What Is The Obstruction Blocking The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Gateway Park Master Propaganda Plan?

Last Saturday I snapped a picture of what I believe to be the most bizarre example of Trinity River Vision Boondoggle signage propaganda.

That being the Gateway Park Master Plan signage near Fort Woof in Fort Worth's Gateway Park.

This massive sign installation was installed sometime in the previous decade, if I remember correctly.

And now, well into the following decade, I don't believe a single thing touted on the propaganda signs is even remotely close to being seen by anyone's vision.

Thinking about the stalled Gateway Park Master Plan brought the current state of Bertha to mind.

Bertha is currently the world's biggest tunnel boring machine. Bertha is currently stuck by an unknown obstruction, about 70 feet underground, after boring about a thousand feet of a new transit tunnel which will run under Seattle, scheduled to be completed by 2015, replacing the earthquake damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct.

I don't believe there are any signs in the vicinity of the Bertha operation touting the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Master Plan.

And yet that plan is well underway, started well after the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle started boondoggling, with Bertha's tunnel slated to be completed before much of anything will be able to be seen, if ever, of the Gateway Park Master Plan's likely imaginary projects.

Is there something stuck regarding the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Gateway Park Master Plan of a metaphoric Bertha obstruction sort?

Some choice verbiage from one of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Gateway Park Master Plan's propaganda signs....

The Gateway Park Master Plan is an exciting component of Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision. The 1,000 acre park will be filled with new community-requested recreational amenities, making it one of the nation's largest urban-programmed parks. With the planting of over 75,000 trees and the restoration of the original river channel, the park will transform into a natural setting the entire region can enjoy. The project is expected to spur economic growth around the park and will connect the East and Southeast neighborhoods of Fort Worth to the Trinity River corridor.

Long ago, way back in 2011, I blogged about those promised 75,000 trees referenced in the above propaganda, known as J.D. Granger's Magic Trees, in a blogging titled J.D. Granger's Magic Trees Saving Arlington From The Trinity River While Not Worrying About Haltom City Getting Saved.

The Gateway Park Master Plan propaganda references "community-requested recreational amenities".

Community requested?

And how are these requests being made, I can not help but wonder?

We know these imaginary community requests are not made via any sort of public vote, because the public is not allowed to vote on any aspect of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

So, how are these alleged community requests for specific amenities being made?

Over drinks with J.D. Granger?

Hubris. Why is it that that word always comes to mind when I ponder the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle and any of its various boondoggly aspects?

What Is The Meaning Of The Quanah Parker Park Martin Luther King Jr. Poster?

Last Wednesday in a blogging titled An Icy Walk At Quanah Parker Park Before Town Talking With Apple Cider & Monkey Food I mentioned that I came upon something odd whilst walking the Quanah Parker Park trail which I would blog about later.

And then I proceeded to forget about this odd thing I saw, til now, five days later.

The odd thing I saw laying on the ground was the poster you see laying on this blog.

The poster was about two by three feet in size, made of thick construction paper type material. Part of the message on the poster had been obliterated. By what means this obliteration occurred I do not know, or why the obliteration occurred, I also do not know.

What I do know is that I can clearly read words on the poster which say, "Martin Luther King Jr. helped the Color People get there Rights (indecipherable) advantage to do that..." After which only a few words, like "White" and "and" and "to" are legible.

So, what was the message on this poster intending to say? I have no idea.

The grammar is a bit lacking.

"Color People"? I assume the writer intended "Colored People."

But, who uses the term "Colored People" at our current time in history?

Was this a positive poster message about Americans getting "their" rights? Or did the obliterated part make obvious this was a negative message about Americans getting their rightful rights?

Very perplexing.

And why was this poster laying on the ground in a very remote location of Quanah Parker Park? How did it get there? And why did it get there?

Like I said, very perplexing.....

A Semi-Warm Pleasant Sunday Walk To the Village Creek Blue Bayou

A cloudless blue sky has returned the Village Creek Natural Historical Area's Blue Bayou to its usual blue status.

That and a recent influx of water in this drought plagued part of the planet has helped with the blue-ness.

