December 7 May Be A Date That Will Live In Infamy For One River Legacy Jackrabbit

Today is the second day in a row I've had lunch with a friendly armadillo. Actually it is the armadillo who is having lunch, I just watch.

Yesterday's armadillo was at the Village Creek Natural Historical Area, today's was at River Legacy Park, whilst biking the mountain bike trail.

Today's armadillo was more friendly than yesterday's.

It was a rather wild wildlife day at River Legacy today, even before I had lunch with the armadillo.

Not long after I entered the park I was startled by a jackrabbit jackrabbiting at high speed across my path. I was a fraction of a millisecond into being startled by the jackrabbit jackrabbiting when I was even more startled to see a bobcat fast on the jackrabbit's tail.

There was no way I could possibly have been quick enough to get a picture of the bobcat chasing lunch. I hit the brakes and watched the duo disappear into the jungle of trees.

Changing the subject from the ruthless law of the jungle to the odd fact that only minutes ago did I realize that today is that one day of the year that President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated would live in infamy, December 7, Pearl Harbor Day.

And yet, even though this day, due to the unfortunate event 71 years ago, is supposed to live in infamy, I have seen no mention made anywhere, not in the online new sources I look at, not on the radio, not on the cable news, not on the 4 History Channels I get on my TV.

I suppose mentioned has been made about this being Pearl Harbor Day and I missed it.

That, or this day is not nearly as infamous as it used to be. We have had an infamous day, or two, since December 7, 1941. November 22, 1963 comes to mind. As does September 11, 2001.

The Latest Trinity River Vision Update Propaganda

In my mailbox this morning I was overjoyed to find the Volume VII - Issue 11 - Fall 2012 Trinity River Vision Update.

My little brother and my favorite ex-sister-in-law got to visit Russia back when it was still the Soviet Union and the center of the communist world.

I never visited an official communist country where the media is state controlled and propaganda flows unquestioned by the kowtowed citizenry.

And then I moved to Texas. My brother got to go to see Red Square. I've gotten to see Sundance Square. Both well known centers of propaganda.

Reading through this latest TRV Update makes me feel that I actually do get to sort of experience what it was like to live in the Soviet Union, with Pravda propaganda being my main news source.

In the Trinity River Vision's website we get to read what I think must be the Trinity River Vision Mission Statement:

The Trinity River Vision Authority (TRVA) is the organization responsible for the implementation of the Trinity River Vision (TRV) - a master plan for the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas. It is underway now - connecting every neighborhood in the city to the Trinity River corridor with new recreational amenities, improved infrastructure, environmental enhancements and event programming. The TRV will create Trinity Uptown, a vibrant urban waterfront neighborhood, expand Gateway Park into one of the largest urban-programmed parks in the nation and enhance the river corridor with over 90 user-requested projects along the Trinity Trails.

In the above piece of propaganda we read the surprising claim that the TRV has accommodated over 90 user-requested projects along the Trinity Trails?

Really?

What are these projects and who is it that did the requesting and how were the requests made, I can not help but wonder?

In the Trinity River Vision Update Fall 2012 Issue there is the following gem...

"The Trinity River is why we are here. Ironically due to the inherent dangers associated with the river we have never had the chance to build  near it and appreciate it for what it is," said Trinity River Vision Authority Executive Director, J.D. Granger. "As we move forward with Uptown revitalization it's important that we embrace Fort Worth's rich history and show our recognition with a memorial on the banks of the river," he said.

J.D. thinks we've never had a chance to appreciate the river for what it is? As in a ditched waterway that is seriously polluted?

J.D. thinks it is important that we embrace Fort Worth's history with a memorial? Has J.D. never heard of Heritage Park? Just a short distance east of the proposed memorial is an existing memorial to Fort Worth's history and founding, called Heritage Park.

Heritage Park over looks the confluence of the Clear and West Forks of the Trinity River. Heritage Park is a closed, cyclone fence surrounded, deteriorated eyesore that any grown up town wearing its big city pants would not allow to exist in such embarrassing decrepitude.

The memorial, to which J.D. refers, is announced in the headline on the front page of the TRV Update, "New Park Coming to Fort Worth Will Honor Ripley Arnold and John V. McMillan." The article does not refer to this development as a park, except in the headline. Elsewhere it is referred to as a plaza.

I believe that Lenin-like statue you see on the cover of the TRV Update, above, is the Ripley Arnold statue.

Also in the TVR Update we learn that...

The plaza will be located directly behind Tarrant County College Trinity River campus at the confluence of the Clear Fork and the West Fork of the Trinity River.

Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not true that that historic confluence of the Clear and West Forks of the Trinity River, formerly viewed so beautifully from the defunct Heritage Park  will be ruined by the Trinity River Vision if that vision ever becomes clear and actually builds the promised little pond at the location of the confluence?

