The Cold Dawn Of The 21st Morning Of April In Texas

The view through the bars of my patio prison cell on this 21st morning of April indicates the sky over this part of the planet is free of clouds.

What you can not see via the view through the bars of my patio prison cell is that it is only 16 degrees above freezing in the outer world.

48 degrees. Brrrr.

The temperature predictors are predicting a high of 75, with low humidity today.

This would seem to be a perfect day to go to the Fort Worth Main St. Arts Festival.

The last time I went to the Main St. Arts Festival it was a cloudy, hot, muggy Saturday. Today will not be a cloudy, hot, muggy Saturday.

I think I will go swimming now before it gets any colder and ponder whether or not I want to go to the bother of going to downtown Fort Worth today to mingle with a HUGE crowd of people.

Heavy Rain Sends Me To Sam's Club Where I Was Accosted By A Large Woman With Eucalyptus Oil

Sam's Club Hibiscus Under A Stormy Sky

Even though there was some rain that hit the ground in the middle of the night, last night, my plan was to go hiking the hills of Tandy today.

But then around 11 this morning the rain returned, so I nixed the Tandy Hills and went to Sam's Club to walk around Sam's Hibiscus Tropical Garden and push a cart around inside Sam's.

As you can see, via the sky view, we had ourselves a bit of a storm of short duration today.

Now, hours later, blue sky has returned.

I imagine the rain was wreaking havoc with the Fort Worth Main St. Arts Festival til it abated. I don't know if I'm going to go ahead with my plan to go to the Main St. Arts Festival tomorrow.

Changing the subject back to Sam's Club. The last couple times I've been in Sam's I've noticed that the people hawking samples have gotten way pushier. Barely in the door today there were samples of bread doused in olive oil being hawked. Along with dipping sauce.

I barely got past the oily bread when a large woman with big red lips accosted me by handing me a bottle of cleaner. She told me that, unlike other cleaners, this one smelled good because the main ingredient was Eucalyptus oil, not something nasty like bleach. She shoved an open bottle under my nose. It did smell good, but I acted like I'd just been sprayed by a skunk. I told her I like how bleach smells. Then she started a demo showing the cleaner in action while asking if I had kids and pets. She was still talking as I walked away.

By the food area I came upon a guy pushing green olives. He was giving his spiel to a lady in a wheelchair who seem fascinated by the olive tale. I picked up a cup with 2 olives in it and was mortified to pop them in my mouth to discover they'd been spiked with some hot pepper. Habanero maybe.

Next I was accosted by a woman pushing a cart and hawking little pieces of a Clif Bar. The time previous, at Sam's, I was accosted by a woman pushing a cart with a cooler full of some new Coke product she was hawking. The mobile hawking carts is a new wrinkle at Sam's.

There were multiple others aggressively pushing products, but I did not get accosted by any of them. It all reminded me too much of visiting a Mexican border town. But I like visiting Mexican border towns and getting accosted by all the product hawkers.

I don't like products hawked at me when I am at Sam's Club.

The Dawn Of Another Blue Day Trying To Make Fort Worth Hip

Blue seems to be the dominant color scheme on this morning of the 3rd Friday of April.

I'm feeling a bit blue this morning. I am very stodgy and don't like change. This morning Google changed its Blogger product. Google seems to change its products way too much. The changes never seem like an improvement to me.

For me, the changes to Google AdSense made AdSense a total mess.

In addition to Google annoying me, Mother Nature had a big fit in the middle of the night, tossing rain to the ground, along with some lightning bolts. The booming did not last too long.

This morning I read that something called Travel+Leisure ranked 10 American towns according to their Hipster friendliness.

I am not sure I know what a Hipster is. Modern era Hippie? I don't know.

I clicked through the Top Ten Hipster City List expecting to find Fort Worth near the top.

But, the only Texas town on the Hipster List is Austin at #7.

7. Austin: "The Texas capital has long been a hotbed for live music as well as offbeat types, but the trendsetting locals also scored big points for being tech-fluent." 

