Who Is Helping A Needy Family This Holiday Season Besides Me?

Janice Providing Needy Holiday Needs

I know I am all about celebrating this holiday season, but that is not really what this particular blogging is about.

Yesterday I got email from Spencer Jack's dad, he being my Favorite Nephew Jason.

Below is the email from my nephew with a link to an article in my old hometown newspaper...

I noticed a picture of one of your old girlfriends in today's Skagit Valley Herald. She is delivering food, gift cards, bags of oranges and potatoes to the needy. The article didn't mention anything about delivering a Smart Car to a needy uncle.   

I guess the news that I asked Santa for a Smart Car has been widely broadcast.

The "old" girlfriend to which my nephew refers is Janice. I do not think Janice would much appreciate being referred to as "old". Janice has not aged a day in decades. A fact that regularly annoys those who have.

Janice's current husband is the eccentric best selling author of a historical novel titled Vis Major, all about the Wellington Disaster, early in the last century, in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state.

In addition to being a best selling author, Janice's current husband's other eccentricities include being a Civil War buff and having a fetish like attraction to trains.

Janice's current husband's Civil War buffness manifests itself in him having one of the world's longest handlebar mustaches and by only taking black and white photographs, in an attempt, I think, to emulate Matthew Brady. The train fetish manifests itself via things like spending hours outside a train tunnel in the Cascade Mountains waiting to take a black and white photo of an emerging train.

I am amazed Janice finds the time to deliver goodies to the needy and still manage to attend Civil War Re-Enactments and train vigils.

And, Jason, one more thing, you need to tell Janice you are very sorry for saying she is old.

Hiking In The Tandy Hills Sunset Twilight

Late this afternoon I decided I really do not get enough exercise, so I drove to the summit of Mount Tandy and had myself a real fine time doing some twilight hill hiking.

As you can see in the picture, looking west across the wagon train trail that heads from Mount Tandy towards the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth, the sun is setting to the south of downtown.

Hiking the Tandy Hills while the sun goes down has the hills looking totally different than they do under the bright glare of a noonday sun.

I rather like it.

I may have to see what a sunrise looks like on the Tandy Hills.

Christmas Off To A Rocky Start With Ruby & Theo Terrorized By Jolly Red Giant

I don't know what my nephew David was thinking, taking his high strung little sister and brother, the twins, Ruby & Theo, to sit on the lap of a stranger dressed like a big, red, bearded monster.

David looks quite pleased and not at all concerned that his siblings are in hysterics.

I have no details regarding the final outcome of this apparent debacle. All the poodles, Blue & Max, shared, was the photographic evidence of the terrorized twins.

After A Lot Of Hard Work My Christmas Decorations Are Finally Festive

In the blogging previous to this current blogging I mentioned that I had finished with the task of installing my Christmas decorations.

Well, Christmas decoration would be more precise.

Bart Simpson, sitting on my fireplace mantle, serves as my Christmas tree, upon which I hang my one and only Christmas tree ornament, a Christmas stocking tree ornament crocheted by my grandma back in the last century.

I have never had a Christmas tree in any of the domiciles I have inhabited in all the years since I became the master of my own domain.

My lack of Christmas decorating vexed my mom when I lived in Mount Vernon. The house had flat roofs, three of them, two of which were easily accessed via doors. My mom felt it was some sort of sacrilege that I did not string up Christmas lights, what with it being so easy to do on my flat roofed house.

One year, around Thanksgiving, my mom brought over boxes of Christmas lights. She'd bought new ones and was giving me her old ones, thinking this somehow made it inexcusable for me not to put up the lights.

The boxes of lights stayed in their boxes. I don't remember what became of those Christmas lights.

Cranking Pedals Looking For Christmas Decorations In Interlochen

I don't remember when I last took my handlebars on a pedaling excursion. Was it Gateway Park? I don't remember.

But I do remember taking my handlebars to the Village Creek Natural Historical Area today to do some pedaling with the Indian Ghosts who haunt this area.

In the picture those are the aforementioned handlebars on the overlook that looks over the Village Creek Blue Bayou.

There were quite a few people out among the ghosts today. I think the ideal temperature causes an amp up in physical activity among those who are not so inclined when the temperature is 20 or 30 degrees hotter.

Right now the outer world at my location, according to my computer based temperature monitoring device, is 2 degrees shy of 70. This would be considered a hot summer day at my former location in the Pacific Northwest.

