park is a nice, little, well-maintained, Fort Worth park. Today I was appalled to see what looked like the sort of ruts Barnett Shale gas drillers leave in their wake at times. Quanah Parker Park borders the Trinity River, but I saw no pipelines running to a pump by the Trinity River.

I suspect the Quanah Parker Park ruts were caused by some lawn mowing City of Fort Worth workers who did not realize they were mowing on very wet ground, making a big mess in the process.

No Texas Tornadoes With HostGator

A couple hours ago I blogged about what I thought was a problem with DNS settings not pointing correctly to my new webhost, HostGator.

I figured the switch had not been made because I was still getting email using the former password.

But, unbeknownst to me the switch started happening about 20 hours ago. I figured this out when I saw email piled up when I logged into the new account.

I didn't understand why my email was still connecting, with the now wrong password. Then a light bulb turned on in my feeble brain and I thought maybe I needed to close and re-open Outlook Express. Did so, went to check email, it asked me for a password, put in the new one and now the email works.

So, I've successfully gotten my main website off the old hacking host and up and running on the new one. This makes me a semi-happy boy this morning.

In an odd coincidence, when I went to look for a HostGator image I found one from a review titled HostGator vs. Bluehost. Bluehost was the webhost I bailed on early yesterday when their tech support guy was so inept. In the review the writer was not impressed with how the Bluehost phone support person handled his questions.

Anyway, I don't think we are under a Tornado Watch any more. It has calmed down out there. HUGE rainstorm in the middle of the night. It's almost 80 out there right now, coming up on 10am. The pool was very pleasant this morning, swimming around at the crack of dawn, watching for tornadoes.

Watching For Tornadoes From The Swimming Pool This Morning In Texas

The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center has issued a tornado watch this morning. The temperature has taken a big upswing, as in it's in the mid 70s coming up on 7am, which is when the tornado watch expires. It is being a bit gusty out there. So far I've heard no tornado sirens.

Since we are having a heat wave I'm going to ignore my therapist, Dr. L.C.'s, diagnoses of serious derangement being in play for me to continue going swimming in what the doctor believes to be frigid, unswimmable water.

An incoming tornado matches my mood this morning. I think I mentioned that yesterday I changed the DNS settings so that my websites can move to my new webhost. Well, this morning I did a WHOIS check and learned one of the name server's IP address had been entered incorrectly. I sent off a support ticket, set to urgent. I'm sure it will be quickly fixed. But it's aggravating.

I can't wait to see what fresh hell today is going to be.

Another Bad Day In Durango World Getting Blue Then Gator Bit

It's been another troubling, trying day in Durango World. As you can see in the picture looking out the gloomy window to the gloomy west, it is another gray, stereotypical Pacific Northwest winter day here, in October, in Texas.

My one longtime reader may recall that I signed up with a new webhost yesterday. The new webhost was based in Provo, Utah. I like Utah. Mormons seem like real nice people. The Provo webhost called itself Bluehost. Why? I don't know. It soon made me blue dealing with them.

Within minutes of setting up the account I got email telling me my temporary URL and other necessary info, so that files could be uploaded.

None of the info I was sent worked. Last night I had had enough and was not going to talk to any more tech people. It could wait til morning.

I called about 8, after going swimming. I got a male tech guy. I prefer the female tech people. First off, they are easier to understand and always seem competent. The Bluehost tech guy had such a bad speaking voice and he spoke so fast, I had a lot of trouble understanding him. He didn't seem to understand the problem and kept being 2 steps behind. After an hour or so of making very little progress he became fixated on finding the help info I'd used to set up extensions. Here I was, pointing the tech guy to info on his website.

I gave up. I told him I'm over it. I want to cancel the account. He said he'd transfer me. I waited on hold, listening to the same awful annoying music all phone systems seem to use, and hung up.

I thought there'd be an easy way to cancel, on their website. There wasn't. So, I called back. After about 10 more minutes of annoying music a billing guy answered. He was perfectly pleasant, listened to my complaints as to why I was bailing. It was my first opportunity to vent about the frustrating experience. So, credit card got credited back.

Now I had to find another webhost. This time I looked a bit harder. One called HostGator had a lot of positive reviews. I called customer service to ask a few questions. The wait listening to the annoying music was not too long. A guy answered. I don't remember his name.