The Number 3 Hipster town is San Francisco. Number 2 is a few miles north of San Francisco, the town of Portland. And #1 is.........

1. Seattle: "These northwesterners prove that a key to hipsterness is being ahead of the curve: they won the survey for their smarts, their tech savvy, and their high-octane coffee. As a result, the geek chic may be a little more buttoned-down here than in other cities." 

I have tried to import smarts, tech savvy and high-octane coffee to Fort Worth, but there is only so much one person can do to amp up a town's hipness.

It is 30 degrees above freezing right now. I think I will go swimming before it gets any hotter.

Elsie Hotpepper's Hot New High Heels

This morning I got an urgent message from a semi-frantic Elsie Hotpepper saying she needed some help getting dressed.

Why do I get calls about such things?

But, even when I am perplexed about why I am being asked to do something, I still try and help. This is one of the hazards of having a helpful nature.

I found these high heels today that totally said Elsie Hotpepper to me. I think Elsie can wear them without needing a concealed weapon permit.

I Shared The Tandy Highway With A Big Snake Today & Lived To Blog About It

I almost stepped on my first slithery serpent encounter of the year this afternoon.

I was peacefully minding my own business, walking on the Tandy Highway, having a pleasant conversation with myself, when suddenly I realized I was about to step on one of the descendants of Eve's Garden of Eden tempters.

By the time I got my camera turned on the snake was in high speed slither mode, but I was able to get one picture before the reptilian monster disappeared into the brush.

Snakes can slither surprisingly fast when motivated and the temperature is warm enough for their cold blood to flow. Today it was around 80 degrees when I almost stepped on a snake. I guess that is a warm enough temperature to allow fast acceleration.

I am not a snake fan. I find them very unnatural and have always wondered what in the world Mother Nature was thinking when She created them.

Western Washington, where I lived the majority of my time on earth, has no poisonous snakes, naturally occurring. But, there are plenty of garter snakes. Garter snakes can get quite big. Eastern Washington has rattlesnakes, but the Cascade Mountain Range has always kept them on the east side of the mountains.

When I first moved to Texas the fear of snake encounters was probably my #1 concern. Fear of redneck encounters was probably my #2 concern. Both these fears proved to be unwarranted.

I've only had myself a few poisonous snake encounters, one big rattlesnake, a couple copperheads, a couple cottonmouths. That's all.

As for redneck encounters. Gar the Texan has been the worst of that type thing I've encountered. And even that really was not as bad as I feared and easily made harmless by giving him beer.

The Dawn Of The 3rd Thursday Of April

I am up before the sun looking at the outer world via my secondary viewing portal on this 19th morning of April.

The outer world is currently chilled to 58 degrees at my location.

The water treatment process of my pool has been completed, so I will be able to get wet this morning.

A visit with a doctor up in Euless, of an undetermined length, this morning, may wreak havoc with my daily ritual of trying to get some aerobic stimulation.

I think sufficient time has passed since our recent bought of rain that the Tandy Hills have likely dried up. Perhaps I will go there this afternoon.

In the meantime, I am going swimming.

Biking The Trinity Trail Looking At Dismal Skyscrapers Thinking About CatsPaw, MLK & GG

Yale Dean Of Architecture Designed Skyscrapers

A week ago today I blogged a blogging titled On The Dried Out Tandy Hills Looking At The Upgraded Tarrant County Courthouse & Bass Family Damage To Downtown Fort Worth.

Basically I was opining about the Bass Family, and Ed Bass, in particular, and how I saw the Bass impact on downtown Fort Worth.

Today, whilst biking the Trinity Trail this subject was brought back to the forefront of my consciousness when I was fairly close to a pair of skyscrapers I'd opined about.

Last week's blogging generated some commentary from three different commentors whose opinions I highly value, CatsPaw, MLK and GG.

I'd suggested that the architect who designed those aforementioned skyscrapers must have been a C Student and were reflective of Bass Bad Taste.

