The Last Day Of June Rolling My Wheels In River Legacy Park With A Large Number Of Fellow Semi Plus-Sized Bikers

I don't remember when I last rolled my wheels to the east end of the paved trail in Arlington's River Legacy Park, but it had been awhile.

As you can see, to the right of my handlebars, rescue signage has been added of the same sort which is now on the River Legacy Park mountain bike trails.

Every quarter mile there is a 911 sign, with the paved trail identifier of "RL" and the mile, which is "7" at the trail's end.

Arlington seems to have River Legacy Park in a constant state of improvement. I wish Fort Worth would expend the same type effort on Gateway Park. Or Oakland Lake Park. Or Quanah Parker Park.

However, some of the changes I saw today whilst rolling on the River Legacy paved  trail were not exactly improvements, such as that which you see below.

A wide swatch of trees has been removed since I was last at this location, with a new power line installed, crossing the paved trail.

I was surprised by the number of fellow bikers I saw today pedaling the paved trail. There were a lot of vehicles in the mountain bike trail parking lot, causing me to assume there were a lot of bikers rolling on those trails.

The majority of those I saw biking the paved trail today were of the slightly plus-sized sort, with more of the males being plus-sized sorts than the females.

When I first discovered River Legacy Park, back late in the last century, I remember being surprised at how few people were using this park. At that point in time I did not know that River Legacy Park was a new park.

The number of people I see now, a decade and a half later, getting exercise, having a mighty fine time in River Legacy Park, and the large number who seem to be a bit plus-sized and exercising, well, methinks Texas, well, maybe not all of Texas, but certainly the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington zone of Texas, is getting in better shape.

I suppose this explains why Dallas, Fort Worth and Arlington don't show up so frequently, anymore, on those list type deals of the Most Obese City type.

Tomorrow I Am Not Watching The World Cup Match Between Belgium & The USA On The World's Biggest TV Screen With Ann Coulter

Tomorrow, on the first day of July, around two in the afternoon, I will be on my way to Arlington, to a location about five miles east of my abode, known as Jerry World, by some, but known by more as the Dallas Cowboy Stadium.

Tomorrow will be the first time I've been inside this notorious stadium.

The stadium's PR department explains why I'm going inside for the first time...

AT&T Stadium will host a World Cup watch party for Team USA’s Round of 16 match against Belgium on Tuesday, July 1, 2014.  This will be a unique opportunity for all Team USA supporters to come together in one location to watch the biggest match of the year to date on the largest video board structure in the world.

Parking and admission are FREE, so fans of USA soccer can join together in the comfort of climate controlled AT&T Stadium, to cheer on their team together.  What better way to experience the thrill of World Cup soccer, an opportunity that comes just once every four years.

The match starts at 3:00 pm.  Doors to AT&T Stadium will open at 1:30 pm and parking lots will open at 12:30 pm.  Fans can enter the stadium through Entry A, C, H and K.

The current AT&T Stadium bag policy will be in effect for this event.  No large bags or purses will be allowed into the stadium. Only small, single-compartment clutch purses are permitted.

Where am I going to find myself a single-compartment clutch purse by tomorrow? And what would I put in it?

I think I've mentioned before that I find it bewildering that watching soccer games is so popular with so many. To my limited imagination the World Cup seems to be an awful lot of ado about very little to get in much of an ado mode over.

Others beg to differ on my soccer-perplexed point of view. Others, like Mr. Galtex, who waxed poetically about the wonders of World Cup Futbol in a blogging he wrote back during the 2010 version of the World Cup titled Dance for Space.

The regularly provocative Ann Coulter, she of right-wing nut commentator fame, wrote a column about soccer and the World Cup recently which many found to be aggravating, but I found to be mostly amusing, and a bit appalling, what with finding myself sort of in agreement with a few of the things Ann Coulter opined about soccer.

The AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER title of Ann Coulter's soccer column pretty much sets the tone for the rest of what she had to say.

I will glean a few of the Ann Coulter hating soccer gems....

I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay. 

I'm impressed Ms. Coulter was able to hold off for a decade sharing her thoughts about soccer.

Do they even have MVPs in soccer? Everyone just runs up and down the field and, every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in. That's when we're supposed to go wild. I'm already asleep. 

I don't quite get the MVP point in the above paragraph, but I find myself in agreeance with the second and third sentence.

Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level.
 
Okay, the above Coulter assertion seems a bit rude, but also sort of has a grain of truth to it.

