Why Can't I Go To Dealey Plaza Today For The 50th JFK Assassination Anniversary?

In the picture I am standing on the infamous Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza, in Dallas, on November 22.

That would be November 22, ten years ago, on the 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

I recollect this event, ten years ago, as one of the more memorable experiences I have ever experienced.

I recollect thinking at the time that there was no way I would still be in Texas when the time of the half century anniversary rolled around.

And yet here I am.

But, today I will not be driving to Dallas, unlike ten years ago.

Back then, in 2003, a more innocent time, only two years after the 9/11 Attacks, any riff raff who had the energy to do so could go to Dealey Plaza, unmolested by any sort of police state security apparatus.

Today, if I wanted to go to Dealey Plaza I would have needed to obtain a permission ticket by emailing a request to a website titled The 50th Honoring the Memory of President John F. Kennedy where if a lottery deemed I was worthy I would have been sent notification that this morning I could bring a couple pieces of ID to wait in a line at American Airlines Center to get my ticket to then wait in another line, going through, I assume, airport type security to be admitted to Dealey Plaza.

4,000 tickets were available.

I can not imagine 4,000 people going through this process to be able to attend this event. And even if one did go through the process I am thinking this morning's temperature being barely above freezing might have one changing ones mind about heading to Dealey Plaza to wait in lines to then stand outside waiting for the moment when gunshots blasted through the air a half century ago in Dallas.

Below is my video from that more innocent time, ten years ago........

With Limited Visibility I Took A Foggy Walk In My Neighborhood In Search Of FW Weekly's 2013 Turkey Awards

To the left you are looking west, past the iron spears which form a barrier protecting me from possible onslaughts of intruders, at the massive fog bank which is currently covering much of North Texas and rendering impossible seeing any of the snow capped mountain peaks which would be visible, if they existed, on a clear blue sky day at this particular location.

The temperature is currently 68 degrees, well above the freeze that is scheduled for the coming days.

With the temperature in the 60s, this morning, when I had my regularly scheduled swim, I had myself a fairly fine time in a not too cool pool. With two heat up bouts in the hot tub.

Rather than drive anywhere for my daily nature walk I decided to take one of my semi-regularly scheduled walking surveys of my neighborhood, with Albertsons as my destination so as to acquire this week's FW Weekly 2013 Turkey Awards edition.

I have not yet looked to see who won this year's coveted FW Weekly Turkey Awards. I can make some guesses. Jim Oliver comes to mind.

Before I left my abode to seek FW Weekly I saw that my sister who lives in Chandler, Arizona had been to my Eyes on Texas website where she clicked on the link to this very blog you are reading now.

I had not talked to my Arizona sister since she returned from Trick or Treating in Tacoma, so I called.

No answer.

I'd not called my mom and dad for over a week, so, even though I had not gotten gas, I called.

No answer.

I hope this means mom and dad are out and about having themselves some fun. And not at a doctor's office.

Battening Down My Hatches In Preparation Of Possible Incoming Hazardous North Texas Weather Conditions

When I saw my computer based weather monitoring device had switched to its red warning color I clicked on it thinking it would likely just be a warning about that of which I was already aware, as in the outer world is currently foggy.

However, though mention is made of fog in the area of the weather info detailing current conditions, the Special Weather Statement is about much more dire incoming weather than just a little fog.

As in possible ice storm conditions with heavy sleet are heading towards North Texas.

Below is the Special Weather Statement from the National Weather Service, all in capital letters, because these people love to shout about the weather...

...WINTER STORM OUTLOOK FOR NORTH TEXAS...

A STRONG COLD FRONT WILL MOVE THROUGH NORTH TEXAS TONIGHT AND BRING MUCH COLDER AIR TO THE REGION BY FRIDAY. AT THE SAME TIME A SLOW MOVING UPPER LEVEL LOW WILL APPROACH THE REGION FROM THE WEST AND PROVIDE FOR A GOOD CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION THROUGH MONDAY. WE EXPECT TWO ROUNDS OF WINTRY PRECIPITATION OVER PARTS OF NORTH TEXAS...WITH THE SECOND ROUND POTENTIALLY CAUSING MORE IMPACTS.

THE FIRST ROUND OF WINTER PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN ON FRIDAY NORTHWEST OF A GAINESVILLE...WEATHERFORD...COMANCHE LINE. LIGHT RAIN IS EXPECTED TO CHANGE TO LIGHT FREEZING RAIN DURING THE DAY FRIDAY AS TEMPERATURES DROP BELOW FREEZING. THE CHANCE OF FREEZING RAIN SHOULD COME TO AN END SATURDAY MORNING. SINCE GROUND TEMPERATURES ARE STILL VERY WARM...ONLY LIGHT ICE ACCUMULATIONS ARE EXPECTED ON ELEVATED SURFACES SUCH AS BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES...WHICH MAY CAUSE HAZARDOUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS.

