The Grapes Of The Tandy Hills Vineyard & Re-Tweeting In Texas

I'm having one of those way too frequent days where I feel technically challenged.

I get an email newsletter from something called WebProNews. Today WebProNews told me there were 8 reasons I need to stop ignoring Twitter.

Reason #4 mentioned the value of Re-Tweeting. I have had people Re-Tweet me, but I've never Re-Tweeted anyone. Today I tried to Re-Tweet, but could not figure it out, hence the feeling of being technically challenged.

Then someone, whom I basically consider to be challenged by all things technical, told me he Re-Tweets all the time. That it is real easy to Re-Tweet. I had had enough.

So, I got out of here and headed to the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium Area.

It is an absolutely perfect November day, here in Texas. 70 degrees, a slight wind blowing, windows open. It was 60 when I went swimming this morning. It's like summer is returning.

The autumn leaves are really amping up the color show. I'm thinking conditions are perfect for a technicolor display that outdoes last fall's incredible colors. Today, as I drove along, I saw a tree that glowed incandescent shades of bright orange and yellow.

New to the Tandy Hills today, well new to me, were bushes with what looked like grape clusters. I was tempted to taste one, but what little common sense I possess, kicked in, and I decided against it. If they were edible, birds would be having a buffet. Nothing seemed to be eating the Tandy Hills grapes.

After I'd had enough of hiking through a Fort Worth vineyard I went to Town Talk. Saturday is my favorite day to go there. It's the busiest day. And the only day that always has a Fort Wort Gestapo Agent armed and guarding. I've no idea what has happened, on Saturday's previous, that brings about the need for a police presence.

Today I got 2 huge containers of hummus. I'm now on my 5th container of that Middle Eastern delicacy. Best I've ever had. 2 for $3. What a deal.

I guess I'll see if I can figure out Re-Tweeting. I like pointless time wasting. Apparently there is something called Twirl that can help.

Barbed Wire Fence Surrounds Dangerous Fort Worth Chesapeake Energy Pond

You are looking at a manmade, well, Chesapeake Energy made, pond in east Fort Worth, located due east of the intersection of Brentwood Stair Road and Cooks Lane, about a third of a mile south of Interstate 30.

East of the pond, to the right in the view you're looking at, there is a Chesapeake Energy Barnett Shale natural gas drilling pad.

I watched this operation through its various stages, because it is on the way to Village Creek Natural Historical Area, that being a walking zone I frequent infrequently.

Along Cooks Lane I watched a lot of pipeline being buried. I assume the pipeline is carrying natural gas from the Chesapeake wells in the area. Is it odorized?

Why does the sign on the barbed wire topped chain link fence that surrounds the pond have emergency numbers on it? What is the potential emergency that could arise from this pond?

This pond has seemed odd from the first time I saw it. When it is under blue sky the water has an off color, as if the blue is muted and murky, not in a muddy way, but in a milky way. Under this morning's gray sky the water had a less murky, milky look.

Is this fracking water? Is this the same type toxic chemical laden water that killed 17 cows in Louisiana, dead within an hour of drinking water from a Chesapeake pond.

To the west of the pond, between the water and Cooks Lane, sits the pipeline mechanism you see in the photo. Is it water going through these pipes? Or natural gas? Where did the water that is in the pond come from? What is in the pond that necessitates surrounding it with a barbed wire chain link fence? The pipeline mechanism is not fenced off, so, apparently it poses no emergency type danger, unlike the pond.

Now that there is a new Marshall in town, as in Dr. Al Armendariz has been appointed Region 6 Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, we might be getting some answers to some questions. Like how do we fix the Dish, Texas Barnett Shale natural gas ecological damage?

Speculation About Getting Blown To Smithereens In Dirty Ol' Town Fort Worth

Fresh incoming from Don Young. The house next door to DY's house burned down Halloween night. The conflagration had Don Young ruminating about some fire, explosion doom possibilities....

