Wishing I Were A Kid So I Could Play On The Soon To Open New River Legacy Park Playground

It has been several weeks since I last pedaled my two wheeled mechanical device at Arlington's River Legacy Park.

So, tonight, with the temperature being a relatively cool 96 degrees, I did myself some pedaling.

96 degrees is not all that HOT when the sun is not in overhead mode, and is instead heading towards sunset, thus making a lot of shade.

The parking lot construction and new paved trail have been completed since my last visit.

And the new kid's playground's construction is well underway. As you can see, via the above picture, looking at part of the new River Legacy Park kid's playground, it is not your ordinary playground.

Methinks it is going to be extremely popular.

You can not see it in the picture, but there is what looked to be a tree house, connected to the "stumps" you can see, via what appeared to be a thick mesh tunnel. Above the thick mesh tunnel was a sign that said "No Grownups Allowed." Written in what looked like little kid script.

Arlington would get an A+ from me for its parks.

If it weren't for outhouses.

Those outhouses bring the grade down to A-.

There were a lot of people at River Legacy Park tonight enjoying the pleasant temperature. I find that a very pleasant experience.

Is Plan 2023 Going To Excite You About Downtown Fort Worth?

Around the beginning of June I got email from Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. in which I learned of downtown Fort Worth's brilliant new tourist slogan.

"Downtown Fort Worth: You get it when you get here."

I blogged about this brilliant tourist slogan in a blogging titled I Love Downtown Fort Worth & The Biggest Comic Strip In Texas That Surrounds Sundance Square.

I was not the only one to make note of the brilliance of this tourist slogan. A few days ago Bud Kennedy ignited an amusing comment fest about this slogan, on Facebook.

Today I got the July email news from Downtown Fort Worth, Inc., with that brilliant "You get it when you get here" tourist slogan no where to be seen. Maybe I was not looking in the right place.

In the July email from Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. we learn of PLAN 2023 and are told that Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. is looking for practical and resourceful ideas about improving "our" downtown.

Well.

First off, PLAN 2023? 11 years for this PLAN to come to fruition?

I can think of some things downtown Fort Worth can do right now.

One would be to take down the cyclone fence that surrounds Heritage Park and restore Heritage Park to its original glory. What other big city in America, particularly a city which regularly makes the rest of America Green with Envy, would have such an eyesore across the street from its County Courthouse?

It's embarrassing.

Figure out a way to restore what downtown Fort Worth lost due to the Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters boondoggle, as in acres of free parking that made downtown Fort Worth easily accessible.

Cease with outlining downtown Fort Worth's few tall buildings with lights.

It looks tacky.

We learned last month that there is finally going to be a square in Sundance Square, after years of confusing tourists with the Sundance Square signs pointing them to where no square existed. Let's hope this comes to some sort of non-embarrassing fruition.

Make downtown Fort Worth more pedestrian friendly. Maybe close one street to traffic, Main Street, perhaps.

Tulsa has a pedestrian walkway that runs from its convention center to its downtown core, which is closed to traffic. This is quite well done and makes it real nice to walk around downtown Tulsa.

Downtown Portland, Oregon also has a car free corridor that makes it real nice to walk around downtown Portland. Portland also has a real nice light rail transit system that makes it real slick to get around downtown and the rest of Portland.

But, that type thing is way out of Fort Worth's league.

Like having a downtown department store or a full-sized grocery store.

Downtown Fort Worth's sidewalks are very narrow for a big city downtown. I think street parking is allowed on all of downtown Fort Worth's streets. This makes for a sort of claustrophobic walk on the downtown Fort Worth streets.

Downtown Fort Worth's PLAN 2023 has a website which solicits for ideas for PLAN 2023 and asks what excites "you" about Downtown Fort Worth.

I really can think of nothing that excites me about downtown Fort Worth. I did like Heritage Park and thought it was unique, til it was allowed to deteriorate after the Fort Worth Water Gardens Disaster.

I also like the Water Gardens, but they don't actually much excite me and they aren't really all that unique, but they could be part of a cool new pedestrian corridor running from the restored Heritage Park, past the Tarrant County Courthouse, past the Fort Worth Convention Center, to the Water Gardens.

Where cross streets need to cross Main Street, elevated crossovers could be built for the pedestrians.  With the crossovers being broad crossovers, the width of the cool new pedestrian corridor.

Among the many suggestions made by Fort Worthers, on the PLAN 2023 website, one guy said he thought Fort Worth needs what he calls a "Money Shot." Meaning something that people in other parts of America, and the world, would know as being in Fort Worth and which they would want to see with their own eyes, as a tourist in Fort Worth. He suggested Fort Worth needs an iconic image like the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles or the Space Needle in Seattle.

