Thanking Departing Despot Mike Moncrief For Making Fort Worth The Best Place To Live On The Planet

There was a letter to the editor in this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram that I could not tell if the letter writer was making some sort of sarcastic joke or not.

The letter writer was thanking Fort Worth's departing despot, Mayor Mike Moncrief, for the amazingly wonderful job he has done as mayor, overseeing the poking of thousands of holes in his town, from which the departing despot profited hugely due to his ability to skirt by the ethics violations in the form of the mayor's rather obvious conflicts of interest, that would likely have the mayor in jail by now if Fort Worth was a city in the United States.

Below is the perplexing letter...

Thanks, Mayor Mike

Thank you, Mayor Mike Moncrief, for making Fort Worth the best place to live on the planet. Maybe we could send a carload of TCU players to bring you back in time for the May 14 election. We're sure going to miss your positive leadership. I am proud to say you still have my vote.

-- Steve McCans, Fort Worth

Mayor Mike Moncrief made Fort Worth the best place to live on the planet? What planet is this person speaking of? This person is suggesting a carload of TCU players kidnap the mayor so that he can continue his reign? Positive leadership? Has this person not seen a Fort Worth City Council meeting presided by the departing despot?

A Warm Start To The 3rd Wednesday Of February In Texas

The sun is starting to arrive on this 3rd Wednesday of the 2nd month of 2011.

My AccuWeather temperature teller is telling me it is 73 at this point in time this morning.

Methinks my AccuWeather temperature teller is having a malfunction because it did not feel 73 when I stepped outside, in skinnydip mode, to take a picture of the shadow of the thin man.

It may be cooler than 73, but not that much cooler. So, I am going to make a swimming attempt. I got in the pool yesterday morning. And quickly learned it was no doable.

I do not believe there will be a noon time frame hiking incident today. If there is a hiking incident today it will be late in the afternoon. In the noon time frame I believe I will be heading north to the Southlake zone.

I may talk to you later....

Homesick For Washington, Spencer Jack & Vacuum Cleaners

Yesterday I mentioned I'd been being a bit melancholy.

Homesick for Washington.

Multiple reasons.

On Saturday my favorite sister-in-law called me. We had a nice long talk. My favorite sister-in-law is the grandma of my grand nephew (or is it great nephew?) Spencer Jack.

I have only met Spencer Jack once. In late July of 2008, at Bay View State Park in the Skagit Valley of Washington. If I remember right Spencer was a little over 2 years old at that point in time.

Spencer Jack is now between 4 and 5 years old. His grandma told me how much fun he is, and that he inherited the family smart gene. And is old beyond his years.

A couple days ago, on Facebook, I read one of my friends from high school telling Spencer Jack's dad that he was reminding her of his uncle who lives in Texas. Spencer Jack's dad said he's been told that many a time. Something to do with DNA.

When he was a kid, Spencer Jack's dad had a thing for ferry boats. As in the Washington State Ferries. He made models of the ferries. I think it was before Spencer Jack's dad was a teenager he'd already built a scale model version of the entire Washington State Ferry Fleet. That is a lot of boats.

Spencer Jack did not inherit his dad's penchant for ferry boats. Spencer Jack's thing is vacuum cleaners.

He collects them.

This also sort of tells me Spencer Jack inherited the family cleanliness nut gene.

I had not looked at Spencer Jack's blog for awhile. His grandma put it in my mind to do so. I used to be able to link to Spencer Jack's blog, but now you have to be invited to visit Spencer. I don't think I have ever seen so many cute pictures of such a cute kid!

I don't remember if I ever, on this blog, said the reason I terminated having anything to do with someone I dealt with the last time I was in Washington. She had remarked, to me, that a friend of hers new grandbaby was the ugliest baby she'd ever seen. I thought this was an awful thing to say. You might think it, but you just don't say it. Particularly when you happen to be, yourself, well, homely is putting it kindly.

So, I said something like all kids can't be a little cutey like Spencer Jack.