So, this Ripley Arnold Memorial Plaza, that is being constructed on the north side of the defunct Radio Shack Headquarters, west of the defunct Heritage Park, will be on the shores of what many are already calling Granger Puddle.

And people wonder why I refer to this bizarre public works project, that the public has never voted on, as the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Walking With Village Creek Indian Ghosts Wondering How One Gets Some Legal Washington Marijuana

Today, in the noon timeframe, I was walking with the Indian Ghosts, who haunt Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area, when I heard a familiar rustling noise.

It was an armadillo.

The State Small Mammal of Texas.

This was a big one. I made a noise to catch the foraging critter's attention, which caused it to sort of get on its rear haunches and quickly look around, too quickly for me to get a picture of an armadillo on its haunches before it got back to foraging.

Is an armadillo edible? I have no idea. I remember a restaurant one saw soon upon leaving the freeway, in Woodinville, in Washington, that seemed to indicate armadillo was on the menu, that indication made via text painted on a window. I always assumed this was some sort of joke, the humor of which escaped me.

Speaking of Washington. I knew that today is the day that smoking marijuana became legal in Washington. During lunch I watched coverage of this on CNN. Apparently you can have up to an ounce of pot in your possession. However, it is illegal to sell or grow the weed. I know the state already has medicinal marijuana growers, but that is not were you can get your recreational smoking material.

Very perplexing.

So, even though it is now legal to smoke the stuff in my old home state, there is no way to legally obtain the herb.

In addition to it being illegal to buy marijuana for recreational use, in Washington, it is also illegal to smoke it in public. Which seems a bit odd, to me. The CNN story showed a smoking celebration at the base of the Space Needle. In public. And way back when I still lived in Washington smoking the stuff in public was not all that frowned upon.

Methinks this new law in Washington has opened a can of worms, to coin a phrase (or is this already a cliche?) that may lead to some interesting twists and turns before the legal recreational use of marijuana in Washington situation becomes clear.

Does anyone know what the usual lag time is that it takes one of the non-progressive states to adopt the changes that the progressive states make? I know droopy drawers left Washington sometime back in the last century, while I regular still see that abomination, in Texas, as recently as on the drive to walk with the Indian Ghosts.

Prohibition ended in Washington back in the early 1930s,  while it lingers, in various forms, in Texas,  8 decades later.

My Chesapeake Energy Neighbor Put Up A Fence Before Pumping Corrosive Wet Gas

Two weeks ago  tomorrow, that being Thanksgiving morning, I blogged at blogging titled A Thanksgiving Morning Gas Pipeline Warning From Chesapeake Energy about being sort of appalled that a newly installed Chesapeake gasworks in my neighborhood was totally unsecured by any sort of fencing, wall or guard.

Yesterday (or was it the day before?) I noticed a lot of activity around the aforementioned gasworks. And now, as you can see in the picture, a fence surrounds this particular gasworks, with an angled row of barbed wire at the top.

This particular unwanted neighbor seems slightly more safe now.

But.

I finally got around to reading last week's cover article in Fort Worth Weekly, titled What Runs Beneath: More than 700 miles of pipelines carrying corrosive gas run under Fort Worth — but no one’s sure exactly where.

You want a really good example of why Fort Worth's Watchdog, Don Young, calls Fort Worth "Dirty Ol' Town" this article will provide it to you.

I was appalled to learn that this incompetently run backwater of a mismanaged town is so inept it has allowed hundreds upon hundreds of miles of natural gas pipeline to be laid underground with no record made of location, shut off valves, flow direction.

Nothing.

And then to learn, via FW Weekly, that the gas that will flow from my neighborhood Chesapeake Energy gas wells is what is known as "Wet Gas", as in gas that still has fracking liquid mixed in, with no odor added to make a leak detectable, well, I was even more appalled.

Apparently "Wet Gas" is very corrosive. Eventually pipes carrying this gas will rupture, with a potential big boom.

If, or when, Fort Worth gets its big natural gas boom, not in the form of illusive royalties, but in the form of a massive, deadly explosion, in the resulting lawsuits, when it comes out how negligent the city was regarding all the holes poked in its town and all the miles of pipeline laid underground, well, the town may be forced to sell itself to the highest bidder to pay off the enormous damage claims.

I really think Aubrey McClendon should be banned from bidding, all things considered.

Gateway Park Red Flags Keep Me From Cliff Diving While Thinking About Not Seeing David, Theo & Ruby In Phoenix Tomorrow

In the picture my mountain bike's handlebars are on a Gateway Park mountain bike trail, aiming at the Trinity River, facing a lot of little red flags.

Right above the right side of my handlebar the Trail direction sign has been turned to point the wrong direction.

Why?

I don't know.

