Is Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price Auditioning For Dancing With The Stars?

Betsy Price & Elsie Hotpepper

Among the many reasons Fort Worth is the Envy of the Nation, making towns far and wide Green with Envy, is the spirited young lass who we are proud to have as our mayor, Betsy Price.

That is Betsy Price in the picture.

Elsie Hotpepper sent me this photo of Betsy. I believe this photo was taken at the dedication of the JFK tribute sculpture in downtown Fort Worth, Thursday morning.

My sources tell me, and I must admit I have no way to verify this, except for the photo, that at some point in the ceremony, when music started filling the air, Betsy Price jumped up and began to dance a rather elaborate, looked to be professionally choreographed, dance routine.

Is Betsy trying to follow in fellow Texan, Tom Delay's, footsteps and get herself on Dancing with the Stars? I can see Betsy being a better partner for Maksim Chmerkovsky than Kirstie Alley is currently being.

Betsy Price is in incredibly good shape due to her bike riding regimen. I believe no other American mayor in a city the size of Fort Worth rides her bike to work. Yet one more reason why Fort Worth is the Envy of the Nation.

And did I mention that Betsy is a fashionista? I guess this goes without saying, what with the photo example above of high fashion on parade, I mean, dancing.

Dodging Widow Makers & Snakes In River Legacy Park Before Christmas Shopping In Walmart

Those are my handlebars in River Legacy Park today, on the mountain bike trail, stopped by a widow maker.

I do not know if widow maker is a universal term, or not, but, in the Pacific Northwest a widow maker is what a logger calls a tree which behaves badly, turning the logger's wife into a widow.

With with my computer based weather monitoring device issuing a "WIND ADVISORY" I had some reservations about going biking today in the River Legacy Park jungle due to the wind potentially blowing at a high velocity, knocking limbs off trees.

But, I disregarded the reservations and heading to Arlington anyway.

As I pedaled along the turning twisting trails the wind only periodically managed to pierce the dense cover of trees. At times I found myself pedaling over a very thick carpet of leaves. Pedaling over a thick carpet of leaves can be a bit unsettling because one does not know what lurks beneath the leaves.

I pedaled past one snake today. A very little snake with a diamond type pattern, ala a rattlesnake. But, I'm fairly certain the little guy was not a rattlesnake. I heard no rattle.

Currently the outer world is being heated to 82 degrees at my location, slightly after 3 in the afternoon of the 2nd Friday of November. The outer world was already heated into the 60s when I went swimming this morning. The pool should be warmer tomorrow morning than it was today, due to this current heat wave.

The pool remaining so swimmable past one week into November is the best evidence I've experienced yet that Global Warming is a reality.

I went to Walmart after I was done dodging widow makers. Christmas stuff is already on the shelves. Ugh.

I heard Feliz Navidad on the radio on the way to River Legacy Park. The evermore unhinged Rush Limbaugh was playing that Christmas classic as part of his current insanity about Santa Claus and the Democrats.

I used to escape the holiday season, or at least part of it, by going to Reno, Las Vegas or Southern California. Or all three, on more than one occasion. I've only escaped the holiday season once since I've been in Texas, that being Christmas of 2000, spent in Yuma with my parental units, going to Mexico Christmas morning.

Feliz Navidad, everyone.

The City Of Fort Worth Is Allowing The Clear Cutting Of Miss Puerto Rico's Forest

What you are looking at above is the view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony, today, looking north, across the apartment complex she helps manage and the canopy of green foliage that helps create a park-like setting for Miss Puerto Rico's property.

Well.

A couple months ago Miss Puerto Rico's property was sold to a new owner.

This new owner does not like trees.

Last month, on the day before Miss Puerto Rico flew back to her home island, she called me, quite upset, because she'd just learned that the new owner was going to have all the trees, on the property she helps manage, cut down.

Miss Puerto Rico thought this clear cut was going to take place during the week she was back on her home island. However, this did not happen.

Then, a couple days ago, big X's began to appear on the trees. Last night Miss Puerto Rico told  me the trees were going to start coming down on Friday, as in tomorrow.

The town to the east of Fort Worth, Arlington, has a city ordinance regarding tree removal whereby a citizen must get permission to cut a tree on their property. I do not know if this involves a permit or what.

Below is what it looks like below the canopy of green foliage you see from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony. You are looking at some of the marked by X for Death trees. These trees are located in the center of the picture you see above.

Apparently the non-progressive City of Fort Worth has no city ordinance regarding tree removal.