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The vacant house next door to mine burned to the ground Halloween night. We noticed a very bright "sunrise" from our bedroom window, less than 20' away, at about 5 AM. The FWFD was here in less than 3 minutes but could do little. It took about 30 firefighters 5 hours to snuff it but the big house was a complete loss.

Watching the massive blaze I realized that, if this had been an un-odorized gas pipeline I would not be sending this email. How dare City of Fort Worth's elected representatives toy with human lives and property in a dense urban environment. There is a damn good reason I have a sign in my yard that reads, Just Say NO to Urban Gas Drilling.

In the immortal words of Tarrant County Commissioner, JD Johnson:

* "The City of Fort Worth needs to look and study real hard. The closer you get into these neighborhoods ... and around schools and businesses, you need to be careful. Gas is explosive."

*spoken in the final scene of Dirty Ol' Town, 2005

DY

A Veterans Park Soldier Overlooks Flags At Half Mast For Fort Hood Massacre

I had to be in Arlington today. I went for a short walk at Veterans Park. This was the first place I noticed flags flying at half mast. In Veterans Park a soldier overlooks the flags and the memorial 24/7. None of the soldiers who were murdered in the Fort Hood Massacre have yet had their names memorialized in brick, yet, at this location.

If you have not been to Veterans Park to see the new memorial, and are in the area, it is well worth a look. I was fascinated reading the memorial bricks. It was from those bricks that I learned there were Texas Choctaw code talkers who also helped fool the Nazis during World War II, along with the Navajo code talkers. There are a couple bricks for rebel soldiers who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. There are some bricks for soldiers who fought in the very short Spanish-American War. And of course, bricks for soldiers who were in World War I & II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War & the Iraq War.

America seems to have way too many wars.

High Noon In Texas With Dr. Al Armendariz Taking On The Polluters

Good incoming from Don Young regarding yesterday's announcement that Dr. Al Armendariz has been appointed EPA Region 6 Administrator. It was Dr. Al Armendariz who got a lot of people's attention by documenting the extent to which the Barnett Shale natural gas drillers are polluting the air of North Texas.

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Only on rare occasions do those of us crazy enough to fight back against Big Gas get any good news.

Today was a gusher!

Dr. Al Armendariz, a longtime clean air advocate and harsh critic of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has been appointed EPA Region 6 Administrator. Yes, you read that right.

Dr. Al may be the only man who can clean up the Dirty Ol' Towns in this Dirty Ol' State in Dirty Ol' Region 6. Think, High Noon, the 1952 movie starring, Gary Cooper. The synopsis:

"A town Marshall faces a deadly enemy but finds his own town refuses to help him."

Only this time, the bad guys are quaking in their boots and the Marshall has a well trained posse that is ready to ride. Underhanded, double-dealing Barnett Shale gas drillers and mayors are in the sights of the new Marshall and he's loaded for bear.

Take heed you heathen polluters. There's a new Marshall in town.

DY

Bushland Texas El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline Explosion Near Amarillo

A natural gas pipeline owned by El Paso Natural Gas exploded yesterday in Bushland, Texas, sending flames 100s of feet in the air. Three people were injured, homes were shaken, window blinds melted.

The pipeline exploded around 1am in the little town off Interstate 40 about 15 miles west of Amarillo.

Potter County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Roger Short said he could see the flames and hear the roar from his home 20 miles away.

Residents were evacuated. One house was destroyed with several others badly damaged. Firefighters had the flames mostly under control by 5:30am, with small grass fires continuing to burn.

Of the three injured one was in satisfactory condition in an Amarillo hospital, one was treated and released and one was transferred to a Lubbock hospital burn center.

Okay, Chesapeake Energy, tell us again why those people on Carter Avenue in Fort Worth should have no worries about what you want to do under their homes.

Stuck In The Mud With Rachel & Rescued By Kid Durango In Durango Texas

That is a car in the Texas town named after me. Durango.

A few days ago Moby Dick sent me an email asking me about Durango, Texas.