To which Quasimoto said to me, and I'll never forget this, because I do not remember ever instantly going into revulsion mode with someone before, but when this homely excuse for a human told me that Spencer was an ugly baby, and that I only thought he was cute was because I was a member of his tribe, well, I knew we were done.

And that she was a deranged fat pig of a human being.

Though I did not terminate her til it was time to fly out of there. And then she was terminated with extreme prejudice.

Why would anyone in their right mind say such a thing?

I spent the next several months figuring that out, because it sort of fascinated me. I then blogged about exactly how this person was not in her right mind. And what caused it.

A year or so later this sad creature had one of her episodes, directed at me, on another blog. In my reply to that I referred to her as a Fat Ugly Beast. It felt good. If you were one of those who read that, you now know why I felt it was perfectly fair to say such a thing, to such a Fat Ugly Beast of a human being.

If this tribal method did exist as to how one perceives ugliness or beauty, well, hers would definitely be the Fat Ugly Tribe. And it ain't because I am not a member of the Fat Ugly Tribe that I think that. Why would anyone who can look in any random mirror and see she is a member of the Fat Ugly Tribe ever make any comment about any other human's relative ugliness? Particularly a relative relative of mine.

Very perplexing.

Now, does Spencer Jack look like a fun kid or what? I don't think Spencer Jack's dad ever went trick or treating costumed as a ferry boat. Spencer Jack was all over the Skagit Valley on Halloween as a Dirt Devil Vacuum Cleaner.

Enduring A Cacophony Of Noise At Arlington's Veterans Park Today Along With Mellow Turtles

I was in Arlington around noon, heading to Pantego. I decided to stop at Arlington's Veterans Park and take a walk through the Texas Wildscape.

A lot of people were having some fun today in Veterans Park, enjoying temperatures in the 70s.

Being in the 70s is a huge difference from a week ago when we were all busy preparing to plunge down to near zero.

Today in the Veterans Park Pond I saw a lot of very happy turtles, with their necks stretched out trying to get as much sun as possible.

The Fosdic Lake Turtles are very skittish. The Veterans Park Pond Turtles are not skittish. I got right to the water's edge and still no turtles got spooked, with none diving under water. Maybe the turtles are so happy to be out of that Deep Freeze that they are temporarily throwing caution to the wind.

Veterans Park Pond is a noisy location due to a fountain. And today due to the return of a Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drilling Rig that was making an awful lot of screechy, metallic racket. Maybe the Veterans Park Pond Turtles are traumatized by all that noise and that is why they paid no attention to the human intruder.

Above you can see the noisy gas drilling rig in the background. Today the Veterans Park Veteran, who guards the memorial, was hanging his head down a bit lower than I remembered. I think the gas drilling noise is getting on his nerves. Or reminding him too much of being in a combat situation.

Looking at the flags at the Veterans Park Memorial, you can see there is a good wind today, doing some heavy duty flag flapping.

Also adding to the Veterans Park noise today was a large number of screaming brats, I mean, school children. They were in purple uniforms. They looked too young to be going to TCU. An adult male was directing them in a stirring game of Red Rover. I heard him say, "Red Rover, come over," or something like that.

I don't know if I have ever played the Red Rover game. Judging by the squealing and screaming this is a very fun game to play. When you are pre-teenager.

Jerry Jones' Bad Karma Raising An Arlington Super Bowl Stench

7th Haven is a bar on 7th Avenue in Fort Worth, located near Montgomery Plaza. 7th Haven is known for putting clever messages on its sign.

The clever message currently is..

"HOW DID YOU NOT INSTALL

PRE SOLD SEATS ON TIME

BAD WEATHER     LAWSUITS

SMELL THE BAD KARMA JERRY"

I believe the BAD KARMA being referred to, regarding Jerry Jones, is the bad karma generated by the way Jerry Jones came to have his new stadium in Arlington where the Super Bowl was recently played.

To very bad reviews for a lot of reasons.