What a difference a day makes in Texas, weather-wise.

Yesterday I shivered in long sleeves, whilst wearing gloves, as I walked among the thousands of bikers gathered in Fort Worth's Gateway Park.

Today, with the temperature being about the same as yesterday, when I had my walkabout, as in, in the 40s, only with yesterday's foggy sun-free sky and strong wind making for bitter cold, while today's solar radiation and light wind made for a comfortable, glove-free, long sleeve-free, t-shirt only, mighty fine time walking in the outer world.

Now that I am back at my computer based temperature monitoring device I see that that aforementioned outer world is currently being heated to only five degrees shy of 60.

I had myself a mighty fine hot tub time this morning, with no cool pool dips to cool off. Frost was frosting up the outer world this morning when I made my way to the pool zone. Tomorrow morning should be well above freezing when I make that same salubrious trek.

This morning I saw that the forecast for my location for the coming week is forecasting a return of freezing rain, on Saturday. There are plenty of days between now and then for that unfortunate forecast to change to something less cold and slippery.

It Appears The Dallas Observer Observes More Than Fort Worth Weekly Observes About Greg Abbott Being One Of The Worst People

Last week I ventured into the store which is next to the newly opened ALDI on Eastchase Parkway in East Fort Worth.

At the entry to the next to ALDI store I found that a stack of Dallas Observers had made their way into the Fort Worth part of Tarrant County. I have found the Dallas Observer in the Arlington part of Tarrant County, previously, but never in Fort Worth.

I have read Dallas Observer a time or two or three over the years, but this recent exposure had me noticing something I'd not noticed before. As in the Dallas Observer has way more content to read than does Fort Worth Weekly.

Eventually I figured out why it is the Dallas Observer has way more content than FW Weekly.

The cover article of this week's Dallas Observer is titled "The 20 Worst People of 2013".

I thought this to be an amusing article, but was a  bit surprised at the national scope of where the worst people came from, rather than being Texas-centric. Only one or two of the worst people were Texan. With one of those worst ones being Greg Abbott, he being the embarrassing Texan currently employed, via election, as the Texas Attorney General.

Ted Abbott is running for governor of Texas. I suspect Fort Worth's Wendy Davis will soundly beat Ted Abbott to become the new Texas governor and in the process create a national sensation with tons of verbiage devoted to the return of Texas to being a blue state.

Yes, I am an optimistic dreamer with serious delusional bouts.

So, what is the reason the Dallas Observer has so much more content than FW Weekly?

I realized the reason why, via the online version of the Dallas Observer, when I saw that the cover article of this week's Dallas Observer was not a Dallas Observer production about the worst people of 2013.  It was an article written by Pete Kotz of the Riverfront Times, that being the St. Louis version of a Dallas Observer/FW Weekly type publication.

I suspect the Riverfront Times and many other publications across the country are owned by the same entity which owns the Dallas Observer, hence the content sharing, with more content in the publication than that which appears in FW Weekly.

Don't get me wrong. I really like FW Weekly and I think that publication does a real good job of being Fort Worth's only real newspaper, filling in for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram journalistic vacuum.

And now what is it that the Riverfront Times had to say about Greg Abbott, who came in at #11 on the list of worst people? I will copy and paste...

11. Greg Abbott
Dallas couple Jeffrey and Henry Buck were married in Massachusetts, only to see their love wither two years later. A Dallas family court granted their divorce.

This caused Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to blow a gasket. He's a strident opponent of gay marriage, fearing it will spur an outbreak of elegant kitchen remodeling that makes no allowances for gun racks. And because he's also running for governor, he wanted to appease the state's many followers of Mean Jesus, the pissed-off version of the leading brand.

So Abbott appealed the decision. Since Texas law banned gay marriage, he argued, the Bucks couldn't legally divorce either. A state appellate court agreed, reportedly signing its decision in drool.

Abbott got his wish: The Bucks were forced to stay gay married.

Wait? What?

The case is now before the Texas Supreme Court justices, who are expected to hire someone who can read it to them.

