Questions From Bob About The Scott Avenue Non-Odorized Chesapeake Energy Pipeline Laying Operation

I have not made mention of the Carter Avenue Chesapeake Gate Scandal in awhile. No mention made, mostly, I assume, because the scandalous issue seemed to have been resolved when Chesapeake Energy backed off of their bizarre plan to run a pipeline of non-odorized natural gas under the homes along Fort Worth's Carter Avenue.

An alternative pipeline route was approved and everyone, for the most part, seemed  happy.

After I blogged about being on the Tandy Hills yesterday, with those hills due east of the Scott Avenue location of the Chesapeake Energy drilling site, from which the controversy pipelines was to be laid, Bob made a comment....

Bob has left a new comment on your post "Back On The Tandy Hills Thinking About Cutting Myself, Soy Yogurt & Driving Like An Old Lady":

So did you notice all the workers and work going on around the Chesapeake gas well site down the hill on Scott Ave. and along the I-30 right-of-way? I might be wrong but it looks like the workers are clearing trees and digging trenches to lay gas pipeline about 8-inches in diameter (a pile was stacked near the Hope Church on Beach St.) Is this the actual CHK gas pipeline that was originally intended to be placed under the front yards of Carter Ave. homes? Before we moved away from that neighborhood, we read that the Carter Ave. pipeline was supposed to have been built in November 2008, as soon as the last hold-out was subdued in eminent domain court procedures. BUT THAT'S THREE YEARS AGO. Can you shed any light on my state of confusion regarding this infamous pipeline and the fight against it?

I must have heard odd noises to the west as I walked on the Tandy Hills yesterday, because when I proceeded to drive on  to Town Talk I had in impulse, that I resisted, to take a right on to Ben Street to take a look at the current state of the controversial Scott Avenue Chesapeake Operation.

I drove north on Beach Street on the way to Town Talk. I noticed no pipeline stacked near Hope Church, which is on the west side of Beach Street. Then again, I don't remember looking much in that direction.

On Friday, on the way back to my abode from Pantego, driving west on Division Street, in Arlington, I was surprised to see 3 lines of water pipeline, waiting to be assembled, laying on the ground on the north side of the road. The string of pipes extended for a couple miles, eventually ending at a location where water could be sucked, near the south side of Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

How can the powers that be claim we are suffering a severe water shortage here in North Texas at the same time these big water sucking straws are draining creeks, rivers and lakes?

How is permission granted to cross property with these water pipes? How closely is the water sucking monitored?

As for the gas pipeline that apparently is now, after all this time, being installed to take non-odorized gas from the Scott Avenue location, where is that gas heading? Where does the pipeline go? To the compressor stations on Randol Mill Road? Is that the destination? Where can one go to see a map of the ever growing matrix of non-odorized natural gas pipelines that is being installed under us here in Gasland?

I am heading east today in the noon time frame. Tomorrow I will head west and check out the Scott Avenue pipeline laying operation.

The 2nd Sunday Of December Dawns Bright & Cold In Texas With Anonymous Commenting On My Bold Baldness

The dawn view through the bars of my patio prison cell indicates that the 2nd Sunday of the last month of 2011 is starting off with a bright clear sky.

My computer-based outer world temperature information indicates the outer world at my location is currently chilled to 36 degrees.

Once again I will not be going swimming this morning.

Speaking of swimming, well, more precisely, skinny dipping, whilst swimming. Yesterday I blogged about the similarities between myself and former President John Quincy Adams, including our mutual follicle challenges.

This prompted someone calling him or herself Anonymous to make what I found to be a semi-amusing comment....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Skinny Dipping President John Quincy Adams & I Are So Much Alike It Is Uncanny": 

Bald(ing)? You? I've been suffering under a misapprehension. Well, not suffering really - more like 'laboring' perhaps? No, not laboring either...anyway, I didn't know you are bald, or balding, and strangely, I still sort of doubt it. The pictures I've seen don't provide corroboration, unless you use spray-on hair. 

I am sorry I caused someone Anonymous to suffer. But it pleases me to learn my spray-on hair is successful in creating its intended illusion.

This would be the part in my morning blogging where I usually would say it is time to go swimming.

I just realized this is the first morning that someone might realize that the reason I wear a wool cap when I go swimming is so that my spray-on hair does not get washed away.

