Dealing With The U.S. Postal Service While Resisting The Urge To Go Postal

Ever since I closed my Post Office Box I don't go to the Post Office very often.

But I did today.

On the way to Village Creek Natural Historical Area I stopped at my neighborhood Handley Post Office to mail something to my favorite aunt living in Eastern Washington.

I walked into the deathly quiet Post Office and saw a line of 6 with one Postal Clerk clerking.

I got in line. About 10 minutes later the line moved. I was now 5th in line. Fifteen minutes later I was 3rd in line.

When I was 4th in line a lady got in line behind me. That lady had one of those Post Office supplied type boxes filled with what looked like around 20 big envelopes to mail.

When I was 3rd in line the Postal Clerk looked at the Lady with the Box and told her she could not process that mail now because the line was too long.

"Are you allowed to refuse service?" the Lady with the Box asked.

"Yes, I am," said the Postal Clerk.

The Lady with the Box had been on the phone all the time she was behind me. I could hear what the person she was talking to was saying. That person then told the Lady with the Box to ask to talk to the manager.

By the time I was 1st in line and finally face to face with the surly Postal Clerk, the Lady with the Box was talking to the unkempt looking short blonde frumpy woman who apparently was being the Post Office manager today.

I asked the Postal Clerk if all the other postal clerks had called in sick today. The Postal Clerk told me that they had not called in sick, but were in the backroom working. She told me this in a very surly manner.

Going to the Post Office has always been annoying. It was annoying when I lived in Washington. It is annoying in Texas. But, I think the experience has gotten even more annoying the past several years.

I've got a private Post Office operation across the street, part of the Albertsons strip mall. I think it is called Mail Etcetera, or something like that. I never think to go there til it is too late. Miss Puerto Rico has a Post Office Box at Mail Etcetera. I've been in there with her. The guy who runs it seems very competent. And not at all surly. He always greets Miss Puerto Rico by name.

I have no idea what the outcome was for the Lady with the Box. My business was completed, so I left.

Wikipedia has an article about "Going Postal".

Walking With The Indian Ghosts To The Blue Bayou Of Village Creek With Cbonesmom & Otterpengu

Village Creek Blue Bayou

Two out three of my sisters went walking with me today with the Indian Ghosts who haunt the Village Creek Natural Historical Area in the town of Arlington in the state of Texas.

One of my sister's Indian name is Cbonesmom. The other sister's Indian name is Otterpengu. Cbonesmom lives in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Otterpengu lives in the Seattle suburb of Kent.

It was nice today to see that the Village Creek Blue Bayou has returned to being blue due to the return of blue sky.

A really cold blue sky. Which had a strong wind blowing below it, which had the wind chill factor making the air feel real cold.

Talking to two-thirds of my sisters today left me feeling rather melancholy.

I can't go swimming to make myself feel in a less melancholy mood.

And chocolate does nothing for me.

I've heard before, somewhere, that adult beverages containing alcohol can elevate ones mood from melancholy. I've also heard, somewhere, that consuming adult beverages containing alcohol can cause health woes and acts as a depressant.

Anything that acts as a depressant is likely not something someone feeling melancholy would want to imbibe in.

I think I'll drink a glass of alcohol-free water and see if that lifts me out of my melancholy mood.

An Arctic Blast Has Blasted North Texas This 2nd Thursday Morning Of 2012

You might guess via the view out of my primary viewing portal on the outer world that the sun and I got up about the same time on this 2nd Thursday of 2012.

Your guess would be correct.

A strong wind, during the dark hours, blew in a cold front that was chilled up in Canada before delivery to Texas.

Canada has Arctic blasted us formerly warm Texas inhabitants to the sub-freezing cold of 30 degrees.

I had my windows open yesterday. I don't remember doing that in January before. I've got the furnace blowing artificially heated air on me right now. I do remember doing that in January before.

I had a strange bout of sneezing yesterday afternoon. Have there been any reports of strange bouts of sneezing associated with being in close proximity to a Barnett Shale well getting Fracked?

