The Great North Texas Drought & Day After Day Over 100 Degrees Is Browning Texas

I had to be in Pantego around noon. So on the way to Pantego I stopped at Veterans Park in Arlington for my daily HOT walk.

The Veterans Park grass has turned brown since my last visit. Much of the Veterans Park vegetation seemed to be doing a bit of wilting.

As you can see by looking at the sky, in the picture, clouds continue to do some sun blockage.

The partial sun blockage has not brought any cooling relief.

According to my temperature source we have once again gone over 100 degrees. I do not know if the official temperature monitoring station at D/FW Airport has officially deemed this Tuesday our 25th day in a row of 100 or higher.

What I do know is currently the forecast for the next 6 days is for each of them to get heated to 100 degrees or more.

Record Breaking Temperatures Keep Baking North Texas Day After Day After Day

Looking skyward through the bars of my patio prison cell on this last Tuesday of July it appears there are clouds between me and the sun.

However, even with this sun blockage, somehow that HOT overhead orb has managed to heat the air this morning to 87.2, according to my Weather Underground temperature source.

Yesterday we broke the temperature record with the low for the day being a HOT 85.

If we hit 100 again today it will be the 25th day in a row of 100 or HOTTER.

This morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram announced a Summer Heat Streak Contest. The person who correctly predicts the day the 100-degree streak, as recorded at D/FW Airport, ends, will win 4 tickets to the NRH20 Waterpark in North Richland Hills.

With all these clouds my prediction is the 100-degree streak ends today. I am never correct with these type predictions.

I am not going swimming this morning. My one longtime reader may remember that Tuesday is pool treatment day.

Getting Real HOT In Texas With My Leo Therapist & Me Being Shy About Horoscopes

Coming up on 5 on July 25 we are currently heated to 105 at my location in blistering HOT Texas.

The wind is blowing less than 5 mph.

The slight wind is not enough to bring on the Wind Chill Factor, instead the humidity has the Real Feel Heat Index feeling like 109.

In my current location a mechanical temperature altering device is chilling the air to somewhere in the 80 degree zone.

I remember 3 years ago today, shivering up in Tacoma. I asked if I could move to the upstairs loft, which was way warmer than the frigid basement I'd been being very cold in. The upstairs loft had 2 high tech A/C units. The A/C unit's digital thermometer indicated the temperature in the loft was 82.

The occupants in the house, in which I was incarcerated, could not understand that, to me, 82 degrees felt cool.

On a totally non-temperature, non Great North Texas Drought related subject, my therapist, Dr. L.C., sent me an amusing Horoscope thing this afternoon. The Horoscope thing said...

Far from shy, Leos can be quite opinionated, and their idealism is contagious––they are known for inspiring others. Starting your own blog where you can express yourself openly would be the perfect creative outlet for you. If you're not into writing, then try an acting class. Your flair for the dramatic makes you born for the stage.

Next month, in the Leo time of the year, my therapist's birthday and mine are one day apart.

As usual, with silly Horoscope stuff, this Horoscope stuff was really way off.

Both my therapist and I are very shy. Neither of us is at all opinionated. My therapist and I are not contagious. We are not very inspirational. We do both have blogs, but I can't see where they are a perfect creative outlet for either of us. My therapist does have a slight flair for the dramatic, unlike me and my very dull lack of any sort of flair.

A New Tandy Hills Mystery With An Invite To Ride The Waves At Cowtown Wakepark

It was in the high 90s when I hit the HOT Tandy Hills today, at noon. Currently, coming up on 3 in the afternoon it is 104.

There was only a slight wind blowing on the hills today, yet I did not have the overheating problem I encountered on Saturday.

I do not know, for sure, what made today so much more pleasant. Maybe my electrolytes were in balance, today, due to the drinking concoction I made in my Vita-Mix this morning consisting of all sorts of good stuff I got at Town Talk, like frozen Acai Berries, soy milk, frozen Dole strawberry/banana mix, lime juice, pineapple juice and likely some other good superfood stuff I'm forgetting.

I seem to hardly go a week without finding a new Guerrilla Art Installation on the Tandy Hills. I'm not sure if that is what I found today. Below the now dry Tandy Falls there were dozens of business cards scattered about.