I decided to go with HostGator. Something seemed familiar about them. What sealed the deal was the answer guy told me they were headquartered in Houston and the server banks were in Dallas. This is the closest I've lived to a server bank that I was using. My first one was in Seattle, used that one for 2 years after I moved to Texas, then I got my durangotexas.com domain and had it on a server in Hollywood. I thought Hollywood, California for a long time, but turned out to be the Hollywood in Florida. After Florida I moved to Manhattan in New York City. That one did not work out. The next move was to the one I'm getting rid of. They were based in a bomb shelter in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, then they moved to Columbus, Ohio, or was it Cleveland?

Anyway, I hope this works out with HostGator. I just mentioned to someone via my cell phone mobile talking device that I was now trying HostGator. The party to whom I was speaking said he'd just driven by a HostGator billboard. Then I remember why HostGator seemed familiar. I see that billboard anytime I'm heading back here from some place north, like the airport.

So, there you have the gory details of my miserable day. I forgot to mention, my therapist, Dr. L.C., told me she believes I must be mentally unhinged to be swimming in these frigid temperatures. She may have worded it differently.

Being Skinny While Dipping In Real Cold Water

It got down to 51 this morning. I've learned when the day's temperature stays in the 50 degree range that outdoor water quickly matches that temperature. If the day gets into the 70s and the night in the 50s the water temperature is not bracing.

This morning it was bracing. Very bracing. As you can see it was very dark when I decided to get very cold. I decided to go dipping skinny so I'd have a dry swimsuit to put on when I got out of the water. That plan worked as there was not too much out of control shivering when I got out of the pool.

When I got back to my climate controlled zone I turned on the heat for the first time since last winter.

I got a new web host yesterday. Every previous time I've switched hosts I have been quickly able to upload files. This time the account was not set up correctly. I was on the phone way too much yesterday with my soon to be ex-host and am procrastinating calling the new host.

I might as well get it over with. Wish me luck.

My Old Hometown Bikini Coffee Baristas At The Foxy Lady Latte

I seem to be blogging a lot lately about my old home zone. I guess it's because those wacky Pacific Northwesterners generate some goofy news of a different sort than the news I find goofy in Texas.

I knew of the current fad in the Puget Sound region of espresso stands being manned by girls in bikinis.

This type thing would seem to be something that there would be in Texas, but substitute snow cone stands for espresso stands. There are so many strip joints in Texas, few of those exist in the Northwest, it seems logical that Texas would be the place where scantily clad females sold beverages in little drive-thru stands.

The "bikini barista" stand I read about in my old hometown newspaper, this morning, is called Foxy Lady Latte. It's the first in Skagit County. The county to the south, Snohomish, made embarrassing national news a couple months ago when some of the Snohomish "bikini barista" stands were raided for providing additional services.

So, I'm a little surprised that one of these has opened in Skagit County. The Foxy Lady Latte is managed by Kymm Rivers. She talked her boss into opening up Skagit County's first "bikini barista" joint in June. Apparently Kymm had worked in one of the Snohomish County "bikini barista" stands.

Business has been brisk for Foxy Lady Latte. 75% of the customers are male. Some customers verbalize surprise that a place called Foxy Lady has coffee brewers working in bikinis.

I never bought into the espresso fad when I lived in Coffeeland. Paying 3 bucks for a tarted up cup of coffee just seemed dumb to me. That and I hated the lingo you had to use when ordering a cup of coffee. It always has sounded so pretentious to me. I'll have a Double Tall Mocha Frappacino Skim with Whip. I have no idea if that means anything.

The Blue Sky Of Texas Does Not Fit My Blue Mood

Not a good day in Durango World. My website got hacked again. This time only 2 pages, but Google flagged every page with their dire warning that "This website may harm your computer."

I learned I had a problem a little after 6 this morning. I called tech support. Calling tech support you get Americans, not the Ukrainians you get if you use the online tech support. I got Jen.

Jen told me I'd get a call back in an hour or so and that the problem was being handed off to their best tech guy. I did not hear back in an hour. I called again. This time I got Robert. Robert knew Jen. Robert checked on why I'd not been called back. After 5 minutes of listening to awful music Robert told me the process was taking longer because the best tech guy was being real thorough. Robert told me Jen would call me back when it was all done.

Two hours later Jen called. Told me everything should be fine now. And that the ftp.deny and ftp.allow files had not been correctly set. I told Jen I get told this after each incident.