No other "sport" ends in as many scoreless ties as soccer. This was an actual marquee sign by the freeway in Long Beach, California, about a World Cup game last week: "2nd period, 11 minutes left, score: 0:0." Two hours later, another World Cup game was on the same screen: "1st period, 8 minutes left, score: 0:0." If Michael Jackson had treated his chronic insomnia with a tape of Argentina vs. Brazil instead of Propofol, he'd still be alive, although bored.

I've long said if soccer got rid of having a goalie the game would become much more entertaining. Along with having basketball game-like scores.

The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game.

Well, if Lady Thatcher really said that, well that's sort of amusing.

Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace. In hockey, there are three or four fights a game -- and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box. 

What is wrong with me that I'm finding this Coulter lady to be funny?

You can't use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here's a great idea: Let's create a game where you're not allowed to use them! 

The above, in addition to the no timeouts, and the low to no scoring, is what I've always found oddest about soccer.

Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren't committing mass murder by guillotine. 

The metric system emerged from the French Revolution? This I did not know. Or forgot that I knew.

Remember when the media tried to foist British soccer star David Beckham and his permanently camera-ready wife on us a few years ago? Their arrival in America was heralded with 24-7 news coverage. That lasted about two days. Ratings tanked. No one cared. 

I thought that Beckham guy got paid a few hundred million dollars to play soccer on some California team, so someone must have cared. Or been very foolish with their money.

I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time. 

I really think Ms. Coulter may have erred with her above assertion. Mr. Galtex is an American. I'm almost 100% certain the great-grandfather of Mr. Galtex was born in America, likely in the Texas part of America. And Mr. Galtex seems to be totally addicted to watching soccer, I mean, futbol.......

Stenotrophomonas Pointed Me To A Formerly Rusty New Tandy Hills Mystery

Late Friday Stenotrophomonas emailed me after he'd hiked the Tandy Hills for the first time since the recent rains.

This is what Stenotrophomonas had to say....

I went in there (Tandy Hills) for the first time since the rains around 5pm. Reasonably dry, only a little mud on the jungle trail and other low-lying areas. The mundane thing: a hoodoo. Looked kinda rickety, so it may be horizontal by morning. The other thing: I saw a rusty exhaust pipe and some other piece of metal by the green sewer obelisk approaching the escarpment. Then I looked to my left and saw that the car that had been parked there for decades had vanished. I didn't see any obvious ground scrapings where metal had been dragged through, nor did I find any car carcasses nearby. Heard anything?

I returned to the Tandy Hills today, this last Sunday of June, for the first time since the recent rains, to find the Hoodoo just as Stenotrophomonas described it, rickety, but still vertical.

Below is the green sewer obelisk to which Stenotrophomonas referred, with the rusty exhaust pipe and piece of metal, looking to me like a pair of snakes in confrontation mode.

The next picture documents the now empty location of the rusty car which had sat rusting for decades, unmolested, except for an occasional snake infestation, which I never saw, but was told about.

Just as Stenotrophomonas indicated, there was no sign of anything rusty being dragged. No tire track marks of any sort of vehicle which would have been needed to haul away the rusty mess.

Then, later in my Tandy Hills tour I saw that the recent rains had flash flooded across the Tandy Highway, washing out the crossing over Tandy Creek, blocking the only way in or out for someone wanting to haul something large, like a rusty old car.

I suspect the disappearance of the Tandy Hills Rusty Car Landmark will just be added to the ever growing list of the Mysteries of the Tandy Hills.

Mysteries such as what is the name of this big purple wildflower I saw today coloring up the Tandy Hills?

A BBQ Infused Walk Around Fort Worth's Fosdick Lake Before Getting Cheese From Switzerland At Town Talk

That would be my favorite picnic table in Oakland Lake Park you are looking at in the picture.

A ditch runs under the picnic table on its way to Fosdick Lake. I have never seen water running in this ditch, likely due to the fact that I have never sat at this picnic table whilst rain is in falling mode.

A large group, part of which you can see at the top of the picture, had the Oakland Lake Park Pavilion packed with people today, along with a couple BBQers in full smoke mode.

Whatever meat product those people were smoking it sure smelled mighty fine. I hung out around the BBQers for a bit, then when no invite seemed to be forthcoming I continued with the rest of my walk around Fosdick Lake before continuing on to Town Talk for the first time on a Saturday in awhile.

I got myself some good stuff at Town Talk today, including Swiss cheese from a country called Switzerland, sharp cheese from a continent called Australia, a big bag of sweet red, yellow and orange mini-peppers, a big bag of unsalted peanuts, harbanero chicken sausage, a bag of chipolte huumuus chips, plus tomatoes, spuds and onions.