CatsPaw then had this to say.....

My goodness, you're cranky today. Your "C-student" was quite highly-regarded and a former dean of the Yale School of Architecture. I first came to Fort Worth in 1977. City Center went up between 1978 - 1983. In the late 70s and early 80s, downtown had gotten rather dismal. I used to work in the old Continental National Bank building (now gone) and often had lunch at the Richelieu Cafe (gone) or at the restaurant in the Blackstone Hotel (now the Marriott) where the waitresses were about 80 if they were a day. We hung out after work hours at the old Daddio's where the Flying Saucer is presently. That area was pretty rough and if there had been sagebrush and tumble weeds, they would have been blowing along Main Street after 5 pm. Regardless of one's view of the Bass family or some of the buildings or development, there's really no question that they have been uniquely instrumental in the revival of downtown.

I first saw Fort Worth in August of 1980. I do remember the downtown being very dismal. And skyscraper-free. At least I do not remember there being any sort of skyline back then.

And then MLK disagreed with me....

Durango, I rarely disagree with your observations, but I'll have to object to your obvious dislike of the Bass family. I lived in Fort Worth when it was not a place to be, nothing to do, no one living down there. Ed Bass built Caravan of Dreams, an excellent music venue which closed a few years ago (still crying about this). He realized he wanted a place to live downtown, so he built Sundance West...so the urban pioneers came and made downtown FTW a great place to live/work/play. I think Fort Worth owes quite a bit to our benefactors. Whereas they do own most of downtown or fund most of the progress there, they do have excellent taste and have Fort Worth's best interest at heart.

Now, we must keep in mind that I saw something like Caravan of Dreams from a totally different perspective than someone who lived in Fort Worth during the dismal years. I read the hype about Caravan of Dreams soon upon arrival. When I finally made it to the Sundance Square parking lots to check it out I just sort of thought it was strange and tacky. The geodesic cactus garden dome seemed real odd to me. Still does.

Only recently, thanks to Wikipedia, did I learn that that geodesic dome, along with the now defunct Caravan of Dreams, is yet one more thing Fort Worth has Ed Bass to thank, or blame for. I did not connect Ed Bass to the Arizona Biosphere II Geodesic domes debacle til I read the Wikipedia article.

GG, while appreciating all the Bass family has done to Fort Worth, had some issues regarding the billionaires...

I agree that the billionaire Bass family has done a lot for revitalizing downtown Fort Worth. The problem I have with Sundance Square is all the government tax handouts they have gotten in the form of TIFs and sales tax rebates over the years. And they are still going to the trough for another $11 million in TIF money and $2.5 million in city sales tax rebates for the new buildings that will be near the new public, I mean, private plaza. I'm amazed at how the public simply ignores government handouts to billionaires, but gets outraged if some poor person gets a housing voucher or welfare benefit. If the Bass family really has Fort Worth's best interest at heart, they wouldn't be asking for all this public tax money for their private projects. It's not like $2.5 million over 15 years means a whole lot to a billionaire. But it could certainly help pay for fixing/maintaining public pools, improving rather than cutting library funding, and giving city workers some of the salary back that they lost in furloughs, to name a few examples. As a FW outsider, I don't think this 'tax taking' is acceptable behavior for billionaires who own most of downtown.

Regarding my opinion about the Bass family contribution to the development of downtown Fort Worth. My problem with this is I see it as a not a good thing if one family has this level of influence over how a town develops. MLK thinks the Bass's have excellent taste. While I don't.

Taste is a subjective thing.

While the Bass Performance Hall may be an acoustic marvel, aesthetically, to my eyes, it is an out of place eyesore with ridiculous giant angels stuck to its side blowing horns at the Barnes & Noble across the street.

When Ed Bass complained about the sunken plaza design of the downtown Tarrant County College campus, that complaint set in motion, it seemed to me, the torpedoing of that project, one that I opined might actually give Fort Worth its first iconic building that people in other parts of the planet might recognize as being Fort Worth.