The business cards showed no water damage. Which indicates they did not get flushed over Tandy Falls by the recent broken water main flood.

The business cards were for a business called PEBE J KIDS INC., with the personal name on these cards being Irene Montalvo.

Why would someone throw dozens of business cards over the Tandy Falls escarpment?

On a totally different note.

I was really happy upon returning to my computer and checking my email to see that Gail Galtex got a really good Groupon deal for going wakeboarding at the Cowtown Wakepark and invited me to go do some wakeboarding, with GG, in the polluted Trinity River water. Something I have long dreamed of doing.

Now, who is going to solve the Tandy Hills Irene Montalvo business card mystery while I go wakeboarding?

Getting Help For My Chronic Typo Problem From Betty Jo Bouvier & Elsie Hotpepper

I don't think anyone is immune to the occasional typographical error. However, my personal trend line for typos seems to have the typo incidents increasing.

Just minutes ago I caught a real bad one that totally changed the meaning of the sentence...

An intervention where the parents are shown who to properly feed their kids.

I know I don't catch all my typos. I almost did not catch the above one.

The word "how" seems to be a frequent pitfall for me. When intending to type "how" I have typed "who", "would" and "wood".

Awhile back I saw a memorable typo related line on the Connie Dees Facebook page, saying, "THEY'RE going THERE with THEIR friends. It's called grammar, use it."

Grammar errors are a different woe than typos. However, what may appear to be a grammar error might actually be a typo. I know I've quickly typed "your" when I mean "you're" a time or two. Quickly catching the error.

I have experienced people who do not understand that "your" is a possessive pronoun and that "you" and "are" can be contracted as "you're". When these types type "Your driving me crazy" it is not a typo, it is a grammar error born of ignorance or laziness or both.

Wikipedia has an article titled "Typographical error." The first paragraph of the Wikipedia article is pretty much a definition of typos...

A typographical error (often shortened to typo) is a mistake made in, originally, the manual type-setting (typography) of printed material, or more recently, the typing process. The term includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but usually excludes errors of ignorance, such as spelling errors. Before the arrival of printing, the "copyist's mistake" or "scribal error" was the equivalent for manuscripts. Most typos involve simple duplication, omission, transposition, or substitution of a small number of characters.

When I have a typo escape my attention, making it to the point of being read by others, I have a few kind people who take pity on my mistakes and point them out to me. Betty Jo Bouvier and Elsie Hotpepper are both quite helpful in the typo spotting department.

UPDATE: I thought I'd done a careful job of proofreading this particular blogging to make sure there were no typos. However. Elsie Hotpepper found a typo. I'd typed "Grammar errors a different woe than typos." I was missing a word, with that word being "are".  I really do not like my chronic typo woe.

The Last Monday Of July In Texas Thinking About Flying To Seattle

I am up before the sun, looking through the bars of my patio prison cell at the last Monday morning of July.

The outdoor air is currently chilled to 83.4 degrees. A little warmer than my interior artificially chilled air temperature.

We are currently scheduled to be heated to a HOT 104 today.

The morning, with this morning being the morning of July 25, I realized it has been 3 years and 5 days since I flew up to Seattle on July 20, 2008.

For an entire month.

I realized about one week in to that month that I'd made a BIG mistake in scheduling staying for an entire month. When I finally escaped, August 20, it was with great relief when the airplane lifted off the ground and headed south. I said at the time I would not return for at least 10 years. But 3 years have been enough to slightly fade the bad memory of the bad month of 2008.

I think I'm again ready for a visit to the Pacific Northwest. For a relatively relative free visit.

But. Before I do that I think I will go swimming, now that the sun has finally gotten around to doing its daily illumination duties.

We Are Baking Almost At 108 This Sunday Night In HOT Texas

107.7

Is this accurate? I suspect it is. What with my weather info currently coming to me from the weather terrorists known as the Weather Underground.

107.7.

And it is well past 7 on this Sunday evening.

Apparently there is zero wind. Yet somehow the Real Feel temperature is 106. Maybe other elements, than the wind, go in to what makes for the real feel of the temperature.

What I do know is this. I had been a bit of a skeptic regarding what I thought was a bit of global warming hysteria.