Removing trees can have serious consequences. Trees help slow up flooding. The shade helps with cooling.

And, aesthetically, trees are appealing. I will miss the foliage view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony. Watching the trees sway during the gusts of a windstorm is borderline hypnotic.

A Somber Walk To The Village Creek Blue Bayou Pondering Durango Obesity

The Village Creek Blue Bayou

Today it seemed to me a peaceful walk to the Village Creek Blue Bayou, with the Indian Ghosts who haunt this place in the Village Creek Natural Historical Area, was just the sort of contemplative place I needed to be to do some pondering.

The Blue Bayou was being particularly blue today, matching my mood. The leaves in the trees are no longer all green.

I want a house painted inside and out in the current Village Creek Blue Bayou color scheme.

The last time I chose colors, for the inside and out of a house, off white and brown was pretty much the color scheme. I was not a very colorful person at that point in time.

This morning I blogged on my DurangObesity blog for the first time in awhile. The blogging was titled The Airlines Are Getting Serious About Flying Obese Customers Of Size.

When I logged into the Obesity blog account I saw Gmail was among the Google products. I did not recollect setting anything to go to DurangObesity Gmail. I clicked on the DurangObesity Gmail and found 18 emails. None of them spam.

I was surprised to learn that I'd gotten email from someone on the production staff of a UK reality show soliciting my help with a program that had something to do with fat families in the UK and US. This person wanted to know if I knew any American families who were okay with being fat. The show was going to switch a UK Fat Family with a US Fat Family. I think that was the premise. Fat Family Swap.

I did not feel too bad that I'd not found this email in a timely fashion because I could be of no use, because I know of no American family who is all happy about being fat.

Another email was from the author of a book about the diet President William Howard Taft went on way back early in the last century. That blogging was titled William Howard Taft: America's First & Only Obese President. The author of the book was inquiring as to whether I'd be interested in reading it. He offered to email me the book in PDF format.

Another email shared with me that person's diet plan, asking me what I thought of it.

The other emails were of a similar ilk, one way or another.

By the time this day is over I am going to check the Gmail accounts of all my blogs. I am  guessing I am in for some surprises. For some reason I thought I had all incoming from the blogs directed to my main email address. Instead, apparently, it is just comments I have directed to my main email address. I did not realize people were emailing the Gmail address associated with the various blogs.

I am such an idiot sometimes. I freely admit this and don't feel this condition is anything I can improve, because it is what is known as a chronic condition.

Another thing that surprised me when I logged into the DurangObesity Google account today was to see the number of page views of some of the various bloggings. I don't think I saw this info with the old version of the Google Blogger. Some of the DurangObesity bloggings have had thousands of page views.

I knew the DurangObesity AdSense revenue thing was constantly generating, but I did not realize this was due to a large number of page views.

Like I already said, I am such an idiot sometimes and readily, freely, admit this.

Handlebars Over The Pool Dragging Down My Blog

Those are my bike's handlebars looking as if they are preparing to dive into the pool. If one were to think that that is what is about to happen this would be what is known as an erroneous assumption.

My bike is near the pool because that is the location of the nearest hose from which I can dispense water to wash off the dusty bike.

This morning I learned, via a blog comment from someone named Anonymous, that my bike's handlebars being pictured is having a serious deleterious affect on my blog....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Mountain Biking In Gateway Park Before Having Fish & Chips": 

Please drop the bike handlebars pictures. Now. It's dragging your blog down. No excuses.

I had no idea that my blog was so elevated that pictures of a bike's handlebars could drag it down. Anonymous seems to be a very demanding sort, insisting these handlebar pictures cease "Now" with "no excuses" allowed for not dropping the handlebar pictures.

From what I know of my nature, or character, or whatever one calls ones behavior pattern, I think I have a tendency to ignore anyone telling me do to something. Unless they have some sort of credential in my eyes, or make some sort of case that makes some sort of sense.

In this serious handlebar pictures issue I can not imagine how someone Anonymous musters up a level of energy over someones personal blog to the point where someone Anonymous would feel the need to leave such a comment.

Sort of bizarre.

Yet also sort of amusing.

I am likely driving my handlebars to the Village Creek Natural Historical Area today. I do not plan on riding my bike today. But I may drag the bike out to take yet one more handlebar picture in order to further drag my blog down into that abyss into which it is apparently falling.

Mountain Biking In Gateway Park Before Having Fish & Chips

My handlebars were back on the Gateway Park Fort Worth Mountain Bike Association mountain bike trail today.