THE SECOND AND MORE SIGNIFICANT ROUND OF WINTER PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED SUNDAY. A LARGE AREA OF PRECIPITATION MAINLY IN THE FORM OF SLEET IS EXPECTED TO MOVE IN FROM THE WEST SUNDAY MORNING. SLEET MAY BE HEAVY AND ACCUMULATE NORTHWEST OF PARIS...TO DALLAS TO LAMPASAS LINE WHERE TEMPERATURES SHOULD DROP TO NEAR FREEZING. SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS OF SLEET AND ICE ARE POSSIBLE EVEN FARTHER NORTHWEST...OR NORTHWEST OF A GAINESVILLE...WEATHERFORD... COMANCHE LINE WHERE SURFACE TEMPERATURES WILL BE EVEN COLDER. THE CHANCE OF SLEET IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE INTO SUNDAY EVENING...BUT BEGIN TO CHANGE OVER TO RAIN BY MONDAY MORNING AS TEMPERATURES WARM ABOVE FREEZING.

THIS WINTER WEATHER EVENT IS STILL EVOLVING...AND AS MORE WEATHER DATA IS ANALYZED DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS...THE FORECAST MAY CHANGE. AT THIS TIME RESIDENTS SHOULD PREPARE FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF HAZARDOUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS...ESPECIALLY ACROSS NORTHERN AND WESTERN PARTS OF NORTH TEXAS.

A Colorful Hike With The Tandy Hills Fall Foliage Before Town Talk Treasure Hunting

Rain is predicted to possibly fall, tomorrow, so I thought today would be a mighty fine time to haul myself to the Tandy Hills to do some communing with the natural world.

As you can see, the Tandy Hills are currently being a colorful wonderland of  the non-wildflower type of colorful.

I do not recollect the Tandy Hills fall foliage being as deeply colorful in falls past. I'm likely just not remembering correctly.

Or, have conditions been such, what with the Great Texas Drought, recording breaking temperatures and who knows what else, that more saturated coloring is the result?

I should inquire of renowned Fort Worth Horticulturist, CatsPaw, if she knows the answer to this colorful question.

This morning the outer world temperature was above 50 when I woke up my computer before the sun arrived. Being above 50 had my averaging 50 or above over a 24 hour period criteria met for a morning swim. The water was a bit chillier this morning than yester morn, requiring three hot tub cycles.

After hiking up a hill or two or three I drove to the Beach Street Walmart, since it is the Walmart closest to the Tandy Hills and I needed to get a Walmart product I forgot to get yesterday. My route back to my abode from the Beach Street Walmart takes me past Town Talk, so I had myself a semi-rare Wednesday Town Talk treasure hunt.

Today I did not find much Town Talk treasure, other than some extra sharp white cheddar, rye tortillas, chipotle sirloin burgers and another pre-cooked beef product.

Town Talk on Saturday should be a busy zoo, what with it being the last Saturday before Thanksgiving. So, on Saturday I should be having myself a mighty fine time at Town Talk.

It takes so little to entertain me.....

A Walk With The Oakland Lake Park Turtles Around The Mysterious Fosdick Lake Fountain

It seems like it has been weeks since I've driven to Oakland Lake Park to walk around Fosdick Lake.

Even though I had myself a mighty fine endorphin inducing time, albeit a bit cooler than yesterday, swimming this morning, I decided my delicate constitution would benefit from some additional fresh air exposure.

As you can see, the mysterious Fosdick Fountain is still blowing up water.

It has been a month or two since this fountain started spraying. I have yet to learn how this came to be, a fountain blowing water in the middle of the lake where one day there was no fountain, then three days later it appears, with absolutely no sign of any lake side, fountain related, construction.

Just like yesterday, at the Village Creek Natural Historical Area, today there was a higher than the norm number of people enjoying the outer world's perfect conditions.

That perfect weather condition is currently scheduled to come to an end this coming weekend with freezing air once again arriving in North Texas.

As you can see below, today the Fosdick Lake turtles were enjoying the semi-warm temperature, lounging by the dozen on their proprietary log.

By the time I got my camera turned on a lot of the Fosdick turtles had dived into the lake, unusually skittish for Fosdick turtles, unlike the regularly skittish Village Creek turtles, who posed for me yesterday, without their regular skittishness.

Hiking The Grand Canyon Of Village Creek With Turtle Power & Indian Ghosts

That is the Grand Canyon of Village Creek in Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area you are looking at on the left.