I turned the Trail direction sign to point the correct direction, thus a correction of the erroneous misdirection.

And what's with all the little red flags blocking the trail spur that quickly leads to a flying leap off a cliff into the Trinity River?

Has there been an uptick in the number of mountain bikers who have made a wrong turn and ended up swimming with the turtles? Seems like a lot of bother to stick a lot of little red flags in the ground, unless one had a really good reason to do so. Like stopping accidental cliff diving.

Mountain biking around noon was my first aerobic activity of the day. I did not go swimming this morning. However, I did go swimming last night.

I can be quite dense. Really it's true. A couple days ago the obvious reality that the pool is way warmer at the end of a warm day than it is after the end of a cool night, occurred to me. The day this reality occurred to me happened to be one of the 80 degree plus days we've had of late. Testing my new theory, that night, quickly proved the theory to be true, so I had myself a really long, really pleasant swim, in the dark.

Changing the subject to something else.

Up til a month or so ago I thought it to be a sure thing that I'd be heading to Phoenix this week, to meet my nephews, David and Theo and niece, Ruby, for the first time. However, a series of relative aggravations of varying degrees caused me to decide to stay in Texas until some time in 2013.

Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. Has Invited Me To A Sundance Square Plaza Open House

This afternoon I finally got my invitation from Downtown Forth Worth, Inc. to tomorrow's Open House featuring the Sundance Square Plaza.

I have no idea what this means.

I have been aware for some time that downtown Fort Worth's Sundance Square was finally going to have a Square, after years of confusing tourists with signs pointing to the non-existent Sundance Square, with the bizarre explanation given those who asked, that Sundance Square was the name for the downtown area of Fort Worth that had been revitalized from its previous craptacularness.

A lot of people assumed that downtown Fort Worth's parking lots were Sundance Square. Most big city downtown's do not have big parking lots, what with open parcels of land being so valuable for other uses.

Like high rise skyscrapers. Or resident towers. Or vertical shopping malls. Or downtown department stores.

Now, what I am wondering about this Open House for the Sundance Square Plaza, is this what the long promised actual Square is going to be called?

Sundance Square Plaza?

Will the odd "Sundance Square" verbiage still be used to describe the down area that had been revitalized from its previous craptacularness?

Methinks the term "Sundance Square" should be dropped as the descriptor for Fort Worth's downtown core, with the term "Sundance Square" applied solely to the new plaza.

And thus end the decades of confusing the few lost souls who choose to be tourists in downtown Fort Worth.

The Open House is tomorrow, December 5, from 4 til 6 in the afternoon, at the Norris Conference Center at 304 Houston Street in beautiful downtown Fort Worth.

Is the Norris Conference Center in Sundance Square Plaza, I can't help but wonder? I guess I could find that out if I attend this Open House to which I have been invited....

Apparently Many Believe A New Bridge Will Be A Signature Feature Of Fort Worth's Skyline

It appears the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is once again allowing online readers to read their newspaper without having an online subscription. I suspect the initiation of the online subscription saw a precipitous drop in numbers of readers, and thus what could be charged for online advertisements and thus the return of being able to read the online version without a subscription.

I learned that I was back empowered to read the Star-Telegram when I clicked on a headline that intrigued me on the front page.

The headline that intrigued me is "Fort Worth's newest bridge going up while traffic flows."

Turns out the bridge in question is the new West 7th Street Bridge that crosses the Trinity River from the downtown Fort Worth zone to the pretentiously named Cultural District.

The blurb on the front page included the following...

In a dirt field just west of downtown Fort Worth, a giant gantry crane is being used to hoist freshly cured concrete and steel arches into an upright position. Here, the pieces of what many believe will be a new signature feature of Fort Worth's skyline -- the new West Seventh Street bridge.

Can you guess what part of the above blurb caught my eye?

If you guessed that it was "what many believe will be a new signature feature of Fort Worth's skyline" you guessed correctly.

This seems to be a variant of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Green with Envy verbiage, where the Star-Telegram informs its readers that some perfectly pedestrian thing in Fort Worth is making other towns, far and wide, Green with Envy.

The Star-Telegram's Green with Envy verbiage seems to have been laughed out of existence.

One of the reasons I was so appalled at the bizarre Green with Envy Star-Telegram declarations was I wondered how it was that the Star-Telegram determined that other towns were Green with Envy about something in Fort Worth. That is just really, obviously, goofy.

And now I am wondering how it is the Star-Telegram determined that "many" believe this new bridge will be a signature feature of Fort Worth's skyline? That just seems to be another really, obviously, goofy thing to claim.

Now, that is not to suggest that this bridge won't be a signature feature of Fort Worth's skyline. Lord knows the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth could use a signature feature. One that actually made other towns Green with Envy would be a really good thing.