Skinny Dipping President John Quincy Adams & I Are So Much Alike It is Uncanny

John Quincy Adams In The First Photo
Taken Of An American President

Of all the American Presidents the one I have the most in common with is John Quincy Adams.

Until George W. Bush came along, almost 200 years later, John Quincy Adams was the only President whose dad had also been President, that being American President #2, John Adams.

Like me, John Quincy Adams preferred reading in seclusion, rather than subjecting himself to social engagements. Often John Quincy Adams would only attend some social event after extreme prodding.

Like Abraham Lincoln, and me, John Quincy Adams suffered from depression and melancholy. There was nothing like Prozac or Wellbutrin to help John Quincy Adams get through the day.

Like me, throughout his life, John Quincy Adams felt inadequate and socially awkward. John Quincy Adams, like me, was also bothered by his physical appearance. And being so short. Both of us turned into domed bald heads at an early age.

Another thing I have in common with John Quincy Adams is liking to skinny dip.

Benjamin Franklin also was a skinny dipper. As was Theodore Roosevelt, years later. Teddy routinely went skinny dipping in the Potomac with this "Tennis Cabinet". Whatever that is.

Like me, John Quincy Adams was a creature of habit. Almost to the point of obsession. Again, like me.

John Quincy Adams wrote on his blog every day, just like me. Only back in John Quincy Adams' day a blog was called a diary. As President, John Quincy Adams got up before the crack of dawn, made a fire (I make coffee), read his Bible ( don't have one), and then took a morning walk. Or a skinny dipping swim in the Potomac.

There are a few stories of John Quincy Adams having slightly embarrassing moments whilst skinny dipping.

One story has John Quincy Adams refusing to grant America's first female professional journalist, Anne Royall, an interview.

So, Anne went to the river, waited for John Quincy Adams to take off his clothes and get in the water and then proceeded gather up John Quincy Adams' clothes and sit on them until he agreed to grant her an interview.

Where was the Secret Service during this woman's outrageous behavior?

Another John Quincy Adams getting caught naked story has him and his servant going for swim in the Potomac where they find an old boat. The President suggests they row the boat across the river, then swim back.

Halfway across, the boat sinks, which supposedly, somehow, causes the men to lose their clothing, after jumping off the sinking ship and swimming ashore. The servant puts on wet clothing and makes his way back to the White House, leaving John Quincy Adams sitting naked on a rock. Five hours pass before clothes arrive. John Quincy Adams' wife, Louisa severely scolded him after this incident, and his doctor advised less hazardous exercise.

However, John Quincy Adams ignores his wife and doctor and continues skinny dipping in the Potomac.

Another supposed incident had John Quincy Adams in the Potomac for his regular skinny dip, when someone steals his clothes, which has the naked President soliciting the help of a passing boy to run to the White House to fetch some britches.

Though the parallels between myself and John Quincy Adams are all sorts of uncanny, I have never ever gone skinny dipping in the Potomac River. That'd be like going skinny dipping in the Trinity River.

I also have never had a female journalist sit on my clothes til I agree to grant her an interview.

America must have been a much more free-spirited, liberated place back in the early days of our Republic. I really can not picture Barack Obama, or George W. Bush, for that matter, going skinny dipping in the Potomac. If they did, and were caught with their pants down, I am sure a big brouhaha would ensue.

Sad, repressed times we live in.

Back On The Tandy Hills Thinking About Cutting Myself, Soy Yogurt & Driving Like An Old Lady

The Wide Open Prairie Of Fort Worth Texas

I was back on the Tandy Hills today for the first time since the recent deluge fell on this formerly parched part of the planet.

In the picture it looks fairly dry on the open prairie.

Looks are deceiving.

Soft, muddy spots remain. But not too muddy.

On the main trail on to the hills, from View Street, what appears to be the hooves of a horse have made a series of indents in the trail. The horse must have ventured on to the hills whilst mud was still the predominant feature.

I had good treasure hunting at Town Talk today. Vanilla Yogurt made from Soy Milk was the thing I got today I'd never heard of. I have already sampled it and it is good.

When I got back to my abode I went into making lunch mode. I was using my guillotine/mandoline slicing thing to slice rounds of sweet potatoes to roast into healthy pseudo potato chips, when I sliced my thumb.