I wish I could say I am going swimming now. But I can't. I used to have thicker skin, but in my old age I've grown more sensitive to cold temperatures.

Inside The Walls Of Fort Chesapeake Is A Beehive Of Fuming Fracking Activity

Frac Job Underway In Fort Chesapeake On Wednesday

On Sunday the gate to my neighborhood Fort Chesapeake was wide open.

So, I walked inside the notorious walls.

That day, January 8, I saw the Frac Job was due to start January 10.

In the photo, from a couple hours ago, you can see that there is now a lot going on inside the walls of Fort Chesapeake.

It really is quite astonishing to see how much equipment is brought in and put in place. It looks as if it would be a logistics nightmare.

Whatever it is that is involved with Fracking, it is very noisy.

Can you see that grayish discoloration in the photo, above the white piece of equipment? That looks like exhaust fumes? It is rising from what looked to me to be the location of the hole that was poked in the ground, so the Fracking Water can reach the Barnett Shale and Frac it.

Inside The Walls Of Fort Chesapeake On Sunday

I smelled nothing foul, unlike my previous close up encounter with a Frac Job, that being the notorious Scott Avenue well on the west side of the Tandy Hills.

With the noise of what sounded like a lot of engines running one would think I would have at least detected diesel fumes.

I have no idea how long this Fracking is going to last. This is totally different than my other nearby Chesapeake Energy well operation.

That time there were days of long lines of trucks. I assumed they were bringing in the Fracking Water.

Now I"m thinking maybe those long lines of trucks were taking away the used contaminated Fracking Water.

The first drill pad in my neighborhood is closer to the Trinity River, with the current water sucking pipeline running right by that previous Chesapeake operation. I saw the pipeline today, running from the Trinity River, under Randol Mill Road and then in a creek bed, heading up the hill, past my first neighborhood Chesapeake drilling site, then to Fort Chesapeake.

So, I guess I have the long line of trucks part of this operation to look forward too.

Walking With The Spirit Of Quanah Parker & Other People Before Being Hypnotized By Naked Pecan Tree Limbs

I saw this vision of the last great Comanche Chief, Quanah Parker, today, on an acorn, when I took my daily salubrious, endorphin inducing aerobic walk, this time in the Fort Worth city park called Quanah Parker Park.

Quanah Parker was not 100% full blooded Comanche. Quanah Parker was half Texan, because his mom was a Texan named Cynthia Ann Parker.

Cynthia was a member of the large Parker tribe that settled in East Texas in the 1830s, eventually building a fort called Fort Parker, near what is now Groesbeck, Texas.

In 1836 the Comanche raided Fort Parker, likely in retaliation for depredations foisted upon them by the incoming Texans. Cynthia and her grandfather, John Parker, and other relatives, were taken captive. Grandpa John was killed. Others, included Cynthia, were tortured.

Somehow, eventually, the Comanche Chief, Peta Nocona, stopped the torture and made Cynthia his wife. Cynthia became part of the Comanche tribe, birthing 3 children, including Quanah, living happily with the Comanche for 24 years, until Cynthia was "rescued" from the savages when she was 34 years old.

Cynthia lived another 10 years, unhappily, attempting, at times, to escape the Texans to return to her adopted tribe.

I have had that feeling a time or two, that feeling of wanting to escape the Texans, to return to my adopted tribe. Then the feeling passes when I remember I don't have an adopted tribe to return to.

Today's walk with the spirit of Quanah Parker was very pleasant. One could not ask for a more perfect temperature. Today there were 3 groups, besides myself, walking on the Quanah Parker Park trail.

Quanah Parker Naked Pecan Trees

And for the first time I saw two people using one of the newly installed benches that are part of City of Fort Worth Natural Gas Revenue in Action.

I tell you, Quanah Parker Park is getting popular.

All leaves have left the Parker Pecan Trees. I like to look at the fractaling limbs of big trees after they have been stripped naked of leaves. It's hypnotic.

