Apparently Breitbart Is Back Rooting Out Corruption At The Tarrant Regional Water District

This afternoon I came upon an interesting article in the Star Telegraph blog. Please note that that is Star Telegraph, not Star Telegram, to which I am referring.

The Star Telegraph blog post was titled Breitbart's back.

Breitbart's back is not about some guy named Breitbart's back problems.

Breitbart's back is about the problem with the entity known as the Tarrant Regional Water District.

The somewhat controversial publication known as Breitbart has been investigating the controversially corrupt entity known as the Tarrant Regional Water District.

In Breitbart's latest edition you can read an article titled ROOTING OUT CORRUPTION AT THE TARRANT REGIONAL WATER DISTRICT which roots out, in easy to understand language, why those who know corruption when they see it look at the shenanigans of the Tarrant Regional Water District in amazement that those shenanigans continue with no adults intervening and putting a stop to the bad behavior.

Or maybe this fester of corruption needs a federal intervention with the perps rounded up, handcuffed and jailed. Pending trial. Maybe that will come after the 60 Minutes expose.

I have long thought Fort Worth would benefit from a good hard hitting 60 Minutes expose.

My favorite paragraph in the Breitbart  article was this...

The move comes in support of reform-minded Board Member, Mary Kelleher, who believes the documents contain potentially incriminating information regarding the TRWD’s alleged misuse of public funds, cronyism, and numerous other activities surrounding what is known as the “Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.”

I like to believe that it was I who first attached the "Boondoggle" word to the Trinity River Vision. But, I suspect that is not the case, what with the Trinity River Vision so obviously being a boondoggle, attaching that appellation to it likely crossed the minds of dozens of locals appalled at the ridiculousness of the entire bizarre thing.

Including the TRWD's corrupt hiring of Fort Worth Congresswoman Kay Granger's un-qualified son, J.D., to run the massive pseudo public works project which the public has never been allowed to vote on. Hiring an un-qualified relative of a political power, for a government job, is what is known as nepotism, and is frowned upon, or is outright illegal, in areas of the world where democracy has been established.

Also, regarding the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, Laurence Meyers, the writer of the ROOTING OUT CORRUPTION AT THE TARRANT REGIONAL WATER DISTRICT article, must not have gotten the memo that due to imaginary public input the name of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has been officially changed to the Panther Island Boondoggle.

The name change thing  is just one more boondoggly addition to the ongoing embarrassing boondoggle...

Rolling Past Fun Town On Arlington's River Legacy Park Mountain Bike Trail

Water had almost been fully re-installed in my swimming pool by this morning's regularly scheduled pool dip.

To be totally topped off the pool still had about a foot to go at that point in time, but the deep end was sufficiently deep to facilitate the acquisition of some much needed endorphins from stimulating aerobic activity.

It has been awhile since I have rolled my mechanized wheels to Arlington to roll my non-mechanized wheels on the River Legacy Park mountain bike trail, so I decided to do so today.

Several weeks ago I whined about the lack of directional signage pointing the way on Fort Worth's Gateway Park's mountain bike trails. A couple days after I whined some directional signage showed up, but not nearly as copious as the directional signage that points the way on River Legacy  Park's much more convoluted maze of  trail loops.

Above you are looking at my handlebars looking at the signage for Fun Town, plus some directional signage.

To the left, not caught on camera, is another directional sign, with that sign having two arrows, both pointing left and down, with the down part indicating a drop-off. One of  those arrows is red, indicating experts only should think about taking that option. The blue arrow points to a slightly less scary drop-off that reaches the same spot as the scarier drop-off.

That is the scary, experts only, drop-off  you see above. The picture does not do this drop-off justice. That and you aren't seeing the steep uphill that comes after the drop-off

I opted to avoid rolling over anything scary and continued on past Fun Town without indulging in that particular fun.

The subject of Fun Town came up weeks ago in Gateway Park. I'd had a going the wrong way incident with a couple of bikers. I got them turned around and led them back to where they needed to be. This was the incident which prompted me to whine about the lack of directional signage on Gateway Park's mountain bike trails, with me having no way of knowing such signage was in the works and about to be installed a few days later.

The couple of bikers I got turned around and I stopped to chat when we reached the location where I could point them in the right direction. The lady of the pair asked me if there were any difficult areas on the trail. I asked what she considered difficult. She asked if I had pedaled the River Legacy Park trails. I indicated  I had. She then said something like, "You know that steep drop-off you come to shortly after leaving the parking lot, and then the next drop-off that follows that, followed by more ups and downs? That I consider difficult."