Apparently the era of finding a big variety of various cases of yogurt is over at Town Talk, at least for now. It has now been a couple months, I think, since I got myself a case of yogurt.

Today We Learn How TRWD Nepotism Can Lead To Tacky Cheesy Signs

Yesterday morning I blogged This Morning I Learned J.D. Granger Is Promoting Little Kids Cheering For Beer & Going Nuts For Runner's Butts.

By late afternoon, yesterday, Jeff Prince, in Fort Worth Weekly's Blotch, also blogged about this subject in Trinity River Vision's J.D. Granger, Kids Hold Tacky Signs.

I did not know til learning so in FW Weekly that it was J.D. Granger's kids who were letting runners know they go nuts for runner's butts and cheer for beer.

Jeff Prince talked to the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle spokesman, Matt Oliver, from whom he learned the signs were not tacky, but instead were "cheesy".

Four paragraphs from the FW Weekly Blotch blog explaining how these "cheesy" signs came to be...

TRV spokesman Matt Oliver explained the backstory to Blotch: Oliver had learned back in February that the Cowtown Marathon route would pass Panther Island Pavilion, and so he made up signs for he and friends to hold as the runners passed.

He looked online at signs being held up at other marathons, chose some of the "cheesy" ones, and printed up a handful of signs, he said.

Granger and his two children (the boy and girl shown in the enlarged photo) arrived shortly before the runners approached, and they grabbed a few of the signs that weren't being used and held them without paying much attention what was written on them.

“At no point were his kids involved in the making of the signs,” Oliver said. “[Granger] and the kids were walking down there, and there were six or seven signs left over and they picked up some to cheer on the runners.”

Who suggested the Granger kids were involved in making these signs? Why is that straw man being knocked down by this Oliver guy?

Speaking of Matt Oliver. Does anyone know how many of the Tarrant Regional Water District's General Manager Jim Oliver's relatives are nepotistically employed by the TRWD?

So, Matt Oliver came up with these "cheesy" signs by going online to find the "cheesy" slogans?

Okay, let's try that. I Googled "marathon signs" and found none cheesy or tacky.

I then Googled "cheesy marathon signs" and found "Run Fast I Just Farted" "Run Like An Angry Kenyan" "Worst Parade Ever" "The Beer at the Finish Line Won't Drink Itself" and "Mortuary 1 Block Ahead: Look Alive".

So, Googling for "cheesy marathon signs" came up with some that are almost as bad as the ones Matt Oliver claims to have found online.

But, Googling for "tacky marathon signs" quickly came up with one which more closely matched the Matt Oliver "cheesy" taste level with "Nipple Chafing Turns Me On" plus I saw one which looked familiar, saying "I Go Nuts For Runner's Butts". And then I moused over that one to see that Google had already indexed the photo of J.D. Granger and his kids from the FW Weekly Blotch blog.

So, I can not help but wonder what search term Matt Oliver used to find the words he put on those signs.

Matt Oliver claims that J.D.'s kids picked up the signs they were holding with no one paying any attention to what was on the signs. Yeah, that seems believable.

There was an email in my inbox this morning from someone who had read the FW Weekly Blotch blog who reacted in much the same way I did to the TRVB spokesman's "cheesy" explanation regarding the controversial signs.....

The guy who is supposed to be their spokesperson (who happens to be related to The Jim Oliver) swiped the tackiest sign ideas he could find, from someone else. Did he come up with Clean Swimmin' Dirty Livin' all by himself? What do we pay him to steal the worst ideas ever?? AND the guy who is in charge of a billion dollars (that has yet to materialize) didn't read the signs. What else didn't he read? 

So, when is the Censure Hearing scheduled with the Tarrant Regional Water District Board regarding Matt Oliver's "cheesy" bad judgement?

Finding Renewal In Arlington With A Vietnamese Visit To Chinatown Before Finding Giant Mushrooms Sprouting In Veterans Park

If I remember right I have heard it said, a time or two, that everything is bigger in Texas.

I've thought that sounded ridiculous every time I've heard it said.

And then today I came upon the biggest mushroom I have ever seen, sprouting in Veterans Park in Arlington.

I have never seen the vegetation in Veterans Park sprouting at the lush level it is currently sprouting.

I was in Arlington today to get a vehicle registration renewal sticker. An annual ordeal I go through due to forgetting to mail the form in in time to avoid not taking care of it in person. Then again, I always enjoy the drive to the heart of Arlington.

Since I was in the heart of Arlington part of town and since I needed some Asian products, after doing the sticker renewal I headed further south and east to Cho Saigon Market in Arlington's Chinatown.