In the picture you are looking over my handlebars at a trail junction. It is a bit dark under the Gateway Park jungle canopy, so you can barely make out the trail direction sign pointing to the right.

If one were to miss seeing that sign pointing one in the right direction, one might quickly find oneself flying over a cliff into the Trinity River.

I am liking the cooler temperatures whilst hiking and biking. The cooler pool temperature is also being enjoyable, so far. This morning the pool was cool, but not too cool. I continue to find that if the 24 hour average is 50 degrees, or above, the pool is not too cool.

When I used to go swimming in Washington lakes, in summer, I suspect the temperature was very similar to my current slightly cool pool.

I am making fish and chips for lunch. It is my celebration lunch to celebrate the end of another election. Four years goes by so fast. The next election will soon be upon us.

It seems like only yesterday, but, it was 8 years ago, on the day after that election, that being the one where George W. Bush beat John Kerry, I was up in Washington at that point in time, in Tacoma. Sara, the Chocolate Lady, took a group of mourners, including me, out to Zoopa, to drown our sorrows in salad, so morose were we at the idea of 4 more years of George Bush.

The buzzer has buzzed. Time for fish and chips. And salad.

The 2012 Election Is Over With Marijuana Legal In Washington While Texas Gets A Lot Of Republican Judges

Well, another election fades to history.

At some point in last evening's return viewing I decided it could wait til morning for me to learn who was going to be president for the next 4 years.

Thirty years ago if a science fiction movie was about the election of 2012 and that movie envisioned the high tech future of coverage, methinks that movie's viewers would have thought all that high tech gadgetry was totally far fetched. And really cool.

But, the reality 30 years after 1982 is that the TV news people manipulate info on giant i-Pad like devices, whilst the viewers at home sit with their smart phones and tablets that do the same thing, on a smaller scale.

My old home state had a couple interesting items on the ballot. Initiative-502 had to do with legalizing recreational use of marijuana. Referendum 74 had to do with letting anyone get married who felt the need to get married. Also known as same sex marriage.

I-502 passed. R-74 is in the process of passing. I don't think it has been called yet. My guess is within a year you will be able to go to your sister's wedding to her girl friend in Washington and smoke pot while watching the ceremony.

I got a letter from my favorite aunt this morning, she being my dad's sister. Among the items in the envelope was an article my aunt snipped from the Washington Post titled "Posturing in Texas validates the world's autocratic regimes." Referencing this article, in her letter, my aunt wrote, "Only in Texas."

The article was about idiotic comments made by the Texas State Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding international election monitors, with the Texas AG threatening to have them arrested and criminally prosecuted.

I do not know what other Referendums and Initiatives were on the Washington ballot this year. Usually there are quite a few, in addition to local bond issues for various things, like a new school or a water works project like Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Billion Dollar Boondoggle that the citizens of Fort Worth have never been allowed to vote on.

There were zero state-wide Referendums or Initiatives on the Texas ballot. I don't recollect ever seeing such a thing on a Texas ballot. Are Texas citizens not allowed to collect signatures on a petition  to put an issue on the ballot?

Voting in Texas is very odd. I suspect others who have voted in other states, prior to voting in Texas, have thought the same thing.

The oddest thing, to me, is you really do not get to vote on all that many things on a Texas ballot. Like I already mentioned, no Referendums or Initiatives to vote on, no approving or disapproving of something like legalizing gambling or legalizing marijuana use or legalizing same sex marriage or any other thing or building a bridge or a football stadium or a useless pond and unneeded flood diversion channel.

In Texas you get to vote on an incredible number of judges, most of them Republicans running unopposed. Is this why Texas produces so many judicial embarrassments that amuse and appall the rest of the country?

In Texas you do not get a voter's pamphlet in the mail. In Washington you get a voter's pamphlet in the mail. In that voter's pamphlet you read the pros and cons of all the Initiatives and Referendums and other ballot issues. Plus info and statements from the candidates.

Does Texas not have voter's pamphlets because the majority of the info in it would be about Republican judges running unopposed, with no state wide votes on anything that would require providing info to the voting public?

It is all very perplexing.

The Public Is Notified That A Chunk Of OakLand Lake Park Is Being Converted To Non-Recreational Use

Today I returned to Oakland Lake Park for the first time in what seems a long time, to walk around Fosdick Lake.

Upon entering the park I was greeted by the cockeyed sign you see in the picture, a public notice telling the public park users that....

Approximately .20 acres of parkland at this site is being considered for conversion to non-recreational use.