After lunch I found that FTP does not work. Trying to connect generates a "denied by access rules" message. So, I called again. This time Dave answered. Dave knows Jen. I asked to speak to Jen. Dave put me on hold and came off hold to tell me Jen was on a break but would call me as soon as she got back. That was about 10 minutes ago.

Just got a call from Jen. FTP is now fixed.

After my first talk with Jen, this morning, I was so aggravated I was hoping a dip in a very cold pool would be salubrious. It wasn't. I had the phone sitting beside the pool, waiting for that call that came hours later.

Around noon I had to get out of here. Went to close by Quanah Parker Park for a walk. That's the Quanah Parker Trail, well, actually, the paved trail that leads out of the park, I don't know if it is in the park, but wherever it was it had a lot of water on the trail.

And yes, today was the final straw. Despite it being a major, BIG pain, I'm moving my websites to another host. After I'm successfully divorced from my current host marriage I will blog the bloody details and name names.

5 Year Old Romanian Boy Strongest In The World

This video of a 5 year old Romanian strong boy/man named Giuliano Stroe is a bit disturbing. Apparently there are several YouTube videos of the kid performing feats of strength. The kid has been lifting weights since he was two. I couldn't even do a pull up til I was 15. He is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest 10 meter hand walk with a weight ball between his legs.

I'm guessing there are a lot of people trying for that 10 meter han walk record.

I found the boy's abs of steel disturbing. And the strange way he winked at the camera.

I must go lift weights now.

Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct Comes Down In A Simulated Earthquake

I mentioned the Alaskan Way Viaduct a couple days ago. And that it's set to be replaced by a tunnel before Mother Nature destroys it with an earthquake.

I did not know the sea wall also needs fixing. I did not know there was a sea wall.

Something about a big tunnel, next to saltwater, in a town that regularly gets the shakes, seems counter-intuitive to me.

Supposedly the other big tunnel that runs under Seattle, that being the combo bus/rail tunnel, is designed to make it through a very strong earthquake. I would not want to be in the Seattle bus tunnel or any of its stations during a quake.

Seems to me Seattle is really pushing its luck with this $4.2 billion tunnel/viaduct replacement project. The viaduct won't come down until the tunnel is finished. What happens if the Big One quakes during the construction phase?

This morning in the Seattle P-I, online, I watched a YouTube video of a simulation of what would happen to the sea wall, the viaduct and the waterfront if another big quake strikes, as strong as the last big one, known as the Nisqually Earthquake, with an epicenter 30 miles closer to Seattle and lasting twice as long as the 15 second Nisqually Earthquake.

The video gives you a good look at the Seattle waterfront and a real good simulation of what an earthquake might do....

Fort Worth 350

Okay, I admit my Adult Attention Deficit Disorder causes me to miss a lot of things. That and no longer reading a daily hard copy newspaper. I know I have been reading 350, this or that, a lot lately. You might say 350 has become a bit ubiquitous, if you had a tendency to use polysyllabic words that render your prose to be a bit on the dense and ponderous side of wordsmithing.

Apparently this 350 deal is a Global Warming thing. Reducing CO2 gas to 350 parts per million. I'm guessing we are way over that 350 mark here in gas-happy Fort Worth. We've got more gas-spewing holes poked in the ground in Fort Worth, Texas than any other large city in the world. We are quite proud of that record and intend to keep it, not matter what blows up or gets polluted.

A short time ago I was sent an urgent request to help with the proper insertion of a YouTube video. I did the insertion without watching the video. I figured it had something to do with Senior Citizen issues, due to who sent the urgent request. After I stuck the code where it needed to be I decided to watch the video. Imagine my surprise when it had nothing to do with oldsters.

The YouTube video is about Fort Worth. And that 350 thing. Forget about the 350, for now. If you've never been to Fort Worth and have no idea what it looks like, well, this video does a good job of showing you this town. You'll see the Tandy Hills, museums like the Kimbell and the Modern in what Fort Worth calls "The Cultural District", the Fort Worth Stockyards, Longhorns, Barnett Shale drillers sucking water out of the Trinity River, downtown Fort Worth, including the parking lots known as Sundance Square, I forget what else, but I can guarantee if you watch the video and had no clue what Fort Worth looks like, after you've watched it, you'll have an idea of what Fort Worth looks like. I even think we got a look or two and heard a word or two from Fort Worth's #1 Watchdog, Don Young. Look for a wise-looking guy with long gray hair.