Speaking of fractaling. I have my window open due to the fact that it is currently 63 degrees in the outer world at my location. With the window open I can hear the dull roar of the Fracking currently going on at my neighborhood Fort Chesapeake.

I stopped at Fort Chesapeake, well, actually, I stopped on the Albertsons parking lot and walked across the street to Fort Chesapeake, to take a picture of the Fracking. But, that is a subject for a separate blogging.

Smoke Makes Me Homesick For Washington But I Am Not Going To Rant About It

About once or twice a year I'll have a moment or two where I get slightly homesick for my old home zone of Washington.

Last night my oldest nephew sent me a photo which made me homesick for the first time this year.

It is a simple photo, sent from a phone. In the photo my grand nephew, Spencer Jack, is standing next to two of his aunts, with the one in the middle being his namesake.

My nephew was told he can't go wrong by naming his kid after his richest relative. And so he did.

The thing in the photo that made me homesick is not the bottle of beer next to the aunt on the right that appears to be floating in the air.

The thing that made me homesick was the campfire. I have not sat around a campfire on a foggy winter day in this century.

Texas BBQ smoke smells good, but that smoke smell smells different than the smoke smell you get from the firewood that you have available for burning in Washington. Like Alder. Or any of the Evergreen softwoods, like Cedar, Douglas Fir, Pine or Hemlock.

Changing the subject from smoke to ranting.

Elsie Hotpepper informed me today that I have been in rant mode lately. I realized I was not quite sure exactly what a rant is, as in the precise definition. So, I consulted the Urban Dictionary, where you know you're going to get a precise definition, and learned....

To rant is to speak aggressively about something. or to take your own tangent about a subject and talk for a long time in a passionate manner. To suddenly give a long speech that usually results in rambling and repeating of nonsense.

Well, reading that definition I can clearly see that it is true that I am a ranter. I constantly and consistently ramble and repetitively repeat nonsense.

I hope this new self awareness about ranting does not make me self-conscious about it to the point that my venting via ranting comes to a screeching halt. Because I really enjoy rambling repetitive nonsense, in what, apparently, is a rant.

The 2nd Wednesday Of 2012 With Stars Twinkling & Rick Perry A One Percenter

I was feeling liberated when I stepped outside into the outer world to view that world from my secondary viewing portal to find myself not looking through the bars of my patio prison cell.

The bars will likely return by tomorrow morning with me again feeling trapped.

I am up way before the sun this morning. The second Wednesday morning of 2012.

Currently chilled to only 4 degrees above freezing.

Judging from a few stars I saw twinkling above me, methinks the cloud cover that has been covering my location on this formerly parched part of the planet the past couple days may have lifted.

I did not see much that struck me as interesting as I read my various online news sources this morning. I guess the stunning Mitt Romney upset in New Hampshire was the biggest news. Rick Perry did better than I would have thought he would, getting a whopping 1% of the vote.

If Rick Perry lasts until the Texas primary I wonder if he will get more than 1%?

Mr. Galtex and CatsPaw made amusing comments on yesterday's blogging about me having myself a real fine time riding Fort Worth buses with all the poor homeless people.

Is CatsPaw going to go play bingo with me at Paradise Bingo on Friday the 20th? I don't know. Cats are very inscrutable.

Having Myself A Real Fine Time Riding Fort Worth Buses With All The Poor Homeless People

Fort Worth's Long Gone Light Rail Subway

Yesterday I was motivated to blog about Fort Worth's World City Status after reading an article in Fort Worth Weekly about the current state of public transit in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, and the opinion verbalized that Fort Worth will not be a world class city until it has a mass transit system.

There were another couple of paragraphs in Fort Worth Weekly's A Tale of Two Rail Systems cover article that sort of bugged me.

I don't know if the couple of excerpts that bugged me reflected the point of view of the author, Dan McGraw, or if he was reflecting opinions he'd encountered whilst writing the article.

But, I do know I have encountered the same opinion being verbalized by locals. I won't name names.

The first excerpt that bugged me....

The T, on the other hand, has had no choice but to maintain a bus system whose main purpose is to provide basic transportation to poor folks without cars.