Today I pedaled out of the Village Creek Natural Historical  Area zone into the Interlochen zone,  pedaling on the Bob Findlay Linear Park trail.

Interlochen is known for its over the top Christmas displays. I did not see much evidence of over the top Christmas displays in Interlochen today. But, I only saw the houses one sees from the Linear Park trail. I'm sure other areas of Interlochen are in over the top Christmas decoration mode.

I've got all my Christmas decorations totally installed. My Christmas decorations consist of a little crocheted Christmas stocking my grandma made for me a long, long time ago. I hang it on my Bart Simpson Christmas tree.

I should take a picture of my Christmas decoration. I'll hit the publish button and go do that.

I Had To Resort To Word Captcha To Ward Off Incoming Russians

On the left you are looking at a screen capture of Outlook Express and just a few of the incoming emails. Email gets checked automatically every 15 minutes.

For the past couple weeks each batch of incoming emails been flooded with dozens upon dozens of spam emails.

Mostly Russian.

The source of this incoming email spam is the very blog you are looking at right now. When someone makes a blog comment Google sends me an email so I can moderate the comment.

Up til a couple weeks ago Google's Blogger spam comment filter has worked flawlessy. I don't recollect any time, previous to this current nightmare, where Google's Blogger stuck a spam in the 'Awaiting Moderation' folder.

Google's Blogger nuisance comment filter worked so well it even knew to stick the psychotic rantings of the sociopath known as Fubbo the Butt into the spam folder, sparing my sensitive eyes from being subjected to that particular psychotic sociopath's ranting.

My other blogs are getting hit by this new spam nuisance, but not nearly to the level this Durango Texas blog is getting hit with. Other Google Blogger blogs, which I help with, are also getting hit with spam comments showing up in the 'Awaiting Moderation' folder.

To put a stop to the current problem of spam flooding this blog's comments, this morning I enabled the annoying Word Captcha device. You see a screen cap of that below.

Google's Blogger's version of Word Captcha is particularly annoying. As you can see above, it is telling me to 'Type the two words'. Do you see two words? I don't.

Gar the Texan has long had the annoying Word Captcha thing enabled. It makes making a comment on his blog to be a bit of a pain. I suspect he intends this result, trying to cut down on the huge number of blog comments his musings generate.

Enabling this Word Captcha thing instantly fixed the spam flood problem. I'll give it a week and then get rid of the Word Captcha and hope the spam comments problem does not start up again.

I am not overly optimistic, but I am assuming Google is aware of the problem and is working to fix it.

The Long Shadow Of The Tandy Hills Thin Man And An Anonymous Crank

That is the Long Shadow of the Tandy Hills Thin Man waving at you this afternoon from atop the Tandy Escarpment above Dry Tandy Falls.

I was late today to get my daily dose of salubrious endorphins, due to a doctor's visit up north in the town of Hurst, this morning.

When I got to the top of Mount Tandy, this afternoon, I was blocked from my usual parking place by two ladies walking three dogs.

I took this upset in my regular parking routine as a bad omen.

However, nothing bad happened, so, once again, I saw a bad omen where none existed.

I sort of preferred the late afternoon hiking to the noonday, sun directly overhead, hiking. With the sun only an hour or two from disappearing for the day, the long shadows make for a mostly shady Tandy Hills.

I came upon another of those new Tandy Hills Signposts today. This one directed hikers to the Roadrunner and Sun Trails. If I am reading the Hieroglyphics correctly.

A couple days ago I mentioned my slight perplexation regarding the new Tandy Hills Signposts. This prompted someone named Anonymous to make an interesting comment...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Walking Over A Field Of Broken Glass On The Tandy Hills While Pondering Signposts & Sociopaths":

Directions to the Roadrunner & Sun Trails

I don't like the signposts. First, they are not wood, yet they are cast to resemble wood, a deception which always annoys me, and more so when I am out in what purports to be a 'natural' area. Second, the glyphs, as you point out, are indeed too cryptic. They soon will be forced to erect a huge plastic-that-looks-like-stone Rosetta Stone to help decipher all of the post glyphs. Can you imagine trying to give instructions? Go past the post with the sprig of something on it until you see the post with the raptor (or is it a roadrunner?) on it, and then turn right and roll down the hill until you see the post with the something about a sun on it.

