Safely Back In My Abode After Surviving Yet One More Fort Worth Near Death Experience

You are looking at the 2 in the afternoon view from my patio, well after the sun has lit up the place.

I am waiting for lunch to launch from the oven.

I had a near death driving experience this afternoon, coming back from North Richland Hills.

When you go from Davis Boulevard to I-820 south, you have to move over a couple lanes in order to avoid heading to Fort Worth on 121, aka the Airport Freeway.

I'd moved over well before the freeway split. And then suddenly I saw a big semi-truck ahead of me was not moving. I slammed on the brakes, as did the car behind me. I came real close to hitting the truck and the car behind me came real close to hitting me.

Traffic was a dead standstill on 820. I was able to get back on to the lanes that become 121. A lot of people were doing that. Exiting 121, at Handley-Ederville, is an easy detour back to where I am right now.

As I drove south on Handley-Ederville I glanced over at the 820 freeway and saw emergency lights flashing near the bridge over the Trinity. That is a real scary stretch of road that loses a lane right before the bridge. I've seen a bad accident there more than once.

Anyway, this was my first scary driving incident in a long, long time. I don't remember what the previous one was, but this one was real close to becoming a real bad thing.

The buzzer just announced that lunch is ready to launch. So, I am in food mode now.

Up Early This First Day Of September Thinking Of Biking 100 Miles While Hotter Than Hell

I am up early on the first day of September. It is a dark quarter moon Wednesday morning. We are looking out my bedroom window, at the darkness and the pool, in the picture.

The weather predictors are predicting it will be very cloudy today, with a chance of wet stuff falling on the first 3 days of September.

Yesterday morning I was quickly greeted by computer trauma. This morning, I am at least an hour into being on my computer, with very little trauma, so far. Knock on wood.

This morning I feel no sore after effect from pedaling my bike for 13.646 miles yesterday.

This morning I read Steve A's blog account of his 100 mile ride in the Wichita Falls Hotter 'n Hell bike ride. I can't imagine pedaling for 100 miles in pleasant temperatures, let alone 100 degrees or hotter.

I think I'll be in the pool as soon as the sun makes its expected arrival and stay in it an extra long time, due to yesterday's time being cut short due to my computer malfunction worries.

And then, mid-morning, it is off to points to the north. If I get on my bike today, it will be late in the afternoon. I see a trek to the Tandy Hills for some relaxing, salubrious hiking to be more likely than biking.

P.S. September is off to a start with a good omen. I clicked on the spell check and was told "No Misspellings Found." This happens about once a month. To have it happen on the first blog posting of the new month has to be a fortuitous sign of something.

I Am Hoping Microsoft Security Essentials Keeps More Bad Stuff Away From Me

I started having computer problems early this morning. Before the sun came up. Everything was slow.

Then, I was writing a blogging on my TV Blog when the computer went into nuts mode. I hit the off button.

Upon restart I started up the browser so I could finish with the blogging. It took a long long time for the browser to open up. Eventually I hit the publish button on the blogging.

Then I started up Outlook Express. Usually this is pretty much instant. This morning nothing seemed to be happening.

I decided to walk away from the computer and go swimming.

But, I was unable to enjoy swimming due to worrying I was facing a major computer problem.

I returned to the computer to see that Outlook Express had finally started up.

I ate breakfast while playing Facebook Scrabble.

After that I started working on my website. That was going fine until Windows Defender did an update. When that was done Windows Defender told me it had found something bad. When I told Windows Defender to take the proper defensive action, all hell broke loose.

Something popped up telling me I had some horrible problem. I could not open things like Control Panel. Trying to open some things would generate a message telling me the problem contained an infected file "click here to run an anti-virus scan."

I'd been to a lot of webpages this morning, finding links. I figured I'd picked up something bad. I looked to see what processes were running. I saw one I knew should not be there. Stopped it. That stopped the bogus virus/infection warnings.