The main purpose of the bus system is to provide basic transportation to poor folks without cars?

The first time I rode a Fort Worth bus I found it a fun, amusement park like ride. I asked a local if she ever road the bus. She told me she thought only poor people rode the bus. I've been on Fort Worth buses at least 5 times. How does one tell it is poor people riding the bus?

I can't help but wonder what does a Fort Worth native think the first time they visit New York City and see all those people using public transit? They must think New York City has an awful lot of poor people.

What does a Fort Worth native think the first time they visit Seattle and find themselves in the transit tunnel under downtown Seattle, seeing so many buses and a light rail, with a lot of people on  board. They must think there are an awful lot of poor people in Seattle.

The valley I lived in in Washington, the Skagit Valley, has a pubic transit bus system, called SKAT. SKAT was free to ride when I lived in Washington. I believe a fare is charged now. A Fort Worth native visiting the Skagit Valley must think the valley has an awful lot of poor people who can't afford cars, when they see a public transit bus system exists.

The other excerpt that bugged me was...

The current bus route through that area has the highest ridership of any route in The T’s system, and Eastside residents have supported the plan in surveys. But part of the large projected ridership would be homeless folks, due to the number of homeless shelters and services on East Lancaster. The homeless qualify for free bus passes, and many use them frequently to go downtown, usually to the main library, where they hang out and use the computers. The big unspoken question here is whether commuters who work downtown will be willing to share their commute with that group.

How is it known that the homeless hop a bus to get to the downtown library? Would that not involve a long walk to get to the library? I don't think there is a bus stop at the library. Would it not make more sense for the homeless person to hop on board the 21 bus and go to the Eastside Regional Library? Which also has a lot of computers.

I have never been in the Eastside Regional Library and thought to myself, wow, look at all those homeless people.

I have never been on a Fort Worth bus and thought to myself, oh my, this is awful, I am on a bus with a bunch of poor, homeless people.

Who or what taught the Fort Worth locals that buses and public transit are for poor people? And the homeless?

In a highly evolved world-class city, like New York City, Dallas or Seattle, you can use mass public transit to get all over the town. When I am in Seattle I sometimes stay in the north end. I'll take a bus to downtown and then use the downtown transit tunnel to zip from one end of downtown to the other.

It would not make much sense for Fort Worth to have an underground transit center to facilitate zipping around downtown. Because downtown Fort Worth is rather tiny. There is not a lot to zip to. Or people needing to be zipped.

I have long been curious as to how many Fort Worth natives have even been to Dallas to check out how well the DART train has worked in that town. I assume not a lot of Fort Worth natives make the trek 30 miles east to Dallas. If they do they must think Dallas has an awful lot of poor people.

Few Fort Worth locals visiting Dallas may be why the Fort Worth Star-Telegram knew it could get away with tall tales told to the locals, making up propaganda about Fort Worth's Santa Fe Rail Market being the first public market in Texas, and that it was modeled after public markets in Europe and Seattle's Pike Place Market. This propaganda was spewed when Dallas has the Dallas Farmers Market, which every one of my visitors from the Northwest has remarked reminded them of Pike Place Market.

Below you can walk with me through Seattle's Westlake Center, an actual town square, unlike Fort Worth's Sundance Square, and then into the Westlake Center vertical shopping mall, where you can go down a few levels and enter the Seattle transit tunnel, where you will see a lot of buses with a lot of poor people who don't own cars....

Walking A Fosdic Lake Stairway To Nowhere Pondering How Difficult It Is To Have Dutch Sensibilities In Texas

Fosdic Lake Stairway To Nowhere

The photo of the dark Fosdic Lake Stairway to Nowhere may be what is known as a visual metaphor, signifying symbolically the depths of despair this day after day of damp, gray, cold weather is having on my usually reliably upbeat self.

This endless gloomy weather is even getting to the perennial Polly Anna known as Elsie Hotpepper. Today Elsie is talking about consulting a Fortune Teller to see if some direction can be found for Elsie's quest to figure out if she is okay or not okay.

