Lawsuit Filed Regarding TRWD Election Shenanigans

Some of the shenanigans of the Tarrant Regional Water District Board are finally being dealt with.

Shenanigans like fiddling with elections. That type thing.

A pair of Tarrant Regional Residents, John Basham and Darlia Hobbs, have filed a lawsuit regarding the TRWD shenanigans.

Fort Worth Weekly has an article on this subject titled Residents Sue Tarrant Regional Water District.

That article contains a link to the lawsuit document. However, currently, that link in the FW Weekly article does not link to the correct file.

However, you can read the lawsuit document by clicking on the image you see in this blog post.

I suspect this lawsuit is not going to go well for the TRWD, no better than their recent failed foray into the United States Supreme Court....

Looking For A Missing Pink Poodle & Chinese Buffets With BBQ Chicken Pickled Ginger Pizza

Today I did not feel like driving anywhere to get myself some endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation, via walking, hiking or biking, due to the fact that I got myself plenty of endorphins mountain biking yesterday and this morning, swimming, before dawn til well after the sun arrived.

I needed an item one gets at a grocery store, so, with Albertsons being across the street, I walked there, but not fast enough to induce any endorphins.

On the way to Albertsons I came upon a missing poodle poster tacked to a pole. The photo of the missing poodle makes her appear to be pink, but the description says she is golden light brown. Maybe she looks pink in certain types of light.

Miss Puerto Rico refused to eat at a Chinese food buffet across the street from the pink poodle poster because she was convinced this restaurant was responsible for the area's missing dogs. Miss Puerto Rico is prone to irrational thinking and superstition. I think this may be a relic of her years of being an island girl.

The Chinese food buffet Miss Puerto Rico refused to eat at has been out of business for a year or more. This restaurant was originally called Super Asia Buffet, then around the time the Super Bowl came to town, well, the town to the east, the Super Asia Buffet changed its name to Super Bowl Buffet.

Very clever. And now it's gone.

The Super Bowl Buffet was my favorite Chinese food buffet of all those I have been to in the Dallas/Fort Worth zone.

A few weeks ago I realized I currently know of no Chinese food buffets. The original one I discovered soon after moving to Texas, the Great Wall in Bedford, has been closed for a long time.

A few years ago another Chinese buffet opened in Bedford, which I liked, but can not remember the name of. It closed soon after the economy tanked in 2008.

On Sunday I noticed that the Chinese buffet which opened a few years ago next to the Walmart Neighborhood Market in Pantego is no more. I never sampled that one.

There must still be Chinese food buffets in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Unknown to me.

All this Chinese food buffet talk has made me hungry. Time for lunch. BBQ chicken pickled ginger pizza. I'm experimenting...

Uneventful Mountain Biking In Gateway Park With A Green River & Pickled Ginger

I think I neglected to mention that yesterday I went mountain biking with the Indian Ghosts who haunt Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

I likely neglected to mention yesterday's bike ride because it was uneventful, except for those always playful  Indian Ghosts.

Today's mountain bike ride in Gateway Park was also uneventful. And totally Indian Ghost-free.

As you can see, despite the drought, the Trinity River appears to be flowing with some sort of green liquid that may be water.

Meanwhile, down south, near Austin in the Hill Country region of Texas, the Texas Highland Lakes are drying up due to the Great Texas Drought.

We need the wet remnants of a hurricane, or two, soon.

Meanwhile, back at Gateway Park.

After I finished with 3 times around the mountain bike trail I was off to Town Talk to get cheese, tortillas and found myself a HUGE 5 pound jar of pickled ginger. I like pickled ginger. But, 5 pounds?

I guess I need to figure out how to make sushi...

Haltom City's Layla Caraway In Celebrity Trending News With Bruce Jenner

On August 10 I blogged about an advertisement I was surprised to find in Fort Worth Weekly which divulged details about Miss Layla Caraway which were previously unknown to me.

Now this afternoon I was surprised to learn that a website entity, Celebrity Balla, devoted to celebrities and their various shenanigans, had picked up on the Layla Caraway celebrity news in an article whose title you can see above in a screencap from the detailed article.

I did not know, til reading this new information, how strong the relationship is between Miss Caraway and Bruce Jenner. I knew Bruce's marriage to world class shrew, Kris Kardashian Jenner, was in trouble, with long suffering Bruce relegated to the garage.

I may have to set my DVR to record Keeping up with the Kardashians to see if Miss Layla Caraway shows up in that soap opera.

I know Miss Layla Caraway fairly well and I really truly do not understand where she finds the time to get herself in to these type celebrity situations.

Very perplexing....

A Blobfish Sent To Texas From The Pacific Northwest

This afternoon one of my emailers from up near the Canadian border emailed me the piece of art you see to the left and asked the question, "Remind you of anyone?"

Well, years ago I blogged about this very thing, asking the very same question, because this sea creature, known as a blobfish, does bear an uncanny resemblance to a particular Pacific Northwest land creature of dubious distinction and eventual extinction.