And of course as your sighting of the new sea of littered glass proves, the more posts and people you encourage into a natural area, the more the area begins to resemble the environment from which it is supposed to provide refuge.

Yours in crankiness.

Everyone knows I am a humongous fan of crankiness, especially well articulated crankiness.

I know the Tandy Hills Signposts are some kid's Eagle Scout project.  I am sure he means well.

Don't You Be Jeering Us Over-Patriotic Americans

Yesterday I got a feedback email from my Eyes on Texas website from a person who I think lives in Calgary, Alberta.

Alberta is a province of a country called Canada. I point that out for anyone who is over the top America-centric and is unaware of the country that is on the other side of America's northern border.

The reason I think the Canadian emailer is from Calgrary is he has an unique name, Brandon Uptigrove. In Facebook I stuck Brandon Uptigrove into the search window and two Brandon Uptigrove entries came up, one in Canada, one in Oklahoma.

It was via Brandon Uptigrove's email that I gleaned he was a Canadian. Below is what Brandon Uptigrove said in his email...

You can mock and jeer the over-patriotic Americans, but they're usually the first ones to jump in front of a bullet if it means preserving your freedom.  I wish we had more men like that in Canada.

I have no idea what on my Eyes on Texas website caused Brandon Uptigrove to opine the above. Maybe it was my America's Team webpage which sort of mocks how the Dallas Cowboys seem to cling to the ancient myth that they are America's Team.

As for Brandon Uptigrove wishing Canada had more bullet loving men, well, I know America loves its wars, to the point that we hardly ever are without at least one, however, I believe that Canada was fighting in both World War I and World War II long before America joined those wars to bring them to a winning conclusion for the good guys.

I remember watching the show in one of the Canadian pavilions at Vancouver's Expo 86, a show that was devoted to Canadian history. A few of the names were vaguely familiar to me.

Suffice to say, Canada does not quite have a historic legacy that is on a par with America's. There is no Canadian version of Uncle Sam. No Canadian leader who resonates through time like Abraham Lincoln.

Canada has no Statue of Liberty, which seems odd, since it was the French who gave America the Statue of Liberty. It would seem only fair, since Canada has much stronger ties to France than America does, that the French would have given Quebec a Statue of Liberty.

The closest Canada has ever come to a Civil War was when Quebec was in heavy duty pout mode, thinking the French Canadians were being slighted. I think that Civil War was averted by agreeing to add French to every public Canadian pronouncement, which can be really annoying when you are at any Canadian event and have to hear everything twice, once in English, once in French.

Canada has had no equivalent of Elvis Presley. And then when a sort of Elvis type Canadian phenomenon happens, in the form of little Justin Bieber, Bieber moves to America, to Los Angeles, and by the time he is a world wide celebrity most of the world thinks he is American. I know I did til I learned otherwise.

And now the Canadians boo Justin when he returns to Canada acting way too American by dressing way too casually when meeting whoever it is who is Canada's current Prime Minister or Premier or whatever it is they call their president. I used to remember these type things and know who is the current leader of Canada and Mexico and all sorts of other countries.

Currently I think I can only name the leader of America, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany, Egypt, Israel, Syria and North Korea.

I am woefully ignorant.

I Have Done Just About All The Holiday Shopping That I Am Going To Do

Continuing yesterday's Happy Holiday Theme, today I voted in a holiday shopping poll in the online version of my old hometown newspaper, the Skagit Valley Herald.

Years of reading a small town newspaper of high quality, like the Skagit Valley Herald, may have contributed to my bad reaction to much of what I read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram upon first exposure.

Example, back some time in the 1990s, a legit entity, which makes those ranking type lists, named Mount Vernon as the #1 Small City in America.

CNN showed up. There was no city-wide celebration. The Skagit Valley Herald did not opine that being #1 on this list was making other cities, far and wide, green with envy.

Meanwhile, a bogus Washington, D.C. lobbying group, supporting the Urban Village concept, named Fort Worth one of the most livable cities in America. Neither CNN or any other legit news source showed up. Fort Worth had a city-wide celebration and the Star-Telegram opined that other cities, far and wide, were green with envy.

Back to the subject of voting in an online poll. The question was "When do you start holiday shopping?"

The choices were, "About now", "I start early", "Last minute" and "I don't shop for the holidays".

As you can see via the chart above, I voted "I don't shop for the holidays".