I found the same thing in the MSCONFIG start-up file. Disabled it there. Went to eliminate it from the Registry. Was told the Administrator (Me) was denying access.

I ran a Malware detector. It was blocked from getting the latest update. I ran it anyway. It found some bad stuff.

Then I was told Microsoft's new anti-virus program, called Microsoft Security Essentials, worked well, was fast, and did not bog down the system

But, when I tried to install MSE I had the same blocking an update problem.

I tried a couple other things, did a re-start. This time Microsoft Security Essentials was able to do the needed update. And then it quickly found several bad things. Those were removed.

Another restart and suddenly my computer is working better than it has in a long long time.

With everything seeming to be fine, I was back being a happy boy. So, I took off out of there to go on a bike ride.

My First Bike Ride In Over A Year Went Well For The Most Part

That is my newly restored two-wheeled personal locomotion device laying on the ground.

No, it is not laying on the ground due to a malfunction.

I stopped to take a picture. To take a picture I have to remove my sunglasses. If I don't I can not see the camera screen.

About 8, or maybe 9, miles later I realized I had left my sunglasses on the ground. Unlike the Tandy Hills Easter Sunday lost sunglasses incident, I found them today upon my return to the spot where I left them.

I estimate I quit riding my bike sometime last July, or maybe August. I attempted to get the wheel fixed in October, at Panther City Bikes. Or whatever it is called. I had a worse impression about that place than I did/do about Bicycles, Inc., so I did not get my wheel fixed there.

There are not as many bike shops to choose from in the Dallas/Fort Worth zone than in areas that have a lot more bike riders. At least I'm assuming that is the cause of the bike shop shortage.

I am glad I found Colonel's Bicycle Shop.

Getting back in the saddle, after more than a year of not pedaling, went surprisingly well. I was surprised at how solid the bike now feels with its fixed wheel. I quickly realized I put up with that wobbly wheel way too long.

I was zipping along at around 20 mph, with the help of wind behind me, breaking the speed limit by 10 mph. Came to the first up and down, zipped down and up. It was feeling good.

I forgot to mention, my return to bike riding took place at Village Creek Natural Historic Area, then left the VCNHA trail to continue on on the Bob Findlay Linear Park trail.

Which is where the picture was taken. It's in Interlochen. An area with a lot of canals. Betty Jo Bouvier asked me how it manages to be so green here, so I took a green picture for Betty Jo.

Soon after that, at mile 6 or 7, I thought of Betty Jo again. I started off feeling real comfortable on the saddle. I'd forgotten that prior to my bike's long period of rest I'd put a comfy new bike seat on it. But, by mile 6 or 7, not so comfy. I think my seating area has lost some of its padding over the past year. Which is why I thought of Betty Jo, thinking riding a bike might be a bit more comfortable if I had a more ample derriere.

I had multiple issues with squirrels acting squirrely today. Four times the little beasts darted out in front of my front wheel, almost causing a crash each time.

Around mile 10, on my way back to my van, before I realized I'd left my sunglasses behind, I stopped to drink some water. I leaned over to get the water bottle and then had a real dizzy sensation, in a way that felt good. It was at that point I realized that biking is way more exercise, aerobically speaking, than the hill hiking I've been doing for the past year.

By the time I recovered the sunglasses and made it back to my van, I'd covered 13.646 miles. Not the longest bike ride I've gone on. But, it seemed long enough for the first bike ride in over a year. As soon as I stopped and got off the bike, without the motion caused Wind Chill, I switched into heavy duty sweating mode. I'd forgotten this part of bike riding when it's HOT.

So, that was the fun part of today. The un-fun part of today was totally unrelated to riding a bike. If I feel like re-living that in blog form, I may do that later.

The Last Day Of August Starts Dark & Cloudy & Humid

I am up way before the sun on the last day of August. As you can clearly see via the view from my patio. It is a dark, cloudy morning.