Due to the fact that the blade on the guillotine is so sharp, the wound is nicely sliced. There was no pain. And it was fairly easy to stop the bleeding.

Have I ever mentioned that I has always been a bit of a hazard with knives? I have a bad habit of trying to be fast, which turns me into a hazard at times.

This habit of trying to be fast does not apply to how I drive any form of motorized vehicular transport. I always drive like a very sedate old lady. This is why no matter how bad traffic gets I never get flustered. I just say in my very sedate old lady frame of mind and glide through the situation effortlessly.

I probably should go clean up the blood on the kitchen floor before it dries up. It looks like a crime scene in there.

The Second Saturday Of December Dawns Almost Freezing After The West Was Won With A Missing Elsie Hotpepper

Looking at the dawn of the 2nd Saturday of the last month of 2011 it appears my primary viewing portal on the outer world is a bit frosty.

That outer world in my location is currently chilled to one degree less than my old home location in the State of Washington, at one degree above freezing.

There will be no swimming for me this morning. Again. My extreme exercise reduction induced unabated weight gain continues at a rapid pace.

If this continues I should hit Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float size by next Thanksgiving.

I had myself a really good night's sleep with epic dreams of cinematic grandeur, likely brought about due to last night's viewing, here, Where The West Began, of How The West Was Won.

Elsie Hotpepper has gone missing again. For well over 24 hours this time.Elsie always seems to return from her disappearances. I am going to assume this will happen this time and so I don't think I will go to the bother of issuing a BOLO for Elsie Hotpepper.

This is the moment in my morning blogging where I say I'm going swimming now. But, this morning I can not say that.

Watching How The West Was Won In The Town Where The West Begins

Tonight, in the town Where The West Begins I watched How  The West Was Won.

The 1962 version. With Debbie Reynolds. Have I ever mentioned that as far back as my memory goes I have been a Debbie Reynolds fan?

Back in the mid 1990s I was in Debbie Reynold's casino in Las Vegas. I won a huge jackpot on a nickel video poker machine. Debbie sang nightly in her casino, usually, and after her show would often wander through her casino drinking a glass of wine. This I did not get to see.

In the past week I watched the contemporary movie Love and Other Drugs with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. I believe I was supposed to somehow find this a charming story. Instead I found it annoyingly, tastelessly, bad.

Lately I find when I watch certain type movies I go into a strange empathy mode. I think this may be a function of no longer being a teenager and having experienced enough of life that you sort of know the whole sad arc of the life experience.

Which is the story told on How The West Was Won. Sort of.

How The West Was Won was one of the last of the old-fashioned MGM epic type films. This movie is one of only 2 dramatic feature films to be shot using the 3-strip Cinerama process. This is meant to be projected on to a curved Cinerama screen. For decades this meant that How The West Was Won did not look right on old-fashioned TVs. This problem has now been fixed, for the most part.

How The West Was Won is broken into 5 segments. Henry Hathaway directed The Rivers, The Plains and The Outlaws segments. John Ford directed The Civil War segment. While George Marshall directed The Railroad segment.

Spencer Tracy provides narration from start to finish, helping make the transition between segments.

How The West Was Won starts in 1839 with the Prescott Family heading west from New York via the Erie Canal. This is The Rivers segment. The family meets James Stewart, who takes a shining to Carroll Baker.

But after shining all night long, James leaves Carroll, gets back in his canoe and then runs into Walter Brennan and a gang of pirates who steal from James Stewart after trying to kill him. Walter Brennan's pirates then go after the Prescotts, but James Stewart comes to the rescue with a hatchet.

James and Carroll part again, with the Prescott Family heading downriver, where they take a wrong fork and end up in some serious whitewater rapids. Ma and Pa Prescott are killed in the rapids. Carroll and her sister, Debbie Reynolds, bury Ma and Pa, aka, Karl Malden and Agnes Morehead, with the help of Jimmy Stewart, who shows up after he learns the family had taken the wrong river turn.

Carroll refuses to leave the place where her mom and dad are buried. She decides this is as far west as she will go. Jimmy Stewart decides to stay with her and give up his plan to go to St. Louis.