The ill-fated blobfish is also fated for extinction. The place blobfish call home is deep underwater off the coasts of Australia and Tasmania.

Just like the PNW land version of the blobfish, the Australian version is made up mostly of gelatinous tissue, with a mass slightly less than water. This allows the blobfish to float slightly above the sea floor without expending much energy. Basically the blobfish barely moves while it sits with its mouth open waiting for dinner to swim in.

Deep sea bottom trawling is what has the blobfish facing extinction.

I do not know if any blobfish have been successfully transferred to any of the world's aquariums. If I knew an aquarium had a blobfish, in house, I'd be prone to visiting.

Below is a collage of some of the blobfish images one sees when one Google's 'blobfish"..........

Has This Neurotic Crazy Houston Walmart Cop Been Fired & Sued?

The above video was YouTubed on April 2, 2012, around the same time the world became aware of the Treyvon Martin killing by rent-a-cop, George Zimmerman. The above incident happened at a Houston Walmart.

Watching the video I was appalled that anyone in any type of law enforcement position could be so blatantly ignorant as to what is okay and not okay for a cop to be doing. Yet this type dumb cop thing happens over and over again, all over America. What type training do cops receive? How do they get their cop license whilst being so ignorant about the basic right of citizens to be free from this type police abuse?

I gleaned 3 comments from the 100s upon 100s of reactions to what people saw in this video. The first comment is from a lawyer...

Whether he was motivated by race or not (which is really a guess, given the video), the officer was very much in the wrong. Without reasonable suspicion that they have committed a crime, he cannot force them to provide ID or detain them (see where he says they're not free to leave—this is false imprisonment). Further, his pulling of a taser and advancing is likely an assault (although not a battery). In short, if they want to take the officer to task, they could sue.

Does anyone know if the victims of this crime found themselves a lawyer who went after the cop, the security firm which hired him. And Walmart?

Another comment...

This is horrible and ridiculous!!! I worked as an officer several years ago and this is simply another instance where a coward with a badge is intimidated by young black men. I tell my college age sons often to avoid police & rent-a-cops when ever possible. Many security personnel are racists with authority issues and they profile young men of color. Anybody with good sense can see that he was out of line.

And this optimistic comment....

The security officer wanted to attack the young men with a taser and then proceed with a citizen's arrest, no doubt Walmart has not only had this guy fired from whatever security service they where using when he was posted at this specific location but I am sure they canceled their contract with the security company he worked with.

The above commenter assumed Truth, Justice and the American Way prevailed and that this cop was held accountable for his bad behavior.

I am not as optimistic.

Does anyone know what happened in this cop abuse case, post April 2, 2012?

Hiking With Maxine To A North Cascades Hidden Lake While In Texas

No, that is not yet one more view of Fort Worth's Tandy Hills you are looking at in the picture.

What you are looking at is Maxine, in front of Hidden Lake, that being that turquoise body of water, with some of the mountains of North Cascade National Park in the background.

This time of year Maxine goes on a hike, or two, every weekend, weather permitting.

When I got this Monday morning's weekend hiking report and read that Maxine had hiked to Hidden Lake I was not quite sure if I remembered which hike that one was, though it seemed familiar.

So, I looked at the webpage I'd made about the Cascade Mountains and saw the photo below and the accompanying text which clearly brought back the memory of the Hidden Lake Hike.

Maxine said when her hiking group reached the part of the hike that continued on up a pointy peak on which sits a lookout that only one hiker tried to reach the lookout, but gave up when vertigo caused too much dizziness.

Now, I am a bit acrophobic, but I do not remember hiking to that lookout to be at all vertigo inducing. But, it was likely 20 years go, give or take a year, that I last saw this location. It could have changed. Below is me, laying down on a granite slab, below the Hidden Lake lookout, in the same location as Maxine, above, albeit with me at a slightly higher elevation.

Maxine's other hike, this week, was to the Park Butte Lookout, accessed from Schrieber's Meadow on the south side of the Mount Baker volcano.

Well, getting to the Park Butte Lookout I do remember making me nervous, with being in the lookout being vertigo inducing, what with it perched on a pointy pinnacle, with a steep drop off on one side, which regularly haunts my nightmares. Then again, who knows how accurately I remember this? My nightmares about Park Butte may have altered the memory.

Anyway.

It strikes me as indicative of the sad state to which I have fallen, that today I went hiking on some rather nondescript hills, seeing scenery that, quite honestly, really is not all that scenic, while just a few years ago, when I lived in Washington, I could drive a few miles to the east and experience real mountains and scenery the likes of which you see above and go on an 8 mile round trip hike with a 3,400 foot elevation gain.

I really need to move back to Washington. Then again, there are many things I do like about Texas....

HPDATE: For detailed information about the Hidden Lake Trail hike go to the 10 Adventures North Cascades National Park Hidden Lake Trail article.