I have verbalized a similar sentiment previously, saying the only thing in Fort Worth that anyone anywhere else might recognize as being in Fort Worth is the Fort Worth Stockyards sign. But that one is sort of an easy giveaway, what with the town's name in the sign.

I can not imagine what could be done in Fort Worth to give the town an iconic recognizability.

Fort Worth seems to have some sort of twisted penchant for extreme goofiness and some sort of strange tendency to shoot itself in the foot.

Thinking that a sporting goods store, Cabela's, would be the #1 tourist attraction in Texas is one example of the clueless goofiness.

A boondoggle called the Trinity River Vision is an example of Fort Worth's strange tendency to shoot itself in the foot. I hope I'm wrong about that one, but I fear I'm not. Have you visited the Cowtown Wakepark yet? Looking forward to the Trinity River Vision's Drive-In Movie Theater? Swimming in Pond Granger?

Maybe the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's giant flood diversion channel, visible from the moon, like the Great Wall of China, will give Fort Worth its first iconic image. Won't that be something? But, it won't be downtown.

Walking Carefully Past Live Ordnance In Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area

Earlier today I mentioned that I heard no 4th of July explosions of the firecracker sort, either on the actual Independence Day, or the days prior, or, so far, the day after.

After today's walking with the Village Creek Natural Historical Area Indian Ghosts I've decided I may be hard of hearing, due to the fact that I saw evidence today of massive explosive power, having been exploded, plus unexploded ordnance left on the ground, deep inside the Village Creek Natural Historical Area area.

The Village Creek Natural Historical Area is only a couple mile from my abode. I would think I would hear TNT Ground Blasters blasting.

Or the ground shaking.

At some point in time during the 4th of July evening I did hear military jets zipping overhead. I assumed this had something to do with whatever was going on at the Dallas Cowboy Stadium, or the Ballpark in Arlington, or both.

Dozens Of Unexploded Firecrackers

In the second picture you are looking at a wider view of the dozens upon dozens of unexploded firecrackers laying uncracked on the ground.

Were the firecrackers duds?

Or did something or someone scare the firecracker crackers, causing them to run away in fright, tossing their unexploded explosives to the ground?

Did they see a Ghost? Or maybe a Host of Ghosts?

I imagine the Indian Ghosts who haunt Village Creek do not take kindly to what sounds like gunfire. It would likely remind them of the noise made by the Texans when they came to evict them from their land.

A Firecracker Free 4th In Texas While Spencer Jack Blows Up & Floods His Backyard In Washington

This morning Spencer Jack's dad sent me two 4th of July videos. I'm assuming the videos were shot with a phone. The videos are in Apple Quicktime .mov format, so I was unable to open and view them in Windows Media Player or Windows Movie Maker.

However, I was able to make YouTube videos and thus see Spencer Jack.

In the first video Spencer Jack is demonstrating that currently in Western Washington, particularly the town of Mount Vernon, no Lawn Whisperer is telling anyone to conserve water. Thanks to a phenomenon known as "Two Much Rain" Western Washington is in water surplus mode, thus allowing Spencer Jack to make his own personal flood.

 

At my location in Texas, in the town "Where the West Began," I heard not a single firecracker this 4th of July or the days before the 4th of July.

When I lived in Spencer Jack's current town, the 4th of July was like a war zone of explosions.

Nearby Indian Reservations supplied the fireworks. This made for a much more festive 4th than I experience in Texas, though I was not a huge fan of having to sit outside on my roof top deck to guard against rockets that had gone astray.

The nearest Indian Reservations, to my location, are not in Texas, but up in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has a lot of Indian Reservations due to the fact that at one point in time, the area that is now the state of Oklahoma, was Indian Territory, that being the area where the U.S. government tried to concentrate the Indian population that was being forced to evacuate the eastern part of America.

That forced evacuation to an Indian Territory really did not work out as planned, but did end up with Oklahoma having a lot of land that is now Indian Reservation land, with casinos, and, I assume, fireworks stands.

I am guessing Spencer Jack likely did his fireworks shopping at the Swinomish Nation, since that is the closest reservation to where Spencer lives.

I suspect, if Spencer's dad took him to the Swinomish Nation, to get fireworks, a stop was likely made at the Swinomish Casino & Lodge, maybe to go to the buffet, if the Swinomish is still doing the buffet, it being the best seafood buffet I've ever experienced. They do oysters the way my mama did oysters back when she had oysters to do.

A Happy 4th Of July Declaration Of Independence From Texas

No, the post title does not mean I am making a Happy 4th of July Declaration of Independence from Texas.

