Lamenting No Rockin' The Trinity River In Dallas While J.D.Granger Delivers For The River In Fort Worth

This past Thursday marked the return of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's, I mean, Panther Island Boondoggle's World Famous Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in Fort Worth's crystal clear Trinity River.

More on that later in this blogging, but first I must mention that this morning I learned via an article in the Dallas Observer titled 10 Dallas Places We'd Like to See Host Concerts that there are some people, well, at least one, that being the writer of this article, who wants to close the river floating gap between Fort Worth and Dallas.

On the list of 10 was #5, which you see screencapped above and copied below...

5. The Trinity River Basin
Fort Worth is way ahead of Dallas when it comes to making the banks of the Trinity a legitimate destination for concerts, drinking and various forms of revelry. Screw the city council, screw the naysayers. Let's take advantage of the dry summer conditions and get a stage up between Fuel City and the Oak Farms Dairy for some serious, urban park-style entertainment. If it rains and floods a bit, grab some inner tubes and let's float this sucker. Get your tetanus shots first, and then stop worrying. There's a fancy bridge for a nice backdrop and it doesn't always smell that bad. Let's close the Trinity-As-Entertainment gap that lies between us and the Panther City, Dallas!

The only part of the above which sounds to me like a good idea is the tetanus shot suggestion. Methinks White Rock Lake would be a much better location in Dallas for Rockin' the Lake Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats.

Which leads me to change the subject and ask, why is swimming not allowed in White Rock Lake? It always looks so inviting, to me, swimming-wise, certainly more so than the Trinity River.

Now, changing the subject back to Fort Worth's Rockin' of the Trinity River.

This morning someone named Anonymous made a couple comments regarding an aspect of Thursday's Trinity River Inner Tube Float....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Walking With The Village Creek Indian Ghosts Through A Flurry Of Snow & Snake Concerns":

J.D. Granger sighting at Rockin' the River:

http://www.dfw.com/2014/06/06/898726/pics-rockin-the-river-june-5-2014.html

Photos #68 and #74 include Master Granger. 

That is the #74 photo of Master Granger to which Anonymous refers, below, with that being Master Granger on the left.

Another person named  Anonymous, or maybe the same one, made another comment regarding the above photo....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Walking With The Village Creek Indian Ghosts Through A Flurry Of Snow & Snake Concerns":

#74...needs a bra.

Well.

Looking at the photo I can see why Anonymous has made the bra suggestion, but as a full-figured fellow myself, I take umbrage at someone making such a rude remark....

Walking With The Village Creek Indian Ghosts Through A Flurry Of Snow & Snake Concerns

June Snow in Arlington

I don't know how the Legion of Climate Change Deniers could possibly explain the dusting of snow which dusted the trail today in Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

A dusting of snow when the temperature is nearing the 90 degree zone? If that is not serious Climate Change, I don't know what is.

Walking with the Village Creek Indian Ghosts seems to be an activity growing in popularity, no matter time of the day or day of the week, you find a lot of people on a natural historical quest in this area.

Today when a pair of young ladies saw me and my snake whacking stick they asked if I'd seen any snakes. I indicated I had not on this particular day. I asked if they'd seen any. They had. What they thought to be a corn snake. I asked if they'd like my bamboo snake whacking stick,  for security. They indicated that that  would make them feel more secure. And so I armed them.

I think the open carry law in Arlington applies to snake whacking sticks. I hope I've not been a scofflaw, illegally arming young ladies with a snake whacking stick.

It has been years since I've seen a snake near Village Creek of the venomous Copperhead sort. I used to see big snakes at this location frequently, including big snake conventions in the Village Creek Blue Bayou.

I recollect, years ago, biking on to the old wooden, long gone, Blue Bayou Overlook, seeing two guys intensely looking at something. I asked what had their attention so intensely. They pointed to a big group of water snakes which they thought to be water moccasins.

Where have all the Village Creek snakes gone, I can not help but wonder? Another climate change casualty?

Wondering If I Want To Partake In The Latest Portland Trend With A Big Hole In My Chin

I think this is NUTS.

I saw this on Facebook this morning via Tacoma's Connie D, instructing me to share it if I thought it was NUTS.

And since I do, so I have.

Among the comments regarding this Portland fashion trend was this...

"I honestly don't see the big deal, personal freedom, I don't want people judging me so I don't judge them."