Back On The Relatively Chilly Tandy Hills For A Mighty Fine Hike

It has been weeks, maybe over a month, since I have looked across the wagon train trail which heads west towards the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth from the top of Mount Tandy.

With the outer world being chilled to a relatively cool temperature in the low 80s today I returned to the Tandy Hills for some fine hill hiking.

I was a little surprised to find that the windfall log which I came upon during my previous hill hiking still blocks the trail on the north side of the currently dry Tandy Falls. I would have thought by now someone would have attacked that trail obstruction with an ax or a chain saw.

The Tandy Hills seem to be handing the Great Texas Drought better than last year when one spotted numerous items of foliage under severe stress due to not getting enough to drink.

My long break from hiking the hills was due to deciding not to til more reasonable temperatures returned. There was no breeze blowing today, but even without any windchill I still did not get too HOT. Nor did I get that sauna steam bath effect I find so pleasurable, sometimes.

I'm thinking I will now be adding the Tandy Hills back on my regular hiking schedule. With that plan subject to change if the HEAT returns for a visit.

Wildscape Walking In Arlington's Veterans Park Pondering Too Many Wars

That is not a view of my usual Sunday outdoor walking or biking location in Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

What you are looking at is part of the Wildscape in Arlington's Veterans Park.

Walking in the Wildscape is shaded and noticeably cooler than out under the glare of the sun.

Currently the glare of the sun has not yet managed to heat the outer world out of the 80s, as in it is only 86 degrees at this point in time in the early Sunday afternoon.

Are 100 degree plus days done for the year, not to return until 2014?

Below the soldier who guards the Veterans Park Memorial Plaza is standing up well under the glare of the August sun.

The rows of red are made up of bricks with the names of veterans and the wars in which they served etched on to the bricks.

You can find bricks with veteran's names and the war in which they fought going back all the way to the War of Northern Aggression, also known as the Civil War. There are Spanish-American War bricks, World War I bricks, World War II bricks, Korean War bricks, Vietnam War bricks, Gulf War I & II bricks, but I saw no Afghanistan War bricks.

Is there any other country in the world which has been in as many wars in the past 150 years as has the United States?

Fort Worth Weekly Goes In To Deep Waters Over The TRWD Controversies

This week's Fort Worth Weekly cover article is titled Deep Waters, Records reveal cozy relationships at the Tarrant Regional Water District.

Reading the article I was quite pleased to finally see someone using the "N" word in regards to the shenanigans of the TRWD.

The "N" word of which I speak is Nepotism.

Just last week I was verbalizing my perplexation regarding the seeming disregard regarding nepotism in Fort Worth, asking if the principle that nepotism is an unethical bad thing was a Yankee concept alien to the South.

The FW Weekly Deep Waters article has many interesting pieces of information. I'll copy and paste a couple blurbs that I found interesting.

The first blurb has to do with the TRWD's controversial Jim Oliver....

In 2006 the Weekly reported that Oliver had run up bills of more than $10,000 on his water district credit card at eateries, bars, and a private club between October 2003 and November 2005. None of the receipts complied with the water district’s expense policy. On some, there were no names for those covered by the payment, and on others there was no stated business purpose.

So, 7 years ago Jim Oliver was caught with his hand in the water district's credit card cookie jar to the tune of over $10,000? And he was not fired? I have been told of another instance of Oliver being caught flagrante delicto and not fired, but using public funds as his private piggy bank and still retaining his job is very perplexing.

And then there is this blurb with interesting verbiage from TRWD board member, Jim Lane...

“People have this board confused with city hall and the legislature,” Lane added, “This is an old quasi-government body that is there to provide water to a Metroplex that is booming. I don’t know why this has turned into something so controversial.”

So, Jim Lane is saying the TRWD is there to provide water to a booming Metroplex? Which leads one to wonder, if the TRWD's sole mission is to provide water, why is it in the economic development business?

Building a wakeboard lake, a restaurant, helping facilitate the building of a drive-in movie theater and sponsoring inner tubing beer parties at an imaginary island with an imaginary pavilion in the world's finest imaginary waterfront music venue.

Are the wakeboard lake, restaurant, drive-in movie theater and inner tubing beer parties bringing in a lot of water to the booming Metroplex one can not help but wonder.

Someone named Johns made a rather cogent comment regarding FW Weekly's Deep Waters article, which said, in part....

If there’s one thing the TRWD is good at (and it’s certainly not increasing/improving our water supply) – it’s galvanizing support against it. From Democrats to Republicans to Libertarians to Tea Partiers – heck, to the Supreme Court, there’s always a confluence of support against the poor management, power grabs, eminent domain abuses and corruption displayed by this organization. In any other town, the ‘water district’ has a ‘sleepy/low profile board” – but, in Fort Worth, the Water District Board means drama, graft, abuse, violation of open meeting laws, secrecy, nepotism – the list goes on and on. Let’s hope Mary Kelleher won’t be the lone voice of dissent on the board for long!