Finding Myself In Gateway Park Surrounded By Thousands Of Bikers At The 2013 North Texas Toy Run

A Few Of The Thousands Of Bikes & Bikers

Every year since I moved to my current location, at some point in time during the Christmas Holiday Season time of the year I seem to manage to find myself accidentally experiencing the Annual Great North Texas Toy Run with its thousands of bikers on thousands of motorbikes.

This annual Toy Run is a spectacle to behold, the likes of which I certainly never experienced during my years of living in the sedate Pacific Northwest.

I suspect the reason I find myself surrounded by bikers year after year is that this event occurs on a Saturday, with the event staged in Gateway Park, with me finding myself, pretty much every Saturday, at Town Talk, a location right in the path of the thousands of bikers.

Today on my way to Town Talk I wanted to visit Gateway Park to get new photos of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Gateway Park Master Plan signage. For blogging purposes.

Well.

A phalanx of Fort Worth police were stopping vehicular traffic from entering the north entrance to Gateway Park, due to that area being the aforementioned Great North Texas Toy Run's staging area. I was informed I needed to make a U-Turn and was advised that the west entry to Gateway Park was not being blocked by bikers or Fort Worth police.

So, I headed to the west entrance, parked, got my photos of the Gateway Park Master Plan signage and then walked to the Toy Run staging area, drawn was I by the roar of the motorbikes and rock music blaring.

I walked amongst the assembled bikers whilst running my video camera. You can view the resulting video below.

Stuck In A Toy Run Roadblock

Even though the air was heated to somewhere in the 40s, the wind and lack of direct solar radiation, and insufficient outerwear coverage, quickly made  me colder than I like to be when no hot tub escape is in the near vicinity.

It was a quick escape from Gateway Park to the significantly warmer Town Talk where all I got was rabbit and monkey food in the form of broccoli, lettuce, carrots and bananas.

I wanted to be out of Town Talk and heading east on Randol Mill Road well before the departure, at one, from Gateway Park of the thousands of Toy Run bikers.

I missed that goal by about a minute, and so got stuck in a police roadblock  for about 20 minutes while all the bikers made their way down the road to their Interstate 30 destination and the throngs of onlookers seeking candy tossed by passing bikers.

Yesterday My Dad Had Himself A Mighty Fine 83rd Birthday

A few minutes ago I made one of my rare visits to Facebook where I found that one of my sisters, a day late, had Facebooked a photo taken last summer, at an event I did not attend, mentioning that yesterday, December 12, was our paternal parental unit's 83rd birthday.

I purloined the Facebooked photo and then cropped out most of my relatives to better focus on my mom and dad.

You can probably guess that is my mom on the far right, with dad holding mom's hand. That would be Spencer Jack's uncle Joey next to my dad, with Spencer Jack's grandpa, my brother, Jake, with his hands appearing ready to throttle my favorite sister-in-law, Jill.

Aren't my mom and dad cute?

I did not call my dad a day late to wish him a happy birthday.

I called on the appropriate day, as in yesterday. My mom was screening dad's calls, so mom relayed, to my dad, my happy birthday message.

When I called to wish dad a happy birthday, the aforementioned brother Jake and Jill were visiting, hence not cropping them out of the photo.

Nephew Joey was not visiting his grandma and grandpa yesterday when I called, but it would take too much effort to crop Joey out of the picture, so I left him standing next to his dad and grandpa.

Finally Mostly Free Of Ice On This 2nd Friday Of December In North Texas

What a difference a week makes.

Last Friday this same cool pool scene you are looking at here was mostly white, due to a covering of several inches of ice, delivered by the Great North Texas Ice Storm of 2013, currently quickly fading into history.

For the first time in over a week the outer world at my location did not dip below freezing. Currently, only a couple hours after this morning's sun arrival, we are already being heated to 41 degrees.

This morning I had myself a mighty fine time in the cool pool, well, mostly in the hot tub. A slight amount of rain dripped on me whilst I was pooling.

Tomorrow, Texas transplant, by way of Kansas, Nurse Martha, is heading to the Pacific Northwest, well, specifically, Seattle, for the first time.

The norm is normally that when I fly up north I quickly find myself chilly, due to the extreme temperature differential. Nurse Martha should be experiencing the opposite of that norm, what with the Western Washington outer world being heated slightly warmer than North Texas.