Oh yes, that is some deep thinking in the sentence above. Getting a big hole opened under ones mouth is just one more expression of ones personal freedom.

I am sure this is the type freedom the Founding Fathers were thinking of when they fought the Revolutionary War.

I remember when I was last in Seattle, August of 2008, at the Fremont Sunday Market, seeing guys with their lower ear lobes stretched to make a big gaping hole. It looked so weird. I instantly used my personal freedom to judge to judge the giant ear lobers as clueless morons with bad judgment, bad taste and embarrassing ears.

I usually filter these type things through the reality that if one was born with this as a birth defect, either the giant ear lobe holes or the big holes under ones lower lip, as soon as one could one would seek help to restore ones chin or ears to what the vast majority of humanity considers a good look for a human.....

A Walk Around The Industrial Wasteland I Call Home With My Chesapeake Neighbor More Noisy Than Usual

Today I decided was a good day to take a stroll around the Industrial Wasteland I call home.

As you can see clouds are covering the blue sky at my location today. With no prediction of those clouds dropping anything wet.

As I neared my favorite Chesapeake Energy neighbor today I heard that it was competing with the I-820 freeway for the honor of Most Noisy Neighbor.

As I got closer Chesapeake sounded to be winning the contest.

Is this the rattling, concussive noise which I've read about which has rattled so many who have found their homes located too close to a Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drilling Operation?

I have no idea.

What the Chesapeake gas pad was spewing today was noisy. But, I have heard much worse being much more annoyingly noisy.

Such as neighbors with multiple windchimes.

Below is video, with sound, I took today of my noisy neighbor. The video gets a bit jerky at the end because I momentarily did not remember how to stop the video from recording....

Rolling My Wheels With The Fishes & Turtles In Fort Worth's Gateway Park

I was back rolling my wheels in Fort Worth today, doing the rolling on the Gateway Park mountain bike trails.

At my favorite Gateway Park photo op location today I almost managed to take a picture which sort of indicates my handlebars are perched near the edge of a cliff.

Looking over the edge of that cliff to the murky green Trinity River below I saw oodles of turtles.

The turtle oodles were not doing the usual turtle thing of sunbathing on a log. Instead the oodles of turtles were swimming in the river.

As I watched the turtles I saw a ghostly white shape that looked like a big fish. But the ghostly white shape did not move.

Then I saw another of the same type ghostly white shape. Also not moving.

Eventually I saw five of the same ghostly white fish shape, all not moving.

And then, suddenly, the first  ghostly white shape moved. Followed by the other ghostly white shapes moving.

What brand of fish is ghostly white I wondered?

I tried to get a good picture of the ghostly white fish, with the above being the best I could come up with. I zoomed in on two of the fleet of five big ghostly white fish. You can barely see the fish at the lower left part of the picture. With the fish at the upper right being slightly more  visible.

What type Trinity River fish is white? Could these fish I saw today have floated through a bleach spill?

Isn't it about time for the Rockin'  the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floaters to start partying with the Trinity River fish?

I have not been in a Texas river or lake since I saw my first garfish. With that sighting being in Arlington's Village Creek, followed a week later by two girls telling me one of their boyfriends had stepped on a garfish, a few feet from where we were standing on a dock in Lake Grapevine.

Fort Worth Really Is Where The Jest Begins As The Funniest Big City In America

Last night Elsie Hotpepper emailed me a link with the message in the email saying "Apparently they didn't factor in our politicians...."

The link was to an article in Texas Monthly titled Where the Jest Begins.

Apparently an in depth scientific study was made by a group of some university's scientists to determine the answer to the important question everyone has always wondered about, as in, which big city in America is the funniest.

And so a Top 50 Funny City List was compiled using a complex calculation method factoring in the number of comedy clubs, comedians and how often a town's people visit funny websites.

The computer went to work and eventually figured out that Chicago is America's funniest town.

The Texas Monthly article has a paragraph about how Texas fared, funny-wise....

Texas cities, however, mostly tanked. Austin, at number 14, was the state’s only reasonably funny locale. Dallas and Houston came in at 36 and 37, respectively; Arlington was 46; and San Antonio was 47. Scroll down to the very bottom of the list and there, at number 50, you’ll find Fort Worth—the unfunniest city in America, according to science.

Well, even though I totally respect the scientific method used to determine that Fort Worth is the least funny of the Top 50 biggest towns in America, methinks, like Elsie Hotpepper thought, that the data used to determine a town's funniness was not broad enough.