I opened the windows this morning before realizing it was 79.9 and very humid. As in 79% humidity. About 10 minutes later the windows were shut and the A/C turned on to try and un-do the damage I'd done to the interior climate.

I am looking forward to my first bike ride in a long, long time, today. I think I'll go pedaling on Village Creek Natural Historic Area's paved trail. That was the location of the last time I was on my bike.

I think I'll hit a paved trail, or two, to make sure I am comfortable back in the saddle, before hitting a mountain bike trail. I suspect new trails have been added to my favorite nearby mountain bike trail, that being the River Legacy Park mountain bike trail.

But, before I go biking, I am going swimming. But, I need the sun to show up with some brightening before I do that.

Fort Worth's Colonel's Bicycles Has Me Back On 2 Wheels

Well. I am back in bike riding mode. It has been quite a long time since my bike became unstable, due to the rear wheel getting way out of round. Or un-true in bike wheel-speak. Or is it out of true?

My biking had sort of gone the way of my roller blading. With roller blading I decided one day that the fun quotient was out weighed by the lack of a desire to go through another long recovery from a bad blading fall.

And then I sort of got addicted to heavy duty hiking and its resultant positive effects.

But, I sort of missed riding my bike.

And then a couple weeks ago I was walking the paved trail at River Legacy Park. Walking it. And way more bikers than I ever remember seeing there, reminded me of how often I'd biked that trail. I decided then to get back in bike mode.

Part of my reluctance to deal with the bike woes is I have had bad luck with bike shops here in Texas. And I was never all that happy with bike shops in Washington, except for the bike shop in Fairhaven in Bellingham. I think it was called Bellingham Bike Shop. I bought my favorite bike there. And then a Texas trail killed it. Killed it good.

I think it was back in October I mentioned taking the wheel to Panther City Bikes on Magnolia in Fort Worth. Fort Worth Weekly picked it as the Best Bike Shop, in last year's Best of 2009 Issue. It took me about 2 minutes in Panther City Bikes to turn and run out. I think I blogged about this and my previous experience with taking the wheel in for help at Bicycles Inc., in Bedford, which left the wheel still wobbly. slightly improved, but still wobbly.

I believe it was after that that Steve A pointed me to Colonel's Bicycle Shop on University Drive in the heart of purple TCU territory. It seemed like a long ways to go at the time Steve A mentioned it.

But, I wanted a working wheel. So, last Thursday I took the wheel to the Colonel. I was told I needed a new wheel. And that it should be ready by Tuesday. Well, this afternoon, just as I was heading into Fort Worth for another reason, I got a call from Colonel's. The wheel was ready.

When I was in Colonel's on Thursday I lamented about my bad Texas bike shop experiences. The bike guy I was talking to joked that they'd try and not be another bad bike shop experience. I told the bike guy I had a tendency to blog about my bad experiences. And my good experiences.

I was fairly certain I was going to have a good experience at Colonel's Bicycle Shop, due to the fact that Colonel's has a good website that oozes competence. And a lot of good customers comments.

So, I got back here, figured I'd have an easy time attaching the tire to wheel, with a tube inside, and then sticking it on the bike. It'd been awhile. Eventually I got the tire on the wheel, with the tube inside. I figured sticking the wheel on the rear gear thing would be easy. Done it many a time.

It took at least a half an hour before the wheel suddenly, correctly slid in to place. By then I'd somehow mucked up the brake cable. But that was easily fixed.

So, now, after way too much effort. I am ready to roll. But not right now. The rolling will have to wail until tomorrow.

Hot Tandy Hills Hiking With Purple Bruisers

It is one day before the end of August and there is still plant life coloring up the Tandy Hills. Not a lot of it, but there is still color.

Today I saw a delicate looking tiny orchid-like pink wildflower. And the big Purple Bruiser you see in the picture.

I think the Purple Bruiser belongs to the thistle family. It was quite thorny.

A slight bit of rain damped us up a bit a bit before noon. This shot the humidity way up. So, even though it was only in the high 80s, it was one HOT hike today.