The Bad Karma arose when Jerry Jones, in collusion with the City of Arlington, colluded to bring about what many believe to be the Worst Case of Eminent Domain Abuse in American history. Dozens of homes and apartment complexes and businesses were taken, for a private business. Thousands of Americans were displaced, forced to move.

Back in 2007, when it was announced that the Dallas Cowboy Stadium had won Super Bowl XLV I opined that despite all the breathless local puffery about this supposed coup, that it was likely not going to turn out the way some of the locals dreamed it would. I said it would not be pretty when the national media gets a look at that giant futuristic spaceship of a stadium, plopped down in a rundown American neighborhood with industrial/urban blight on 2 sides.

As it turned out, the national media was even less pretty than I thought it would be.

Way back when I saw the level of destruction going on in Arlington, with giant piles of rubble, I started webpaging the ongoing Dallas Cowboy Stadium project. I think I started doing this in 2004. I recollect flying to Seattle in 2004 and the flight path taking me directly above the destruction zone, affording me a good picture of the moonscape where previously homes had been.

Over the years the webpage that I came to call The Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal, has generated a lot of comments.

Reading those comments is a good example of the Bad Karma Jerry Jones generated, with some who believe in such things, thinking that Bad Karma is what caused Super Bowl XLV to be so Blunderful, with Arlington about as likely to get another Super Bowl as Atlanta is likely to get another Olympics.

Below is a small sampling of the comments I've gotten about the Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal that give you an idea of the Smell of Jerry Jones' Bad Karma.

I am one of the victims of the Cowboy greed and insensitivity. Thank you so much for putting such a clear voice to the pain so many of us have suffered. Many of us felt so abandoned by the community, there seemed to be no one speaking up for us and what was being done to us. I am still not back to feeling settled and secure. I feel like I'm the victim of a crime, like I have been burglarized, vandalized and raped, with everyone ignoring the crime with the criminals using the corrupt Texas legal system to declare WAR on people's lives and homes. What if it were the homes of the football players and owners that were destroyed? How would they feel about that? The law is supposed to protect the weakest among us, that is what it is supposed to do, not allow the strongest and richest among us to bring destruction to those with no resources to fight back.

Anonymous out of Fear, Mansfield, Texas

So. I read in the NY Times this morning that Dallas is going to make a bid for the 2011 Super Bowl. To atone for this most despicable abuse of eminent domain I've ever read about will the Cowboys be giving free game tickets to the victims of this atrocity? Will former homeowners be able to park for free on the site of their former driveways? Will there be a historical marker on the spot where the home was located of the elderly lady who died of a broken heart in her condemned home?

Seth M., Jersey City, New Jersey

This destruction in Texas is the worst abuse of eminent domain I have ever read about. Such a thing could never happen in my state.

Del S., Portland, Oregon

It shocks me that this can happen in America. It reminds me of the type of disregard for human rights that my former nation of East Germany practiced.

Gunther H., Berlin, Germany

There you have it. The Smell of Jerry Jones' Bad Karma.

An Early Start To The Day After Valentines Day In Texas After A Night Of Nightmares

I woke up well before the sun on this 3rd Tuesday of the 2nd month of 2011.

I had myself a rough night of disturbing, as in real disturbing, nightmares.

The picture looking through the bars of my patio prison cell is a perfect metaphor for how I'm feeling.

Trapped.

And I don't know why.

Due to the return to reasonable weather I've sort of amped up my aerobicizing and yoga-ing. And have consequently got myself feeling a bit sore in way too many places.

I think the being sore in way too many places may have contributed to last night's insomnia and nightmare bout.

This morning I am going to go have myself a long soak in that hot tub you see in the picture. That may help what ails me.

Climbing The Fort Worth Space Needle Atop Mount Tandy & Valentines Day Lunch With Elsie Hotpepper

You are looking at the Fort Worth Space Needle, high atop Mount Tandy on the east side of the Tandy Hills Natural Area, today, about an hour before noon.

When I drove up to the Mount Tandy summit I saw a lot of pickup trucks and men scurrying around the Space Needle.