But, with my A/C running non-stop, I am becoming a believer.

I am not quite ready to think Al Gore needs to run for president again, though.

Sunday At 104.4 Degrees With Chesapeake Energy Making My Life Easier With Cheaper Energy

104.4 degrees at the mid afternoon mark this HOT Sunday in Texas. With the Real Feel Heat Index knocking off .4 of a degree, making that 104.4 feel like only 104. The chilling miracle of what a 1.0 mph wind can deliver.

The air-conditioner seldom seems to take a break.

Speaking of using a lot of electricity.

Earlier today I blogged about my incoming new neighbor. That being another Chesapeake Energy drilling operation.

Several years ago, early on in the era of Chesapeake Energy annoying so many Texans with their heavy-handed tactics, if you blogged about Chesapeake. your blogging would get hit by boilerplate comments, of the really dumbly overbearing sort, from Chesapeake propaganda shills.

The shill propaganda seems to have improved. Slightly. Below is a comment made by someone calling him, or herself, "jrobinson," regarding my blogging about Chesapeake's messy new operation in my neighborhood....

"Poke a hole"?

Maybe... drilling for gas to make your life easier by providing cheaper energy?

What you really wanted was a Sprouts or ALDI... which you would find useful. But a source of energy - which is important to both those things as well as everything else that supports your life - is a "no go"? 

I don't believe I've ever said I had anything against drilling for gas to make my life easier.

But, somehow I don't consider polluting water supplies, using a lot of water during a drought, sending cancer causing chemicals into the air, not doing everything possible to reduce emissions, making a lot of noise and sending a lot of dust and dirt into the air, all that supportive of the quality of my life.

An ALDI or Sprouts walking distance from my abode would save me a lot of gas.

Thinking About Swimming In Fort Worth's Fosdic Lake With Fosdic Orchids & Turtles

With the temperature slightly shy of 100, today around noon, I decided to take my daily constitutional by walking around Fosdic Lake in Oakland Lake Park.

I think walking around a body of water greatly mitigates the HEAT level. With the Real Feel Water Index making the temperature feel pleasantly in the mid 80s around Fosdic Lake

Fosdic Lake was surprisingly clear today. I thought it'd be a murky shade of green, due to the day after day HEAT.

The Fosdic water was so clear I could see submerged turtles.

Looking at Fosdic Lake again had me wondering why this small lake could not be turned into a recreational lake. With swimming.

Other parts of America have cleaned up bigger polluted lake than little Fosdic Lake.

I would guess it would be cheaper to turn Fosdic Lake into a swimming lake than it would be to do whatever needs to be done to re-open Fort Worth's currently closed public swimming pools.

Currently, it seems to me to be a crime against kids that Fort Worth has no public swimming pools.

On a more flowery note. A wildflower was blooming in Oakland Lake Park today. A very delicate purple wildflower.

I am dubbing this wildflower a Fosdic Orchid.

Chesapeake Energy Wants To Poke Another Hole In My Neighborhood

For several weeks I've been wondering what was going on on the old, long abandoned Super Wal-Mart parking lot I drive by almost every day.

It looked like a construction site was being prepared.

I was hoping for a Sprouts Farmers Market or an ALDI.

Yesterday I drove by the "construction" site and learned what is actually going on.

Chesapeake Energy wants to poke a hole in the ground in this location, making a lot of noise and generating a lot of dust. As you can see, in the background of the picture of the Chesapeake public hearing notification sign, this proposed drilling site is adjacent to an apartment complex.

Walking behind the Chesapeake Energy sign you can see that the proposed drilling location is across the street from some retail businesses. Like Albertsons and the Chinese Super Bowl Buffet.

Chesapeake Energy has not begun the drilling process and yet it is already trashing up the neighborhood. The chain link fence around the proposed drilling site juts out onto the sidewalk, creating walking hazards.

The chain link fence acts as a net, catching litter, stopping it from blowing into oblivion. Or the Trinity River.

I was told by the person who runs the affected apartment complex that one of its residents is collecting signatures on a petition asking that the permit be denied. I told the person who runs the affected apartment complex that I did not think anything could stop Chesapeake Energy from poking a hole anywhere it wanted to poke in Fort Worth.

Because that is just not the Fort Worth Way.