Two-tenths of an acre is not a very big chunk of land. To what type non-recreational use is this little parcel of parkland being considered for conversion?

Is two-tenths of an acre big enough for a gas drilling pad site?

What other non-recreational use could there be? My feeble imagination draws a blank.

Other than this mysterious PUBLIC NOTICE the walk around Fosdick Lake was very pleasant today. No wind. Dead calm on the lake. Lots of ducks busy floating. Lots of turtles busy sunbathing.

Spencer Jack Is Getting Old, But Not As Old As His Aunt Nancy

That is my great grand nephew, Spencer Jack, you are looking at in the picture.

To create this picture Spencer Jack's dad used a flattering app on his iPhone that 'Oldifys' a person.

In this case Spencer Jack has been oldified to 70 years old. That's older than me.

Yesterday morning there was incoming from Spencer Jack's dad. a  video in the Apple Quicktime .mov format. I don't like how intrusive Apple's Quicktime is when one installs it on ones computer, so I de-installed Quicktime a long time ago.

I replied to Spencer Jack's dad's email explaining my lack of easy Quicktime playing and inquired if this video was something I needed to see and thus worth the bother of converting it to a YouTube video for my viewing pleasure.

Spencer Jack's dad replied back that converting the video to a YouTube video was probably not worth the effort. He then sent another email  with the subject line being "This one may be worth the effort!"

A followup email contained the above picture of the elderly Spencer Jack.

So, logged into Google, then YouTube and uploaded both videos.

I was appalled to see that the one Spencer Jack's dad sent me yesterday was of me aged to 70. The appalling part was I thought I looked more youthful in that video than I do in my present moment reality.

The second video, the one Spencer Jack's dad said "may be worth the effort," was not me being aged. It was Spencer Jack's Aunt Nancy, she being my Big Sister, aged to 70. Or maybe it is 80. That is older than my mom.

I think my big sister will be surprised by how much she will be looking like our sainted mother in a few years....

Running With The Elusive Tandy Hills Roadrunners

In in the picture we are looking north on, I think, Lost Sunglasses Ridge, on one of the Tandy Hills, today around noon

At this location I quickly whipped out my camera, hoping to get a picture of the Roadrunner who was posing about 100 feet from me. But, by the time I got the camera on, aimed and zoomed, the Roadrunner had run away.

I think I may have alluded to the fact, previously, that Roadrunners tend to elude my attempts to successfully photograph the cute birds. Though, I have managed it a couple times.

Speaking of something being alluded to or eluded, just seconds ago someone with the interesting name of Anonymous had some words for me about alluding and eluding, and about my lack of a proper education....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Almost Going Over A Cliff Again In Gateway Park Without Daylight Savings Time": 

Neither the appeal of soccer nor the appeal of disc golf has “alluded” you. What has escaped your grasp are both the meaning of the word “allude” and the correct word choice of “elude.” Did you go to school in Washington state? 

I did go to school in Washington state. A couple of my school years were spent in Special Education. That may explain why allusions elude me.

Now back to the Tandy Hills Roadrunner.

Today I had three Roadrunner encounters. The first was the one I've already mentioned. Then, when the trail I was on junctioned with the Tandy Highway, I saw another Roadrunner. I was very close to this one, but this bird also escaped before I could take a picture.

A short distance later, heading north on the Tandy Highway, I saw the above startling sight. A white truck. It is well known that I have a strong aversion to white trucks.

As I walked by the white truck the truck driver howdied me. I howdied him back. The white truck turned out to be some sort of dump truck with a trailer behind it with a bulldozer type device on the trailer.

Now, here is where my hike today got real surprising. I headed up Mount Tandy, heading back to my motorized vehicular transport, about to the junction with the trail that leads to the summit, near the disheveled Tandy Shrine, when I saw another Roadrunner.

That is 3 Roadrunners in one day on the Tandy Hills. I don't see how these 3 Roadrunners could all be the same runner, particularly the third encounter. I don't think the Roadrunner would have run around the big white truck.

Methinks the hills are becoming alive with the beep beeps of Roadrunners.

Methinking this is further reinforced  by something I read in this month's Tandy Hills Prairie Notes...

"A juvenile Roadrunner, possibly the offspring of our nesting pair, was recently spotted."

So, we have some Roadrunners breeding on the Tandy Hills who have already produced some offspring?

I wonder how large a Roadrunner family the Tandy Hills could support? Should we start sprinkling Roadrunner food on the Tandy Trails?