Methinks things like Kay Granger being Fort Worth's Congresswoman should have been factored in.  Along with Kay's son being given a nepotistic job for which he had zero qualifications, as in running the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, I mean Panther Island Boondoggle. (I just can not get used to the funny, goofy new name for the Boondoggle)

Which is just another funny Fort Worth factor. How many towns on this Top 50 Funny List  have anything as goofy as the Panther Island Boondoggle going on in their town? How many towns on this Top 50 Funny List are building three bridges over an imaginary flood bypass channel for which no money has been secured to dig an un-needed flood bypass channel?

How many other towns in this Top 50 Funny List have something as funny as the Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats going on in a polluted river running past their downtowns?

How many other towns on this Top 50 Funny List have done something as goofy and funny as open the 21st century's first drive-in movie theater?

How many other towns on this Top 50 Funny List has done something as goofy as naming their downtown zone "Sundance Square" and then after decades of there being no square in Sundance Square, finally building a square, but then do something funny like name the new square "Sundance Square Plaza?"

How many other towns on this Top 50 Funny List have had a mayor like former Fort Worth mayor Mike Moncrief, who would do something as funny as pour grape kool-aid in their town's river thinking it would turn the river purple, and do so in some sort of odd homage to a local school's colors?

I really believe a broader funny city scientific survey would have placed Fort Worth in its proper place on a list of the Top 50 Funniest Cities in America, with that proper place being Fort Worth is clearly the #1 Funniest City in America.

Rolling Through Arlington's Findlay Linear Park Causing Me To Think About The Panther Island Boondoggle

This morning my refrigerator informed me I was in need of a re-stocking the milk supply.

ALDI is my milk supplier.

I'd not checked in with Arlington's resident Indian Ghosts for several days, so I decided to do so before going to ALDI to get a couple jugs of processed cow extract.

In the picture you are looking at my handlebars after they'd visited the Indian Ghosts inside the Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

The handlebars are parked on the curvy paved trail of the Bob Findlay Linear Park.

Bob Findlay was an award winning developer who had the vision to build what is known as Interlochen. In the middle/right of the picture you can barely see one of the Interlochen canals, with a fountain spouting water.

I do not know if at its inception Interlochen was originally called the Village Creek Vision. I do know that just like Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, I mean, Panther Island Bonndoggle, the public was not allowed to vote on the Arlington project.

However, Fort Worth's Panther Island Boondoggle is a public works project  the public has never been allowed to vote on, while Arlington's Interlochen is a private development that the public had no business voting on.

I am also fairly certain that, unlike the Panther Island Boondoogle, eminent domain was not abused to take property to build Interlochen.  I believe the Interlochen area was pretty much an undeveloped gravel pit type zone before Bob Findlay had the vision to turn it into what Interlochen is today, that being an extremely attractive  residential zone, with many of the homes having a canal in their backyard.

I also suspect that unlike the Panther Island Boondoggle the Interlochen Vision had a very precise project timeline, was likely fully funded and did not employ the unqualified son of that era's Congressperson as the project's director....

I Think Possibly Ginger Has Me Feeling Mighty Fine Thanks To The Doctors Book Of Food Remedies

For the third morning in a row I have found myself feeling like Mr. Energy. This morning whilst swimming I was pondering what possible variables in my regularly repetitive regime might account for this Era of Good Feelings.

Eventually the pondering led me to consider that Ginger may be the cause of my current high energy modus operandi.

No, by Ginger I am not referring to the movie star on Gilligan's Island, nor am I referring to my sister's BFF who lives in Marysville, Washington.

By Ginger I am referring to the rhizome of the plant Zingiber.

A week or so ago I got myself some fresh Ginger at Town Talk. A couple days after that I was perusing my bookshelf seeking something to read and found a book I did not remember having titled "The Doctors Book of Food Remedies".

In the Food Remedies book, in the section about Ginger, the claim is made that Ginger has cancer fighting properties, can provide migraine relief, motion sickness relief and help ease the aches and pains of arthritis.

So, yesterday, after riding my bike a long distance over tricky trails at Gateway Park, my finger joints were aching. As were my foot joints, well, toes. For lunch I made stir-fry in which grated Ginger was added. Plus I had pickled Ginger on the side.

After lunch my aching joints started feeling better.

In the early evening I had a couple glasses of Iced Tea, made in a big Sun Tea jar. I make herbal tea consisting of Kava Kava, Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer, Sleepytime, Peppermint and others.