After shopping with the Vietnamese I was off to Veterans Park to find the aforementioned giant mushroom. There were dozens of mushrooms sprouting. I figured this sprouting had to have recently occurred because it seems unlikely these growths would last long without being plucked.

I was tempted to pluck one of the giant mushrooms to add to today's stir-fry lunch, but then I remembered these type things can be poisonous, like so many other things that are bigger in Texas.

Whatever that means....

This Morning I Learned J.D. Granger Is Promoting Little Kids Cheering For Beer & Going Nuts For Runner's Butts

I found the above picture in my email inbox this morning, sent by Elsie Hotpepper, with the subject line being "There are no words....".

It took me a second or two to figure out that which left Miss Hotpepper speechless.

I will try to see if I can find the words which eluded Elsie.

Well, this picture is some sort of Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, I mean, Panther Island Pavilion Boondoggle promotion.

That is J.D. Granger in the yellow shirt standing behind a little kid holding a sign. It is what is on the signs which rendered Elsie Hotpepper speechless.

Let's look closeup at the three signs nearest J.D. Granger....

Two little kids holding Panther Island Pavilion signs with the first kid's sign saying "I go nuts for runner's butts" with the next kid's sign saying "Will cheer for beer" with the third sign saying "Run quietly when hungover".

The messages on the others signs were gems like "If this was any easier it would be your mom". I have no idea what that means.

Then there was this one, "You make chafing look sexy". What in the world is being promoted here?

"You've got stamina? Call me".

"You're almost there. That's what she said".

Are some of these signs supposed to be funny by being real juvenile type double entendre type messages?

There are signs sitting on the two chairs on the right side of the picture. I could only make out part of one of the sitting signs, that being the one on the right. The part I could make out is "If peeing your pants is cool then you're.....". I could not make out the next two words.

I don't know what you are thinking about this latest bit of Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, I mean, Panther Island Pavilion Boondoggle bizarreness, but what I'm thinking is whoever it was who thought it a good idea to make these signs and have a photo taken with little kids holding signs saying one goes nuts for runner's butts while the other little kid cheers for beer, well, methinks terminated without severance pay would seem to be a fitting response.

Should not the buck for something like this stop at the top? As in, J.D. Granger must have signed on to make these signs. He certainly signed on to promote them. Will the Tarrant Regional Water District Board have a Censure Hearing regarding this?

Or am I just an old fuddy duddy who does not get the highly evolved, sophisticated Fort Worth sense of humor?

Extremely perplexing.....

It Took 30 Seconds Of Watching Germany Beating U.S. In World Cup For My Attention Deficit Disorder To Kick In

This morning was consumed by a new computer hunt which took me as far north as North Richland Hills before finally finding a computer in Hurst, at a Walmart of all places.

By the time I got back to my abode it was well before my regularly scheduled lunch time, but I was hungry, so I made an early lunch.

When I turned on the TV to entertain myself whilst nutrifying myself I remembered that the U.S. was World Cupping with Germany today.

I've been hearing mention made of this World Cup thing much more than I remember hearing during World Cups of the past. But this had not caused me to watch any of it.

Til today.

I think I have only made it all the way through a soccer game once, and that was way back in the last century, when I watched the first game of the original Seattle Sounders, played in Memorial Stadium in the Seattle Center. The only thing I remember about that soccer game was what a great view of Mount Rainier my seat provided.

So, today I turned on the TV and channel chased til I came to mention of the World Cup. It was on ESPN. I was about 30 seconds in before I started wondering what I have wondered before, as in what in the world do people find entertaining about watching this?

Now, I am not much of a sports spectator type. Never have been. I can take watching a football game, of the American style football game, a few times during the year. I still find baseball boring, but the up close way TV covers baseball, in our modern times, makes it a lot more watchable.

I've always found watching basketball or tennis capable of holding my attention, at times, particularly basketball, though it has been years since I've watched a basketball game. Way back in the last century I used to attend many Seattle Supersonic games in person.

But soccer? Or what the rest of the world calls football?

Yes, I used a question mark even though those two sentences above are not questions.

I imagine in person World Cup football might be entertaining. But, watching it on TV? Most of the time the camera view is pulled way back, covering the bulk of the field. I guess this is how it has to be filmed due to that ball being kicked back and forth over and over and over and over again.

By the time I turned on the World Cup Germany had scored 1 goal with the U.S. goalless. The game ended with that same score. At some point the play by play talkers started repeating over and over again that if the score in a game being played at the same time ended with Portugal beating Ghana, which was what was happening, why then the U.S. losing to Germany was not really losing because the U.S. still advances to something called the Knockout Rounds of 16.

Or something like that.