Last night Rachel sent me an email asking me if I could tell her how to contact Moby Dick, saying "I am looking for any breathing, upright (even that's negotiable) Durango, TX citizen or really anyone at all associated with this town. Found you in a google search (obviously) and as you know, information on this place is slim pickin's. I'm trying to find a kid in Durango who saved my life last week in, of course, Durango. All I got was his first name."

I then asked Rachel for details of how a Durango kid, let's call him Kid Durango, saved her life.

Rachel then directed me to her blog, where her Durango ordeal is told in 2 parts.

Short version, Rachel was taking the scenic route home to Dallas after attending a wedding in Austin at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Rachel was driving along, saw a sign indicating she was in Durango. Pulled over to look at a map. Got stuck in mud.

A mild panic ensued. Rachel called her mom and dad, seeking advice. Then Rachel's cell phone went dead. After I don't know how much time Kid Durango showed up. Driving a jeep with a wench. He pulled Rachel's Honda Civic out of the mire.

As this was happening Rachel's cell phone came back to life with a call from mom and dad. Rachel told them her current status which had mom screaming for her to get Kid Durango's license plate number. Apparently Rachel and her mom live in morbid fear of being random roadkill.

Back mobile again Rachel shouted out her profound thanks to Kid Durango and asked him what his name was. Brett was the answer. And now Rachel is seeking the full name of Kid Durango. I doubt Moby Dick is going to be any help. Both he and Rachel live in Dallas.

So, anyone from my favorite Texas town reading this who knows Brett, please help Rachel with her "What's Brett's Last Name" project. Thanks.

Another Bad Day In Texas In Durango Computer World

I believe the red you see in the picture is called Sumac. It was coloring up the Tandy Hills today.

Speaking of today, I am having myself a day today. My one longtime reader may remember my recent trauma over websites being hacked, which ended up with me moving my websites to a new server.

I have not gone a long enough time, trouble free, to feel safe. Yesterday I learned one of my websites was generating a dire warning. Worse than anything previous. The warning is coming from anti-virus programs, like Avast and Norton.

About a half hour before I was scheduled to take off for the Tandy Hills I discovered what I thought was a huge security hole in the permissions settings on my websites. I started changing the settings, then thought I needed to walk away and think it through. It's a good thing I did that, because the permissions were set correctly and the changes I was making was causing access to be denied. I was back here about 1.5 hours later and quickly fixed that problem. It being a problem that I had created.

But, I still had that other website generating the dire warning. From Norton I learned the precise location and name of the offending file. But that folder and file no longer exists. It was deleted on the old server.

So, I'm thinking this is some legacy woe that is somehow causing this one domain to be still flagged as a problem. Norton has a thing where you can request a review if it is your website and you know it is problem free. I had to create an account first. No big deal. I had to verify site ownership by placing code from Norton in the root directory. Again, no big deal.

But. The Norton instructions were very bad. Norton told me to place a line of code,

"wiye0k1nf3iakqnwf5djo6f7k9eqj74vf3n2mbh8w0z3m1906izjjqcuowlgz5x-kznkn8wj3suia8r5vlkokpd-yg45fn2cbkjza01zc38el7j6orsxk5h5jeo-d85a",

in the root directory.

Well, I've traveled this road before. You can't just put code randomly in a directory. So, I made it both an HTML file and a .txt file and named it what Norton called it. Which was nortonsw_a0c259d0-ac7c-0.html.txt, removing the .txt for the .html verson.

Uploaded the file. Clicked on the "verify" button. Got told verification failed. 10 minutes later I get an email from Norton, with the email now step by step explaining what I already knew to do, correctly, and had already done, correctly. Only to fail.

So, I tried again, in the oft chance I'd somehow mis-copied something. Failure again.

This had me remembering why I long ago bailed using Norton's Anti-Virus software. Norton programs are worse than getting a virus.

The Texas Blahs Caused By Twitter & Barnett Shale Gas Drilling Pollution

It is a beautiful blue sky day, 72 degrees HOT, windows open, here in the little Texas burg that calls itself Fort Worth.