Apparently, according to the voting, I am not alone in being a Scrooge. Maybe it has something to do with the Skagit Valley that made me into such a bah humbug sort this time of year.

Today, rather than going walking at any of my regular walking haunts I decided to go to Walmart and get my endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation via pushing a loaded shopping cart whilst pretending to be a Holiday Shopper.

It was exhilarating and did not cost me a single penny.

Except for the almost $20 spent on stuff that had nothing to do with Holiday Shopping.

Spencer Jack's Christmas Tree Has Me Thinking About Driving To California

Spencer Jack's Christmas Tree

I saw on Facebook this morning that Spencer Jack has now installed his 2012 Christmas tree. In the picture, that is Spencer Jack on the right, topping out the tree, which would make the Christmas tree that gaudy item on the left.

Either Spencer Jack has had a big growth spurt since I saw him in Arizona in March, or Spencer chopped down a rather short Christmas tree.

Where Spencer Jack lives, in the town of Mount Vernon, in the Skagit Valley of Washington, one can drive up into the mountains to a Christmas tree cutting zone, where, if you have the proper permit, you can cut down a tree.

Where I currently live, in the town of Fort Worth, in the Trinity Valley of Texas, there are no mountains to drive up to to cut a Christmas tree. I have read reports of Christmas tree harvesting occurring on the Tandy Hills, but I suspect these are just unsubstantiated rumors.

The time of year known as the Holiday Season is not my favorite time of the year. As far back as my memory goes I have not had much fondness for the Holidays. It starts off okay with Halloween. I always had fun as a kid at Halloween.

Then comes Thanksgiving. This particular holiday has been relative free ever since I moved to Texas. I never much enjoyed the big Thanksgiving dinners with a lot of relatives.

And then comes Christmas. I was disillusioned with Christmas at a very young age. I had been misled to believe that one told Santa what one wanted for Christmas and what one wanted would magically appear.

This never quite worked out the way I expected. By the time I was 6 or 7 I refused to have anything to do with Santa because he'd lost all credibility with me.

And I have never been a fan of candy, so being bribed with a candy cane had no effect on my anti-Santa Claus feelings.

The only part of Christmas I vaguely remember liking was the hunt for our Christmas stockings on Christmas morning. That was fun.

The large family gathering of relatives at Christmas was something I did not much enjoy. I endured it up through my teenage years, and then, by the time I was in my 20s, I'd  find a reason to be gone for the latter part of the Holiday Season. Usually a roadtrip to Southern California, with a long stop in Reno on the way.

The last Christmas related roadtrip escape from Washington occurred Christmas of 1994.

I got to Disneyland the day before Christmas Eve. Stayed in a hotel right across from Disneyland.

Christmas Eve went to Knott's Berry Farm and had Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner.

Christmas day was spent in Disneyland, til closing. Strangest, funnest day ever at Disneyland. The attendance record was broken. Some of the food vendors ran out of supplies. The guide on the Jungle Cruise turned into a crazy man after he confirmed there were no kids on board.

The days after Christmas were spent driving around the Los Angeles zone. Went to the Nixon Presidential Library.

A few days before New Year's Eve took off for Las Vegas. The freeway was jammed so took backroads til rejoining the freeway somewhere around Barstow. In Vegas there were no rooms at the decent inns, so ended up staying two nights in the Vegas 6 Motel from Hell. Biggest 6 Motel in the World.

After Vegas it was on to Flagstaff, going to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon the next day. Snow on the ground. Had not seen snow on the ground at the Grand Canyon before. Two years later I would find myself stuck in a log cabin on the North Rim watching a blizzard pile up snow.

After Grand Canyon it was across the Painted Desert to Monument Valley, then past Mexican Hat where I saw the San Juan Inn, a place I was to return to a few days before being stuck in the aforementioned blizzard.

New Year's Eve took place in Moab, Utah. One of my favorite places on the planet. The next day, New Year's Day of 1995, hiked all over Arches National Park, and then drove into Canyonlands National Park, ending up at Islands in the Sky, looking down to the canyon below, seeing mountain bikers and resolving to get a mountain bike and return.

The return, with a mountain bike, took place two years later.

Leaving the Moab zone, the night of New Year's Day was spent in Salt Lake City, next night in La Grange, Oregon, then home to Mount Vernon.

I have no idea why it was that I preferred the roadtrip holiday option to the relative type holiday option.

Very perplexing.