I remember my dad at some point in time saying something about soccer which stuck in my memory, that being that it is such an odd sport, it being a game where one can not use ones hands, for the most part, but you can hit the ball with your head.

I remember myself a long time ago wondering if the reason soccer is so popular with the rest of the world, but historically not so popular in America, is because way back when sports like baseball, football and basketball became popular in America the rest of the world could not afford the stadiums, ballparks, basketball courts and uniforms and equipment that baseball, football and basketball require.

While the most desolate location on the planet could manage to come up with a ball suitable for kicking, and a flat piece of land on which to kick the ball.

And so that peculiar foot kicking game became popular.

And known worldwide, except for America, as football.

Which has me wondering now, what with most all of the world wired to TV, watching events like the Olympics, exposed to all sorts of entertainment, how in the world is something as boring as watching these World Cup soccer games holding the attention of so much of the world?

Perplexing....

Yesterday Mother Nature Decided To Flood Fort Worth

I've collected a few photos generated by yesterday's ultra wet Fort Worth flood event from the interwebs, well, mostly Facebook, and one via incoming email.

The photo on the left, found on Facebook, is not one taken of yesterday's Fort Worth flood. The guys in the boat were floating in the 1949 Fort Worth Trinity River flood.

I am not certain, but I am fairly certain the 1949 flood is the water event which resulted in the Army Corps of Engineers building the massive levees which have kept Fort Worth from being flooded to the 1949 level in well over a half century.

The below flood photo was gleaned from Facebook via Layla Caraway, she being the young lady who often pops up in the news whenever the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex goes into flash flood mode, due to her personal experience with bad flash flood control planning, experienced when her Haltom City home teetered on the edge of a disastrous flush into a deadly flash flooding creek a few years ago.

The TRWD to which Ms. Caraway refers is the Tarrant Regional Water District, that being the government agency which is supposed to concern itself with flood control and water supply, which somehow morphed into an agency opening a restaurant, wakeboard lake, drive-in movie theater, ice skating rink, and, apparently, a brewery, along with abusing eminent domain, in cahoots with a sub-agency the TRWD created, currently called the Panther Island Boondoggle, with that boondoggle planning to take down the aforementioned levees which have kept Fort Worth from catastrophic flooding for a long long time, replacing the levees with a little lake along with a flood diversion channel.

Below is a photo from yesterday's flood which the Fort Worth police had on their blog, which then ended up on Facebook.

Below you are looking at a water covered Hulen Street, with what looks to be a white pickup in way too deep.

I was a little surprised to see the below area so badly flooded. The West 7th Corridor is mostly new development, with Crockett Street developed this century. So, why are these recently upgraded roads not able to handle an excess rain event, like yesterday's, without water backing up like we see below?

I was in the Eastchase Target in East Fort Worth when yesterday's thunderstorm and downpour started up. Upon leaving Target I did not see any flooding at the level seen above.

When I got back to my abode the rain was downpouring, with non-stop lightning strikes, so I decided to opt out of getting drenched and instead called my mom so she could experience some vicarious rain, what with mom's location in Arizona being rain-free since some point last March.

Rain is on the weather menu again today.

So far I have not seen any drippage, other than what dripped off me when I got out of the pool this morning....

A Hot Humid Walk With A New Incoming Texas Park Pipeline

Today at which of my regular hiking haunts do you think I found what you see on the left?

The Village Creek Natural Historical Area? Quanah Parker Park? Gateway Park? River Legacy Park? The Tandy Hills? Veterans Park? Oakland Lake Park?

Well, if you guess Oakland Lake Park you would have guessed correctly.

I know for certain this line of pipes is not being buried to carry water to Oakland Lake. I know this because there is no Oakland Lake in Oakland Lake Park, due to the Fort Worth tendency to oddly name things, like for decades there was no square in Sundance Square, until a square was finally built and then oddly named Sundance Square Plaza. which seems sort of redundant.

I digress.

The lake in Oakland Lake Park is called Fosdick Lake.

Is this new line of pipes running to Fosdick Lake part of some part of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's plan to clean up the water in Fosdick Lake to turn it into a safe swimming venue? Or perhaps a safe location for Rockin' the Lake Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats?

No, I don't think the Oakland Lake Park neighbors would like having their lake rock with loud inner tubers.

And I don't think there is any part of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle that has anything to do with cleaning up polluted water.

I just remembered, it has been awhile since I have mentioned the Trinity River Vision Boondoogle. I temporarily forgot the Boondoggle has been renamed the Panther Island Boondoggle.

Has anyone else noticed that "Vision" has been taken out of the Boondoggle..........?