The Popular Texas Sport Known As Littering Is Freshly Perplexing Me Today

Early yester evening I walked up my neighborhood hill to Albertsons. I noticed that the usually heavily littered route had been de-littered, for the most part.

And now, today, I walked up my neighborhood hill to Albertsons again, to get chicken, to see that which was de-littered yesterday has once again been re-littered.

Why is littering such a popular sport in Texas?

In the litter picture above we are looking east, towards Dallas. My neighborhood Chesapeake Energy gas pad site is at the top of the hill, on the left. The aforementioned Albertsons is across the street, on the right.

How can this much litter show up overnight, even in Texas, where littering is such a popular sport?

I remember the last time I drove back to Washington, early August of 2001, by the time I got to Colorado I started noticing how much less litter there was laying and blowing about. And how sparkly clean everything looked.

The entire way to Washington was pretty much free of Texas-style litter.

When a Texan leaves Texas and finds him or herself in some place like Colorado does it seem to the Texan that something seems to be missing? As in, where has all the litter gone?

Maybe the Don't Mess With Texas anti-litter campaign was not clear enough in its message. Maybe the message should be more direct, something like Don't Litter You Lazy Slobs.

Yes, I am sure that would be effective and much more easily understood.....

The First Sunday Of July With A Big New Hoodoo On The Tandy Hills

The first Sunday of July's Tandy Hills Hoodoo may be the best Hoodoo erection yet erected on the Tandy Hills.

It certainly is one of the most precarious looking Hoodoos. And one of the tallest.

Today I switched my camera to video mode and aimed it at the Hoodoo. I just got notified by YouTube that the Hoodoo video is ready for the publish button to be hit. I will do so and copy the embed code below.

But first I must share something from Stenotrophomonas.

Stenotrophomonas and I were discussing the history of the Tandy Hills. Stenotrophomonas said that dirt bikers used to dirt bike on the Tandy Hills. I asked if that is where the trails came from. Stenotrophomonas then sent me an interesting article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram archives from Thursday, February 18, 1999....

On foot in the park - Police enforcing new signs banning bicycles, vehicles in Tandy Hills 

The signs are now explicit: "Foot traffic only. No Bikes, Horses or Motorized Vehicles."

But even with the new signs and barricades that went up Friday at Tandy Hills Park, police ticketed two people over the weekend when individuals moved aside barriers to drive inside. 

Police will continue to patrol the east Fort Worth park closely until they feel the public understands that bicycles and vehicles are prohibited in the park, said Clint Hall, Fort Worth park and community service officer.

For years, Tandy Hills , a remnant prairie where wildflowers bloom profusely each spring, has served as an occasional playground for four-wheel-drive vehicles that have illegally left eroding ruts. 

But the bike paths were a surprise. 

Attention was drawn to the park more than a month ago when neighbors discovered someone had illegally cut almost three miles of bicycling paths through the nature preserve with a weed trimmer. 

"I can't believe we did not know this was happening until a month ago," said Gay Perry, who heads the West Meadowbrook Neighborhood Association. 

Although only one individual is thought to have done the cutting, word spread quickly on the Internet that good biking trails could be found at Tandy Hills . 

Some of the bicyclists who said they did not know riding there was illegal criticized the city for not posting appropriate signs, city officials said. 

Wayne Clark, who supervises Tandy Hills and the Fort Worth Nature Center, said the city must share some of the responsibility because of the lack of signs. 

Until the signs were posted, police issued only warnings when they caught bicyclists in the park. 

Ten signs have been erected at the front of the park and at several side and back locations where vehicles and bicyclists are known to enter. In addition, the wooden barricades will remain until something more permanent is set up. 

Next week, the Texas Department of Transportation is expected to erect posts and cables across one entrance along Interstate 30. 

"We are trying to get people to listen and know there was a problem out there," said Nel Konkle, field operations supervisor for east Fort Worth parks. "I think the numbers have decreased a little, but they are still out there - the really brave ones."

Hall said he hopes the continued police presence will help. 

Citations issued are for a Class C misdemeanor with fines of up to $500. 

_______________________________________________

Someone made three miles of trail on the Tandy Hills using a weed trimmer? I have been all over the Tandy Hills and can not imagine where someone could trim weeds to make three miles of bike trails.

Anyway, below is the aforementioned video of the latest Tandy Hills Hoodoo. It was suggested yesterday that Jame Earl Jones narrate my videos. James Earl Jones was not available, so you're stuck with me.....

Rolling My Wheels In Fort Worth's Gateway Park Before Getting Peppered At Town Talk

I went rolling on the Gateway Park mountain bike trails today for the first time since the rains of June.

In times past at my favorite Gateway Park photo opportunity location my inferior photographic skills have thwarted my attempts to successfully capture on film, I mean, digitally, the steep precipice the mountain bike trail suddenly comes to without warning.

Today I took video of my favorite Gateway Park photo opportunity location. That video is currently being processed by YouTube, so I don't know yet if the YouTube version successfully depicts the Trinity River cliffs. The un-YouTubed version I saw on my computer did successfully depict the cliffs.

Well, YouTube has just let me know that the video has been processed and is ready to be published. I hit the publish button, copied the embed code and stuck the video below.

But, before you get to that I must make my semi-regular Saturday Town Talk report.

Town Talk was not a traffic jam today. So, I was in and out fast, with a couple bags of artisan buns, a big bag of sweet red, orange and yellow mini-peppers, ground turkey, ancient grains granola, extra sharp white cheddar, tomatoes, celery and other stuff I am currently forgetting.

What I am currently remembering, due to all this food talk, is I have not had lunch, coming up on 2 in the afternoon. I must address this issue immediately....