Unlike that pair of Bass skyscrapers designed by a Yale School of Architecture dean.

I also do not like the Bass tendency to slap their name on the buildings they help bring about. Like the Bass Performance Hall, or the Bass name slapped on to the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame & Museum building.

Additionally, I have a problem with the idea that Fort Worth needed these particular benefactors to fix its apparently dismal downtown. Would not a more democratic process be preferable? If you removed the Bass influence from Fort Worth, do you really think downtown Fort Worth would still be a dismal mess in 2012?

And for all the supposed improvement brought to downtown Fort Worth, courtesy of Bass intervention, the town is still the biggest in America without a single downtown department store. Still totally dead on the biggest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving.

Without a benefactor playing Big Daddy to Fort Worth's collective Big Babies, might Fort Worth not have managed to figure out how to put on its Big Boy Pants all on its own?

Instead, in Fort Worth you have this weird mentality where a Good Ol' Boy Network runs the town like some sort of private fiefdom, for the benefit of all the little people.

It is this weird mentality, in my opinion, that gives rise, in this town, to strange aberrations from the way a normal town operates, giving rise to abominations like the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. A plan hatched by the Good Ol' Boy Network, in cahoots with the local corrupt congresswoman, who got her ne-er do well, unqualified son, the job of running the almost billion dollar project.

I drove Fort Worth's booming West 7th Avenue yesterday. Did all that growth come about from Bass help? Or private enterprise?

Fort Worth's downtown has the largest percentage of land used as parking lots of any big city in America.

Who owns most of the parking lots? The Bass Family.

Land is too valuable to use as parking lots in a vibrant downtown. I wonder what could possibly be done to bring some of that booming West 7th level of dynamic change to downtown Fort Worth?

I would not be so bold (or rude) as to suggest evicting the Bass Family from downtown Fort Worth might be a good place to start.

Trying To Wakeboard Today At Cowtown Wakepark

The Cowtown Wakepark Jewel
In The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Crown

Today I pedaled the Trinity Trail to get a closeup look at Cowtown Wakepark.

Yesterday I visited the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Woodshed Smokehouse.

Visionary J.D. Granger envisioned the Woodshed Smokehouse as a gritty place with no air-conditioning, with outdoor showers and an outhouse.

Well before the Woodshed opened, the visionary J.D. Granger foresaw the need for the more than 700,000 citizens of Fort Worth to have the opportunity to participate in the water sport of wakeboarding in dirty, polluted water.

This coming summer the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle will see the opening of the first new drive-in movie theater in America in decades.

Truly visionary.

I was very impressed to see the Cowtown Wakepark up close today, to see the fine attention paid to detail.

Fort Worth Shabby Chic From The
Trinity River Vision Boondoggle

The designers of this world class venue obviously paid close attention to the Fort Worth design aesthetic, that truly unique shabby chic look that Fort Worth does so well, and no other big city seems able to emulate to the Fort Worth level.

Cowtown Wakepark's landscaping appeared to be designed to look totally natural, like most of Fort Worth's freeway exits. Tall grass and weeds. A smattering of litter, for color. A general unkemptness to the look.

It can't be easy to design and achieve this type look, creating the illusion of chaotic slobbiness.

The next time I bike the Trinity Trail, out of Gateway Park, I'll make it beyond Cowtown Wakepark to see if I can find the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Drive-In under construction. It'd be cool to see the tall grass and weeds, of the landscaping, when they are in the installation phase, before the litter arrives.

Has anyone heard what the financial arrangement is between the Cowtown Wakepark and the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle? How big a slice is J.D. Granger's operation getting off of this likely very lucrative pie? How much did it cost the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle to add this lake to the vision?

The 3rd Wednesday Of April Dawns Cool & Clear In Texas

The icy blue view of the outer world at my location on this 18th morning of April matches this morning's icy cool temperature of only 22 degrees above freezing.