By The Civil War segment we learn that James Stewart has gone off to fight the Rebels, and the oldest of his and Carroll's two sons wants to join his dad. So, with much sadness, on his mother Carroll's part, George Peppard takes off for the Battle of Shiloh where he learns war is hell, decides to desert with a rebel he'd somehow befriended, who was also disillusioned.

But then Geogre and his rebel friend over hear Generals Grant and Sherman, aka, John Wayne and Harry Morgan and the rebel decides to kill them, but is thwarted by his new Yankee friend, George Peppard, who kills him.

By the end of the war George has learned that Jimmy Stewart had been killed at Shiloh. And when he gets home he finds his mom's grave in the family graveyard. George Peppard finds his brother, they exchange pleasantries and then George heads West to find his fortune. I do not know if George Peppard ever saw his brother again.

Meanwhile, prior to The Civil War segment, we saw Debbie Reynolds being a saloon hall girl in a St. Louis honky tonk. She gets word she has inherited a California gold mine. Gregory Peck over hears this news. Gregory finagles his way onto the Wagon Train heading West, by charming Debbie's wagon buddy, Thelma Ritter, eventually proving himself useful, and hooking up with Debbie Reynolds.

But not before they survive an attack by Cheyenne Indians.

After finding out the California gold mine had panned out, Gregory left Debbie, who then returned to her dance hall career. Eventually that turns into singing on a riverboat, where Gregory overhears Debbie singing, proposes that they go to San Francisco to make their fortune in that boom town. They proceed to do so, earning and spending several fortunes, till in 1889, in The Outlaws section, we learn that Gregory Peck has died, with the widow, Debbie, selling off all she owns in San Francisco to pay off her debts, before heading to Arizona, where she still owns some land, and where her nephew, George Peppard, and his family, eagerly meet Debbie at a train station.

Debbie had never seen her nephew, George, before, and she never saw her sister, Carroll Baker, again, after leaving her to head West. Debbie and Carroll did exchange letters. They had no email or phones, which I use to communicate with my relatives, who I have not seen in years.

The Railroad segment that came before The Outlaw segment was impressive due to the buffalo stampede that the angry Arapaho directed through a camp that was making them cranky because the Whites had lied, yet again. George Peppard had tried to make it all work.

This movie handled the Native American part of the story accurately, to my point of view. Henry Fonda, an old trapper friend of George Peppard's dad, Jimmy Stewart, was also employed by the railroad.  Henry helped George negotiate with the Arapaho. Henry and George became good friends. Eventually Henry leaves to go to his isolated cabin in the mountains, due to being fed up with all the White duplicity. George soon visits Henry in his cabin, before making his way to being a lawman in Arizona Territory.

In the final segment, The Outlaws, after Debbie arrives in town, nephew George has to deal with some outlaws. Eventually this turns into one of the best train robbery battles I've ever seen in the movies. It must have been epic on the Cinerama big screen.

After George successfully dispatches the outlaws it is time to load up the buggy and head to Debbie Reynold's land. Which apparently was somewhere on the other side of Monument Valley. As the buggy went head towards some of my favorite scenery in the West, the camera began to pan out and zoom to the future where I soon recognized Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. We continued to zoom West until we were hovering over the freeways of Los Angeles of the early 1960s, and then north to the 1960s version of San Francisco.

This was a long movie. It had an Intermission I fast forwarded through. I did not expect to watch the whole thing. I thought it started off corny. But by the time Jimmy Stewart showed up, I was hooked. Amazing scenery. I wonder if this movie could be made today, without having to fake the scenery with special effects? When this movie was filmed it appeared there were still HUGE areas of America that had not been marked by man.

Somehow in this movie that is all about How The West Was Won there is absolutely no mention made of the town Where The West Begins. There is mention made of Texas. Like the Rebel that George Peppard had to kill to save Generals Sherman and Grant, that Rebel was from Texas.

In Arlington Visiting The Veterans Park Soldier & Ducks While Thinking About Having Pho Soup With Fort Worth's Lone Ranger

The Soldier Overlooking
The Veterans Park Memorial Today

Earlier today I blogged that I was likely going to the Village Creek Natural Historic Area in Arlington on my way to Pantego.

On the way to Pantego I changed my mind and went to Veterans Park, also in Arlington.