To which I pointed to a spot on the trail and said she would not want to go past that point, because it gets a bit challenging, more so than that first challenging section in River Legacy Park.

And then, for some reason, I brought up the scary sections of the River Legacy Park trails, that being the EKG and Fun Town loops.

Well.

She then told me they rode Fun Town all the time. And that it is a lot of fun! I incredulously then asked if they actually went down that first steep drop-off with the experts only warning, to be told, no, they avoid that part.

So, I guess I am going to have to give Fun Town a try. And get there by pedaling the paved trail to its end, because if I get to Fun Talk by the mountain bike trail by the time I get there I would have already pedaled several miles.

I Can Not Swim Or Find Fort Worth Weekly Today While Elsie Hotpepper Is With David In Italy

Tall grass is blocking the iron spears which make up the security fence which keeps me secure.

I was easily able to escape security to have myself a walk around the neighborhood culminating in a Fort Worth Weekly acquisition attempt at Albertsons, which usually is not successful until Thursday, which remained the case today.

I was unable to go swimming this morning due to an almost complete lack of water rendering swimming impossible.

The water has been drained from the pool so cool new LED lighting fixtures can be installed. No telling how long this will take, but I have not seen the electrician electrifying anything yet today.

Elsie Hotpepper has still not returned to inside America's borders, because Elsie is still in Italy. Florence to be precise, where it seems Ms. Hotpepper has become infatuated with a guy made of marble named David.

And on the allergy front conditions have greatly improved, with greatly reduced eye irritation. The eyes being irritated was real irritating, so I'm hoping this reduced irritation becomes the status quo and not just a respite...

June 8 Gateway Park Fort Worth Fat Tire Festival Celebrating All Things Mountain Bike For $15

A couple weeks ago I saw a flyer on the information sign at the Gateway Park Fort Worth Mountain Bike Association trail's trail head announcing the June 8th 4th Annual FAT Tire Festival.

This was the first I'd heard of this festival, even though there have been three previous.

I don't think I've ever been to a mountain bike festival of any sort, so I thought maybe I might go to this one.

Then in this week's Fort Worth Weekly I saw the advertisement for the FAT Tire Festival you see above, with that advertisement advertising there would be Live Music, Singletrack, Bicycle Vendors, Great Food Trucks, Mountain Bike Events and FWMBA T-Shirts & Memberships.

And then in the lower right part of the advertisement, in a low contrast, hard to read font, we learn....

Admission

$15 Donation

$40 for Families of Four or More

Wow! This must be one ultra-cool festival. Isn't $15 about half what it cost to get into Six Flags Over Texas? So many really cool festivals in the D/FW zone charge no admission charge, such as the Tandy Hills Prairie Fest and Fort Worth's Main Street Art Festival.

And what odd admission verbiage. If the "Donation" word is used, is it not usually used in a context such as "Suggested Donation $15"?

Maybe the food from the food trucks and those FWMBA T-Shirts are included in the price of admission, which would sort of help explain, maybe, the $15 Donation.

And what is meant by "Singletrack" on the list of what one will find at the FAT Tire Festival? Is this a reference to the mountain bike trail, which is mostly singletrack, except for one short section that is two-way?

On June 8, from 9 am - 3 pm, must one donate $15 to roll ones wheels on the Gateway Park singletrack mountain bike trail?

I suspect I will go to Gateway Park on Sunday, June 8, and find out....

Today's 34th Anniversary Of The Mount St. Helens Eruption Has Me Feeling Homesick

This morning after I realized today marked the 34th Anniversary of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in my old home state of Washington, I blogged about this on my Washington blog in a blogging titled The 34th Anniversary of the Mount St. Helens Eruption on May 19,1980.

Thinking about the Mount St. Helens eruption which boomed over three decades ago got me feeling more melancholy than feeling even remotely nostalgic. How could anyone get nostalgic about a mountain exploding, killing a lot of people and doing a few billion dollars in property damage?

The melancholy homesick thing kicked in when I watched the YouTube video below, which I had used in an earlier blogging about Mount St. Helens and Harry Truman on my Washington blog titled Mt. St. Helens Harry Truman's Spirit Lives On.

Watch the video below and see if you can guess what makes me melancholy and homesick in addition to the woeful tone of the song.

If you guessed seeing mountains, rugged scenery and forests of tall evergreen trees you would have guessed right.....

Fort Worth's Connie D Is Not A Fan Of Facebooked Self-Reflection, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh Or Fox News

Both the Tacoma Connie D and the Fort Worth Connie D fairly regularly manage to amuse me to varying degrees on Facebook. Today it was the Fort Worth Connie D who amused me.