When I stopped to take the picture of the Purple Bruiser, it was near the end of my hike time. The act of stopping and getting low to the ground, to take the picture, turned me into a fountain. I'm sure the Purple Bruiser appreciated its second watering of the day. I know I would have.

I am ready for fall to fall. There were signs of the impending hall on the hills today. Leaves in some trees starting to slightly change their color. It is only 22 days til fall.

I am out of here, back out in the HEAT. I've something I need to attend to.

J.D. Granger's Trinity River Vision Happy Hour Tubing Party Boondoggle Continuing Fun

You are looking at another photo taken by Joyce Marshall in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. There are now a lot of photos documenting last Thursday's bizarre Trinity River Vision Boondoggle J.D. Granger inspired Happy Hour Inner Tube Float down one of the most polluted rivers in America.

Judging from the comments to the article in the Star-Telegram, the locals seemed to be fairly universally repulsed by J.D. Granger's latest great idea.

One commenter lamented the wish that something cheaper be found for Kay Granger's boy to do.

It was Elsie Hotpepper who pointed me to the cornucopia of amusing and cogent comments, pointing me to them, because one commenter, Rude Dude, mentioned Durango Texas as being his information source for the Trinity Tubing.

I'll start with the comment from Rude Dude, then follow that with other comments about J.D. Granger's latest Boondoggle...

Someone named Agassifan had asked "So, how were these folks chosen?"

RudeDude then wrote:

They weren't chosen the float was open to anyone. They probably learned about it at J.D. Granger's Twitter or Facebook page. I read about it several weeks ago at Durango Texas. Fort Worth Weekly and FortWorthology may have also announced the float.

Jabbo wrote:

Anyone who has pushed the wasteful billion dollar Trinity Vision project (Granger & Son, Moncrief, the Tarrant Water District, etc.) should be put on an innertube and set out to sea!

localyokel wrote:

UGGHHH!!!! Between the alligator gar, the "brown trout", and God alone only knows what else, there is no way that anyone who valued their health would even think to get in the river. I've pulled CARS out of the river, BODIES out of the river, did a Trinity River Trash Bash and saw an old man with a net scooping used NEEDLES out of the water.

McNugget wrote:

Between the mammoth alligator gar, 2 headed snakes, gators, and dead bodies known to lurk below the foamy waters of the Trinity- No Thanks! Not to mention the fact that you will smell like a toilet boil for two days after.

anngws wrote:

There was documentary on recently about aligator gar - they focused on the Trinity River because it has such a huge population of that terrible fish. They can be deadly and grow to be very large - they have 2 rows of aligator teeth in a long thin snout. Who on Earth would swim in a river with those things? They can shred anything they bite into. Who would even promote such a thing?

TexasProud wrote: (quoting from the article in the Star-Telegram)

"With Budweiser swim trunks, a can of Natural Ice in his hand and a pack of Marlboros hanging around his neck in a waterproof container, the Fort Worth resident was ready to go."

This is why Fort Worth is Fort Worth, and not someplace with higher standards....it's the people....stupid.

astlobo wrote:

Great just what the Trinity needs, dirty Fort Worthians polluting the river even more.

McNugget wrote:

I thought these Trinity River people were only in charge of the big "flood control" project that we're all going to be financing. Now they're doing tubing and restaurants by the river. Maybe next they can come over and clean my house?

rickhatcher wrote:

you can't eat fish from the Trinity River what makes people want to put their bodies in that nasty thing. If they cleaned up the river it would help immensely. I am not sure it is safe for tubing anyhow. I don't think I would want to eat at any restaurant on the Trinity River because of the horrible smell.

sulla012 wrote:

I love tubing and I love Fort Worth it would take millions to get that river in tubing shape for the general public. I will choose to do the spring fed rivers of the Hill country and miss my chance to tube with "uncle dave". Maybe next year "uncle Dave". Nothing like a stagnant foul smelling river to go tube at on a lazy afternoon. Good idea wrong river.