What the blog post title means is, from my location in Texas, I am wishing you all a Happy 4th of July Celebration of the American Declaration of Independence from that miscreant product of inbreeding, King George III and the nation over which George incompetently reigned, Great Britain.

I know some American miscreants prone to political opining, who I know have never read, nor would likely understand, the Declaration of Independence, that being the Declaration which set in motion a Revolution which would result in the United States of America becoming a Democratic Republic of the Republican Democracy sort of federal constitutional republic, the world's oldest, which, in less than 100 years of its founding, would be the most prosperous nation on earth and eventually the most powerful nation in the world, in multiple ways.

Or, as Wikipedia put it in the Wikipedia United States article...

By the 1870s, its national economy was the world's largest. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. It emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for 41% of global military spending, and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.

For your reading enjoyment, on the 4th of July, what follows is the American Declaration of Independence from Great Britain......

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. 
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Wondering Why The Village Creek Vision Has No Rockin' The Creek Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats

The bench you are seeing in the picture is looking at one of the Interlochen lakes in Arlington's Interlochen neighborhood.

For my noon day constitutional today I biked with the Indian Ghosts who haunt the Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

Biking is much less of a steam bath experience than hiking is at the current HOT temperatures.

The Interlochen lakes and canals were built as part of the Village Creek Vision. This vision did not become a boondoggle, instead it became a very cool residential area in Arlington.

Unlike the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle visionaries, the Village Creek Vision visionaries did not envision any restaurants, wakeboard parks, drive-in movie theaters or Rockin' the Creek Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats as part of their vision.

Clearly the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle visionaries have a much broader vision than the Village Creek Vision visionaries had when they were doing their envisioning.

Being Smarmy On Facebook Can Cause The Gag Me With A Spoon Reflex

On Facebook this morning I learned that Wee Cheng loves Durian. Wee Cheng lives in Singapore. I think Durian may be a fruit. Or maybe Wee Cheng's new boyfriend.

Wee Cheng sharing her latest love on Facebook put me in mind of an amusing article in this week's DFW.com Ink Edition. DFW.com has a weekly column titled Y Me? Y Me? is sort of a lovelorn column written by a guy.

This week's Y Me? column is titled Annoyingly in love online.

Below is an excerpt from this week's Y Me? column....

I do appreciate the voyeurism of social networking, but I'm finding out fast that I have a lot of annoying Facebook friends. There's nothing more annoying than two people in love, posting sweet nothings on the other's wall. Why is posting such things a sure sign of insecurity? Because if Guy A wanted to tell Lady B how great she is, then theoretically all he'd have to do is tell her in person, over the phone or via text message. The fact that he's doing it on her Facebook wall means he's declaring it publicly -- which is the Facebook version of marking his territory.

The main motivation behind it is to make other people jealous. The reason it rings false to me is because it always feels like the lovers are trying to convince themselves that they believe all of the things they are posting, like they're more method actors than lovebirds. If they really did care for one another as much as they say in Facebook posts, they wouldn't need to reinforce those feelings with constant public declarations.

They'd do that in private, secure in the idea that the one knows how the other feels.

I was going through my feed, and I found a few gems that I thought I'd reinterpret. Names have been omitted to protect the obnoxious.

What they said : "If I was any more in love with you I'd explode! I still can't believe how lucky I am to have found you."

What they meant: "I can't be happy if you're all not looking at me."

What they said: "I have the best husband in the world! I can't believe how lucky I am to get to wake up next to you every day!"

What they meant: "I'm stuck with you, but if I can convince all of my friends that we are a model couple, at least I'll get to feed off their jealousy."

What they said: "A night in with the handsomest man on the planet! I can't wait to get that grill going, and watch a movie with my sweetie."

What they meant: "We never go out, and I'm tired of tasting the bitter charring of my man's unwashed grill."

____________________________________________

There has been a time or two when I've asked someone if it was realized that everyone was reading their exchange with a significant other on Facebook that seemed rather personal. I've had a person say they did not realize the conversation was out in the open amongst all their Facebook friends. I've also had a person acknowledge they were fully aware their conversation was read by all.

I agree with Y Me? regarding it seeming like the person's posting these smarmy messages are doing so for sad reasons.

A few weeks ago, on Facebook, someone shared their current status saying something like "They say it gets easier with time. They lie. It has been 25 years since grandpa died and it gets no easier. I miss him as much today as the day he died. I love you grandpa."

Now, I read this and thought to myself, wait a minute, I thought you always described this particular grandpa as an over-controlling, domineering aggravation. So why write this smarmy stuff about grandpa? Who is it directed at? Your own conscience?