And, in addition to the herbal teas I boiled about a half cup of grated Ginger and then added the liquid to the tea.

That added Ginger liquid is surprisingly potent.

And now this morning, I was in the pool when I realized my joints were no longer aching, which caused the light bulb to come on in my dim bulb brain thinking maybe it is the Ginger which has been turning me into a Mr. Energy who is feeling mighty fine. And aching less.

So, I have new pot of Sun Tea infused with Ginger out brewing on the patio. And Garbanzos brewing in the crockpot, to be made into hummus, with a lot of Garlic, which is another food remedy the doctors recommend in The Doctors Book of Food Remedies....

Protesting With Princess Annie Of Wink Taking A Drink Before Heading To Mississippi

In the picture you are looking at Princess Annie of Wink. I believe this picture was taken soon before, or after, Princess Annie had her 8th grade graduation ceremony.

I am fairly certain that is not an adult beverage Princess Annie is holding.

But, who knows? There ain't a lot of law west of the Pecos. Or so I have heard.

I last saw Princess Annie, in person, over four years ago, if my memory is serving me somewhat reliably. At that point in time Princess Annie was still a little girl.

Way back in the winter of 2010, Princess Annie, and her mother, the Queen of Wink, drove all the way to Fort Worth, from Wink, so as to join the protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse protesting what Chesapeake Energy was planning to do to Carter Avenue.

After the protest we packed Judge Sprinkle's courtroom.

Four years later there have been a lot of changes in the Barnett Shale. Chesapeake Energy has gone from being a shadow government of the city of Fort Worth to being sued by Fort Worth, and others, due to Chesapeake's shady dealings.

Carter Avenue was saved, Judge Sprinkle was retired, Aubrey McClendon was booted from Chesapeake, in disgrace, and no one has heard from Steve Doeung in years.

On that protest day, four years ago, after we were done protesting, Annie, her mom and I went to the Fort Worth Stockyards, for BBQ and so I could watch the Queen of Wink and Princess Annie get themselves totally bum puzzled trying to figure their way out of the Cowtown Maze.

Now it is June of 2014 and Princess Annie is scheduled to leave Texas for a few weeks of Mississippi time. Then, near the end of June, the Queen of Wink will venture to Tyler, Texas to fetch Princess Annie, then head back to Wink, with a possible stop in Fort Worth on the way.

If the time and logistics can be worked out....

Energetically Rolling My Wheels In Gateway Park Thinking About Roadtripping To See Tacoma's Chocolate Queen

My handlebars are looking like they are in the same location in Gateway Park as they were two days ago.

Well, looks can be deceiving, a fact I am reminded of almost every time I look in a mirror, whatever that means, but this is not the same location. This location is about a quarter mile south of that other location.

And once again my inferior photographic skills do not do justice to the steepness of the drop-off to the green drink of water known as the Trinity River.

Today has been Day Two of being Mr. Energy. I do not know what is causing this phenomenon. This morning I was once again up early and in the pool soon after the sun arrived.

Then came noon and rolling my wheels in Gateway Park. Today I rolled the entire trail twice. I've never come remotely close to doing that before. I have no idea, but a guess, as to the distance covered. Maybe 10 miles. Time-wise the wheel rolling went on for well over an hour.

When I got back to my abode I was still HOT, and so a second cool pool bout seemed like a good idea. And it was.

Today I heard from the reigning Chocolate Queen of Tacoma, Miss Sara. Miss Sara and I were both surprised to realize it has been over 10 years since the Chocolate Queen flew me in so I could put her chocolate products on Amazon. That was in February of 2004. I  flew up again in August of 2004 to do a couple other projects for the Chocolate Queen and to start up a project with the Chocolate Queen's brother. Then in November of 2004 the Chocolate Queen's brother flew me up north for no really good reason other than to fix his email, near as I can remember.

Three times flying up to Washington in one year was too much flying up to Washington. Currently it has been almost 6 years since I've flown up to Washington. And almost 13 years since I've driven up to Washington. During my first three years in Texas I drove back and forth from Texas to Washington five times. That seems so odd to think of now. Back then it was much cheaper to drive than fly. That and I really like a long roadtrip. I'd rather take 2.5 days to get from here to there on the surface of the planet, than take only 4 hours to get from here to there flying above the planet.

I wonder if I am going to be Mr. Energy again tomorrow....