I told Elsie Hotpepper that she is okay, but I'm no Fortune Teller, so my opinion really does not matter.

It was slightly raining when the point in time came for my doctor prescribed daily bout of endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation. I chose the Oakland Lake Park walk around Fosdic Lake option, which I've already sort of indicated with the mention made of the Fosdic Lake Stairway to Nowhere.

I did not employ the services of of a bumbershoot to facilitate a dry walk. A windbreaker with a hood sufficed as sufficient waterproofing.

This morning my nephew sent me several photos taken when my nephew took my grand-nephew, Spencer Jack, up to our family hometown, Lynden, to visit relatives.

That is Spencer Jack standing above my grandma, his dad's great-grandma and Spencer Jack's great-great-grandma.

Neither Spencer or my nephew would have reason to know this, but grandma would have been very pleased to know a great-great-grandson was visiting her.

Lynden is a Dutch town. With a number of churches that would make the Buckle of the Bible Belt, where I am now, Green with Envy.

Lynden's cemetery is called Monumenta. Monumenta is on both sides of the Front Street entry into Lynden.

Monumenta is segregated.

Dutch people are buried on the north side of Front Street, non-Dutch on the south side. I have relatives in the ground on both sides of Front Street.

In Lynden you will find no litter. Lawns are kept meticulously trimmed. To not keep your lawn meticulously trimmed would be to risk extreme ostracism. But likely, unlike Fort Worth, you would not be in danger of a citation or fine.

Growing up with Lynden, Washington as part of my background, may explain part of the reason why I can be so appalled at some things I see in Fort Worth. Like littered, weedy, un-landscaped freeway exits to a town's top tourist attraction.

Am I the only Dutch person in Fort Worth?

Up Before The Sun The Second Tuesday Of 2012 After A Night Of Explosions Had Me Wondering About Chesapeake Energy's Barnett Shale Fracking

Looking out my primary viewing portal on the world at the pre-dawn darkness I see no stars or rain falling. I am assuming we are still under a rain producing cloud cover in North Texas.

According to my computer temperature monitoring device it is only 39 degrees, currently, in the outer world at my location.

Today is the 2nd Tuesday of the New Year. Already almost a third of the first month of 2012 is gone.

I was exhausted by early evening, last night, which had me horizontal fairly early.

Around 3 in the morning an explosive noise woke me up. At first I thought it was thunder. The follow up explosive noises were clearly not thunder-like.

I don't know what was causing the booming. It lasted, intermittently, for a couple hours. This put me into insomniac mode.

Sometime around the 4th or 5th boom it occurred to me that this booming could have something to do with today's scheduled "Frac Job" at my neighborhood Fort Chesapeake. But, would they actually start something like that in the wee hours of the morning if it made a big noise?

Pondering the "Frac Job" got me obsessing over it in my sleepless state.

Maybe someone has an answer to what I'm obsessing about Frac-wise.

Okay, the hole gets drilled, all the way to the Barnett Shale, a couple thousand feet below the surface. Pipe lines the drilled hole. There is no way a continuous pipe can be inserted into a hole that is a couple thousand feet long.

So, is the pipe installed in sections, joined together somehow? Like the water pipes currently laying on the ground to bring Trinity River water to Fort Chesapeake?

When the drilling process reaches an aquifer, how does that work? How can a drilling process possibly get past a layer of water without polluting that water?

If the well lining is a pipe in sections, how are the joints made to be leak-proof? The pipeline that is bringing water to Fort Chesapeake from the Trinity River is definitely not leak-proof at the joints.

When today's fracking occurs, at the point where the Barnett Shale is fractured and starts producing natural gas, what happens next?

Does all that fracking water get pumped back out?

What stops the newly released natural gas from zooming up the poked hole with explosive force, like the natural gas version of the cliche oil gusher when a drilling operation strikes oil?

Today, with all this fracking going on are there going to be some extra nasty things in the air that I breathe?

Does anyone have any answers to any of these question?

I wish I could say I am going swimming now and think about something else.