It was not the link Connie D shared to a story about Brad Pitt throwing beer at Matthew McConaughey in New Orleans which amused me. It was the comment Connie D made, followed by the comment Connie D's friend, Matt H., made.

Connie D commented "I thought it was one of the coolest things I read today. I can only tolerate so much self-reflection and philosophy on FB."

To which Matt H. commented "I can tolerate none of it, so you're better than me."

Now having no tolerance for self-reflection and philosophy, as experienced on Facebook, well that one really resonates with me. My intolerance for this eventually led me to discover how to stop Facebook from showing me the self-reflecting and philosophizing of those prone to such.

It is really annoying when the constant self-reflection is coming from someone over the half century mark, age-wise. I mean, really, if you've not figured it out by now, maybe you should just give up trying to figure out how to have yourself a mighty fine time with this life you are living.

And why share this self-reflecting and philosophizing on Facebook? To what end? To what purpose? To help others? To share these great truths that you think you have discovered so as to help others?

I could get more detailed about one particular perpetrator of this type behavior, pointing out the incredible hypocrisy and irony that this particular perpetrator perpetuates, cluelessly unaware of the absurdity of someone such as this giving anyone advice about anything, but I'll keep it to myself....

I almost forgot to include the below gem from Fort Worth's Connie D, with no additional commentary needed....

Today I Did Not Find New Guerrilla Art On The Tandy HIlls

No, that is not a new piece of guerrilla art you see here, rising from the top of a Tandy Hill.

This particular hill is located about 4 miles east of the Tandy Hills, located pretty much in my backyard.

A couple days ago I went hiking in my neighborhood greenbelt to find myself surprised to see a new line of power poles running east, perpendicular to the collection of power lines which run north and south in my neighborhood greenbelt.

I don't know how this new power line managed to get installed without me noticing. I did notice the rather impressive engineering operation that installed new huge power poles in the greenbelt zone.

In the photo above you are looking east. At the top of the hill, to the right, sits a big, abandoned building which formerly housed my neighborhood Krogers. The power pole at the top of the hill is one of the ones I just mentioned which I had not noticed being installed, even though this line cuts right through where I frequently walk and drive.

I really am not a very observant person is what I am able to conclude from this incident.

Below is another look at the power poles that got installed without me noticing.

I think the design of these new, modern power poles is sort of sculptural, like a piece of urban art. That swath of cleared land into which the power poles are stuck, used to be a rather difficult struggle to walk through. Now it is almost east to walk from the location where this picture was taken, to the site of the aforementioned former Krogers.

Anyway, I had myself a mighty fine time walking around my neighborhood today, working up an appetite for lunch, which today will be cornbread stuffed with a lot of jalapenos, with a lot of cheese melted on top, plus chicken and broccoli.

And lemonade....

Photo Evidence Of The Fancy Clancy Wedding On A Hood Canal Beach

Clancy & Fancy & Wedding Facilitator

This morning when I woke up my phone I saw that Spencer Jack and his dad had sent me photo documentation purporting to document yesterday's sacred ceremony which wedded Clancy & Fancy in Holy Matrimony.

For some reason I thought that Clancy & Fancy would be wearing the wedding dresses they wore for their wedding portrait at the actual wedding.

Well, I thought wrong. I'd been told that the wedding invitations indicated that the proper attire for the invited guests would be Clam Digger Chic. I thought this was a joke, but clearly I was, once again, wrong.

I do not know what Clancy & Fancy are laughing at in the picture. Maybe they were at the part of the ceremony where the vows had been uttered, with the Wedding Facilitator informing the newly betrothed that the bride could now be kissed, which may have caused confusion which led to the laughing.

In case you are wondering what is being advertised on the front of Fancy's hoodie, wonder no more. Fancy is advertising Dungeness Crab Lager.

Crab flavored beer? Dungeness Crab is just about my favorite seafood.

But, beer which tastes like crab? Yuck.

I do not know who took the above photo of the wedding ceremony. However, someone had to take the photo, which is clear evidence there were at least four people in attendance, those being the brides, Clancy & Fancy, the Wedding Facilitator and the photographer....

Avoiding Town Talk By Walking With Arlington's Village Creek Indian Ghosts

Since today is Saturday my regular thing to be doing would be to go to one of my hiking or biking locations in the Town Talk vicinity prior to going to Town Talk.

Well.

I have decided to change my way too predictable pattern and opted out of going to Town Talk today.