I hope the clouds lift for Nurse Martha so she can marvel at the spectacle of being surrounded by mountains, some of the giant volcano sort.

Now matter how high the clouds lift at Nurse Martha's and my current location we can see no mountains, let alone giant volcanoes spewing steam....

A Mostly Ice Free Walk Around Fosdick Lake Finding A Faux Chrysanthemum

Til today I had not been to Oakland Lake Park to walk around Fosdick Lake since before the Great North Texas Ice Storm of 2013 struck me immobile, motorized transportation-wise, for several days.

As you can see by looking past the Fosdick Fountain, most of the ice cover has melted, reverting the landscape back to a more natural green than the un-natural ultra white ice.

Currently the outer world is being heated to 42 degrees for the first time in about a week. When I left my abode to drive to Fosdick Lake the outer world was only two degrees above freezing.

I was not the only one out and about today enjoying the return to easy, much less slippery, walking. Some of those others who were out and about were having fun feeding the Fosducks. There were a lot of hungry Fosducks on Fosdick Lake today.

Regarding the above fountain. When it began to spout, out of seemingly nowhere, I inquired if anyone had an explanation. So far, all I have learned is that Google satellite imagery, from some point in the 1990s, showed the fountain spouting on Fosdick Lake.

Walking on the mostly ice-free grass I came upon the optimistic big yellow wildflower you see  in the picture, rising, defiantly, above a patch of ice.

That big yellow wildflower looks to me like what a Chrysanthemum looks like.

However, I am almost 100% certain that there is no wildflower version of a Chrysanthemum that would be sprouting colorfully this time of year in North Texas....

Why Have Google Accounts Lost Their List Of Google Products?

This morning when I logged in to my Google account I found that overnight Google has totally messed up.

Previously I would log in, then click on "Products" from a list of options on the left.

Then the page with "Products" icons would load and I would click on whatever Google Product I wanted to use.

As in, click on the "Blogger" icon to blog. Click on the "AdSense" icon to check on AdSense. Click on the "Gmail" icon to check on email.

What you see above is a screen cap of what I now see when I log into my Google account. No list of "Products".

Clicking on a the clicking options I eventually clicked on a little symbol that opened up Google Products which I could choose to add. As in, Google Products I'd already added and have been using.

I saw the "Blogger" icon on the list of Google Product options, clicked it and the Blogger app appeared. Which is how I am managing to blog this blogging you are currently reading.

There was no "AdSense" icon on the list of addable Google Products.

I was able to access AdSense by looking at my browsing history for the last time I checked on AdSense.

How is it that Google has made such a big boo boo?

This big boo boo is likely perplexing, annoying and puzzling Google Account users world-wide.

NOTE TO GOOGLE: Please get this fixed. Quickly. Thank you in advance.

Apparently Urban Fracking Is Threatening The Dallas Suburb Of Fort Worth

Late this afternoon Elsie Hotpepper emailed me with the subject line of the email being "FW was first at something..."

I was intrigued.

The message in the email said "Why do I have a feeling no one is 'green' with envy?"

The green with envy reference refers to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's now, mostly, dormant practice of claiming this, that or the other actual lame thing, in Fort Worth, was causing spasms of envy in other locations on the planet.

Long ago I documented, via a webpage, instances of the Star-Telegram's Green With Envy verbiage.

That particular webpage is one of my more popular ones. It has generated a lot of ad revenue over the years.

But, I digress.

Elsie Hotpepper's email included a link to an article on the Truth Out website, with that article titled "Urban Fracking Bonanza Threatens Dallas Suburbs".

I am sure those in Fort Worth who suffer from what some refer to as the Dallas Fixation will really be liking that the Dallas suburb this article refers to is the town that calls itself Fort Worth.

Basically the article tells the tale of what a mess this Dallas suburb has made of itself by allowing itself to be the world's first large city to allow thousands of fracked gas wells to pollute its environs.

Fort Worth's noted Watch Dog, Don Young, makes an appearance in this article, as is to be expected in articles of this nature...