My swimming pool is still in being treated mode, so no cool pool for me this morning. With these semi-frigid temperatures the water is likely not as warm as the last time I immersed myself in it.

The Fort Worth Main St. Arts Festival starts up tomorrow.

I am currently planning on going on Saturday. My means of conveyance to downtown Fort Worth will be via one of the Fort Worth adventure buses.

The rock and roll ride on Fort Worth's natural gas powered buses is a fun thing. I don't know why more people don't get on board.

Something in the air is back bugging my eyes again. I think I will move to a desert where I can breathe easier.

Elsie Hotpepper is being cranky with me. Near as I can tell this crankiness is caused by me going to the Woodshed Smokehouse without her.

A Walk Along The Trinity River With Lunch At The Woodshed Smokehouse

Occupying Woodshed Smokehouse For Lunch

Today I walked the Trinity Trail and met Madame X for lunch with Tim Love at the Woodshed Smokehouse.

The walk along the Trinity River was interesting.

But, first lunch was had at the Woodshed.

Skinny Madame X had the Skinny Chicken sandwich, while I had the Woodshed Burger.

I recently had a Double Double Burger at In-N-Out. I prefer the Double Double to the Woodshed Burger, though the Smoked Cheddar is a nice touch.

There were not as many people at the Woodshed for lunch today as there were the first time I was at the Woodshed, that being the Occupy Woodshed protest where we had libations and chips. Some overhead fans have been added to add some air circulation to the un air-conditioned Woodshed.

Woodshed Designer Outhouse & Shower

The entrepreneur behind the brilliant Woodshed concept, J.D. Granger, insisted there be no air-conditioning because he felt cool air would detract from the gritty atmosphere he was hoping to create.

I'm guessing the cool outhouse that is part of the Woodshed complex, along with the outdoor shower, is also part of the gritty atmosphere design of J.D. Granger.

I did not know what the parking situation was at the Woodshed and I knew it was easy to park at Trinity Park, with Trinity Park being a fairly short distance to the Woodshed.

Do Not Go Over Your Limit Of 5 Rainbow Trout

Why is most of Trinity Park's parking blocked? And the Trinity Trail blocked, heading east? This made parking a bit more difficult than I had anticipated.

The URBAN FISHING AREA sign you see in the picture has perplexed me previously. In most areas you are advised not to eat any fish you catch in the Trinity River.

However, this sign informs you that a Texas Fishing License and Trout Stamp are required to catch your limit of 5 Rainbow Trout per day.

A person standing near me as I read the sign muttered, "There ain't no trout in that damn river."

The Fort Worth Forbidden Zone

I don't know about that, but I sure saw a lot of turtles and what looked to be a big snake, plus multiple instances of big fish jumping out of the water making big splashes.

Just a short distance upriver from the URBAN FISHING AREA, maybe 500 feet, there is a very dire warning sign that made me wonder how it was that Rainbow Fish were available for catching a few feet downriver.

FORBIDDEN ZONE - NO TRESPASSING - CITY OF FORT WORTH - RAW WATER INTAKE

That really does sound dire. This is the only place on the planet where I recollect having found myself in a FORBIDDEN ZONE. Does this mean raw water is being sucked out of the dirty river at this location? Or is raw water flowing in to the river at this location? I prefer my FORBIDDEN ZONES to be very clear about the reason for the forbidding.

Fort Worth Bikers Crossing Trinity River

There are several dam bridges crossing across the Trinity River, some of which are part of the Trinity Trail. I don't quite understand the thinking behind the dam bridge crossing you see in the picture.

The 3 guys had to carry their mountain bikes across the dam bridge because the path across is a line of big rocks, with the river waterfalling between the rocks.

A short distance downriver there has been at least one instance of someone falling into the river at a similar crossing and drowning.

It seems sort of irresponsible, to me, to have a paved trail lead to a dam bridge that is topped with a line of big rocks that you have to traverse carrying your bike overhead.