A thin cable was running from about half way up the tower to a winch on the back of one of the pickups.

I wondered how that thin cable got half way up the tower. I watched for awhile to try and figure out what was being done.

Whatever those guys were doing it had several guys yelling back and forth in a storm of colorful cussing, the likes of which I'd not heard since the last time I talked to Elsie Hotpepper.

I gave up after about 5 minutes and took off hiking. The trails were a bit muddy in places. I prefer trails not to be muddy.

An hour or so later I was back under the Fort Worth Space Needle.

I've got to say, looking up at that thing makes me dizzy. I'm a bit of an acrophobe, even when I'm on the ground.

But, what I now saw, really made me dizzy, well, queasy.

Two guys, more than half way up the tower.

In the photo at the top, you can see where these guys were on the tower, by finding the black spots halfway up the tower. That would be them.

As I drove away I had no clue what these guys were risking life and limb to do. Whatever it was, it sure had them being a bit hot tempered.

Speaking of being a bit hot tempered. My Valentines Day lunch at Esperanza's, with Elsie Hotpepper, was fun. Absolutely no colorful cussing.

When Elsie got back to work she emailed asking how lunch was. I replied that I am out of practice for eating that much. To which Elsie replied, "Me too. And I am sleepy!!"

It's all those tortilla chips. And rice. And beans. That is way too much carbo-loading when you aren't used to it.

The Esperanza's Chile Cheese Relleno was really good today. I'd not had a Chile Cheese Relleno since way back in September of last year when I met the Scrabble Queen of Washington and her husband, JR, at Mercado Juarez for lunch.

When I lived in Washington my favorite Chile Cheese Relleno came from the restaurant closest to where I lived. Los Arcos. So named because it was in a building that shared space with an Arcos gas station. It was at this restaurant I learned to like pico de gallo and cilantro. Later the restaurant expanded to be a night club, with the owner soon indicted for some bad behavior, with Los Arcos being no more.

Being a Valentines Day Melancholy Baby Today In Texas Thinking About Washington

I am being a Melancholy Baby today.

In the picture you are looking at my house in Mount Vernon.

Well, actually, what used to be my house in Mount Vernon. It was sold in 2002.

The house was built in 1985. I lived there from then til I moved to Texas in December of 1998.

When I moved to Texas it was to a house I had not seen with my own eyes. I'd only seen pictures.

This morning's melancholy has me feeling a bit homesick for Washington. I think what got me started on the melancholy thing was Betty Jo Bouvier's weekend stay in Leavenworth, an Alpine Bavarian type village set on the eastern side of the Cascade foothills

There are no Alpine villages in a mountain setting in Texas.

There is a town called Alpine, in Texas, in sort of a mountain-like setting, down in the Big Bend Country Region of Texas. But, it is no Leavenworth.

I'm thinking if I still had a house up in Washington, I would move back. Having a place waiting for you to move in, makes the moving thing way easier.

When you live in Western Washington you are close to mountains and ocean beaches. If you're in the mood for a total scenery change it is a relatively short drive over the Cascades to Eastern Washington, with its more desert-like climate, turned green in a lot of locations courtesy of the Columbia River's many dams and reservoirs.

Going over to Eastern Washington in summer and fall you can get yourself all kinds of fresh fruit.

Where I lived in Washington it was about a 20 mile drive, to Anacortes, to get on a ferry to go to the San Juan Islands or Canada.

In Washington I lived about 40 miles from another country. Vancouver was just a bit further north than Seattle was south.

The San Juan Islands is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains. Meaning the islands get way less rain than you get if you are closer to the Cascade Mountains. The New York Times recently had a list of the 41 places in the world you need to go to in 2011. The San Juan Islands was #2 on the list.

When I lived in Washington I took living in one big theme park for granted, because it was what I'd always known. Only when you move away, and return for a visit, do you really see real clear, for the first time, just how special the Pacific Northwest is.

The scenery, the tall trees, the air smelling like Christmas trees, all the fresh produce, some growing wild, like blackberries and blueberries.