On the way to Arlington I needed gas. As my one longtime reader knows, when I get gas I call my mom.

I had had my phone off this morning due being in the middle of the most complicated website project I've worked on in years and not liking getting distracted, due to my Adult Attention Deficit Disorder.

So, I turned on my phone and saw I had a voice mail or two. I listened to the voice mails before calling my mom. After listening to the voice mails the phone started beeping to let me know the battery was about to go dead.

So, I did not call my mom to tell her I got gas.

Veteran Ducks & Their Babies

One of the voice mails was from Fort Worth's Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger said he was going to be in the East Fort Worth zone and thought it'd be fun to meet up with me at Village Creek to visit the Indian Ghosts. I think something was also said about having made a big pot of Vietnamese Pho Soup to consume whilst sitting at one of the Village Creek picnic tables.

I was in mercenary high speed mode today, wanting to get back to my abode and computer with a minimum amount of time spent in Pantego and Arlington.

And that is what I did. I just realized I did not plug the phone into the recharger upon my return. And right at this point in time I don't exactly know where it is.

I tell you, AADD is not an easy thing to live with.....

The 2nd Friday Of December Dawns Cold While Thinking About Going Skinny Dipping With My Potential Wife

Dawn has not yet arrived this second Friday of the last month of 2011. I stepped outside to get a sense of the condition of the outer world and found that it was cold.

38 degrees.

My location on this formerly parched part of the planet has been put under a Fog Advisory by the Weather Predictors.

From what I can see, so far, it does not appear to be too foggy. Yet.

I thought I was going to have a bout of bad insomnia last night. I thought wrong. I did have a bout of weird nightmares that made me wish I could do screencaps of nightmares.

My Durango TV blog had not caught fire for awhile, til yesterday. The bloggings generating a lot of hits were The X-Factor Eliminates Rachel Crow With A Meltdown and ABC's The Bachelor Ben Flajnik Goes Skinny Dipping With Potential Wife. 

I won't be skinny dipping with my potential wife this morning. Even though it did get above 50 degrees yesterday, the 24 hour average has not been 50 or above. Thus it is too cool for the pool.

I think I'll be visiting the Indian Ghosts at Village Creek Natural Historic Area and Pantego today.

Walking Around Fort Worth's Fosdic Lake Looking At Colorful Trees & Possible Alligators

Fosdic Fall Freeze Leaves Trees New Color

In the past few days we have had the first freeze of the fall. The freeze has the leaves in the trees putting on their annual fall foliage display of colors brighter  than the usual green.

Like the tree in the picture. Taken today at Oakland Lake Park where I went to walk around Fosdic Lake.

The temperature in the outer world, at my location, in the noon time frame, was almost 50. Little wind. No windbreaking jacket or wool cap required.

Currently it is 54 at half past 3 in the afternoon.

There were a lot of ducks flocking on Fosdic Lake today. They looked like they were having themselves a real fine time.

You have likely noticed I am suffering from extremely low energy lately. This malady has been maladizing me for a couple days now. I believe I am being allergic to something. Like the dirty air I get to breathe in this formerly totally parched part of the planet.

Speaking of which, I picked up this week's Fort Worth Weekly on my way back to my abode from Fosdic Lake. I see this week's featured/cover story is titled Dirty Air Through Rose-Colored Glasses. Apparently Environmentalists and TCEQ see different things in North Texas air pollution.

A Possible Gator Encounter On Fosdic Lake

The Dirty Air article is written by that nice young lady I met at the TRIP forum in the Botanic Gardens a couple months ago, Gayle Reaves.

Changing the subject back to Fosdic Lake and Giant Lizards.

For a second or two I thought I was seeing an alligator at the edge of the lake today.

I have what are technically known as Old Geezer Eyes. This can cause confusion due to blurry vision. I am almost 100% certain that that which looked like a gator was actually a log.

However, I did notice that the Fosducks were steering clear of this log.

Already The Second Thursday Of December With Me Being A Tiresome Bore

I am looking through the bars of my patio prison cell at an outer world that is chilled, currently, to only 1 degree below freezing.

And a clear blue sky.

This is already the second Tuesday of the last month of 2011.

I tire of time flying. I think I have said that previously.

There is very little I say that I have not said previously, tiresome bore that I be.