I should be in a good mood, all things considered. Instead I have an overarching case of the BLAHs.

I believed this case of the BLAHs was brought on by spending too much time with Twitter the past 3 days. I have been in experimenting mode with Twitter, to see if I really could make use of it.

This morning I pretty much decided, for the most part, that Twitter is useless. Or maybe my limited comprehension abilities render it impossible for me to make use of what may actually be useful about Twitter.

One of my Tarrant County co-horts is off on a secret mission this morning. I know no details, except it is a secret mission. This is not the first secret mission she has gone on. I hope it's not some sort of eco-terrorist thing. Then again, Texas could use a little eco-terrorism. There are way too many evil-doers getting away with doing dirty deeds here.

Wyatt Earp needs to come to town and bring law and order with him.

Arresting Fort Worth's Mayor Mike Moncrief would probably be a good start. I keep thinking the feds are going to arrest the man and charge him with racketeering, or whatever the proper charge is for benefiting monetarily from decisions made due to your political position. I don't see what the difference is between accepting bribes, for favors done, and having vested interests in the Barnett Shale natural gas drilling companies, giving the mayor a motivation to agree to every fool thing the gas drillers ask for.

You want the drilling distance restriction reduced? No problem. You can drill 300 feet from someone's house. You need water? No problem. Just stick a pipeline anywhere you want. You say it'd cost too much to put vapor containment equipment on the drilling sites? No problem, we can live with a little air pollution, no matter how bad study after study indicates it is. You want to run a pipeline under Fort Worth citizen's homes and pump non-odorized gas. Not a problem. We'll help you get the job done by using eminent domain, if that helps.

Maybe I am feeling BLAH due to the air that I breathe. The windows are open. I'm about 600 feet from a Barnett Shale natural gas well. It's either Twitter or the Barnett Shale that is making me BLAH. Maybe a combo of both.

News From Texas That Mount Rainier Put On A Flying Saucer Show Last Friday

I just got an interesting email from the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast, Alma, down in Port Aransas, sending me pictures of some cool-looking cloud formations that swirled above Mount Rainier in my old state of residence, that being Washington, supposedly this past Friday.

Drivers were pulling to the side of Interstate 5 to take pictures.

Way back on June 24, 1947 a pilot named Kenneth A. Arnold coined the term "flying saucer" to describe 9 unusual objects he observed flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, heading towards Mount Adams at what amounted to supersonic speeds at a time in history when no earthly planes had broken the sound barrier.

After he described the flying object's shape as looking like a flat saucer or disc and described their motion as being like that of a saucer skipping across water the press quickly grabbed hold of the term "flying saucer," many of which were reported being seen in the following days.

This singular event ignited the UFO phenomenon that continues off and on to this day, as in last winter, or was it the winter before, there was a UFO widely reported to have been seen down by Stephenville, here in Texas.

Arnold's account was found to be highly credible. And then it was corroborated by others who had witnessed the same thing and were equally credible. In the days that followed numerous other credible witnesses described seeing stuff in the sky over Washington they'd not seen before. And then on Day 10 came a primary corroborative sighting, this time by a United Airlines crew over Idaho on their way to Seattle who saw disk-like objects pacing their plane.

The next day Arnold met with the pilot, Captain, E. J. Smith, and co-pilot, to compare the details of what they saw. Within days there were sightings over Tulsa, Oklahoma and Phoenix, Arizona.

The last photo of flying saucer like clouds swirling around Mount Rainier is the view from Gig Harbor. Gig Harbor is on the Olympic Peninsula on the other side of the Narrows from Tacoma, accessed by parallel suspension bridges.

These spectacular cloud formations are called lenticular clouds. They occur when the air flow over Mount Rainier hits a precise condition where the air gets pushed up, then cools and condenses into clouds. A moist onshore flow preceding an incoming rainstorm sets up the conditions that makes these clouds.