The fresh seafood.

I could drive about 15 miles and catch fresh dungeness crab and dig horse clams. I lived 2 miles from the Skagit River. You can easily catch salmon in the Skagit River. Or any of the Washington rivers. And eat the fish you catch. Unlike the polluted waterway I currently live about a mile from called the Trinity River.

In Texas my big hiking thrill, which I will likely do today, is to hike some short hills. In Washington I could see the Mount Baker volcano from my living room. It was a short drive to hike up a real mountain. It was a short drive to hike up all sorts of mountains.

Well, I better get going if I want to get a hike in on some Texas hilly scrubland called the Tandy Hills Natural Area, so I can make it to my Valentines Day lunch at the appointed time.

I Am Sure I Will Be Having Myself A Happy Texas Valentines Day Today With A Chile Relleno

Looking out my viewing portal, this second Monday of the second month of 2011, I can see that Valentines Day in my zone of Texas is looking to be a very nice day.

Blue sky and already 13 degrees above freezing, heading to somewhere in the 70s.

I was very relieved, this morning, to learn that Betty Jo Bouvier made it back home, to find she had not been burglarized while escaping the drippy, gray Western Washington Winter, for the less drippy, less gray Eastern Washington Winter in Leavenworth.

I am going out for lunch with my Valentine today at my favorite Mexican restaurant.

Esperanza's.

In the Fort Worth Stockyards zone.

Esperanza's is owned and operated by the Joe T. Garcia family. Chile Relleno is my favorite Mexican food. It is via a Chile Relleno I judge how much I like a Mexican restaurant. Joe T. Garcia's and Esperanza's are my favorite Chile Relleno locations.

Wikipedia's info about my favorite Mexican food...

The chile relleno, literally "stuffed chile," is a dish of Mexican cuisine that originated in the city of Puebla. It consists of a roasted fresh poblano pepper (a mild chili pepper named after the city of Puebla), sometimes substituted with non-traditional Hatch green chile, Anaheim, pasilla or even jalapeño chili pepper. It is stuffed with melted cheese, such as queso Chihuahua or queso Oaxaca (traditionally), or picadillo meat made of diced pork, raisins and nuts, seasoned with canella; covered in an egg batter or simply corn masa flour and fried. Although it is often served in a tomato sauce, the sauces can vary. There are versions in Mexico using rehydrated dry chiles such as anchos or pasillas.

The sun has now completely lit up the outdoors. So, it is time to go swimming now. Talk to you later.

My Windows Are Open In Texas On A Balmy Sunday Thinking About Going To Leavenworth In Washington

In the picture we are in the Fosdic Forest at Oakland Lake Park, in Fort Worth, looking north through the forest at a blue sky and a blue Fosdic Lake.

I ran the A/C while driving today.

My windows are currently open. It is 74. Ice Storms and Blizzards and Sub-Zero temperatures, with all the associated trauma, is slowly fading from memory.

I think I may now begin to reverse the gained poundage that has been caused by too much sloth, due to too much time spent in involuntary homebound imprisonment.

Just got an email informing me that Elsie Hotpepper is still pouting over being revolting.

My  mom called me last night while I was temporarily separated from my phone. I called back on my way to visit Fosdic Lake. No answer. My dad has made a very poetic answering machine message that never gets old, with a very clever rhyming of phone and tone.

I can't say who, because he or she does not want the burglars working his or her town to know he or she is over in Eastern Washington at my favorite tourist town, Leavenworth.

I suspect the Leavenworth visitor is likely back home, or soon will be.

I have not been to Leavenworth since one month before the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.

I remember one very fun winter visit to Leavenworth, snow on the ground and one shopkeeper being totally loopy, giving stuff away. We thought she was under the influence of some mind altering substance.

I can't remember what it was she was giving us. T-Shirts? Souvenir mugs? Darn my failing memory. This was in the mid 1990s, fifteen years ago, give or take a year. And already I've forgotten details.

I'm hoping this return to pleasant weather means winter is over in Texas.