Judging by the artist's renderings I saw in today's Star-Telegram (one of which is below) if these renderings even remotely represent what this bridge is going to look like, I can see where this bridge might add a long needed signature feature to downtown Fort Worth's skyline.

Time will tell if this bridge makes other towns, far and wide, Green with Envy...

Are You Killing A Tree For Christmas This Year?

Continuing with this blog's ongoing Happy Holiday Theme.

Until I run out of material.

This morning I voted in a poll I saw in my old hometown newspaper, the Skagit Valley Herald, which asked the terribly serious question, "Which Christmas tree are you most likely to have this year?'

The way this question was asked seemed a bit awkward to me. For the answers the poll was soliciting for it might have been more accurate to simply ask "Where are you getting your Christmas tree this year?"

The options in this important poll were "Live tree from store", "Cut my own tree", "Artificial tree" and "No tree".

As you can see, via the small print at the bottom of the poll, chart I voted "No tree".

It is odd to me that one of the options is not "Buy tree from local tree farm", due to the fact that there are a lot of Christmas tree farms in the Skagit Valley and in other locations all over Western Washington.

Every year, at Krogers, I see Christmas trees for sale that have been shipped all the way from Western Washington. Those trees always smell like home to me.

The fact that Krogers would ship trees over 2,000 miles sort of tells me there must be no Christmas tree farms in Texas, which seems totally ridiculous to me. Surely there are Christmas tree farms in the Piney Woods Region of East Texas?

The first time I saw  the Piney Woods Region I was very surprised by how much it looked like much of Western Washington looks, as in, hilly with evergreen trees.

I vaguely recollect reading somewhere about someone harvesting a Christmas tree from the Tandy Hills. I think this may have been part of some prototype experiment. Harvesting a few Tandy Hills trees to test the viability of them passing for Christmas trees.

However, I have not read of any Tandy Plan to sell cutting rights to marked Christmas trees on the Tandy Hills, selling them to both raise some funds for the Tandy Hills and to eliminate some of those nasty unnatural invasive species that have inserted  themselves on the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

A Closed Fort Worth Road Almost Sent Me Over A Cliff In Gateway Park

Today, around noon, I exited my abode and headed towards Gateway Park to do me some mountain bike riding.

My route to the north entry to Gateway Park is driving west on Randol Mill Road. About a half mile past Oakland Boulevard my route on Randol  Mill Road was suddenly blocked with a barrier and a "Road Closed Ahead" sign.

The "Road Closed Ahead" sign seemed a bit stupid, due to the fact that the road was closed at the point where the sign sat, not at some amorphous distance "ahead".

Why was this "Road Closed Ahead" sign not stuck on the road by Oakland Boulevard? Thus saving me some unnecessary gas burning.

I turned around, headed back to Oakland Boulevard, headed south up the hill on Oakland, then got on the I-30 freeway to head west to the Beach Street exit.

Rather than take the Beach Street entry into Gateway Park I opted to see if I could get to the north entry, off Randol Mill, prior to more blockage forcing another turnaround. This worked, I was able to enter the park from the north entrance and I could see that something was being done to the bridge over the Trinity River, thus the closed road.

Eventually I was pedaling the mountain bike trail, where, on Saturday, I had been assaulted by benevolent Zombies. I got to the part of the trail that was sort of near Randol Mill Road. At that point I always follow the mountain bike trail directional trail, but today I opted to take a trail that heads northeast where the mountain bike trail heads south. I have always noticed this perfectly good looking trail, figured it was not for mountain bikers, but was instead for the use of the disc golfers.

Eventually I found myself looking directly at the closed Randol Mill Road bridge across the Trinity River, which you can see below.

My powers of observation are very limited. I was unable to ascertain what was being done to the bridge that caused its closure.

Since the trail I was pedaling seemed to be a perfectly fine mountain bike trail, I continued on, soon to find myself more horrified than I was on Saturday from my Zombie encounter.

At a turn in the trail I suddenly found myself facing the big red ribbon you see above. The big red ribbon served as a "STOP" warning. As in stop and make sure you want to continue. Because from that point on, for as far as I could see, the trail was right on the edge of the cliff drop off into the turtle infested Trinity River.

Yes, I saw dozens upon dozens of turtles when I looked over the cliff, with the turtles doing log jumping into the river when they detected my presence.

I opted to not continue on this treacherous section of trail, so I turned around and went the way I came.

All in all I had myself a fine bike ride today.

This Morning Spencer Jack Wished Me Merry Christmas

Keeping with my ongoing Happy Holidays Theme, what with this being my favorite time of the year, other than all the other times of the year, this morning Spencer Jack sent his Uncle Durango a Merry Christmas wish via a video sent from Spencer Jack's iPhone.

Or, maybe it was sent from Spencer Jack's dad's iPhone.

I am technically challenged and so am not sure about such things.