This morning, due to the now ended November Tropical Heatwave, I had myself a summer-like long swim in the not too cool pool.

By the time the mid point of the day arrived I was in the mood for breathing some outer world air.

That and I was in need of some groceries which could be attained at Walmart, which is near where the Village Creek Indians had their village before being evicted by incoming Texans.

I was surprised by the large number of people who also felt the need to breathe some of this currently pleasant air. All the usually bad air indexes are currently being about the best I've ever seen them. The Pollen Index is low. The Air Quality Index is good. The UV Index is moderate.

One of those who were walking with me and the Indian ghosts today was a cute little kid with a t-shirt which advertised "TURTLE POWER" on its front.

I asked his mom if they'd seen the Village Creek turtles who I'd already discovered were being unusually un-skittish today, hence my ability to get take the below photo without the turtles jumping into the water....

Is The Texan Accent America's Most Attractive?

This morning I learned via that well known, extremely reputable news source, the FOX News website, which North American accent is the most attractive.

The first sentence of the Which North American Accent Was Voted the Most Attractive? article answers that question...

If you hail from the Lone Star state or the Heart of Dixie, then chances are you won’t have any problems in the dating department.

Those of you who do not know what state the Lone Star state is, well, the Lone Star state is also known as Texas.

I pretty much agree with this most attractive accent conclusion. I have, multiple times, found myself totally charmed by a dripping honey Texas accent.

Years ago I made a website for a Texan named Ann. I usually try to get people to use email to communicate about website issues, due to that being much more efficient than talking on the phone. However, with Miss Ann, if she'd email me with a question, I'd call her, just to get to hear her dripping with honey accent.

Elsie Hotpepper is a native Texan. I would not describe the Elsie Hotpepper Texas accent as dripping with honey. The Elsie Hotpepper Texas accent is perfectly pleasant, just not a honey dripper. With Elsie Hotpepper her Texas accent comes in two versions. There is the professional spokeswoman Elsie Hotpepper Texas accent, which is subtle and understated.

And then there is the Elsie Hotpepper in informal mode Texas accent, which I characterize as Elsie Hotpepper being in Cowgirl mode, with her Texas accent much more twangy and peppered with barnyard vulgarisms spoken with that peppery twang.

Gar the Texan is another native Texan with his own spin on the Texas accent. Gar the Texan's Texas accent was acquired in West Texas, so I guess his version would be known as the West Texas accent variant. I would definitely not characterize Gar the Texan's Texas accent as dripping honey. It is more of a slow drawl with the Texas accent part of the drawl being very understated.

Understated, that is, until Gar the Texan has one of his bouts of the vapors. At that point his Texas accent gets extreme, to the point of being difficult to understand as the drawl starts dropping word endings, almost to the point of getting into slur mode.

Speaking of a hard to understand Texas accent, my best example of that variant is a neighbor all the neighbors call Crazy Greg. If you have yourself a Crazy Greg encounter you usually find yourself in a conversation which makes no sense, spoken in a twangy drawl that is very hard to comprehend.

Susan is another native Texan neighbor. Susan's Texas accent is another honey dripper. I particularly like talking to Susan because many of her sentences end with the word "Hon" which never fails to make me feel all cozy.

I don't know if it is what is known as a guilty pleasure, or just a regular pleasure, but one of the things which pleases me is to wander around Walmart hearing snippets of dialogue in multiple variations of Southern accents, including when the loudspeaker makes an announcement, like "Clean up on aisle 12" spoken with a Texas twang.

I have attempted to affect a Texas accent a time or two.

I have had a Texan, a time or two, tell me I fail at this effort.

Apparently my faked Texas accent, to a Texan's ears, sounds like an annoying Yankee trying to sound Texan.....

We Are Having Ourselves A Mid November Tropical Heatwave In North Texas

We're having a Heatwave, a Tropical Heatwave, a mid-November Tropical Heatwave in North Texas.

I did not drive to any of my regular haunts for one of my regular excursions today. Instead I prowled my neighborhood, eventually making it to Albertsons where I found this week's DFW.com Ink Edition.

Post-lunch I was starting to over heat in my abode.

I refuse to indulge in a mid-November re-igniting of the air-conditioner to abate the overheating.

Instead I opened all my windows and went for a rare Sunday afternoon bout in the pool, followed by poolside lounging, documented in the above photo.

I had not noticed what knobby knees I have til I saw them photo documented. They look like bulbous tumors.

Last week Miss Sampson documented her beachside lounging in Maui with a picture similar to the above photo, only Miss Sampson was wearing an itsy bitsy bikini and she made it look like she was lifting a palm tree with her left foot.

There are no palm trees anywhere in my vicinity, so I was not able to replicate Miss Sampson's photo with a Texas version.