Facebook is not the only source of this type thing.

There is this blog written by a borderline illiterate woman with mental health issues. She will write the most convoluted, embarrassing, contradictory spew of nonsense, with her long suffering husband then feeling compelled to make a comment along the line of "Great post, bebe, so brave, but I expect no less from someone as wonderful and beautiful as you are, inside and out."

I always liked that Valley Girl slang, "Gag me with a spoon."

Hot Hiking In The Tandy Hills Natural Steam Bath

Smoggy View Of Downtown Fort Worth

That is the smoggy stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth you are looking at, past a wildflower blowing in the wind.

Some clouds were blocking some of the incoming sun rays in the noon time frame, a wind was blowing. the temperature was in the low 80s.

I figured I could do myself some Tandy Hills hill hiking today without overheating like being in a natural steam bath.

I figured wrong.

In summers previous I'd do Tandy Hill hiking when the temperature was above 100 without having steam bath issues.

I am being very perplexed as to the reason why I am overheating.

Could it be that I am weighing more than last summer and the summer before that? But, I thought that weight gain was all muscle.

Getting Close To A Fosdick Turtle While Thinking About Going To Ocean Shores

A few drops of rain dripped on me when I was in Hurst this morning. For a while the cloud activity was looking like it might go into downpour mode, turning Sam's Club into my rainy day walking location.

But, so far, the only drops that have dripped on me today have been those Hurst ones. And  a few drops from the fountain in the pool this morning. But, that really does not count.

I decided to visit the turtles who guard Fosdick Lake in Oakland Lake Park today. I have visited the turtle you see in the picture previously. He (or she) is not a skittish turtle. He (or she) lets me get close to take pictures and does not seem to mind the bird tweeting noise the camera makes.

How does one tell if a turtle is a boy or girl I suddenly find myself wondering? How do you tell a boy snake from a girl snake? I am sitting here being surprised I've not thought about these serious issues before.

I was not too shocked today to see that the overfilled litter barrel I mentioned a couple days ago has been emptied and some of the litter in the surrounding area has been picked up. Or blown away.

Changing the subject from turtles and snakes and litter to something else.

One of my fellow Washingtonians, currently exiled, along with me, in Texas, is up north in our home state, escaping the Texas HEAT.

A couple days ago Steve A kindly let me know that the temperature at his current location, Ocean Shores on the Washington Pacific Coast, was 63 degrees. I can not think of a more pleasant place to be, right now, than Ocean Shores.

Just to listen to huge waves crashing would be such a good thing. When I'm up in Washington, this summer, maybe one of the Nephew David blogging outtings will be to Ocean Shores.

Just in from Steve A is something else from Washington. In this morning's blogging I rambled on about the price of gas, and the current low at my location of $2.98 a gallon. Steve A commented to that blogging commenting that he'd paid $3.87 for gas at Safeway in Hoquiam.

That is yet one more thing we are blessed with in Texas. Cheaper gas. This will likely cause Steve A to return to Texas.

Changing the subject from cheap gas back to Fosdick Lake.

I do not know why the picture I took of the turtle makes the water of Fosdick Lake appear to be such an appealing shade of blue, with the water appearing to be clean and clear.

It is almost as if my camera somehow automatically creates special effects and illusions.

At ALDI In Hurst I Found Gas So Cheap I'm Regretting Buying A Chevy Volt

In the picture you can likely guess we are not in Fort Worth, due to the telling clue that the roadway we are looking at appears to be landscaped.

We are in Hurst, standing on the ALDI Food Market parking lot, looking west, across Precinct Line Road at a RaceTrac gas station where gas is currently selling for $2.98 a gallon.

I recollect that before he quit running for president, Newt Gingrich promised he had a plan to get the price of gas down to $2.50. That did not seem to me to be all that promising a promise.

I remember when I was up in Washington for a month, almost 4 years ago, July 20 til August 20, that gas had almost reached 5 bucks a gallon upon my arrival. And then began to fall. If I remember right by the time I was being evicted back to Texas gas had fallen to $2.99 at the Puyallup Tribe gas station by their casino in Tacoma, causing a line that stretched to the freeway exit.

Soon upon arrival back in Texas I recollect gas going under 2 bucks at some stations, also causing lines. Just a few months later, the first week of 2009, my mom and dad were here, with gas costing only $1.31 a gallon, up from the low of $1.15 that I'd paid at a QT in North Richland Hills in late December.

With gas suddenly being so cheap I am sort of regretting buying a Chevy Volt. But am relieved to remember that that only happened in my dreams.