One reason being that of late Town Talk has been almost too busy on Saturdays. Sometimes I find this entertaining, but not so much when I am in a hurry.

Today I needed to replenish my milk supply. ALDI is my milk supplier. ALDI is in the opposite direction, from my abode, from Town Talk,  as in Town Talk is west, towards downtown Fort Worth, while ALDI is east, towards downtown Dallas.

With ALDI being only about a half mile north of Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area I decided that would  be my walking location today.

As you can see, above, the crime scene type tape is still cautioning people that there is an apparently dangerous pile of logs and litter jamming behind the Village Creek dam bridge.

I wonder what the Village Creek Indian Ghosts make of the crime scene tape with CAUTION repeated repeatedly on it.

Today on the opposite side of the dam bridge from the log litter jam I saw a big water snake slithering through the water. Water snakes can slither remarkably fast. I suppose some of that speed can be explaining by the fact that the water snake is swimming with the flow of the creek, rather than against the flow.

Next Saturday I suspect I will be returning to Town Talk....

Dodging Mesquite Thorns Whilst Walking The Mean Fort Worth Streets Of The Most Livable City In America

With the temperature continuing to be unseasonably chilly, as in in the 70s, I decided to continue with my drastic alteration of my regular predictable pattern and once again go on a walk in my neighborhood, rather than drive to one of my regular hiking or biking destinations.

It has been awhile since I walked west on Boca Raton Boulevard, so I did so today, taking a right on to Canyon Drive, then west up a steep side street to walk south under my neighborhood power line greenbelt to Bridge Street, then back to my abode via Bridgewood Drive.

I was not long on Boca Raton Boulevard before I was appalled by that which you see above. A thorny mesquite bush, at least that is what I think it is, blocking the sidewalk. There are very few sidewalks in my neighborhood. This particular sidewalk leads to Albertsons, multiple fast food joints, like Wendy's, KFC, Church's Chicken, Dan's Seafood, Subway, Grandy's and others I am likely forgetting, in addition to regular restaurants, like Italy Pizza & Pasta, Luby's, and regular businesses, like Home Depot, Firestone, Discount Tires, Family Dollar, Dollar General, the aforementioned Albertsons and others I, again, am likely forgetting.

And yet one of the few sidewalks that lead to these places is blocked by vegetation. And it was not just this one instance of blockage, as you can see below, a couple hundred feet from the first obstruction.

I know for you reading this in other parts of America, it is hard to believe that this type poor sidewalk maintenance exists in what locals, who have not seen much of the rest of the world, believe to be the most livable city in America. Or that which they believe to be the most livable city in America has so many roads with no sidewalks, with the sidewalks that do exist being so narrow that a couple plus-sized Texans could not pass without one needing to step out onto the street.

Heading north on Bridgewood Drive, just past the aforementioned Firestone and Family Dollar, I came upon the example of the dangers of no sidewalk, combined with another out of control bush, which you see below.

Note the dirt path worn into the ground where a sidewalk should be. Many a time I have seen people struggling to walk on this wobbly path. Or a mom struggling to push her babies in a stroller. You can not tell it from the photo, but this road slopes downhill at this location. With the dirt path so close to the road it is a bit startling when a bus and car pass by at the same time. I was startled by just that, soon after I made my way past the above obstruction.

Among the many reasons I am appalled by the Trinity River Vision, beside the fact that it is a myopic Boondoggle, is the fact that that Boondoggly vision is so narrow in focus. When Fort Worth has so many areas which could use a bit of vision, wasting limited resources building un-needed bridges over an imaginary bypass channel is just bizarre, when Fort Worth needs much more than a Trinity River Vision, because it really needs a Fort Worth Vision, with that vision seeing a city with sidewalks, with parks in areas currently underserved  by parks, such as East Fort Worth.

Many a time I have mentioned that those who have visited me from the Pacific Northwest have liked the Fort Worth Stockyards the best of the area's tourist attractions. What I don't think I have ever mentioned is I take people on a tour of the darkside of Fort Worth. Driving east from downtown Fort Worth on Lancaster, Rosedale and other streets is a sure jawdropper to those who have never visited a third world country. Same with much of the area on the Northside, as in surrounding the Stockyards zone.

Where is the vision to vitalize the rundown, slum-like parts of Fort Worth? Why is this not even much of an issue? I know other towns in America also have rundown, slum-like areas. I also know some towns in America do not have such areas. Why is that?

I walk the streets of Fort Worth on a day like today and these are the type things I wonder about....