When I was a youngster, decades ago, and I would go on a roadtrip, I would buy these things called postcards on which I would write something and then mail the postcards to lucky recipients.

How primitive.

I think it is both interesting and a little bizarre, that nowadays, one can easily keep any number of people instantly posted, via words, photos and video, of what you are doing on a trip, pretty much in realtime.

Currently Miss Sampson and entourage have returned to the mainland, so that insta-trip documentation has ended.

But an even more interestingly high-tech trip documentation continues with daily updates from the ongoing voyage of a boat called Daybreak. This particular Daybreak boat trip started in San Diego and is currently docked in Cabo San Lucas. The updates are via the Google Blogger method, with the link to that particular blog found on the list of blogs on the right column of this very blog you are currently reading.

I have inquired, via Facebook, as to how the Daybreak Adventures blogger is doing the blogging whilst floating in the Pacific off the coast of Mexico, but have yet to have my query answered. I suspect Facebook is being ignored while floating in the Pacific. I know I would.

I rather enjoy going on these virtual trips.

Speaking of Facebook. And who isn't? This morning I got an invite, via Facebook, to a reunion of my high school class, to take place the day after Christmas in a place called The Train Wreck in my old hometown of Burlington.

I strongly suspect I will not be at this particular Train Wreck at that particular time.

And now, back to the weather.

D/FW Record Temperature Update from WFAA-TV via Twitter.....

Record Breaking D/FW Temperatures Render Multiple Pleasant Benefits

My No Longer Cool Pool On Sunday November 17

Record breaking temperatures the past day or two in the Dallas/Fort Worth zone, as in record breaking of the HOT, not cold type of record breaking, has rendered my formerly cool pool not so cool.

In other words I had myself a mighty fine swim this morning of lengthy duration with no warm-up retreats to the hot tub.

I think the high yesterday was somewhere in the 80s. When I woke up my computer this morning the computer based temperature monitoring device informed me that the outer world was being heated to 67 degrees, just an hour after the sun had arrived to begin its daily lighting and heating duties.

I got myself plenty of aerobically induced endorphins via swimming this morning. Even so, a return to the Tandy Hills on such a pleasant Sunday is an inviting idea. Or a walk with the Village Creek Indian ghosts. Or just not drive anywhere and instead take one of my semi-regular walking inspections of my neighborhood...

On Monday The Capitol Christmas Tree Stops In Dallas On Its Journey From One Washington To The Other One

On the left you are looking at people standing around in the northeast corner of my old home state of Washington, watching the process by which an 88 foot tall Engelmann spruce tree gets prepared to begin its more than 5,000 mile journey from Washington to Washington, D.C., where it will serve as the Official 2013 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree.

I did not know of this magnificent event until informed about it, this morning, by Fort Worth's renowned horticulturist, Ms. CatsPaw, pointing me to the well made Capitol Christmas Tree website which was obviously not made by the same people who made the dysfunctional Obamacare website.

On the Capitol Christmas Tree website I learned that Washington is proud to share its good nature by sending a tree from the Colville National Forest to the other Washington.

The People's Tree's journey to D.C. began on November 1 in Newport, Washington, where it stayed several days before taking a short journey to Colville, Washington. The next several days the Capitol Christmas Tree traveled all over Washington, to Spokane, Republic, Wenatchee, Yakima, and then over the Cascade Mountains to Western Washington to Everett, Olympia, Vancouver and then back east over the mountains to Kennewick before finally leaving Washington and arriving in Mountain Home, Idaho on the 10th.

From Idaho on the Capitol Christmas Tree has not lingered long in any one state. You can see all the Capitol Christmas Tree stops on the map below...

On its circuitous route to the other Washington the Capitol Christmas Tree makes two Texas stops.

Today, November 16 the Capitol Christmas Tree is in Amarillo at the downtown library for a holiday celebration with Park and Recreation mascots, serving up cookies and cider along with Santa Claus.

Then on November 18 the Capitol Christmas Tree bypasses Fort Worth to get to Dallas to the American Airlines Center where the tree will participate in pre-game hoopla with the Dallas Mavericks Mascots.

Seven days after leaving Dallas the Capitol Christmas Tree arrives at the Capitol where, in early December, there will be a tree lighting ceremony with the notorious Speaker of the House, John Boehner leading the lighting.

I do not know if throngs of Capitol Christmas Tree aficionados have been lining up to cheer on the passing tree like what happened when the Olympic Torch made its way across America to do its lighting duty at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. I remember joining the multitude doing so, somewhere between Seattle and Tacoma, and feeling a bit ridiculous, and yet strangely caught up in the event, as that torch passed by to the cheers of the onlookers.