jlwesty wrote:

Many tubing areas are not deep, over one's head. The Trinity is deep and there are no life saving stations. The Fire Dept takes too long in an emergency. They are more for recovery. Many city dwellers can not swim. As a child I remember many people being drowned yearly at family outings. The river is for flood water it is filled with limbs, trees and rocks. After a rain it foams like your washer because of chemicals in the run off. Once drowned bodies take days to find if they don't float naturally as they deteriorate. I would think authorities would tell you to boil the water if you were going to drink it. The rare boat race or tug of war that gets out of hand and leads to a sip probably would not kill you but inviting the world to come down and take a dip makes no sense just like the project. I wish we could have found something cheaper for Kay Granger's boy to do. It is a disgrace which will come to nothing.

A Polluted Texas Monday Morning Moon Seen With ISO & Shitzu

We are looking out my bedroom window, early Monday morning, with this being the last Monday of August. It is 79 degrees out there, so I've got my windows open.

My camera has multiple settings that I spin a dial to change. Settings like 'Fireworks', 'Snow', 'Foliage', 'Portrait', 'Night Snapshot', 'Kids & Pets', 'Indoor', 'Sunset', 'Beach', 'Aquarium' and 'ISO'.

I had no idea what ISO meant. This morning I set the camera on ISO and took the picture out of my bedroom window. I think what ISO means is at that setting you can take a picture with little light and no flash will go off and you end up with a photo that fairly closely replicates what the darkness actually looks like.

I think I'll leave you for a moment and go out on the patio and see if this ISO thing can take a picture of the pollution halo that is currently surrounding the moon. I'll be right back.

Well, you can sort of see the haze around the moon. And you can also see that the sun is starting to light up the place. But not sufficiently bright to alert the birds that it is time to go into their morning tweeting routine.

I have yet to get to see and take a picture of the little Lhasa Apso doggy who found a home on Saturday. The lady who adopted the nice little doggy, we called Shitzu, because we thought he was a Shih Tzu breed of nice little doggy, already has 2 dogs. Little Schnauzers.

When I first met the lady who adopted Shitzu she only had 1 Schnauzer. I met the little Schnauzer when a Pit Bull was trying to eat it during a fire emergency. It was drama layered upon drama.

I see Shitzu's new mama a couple times a week, usually, out walking her doggies in my neighborhood. It will be interesting to see how she handles 3 dogs at once. And how Shitzu is adjusting to his adopted siblings.

Well, the birds have started making a racket. Which means it is time to go swimming.

Walking With Texas Indian Ghosts While Talking To Tootsie Tonasket

You are looking at the paved trail in Village Creek Natural Historic Area in Arlington, Texas. The picture was taken about an hour ago, a minute or two after I was untangled from the leash of a passing Doberman. You can see the Doberman and its humans in the distance in the picture if you look real hard.

My one longtime reader may remember me mentioning, yesterday, that Tootsie Tonasket had sent me a rather disturbing email detailing the latest chapter in Tootsie's ongoing roller coaster of a soap opera.

So, I called Tootsie Tonasket today while I walked and talked for an hour or so. I gave Tootsie excellent advice as to how to handle the latest Tootsie Travail. I'm sure my excellent advice will be totally ignored.

I tell you, the troubles that people find themselves accidentally getting into, make me grateful I pretty much live a trouble-free existence. As long as I stay out of Tacoma and its Vortex of Weirdness.

I think I broke my record in the pool this morning, time-wise. It was feeling so salubrious I did not want to get out. I was in the water very soon after the sun arrived, so I had musical bird tweeting helping create a soothing jungle atmosphere.

I was in Boerne, Texas, virtually, all morning. I'll be returning there again, virtually, this afternoon. Interesting town.

Time for lunch now. Burgers, with salad, oven-baked spud rounds and lemonade.