A 4th Of July Mountain Bike Ride In Arlington's River Legacy Park With No Bobcats

A year ago today I drove to downtown Arlington to watch Arlington's 4th of July Parade.

A year ago seems so recent I really could not muster the desire to drive to downtown Arlington to stand in the sweltering heat to watch a parade roll by today.

Instead I drove to Arlington to River Legacy Park and rolled my wheels, along with a lot of other wheel rollers, on a multiple miles of mountain bike trails.

In the noon time frame most of the River Legacy Park picnic tables were in 4th of July picnic mode. Multiple smoke sources had the air smelling mighty fine.

In the picture above my handlebars are stopped at the location where years ago I had my first bobcat encounter. I can not remember when last I had a bobcat encounter in River Legacy Park. Or any D/FW park.

Where have all the bobcats gone? That sounds like the start to a folk song.

I am being very traditional with my 4th of July vittles today. Hotdogs on the grill, pizza in the oven, beer in the refrigerator.

And mangoes.....

Mary Kelleher Has Had Enough Of The TRWD's Jim Oliver's Attempts To Bully, Intimidate And Harass Public Officials

Photo from FW Weekly Static

On the left you are looking at Mary Kelleher, with a protest sign above her, with the message on the sign being "STOP HIDING DOCUMENTS."

I am assuming this photo was taken at the Tarrant Regional Water District board meeting at which Mary Kelleher's fellow board members censured her. If I remember right the censuring was for doing something totally outrageous like exercising her First Amendment right to free speech at a Fort Worth City Council meeting.

In this week's Fort Worth Weekly Static column titled "Water Disputes" we learn that Mary Kelleher has once again raised the wrath of TRWD Executive Director, Jim Oliver, because Mary had the raw gall to once again exercise her right to free speech by speaking to a group of journalists at the University of Texas in Arlington about her frustrations regarding her inability to be provided public TRWD documents she has requested to peruse.

That's right, Jim Oliver is denying one of the elected TRWD board members access to TRWD documents.

Oliver sent board members, TRWD staff and the TRWD's lawyers an email disputing what Mary Kelleher had to say in Arlington, along with bogus statistics alleging to show that the TRWD has adequately responded to document requests. Fort Worth Weekly did not agree with Oliver's claim. Nor did Mary Kelleher.

Is this all going to lead to another TRWD board meeting censuring Mary Kelleher?

How is it Mary Kelleher gets censured by the TRWD board, while no censuring takes place of a high ranking TRWD official caught flagrante delicto illicitly assignating with a subordinate? A big bad bit of bad boy behavior that is widely known.

How is it that a high ranking TRWD official has not been censured for loudly browbeating Mary Kelleher?

How is it that a high ranking TRWD official has not been censured for multiple acts of nepotism, putting multiple relatives on the TRWD payroll?

How is it that a high ranking TRWD official has not been censured for having little kids hold signs cheering for beer and going nuts for runner's butts?

Changing the subject slightly to something else I have noticed.

Is Fort Worth Weekly being, for want of a better word, censured for daring to be a real newspaper by reporting the TRWD's shady dealings?

I ask this because I have not seen any advertisements in Fort Worth Weekly this floating season for the Panther Island Pavilion Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats. But, I have seen Rockin' the River ads in the Dallas Observer and DFW.com.........

The Annual Fort Worth Drinking Water Quality Report Has Me Wanting To Get The Lead Out Of My Water Along With Nasty Microorganisms

You are looking at the cover of a mailing from the City of Fort Worth's Water Department which showed up in my mailbox this morning.

On the cover we learn that Lake Worth has turned a century old. And when Lake Worth was built it was the largest lake in Texas.

In Texas lakes are built?

There is a lot of information in this mailing about things like immunocompromised people and microorganism testing for things like Cryptosporidium and Giardia Lamblia.  With the source of those two microorganisms being human and animal fecal waste. Apparently low levels of those microorganisms were detected.

If low levels of fecal matter microorganisms were found at the location of the Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the Trinity River that information was not included in the Drinking Water Quality Report.

Reading through this Drinking Water Quality Report I also learned that I should be concerned about lead in my drinking water. I have never worried about lead in my drinking water.

Til  now.

Apparently the Fort Worth Water Department Laboratory offers lead and copper testing to its customers, costing only $15 per each lead and copper test. I am not drinking another drop til I get my test results.

At the very start of the Drinking Water Quality Report frequently asked questions are answered. The first frequently asked question is "Why am I receiving this report?"

I know I wondered about that.

Well, according to the report the answer to that frequently asked question is that in 1996 Congress amended the Safe Drinking Water Act to include a requirement that water utilities annually notify customers about their drinking water quality, with the law being quite specific regarding what information must be included.

I was still aboding in Washington in 1996. I do not recollect ever receiving a Drinking Water Quality Report in the mail.

Did this amendment to the Safe Drinking Water Act only apply to areas of America where the drinking water has serious issues, with more pristine parts of America exempt from worrying about too much fecal matter in the drinking water?

I know this much for certain. If my old home zone had Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the Skagit River no one would raise concerns about getting in a polluted river. The issue would be why would anyone want to go floating in that cold water.....

Has Chesapeake Energy Baffled My Neighborhood Chesapeake Noise Maker?

On Thursday June 5 I took a walk around my neighborhood with Albertsons the final destination so as to acquire that week's Fort Worth Weekly.

On that walk I was a bit surprised at the noise level I was hearing coming from my Chesapeake Energy neighbor.

I blogged about this noise, including a video, with audio, documenting the noise in a blogging titled A Walk Around The Industrial Wasteland I Call Home With My Chesapeake Neighbor More Noisy Than Usual.

Today, Thursday July 2 I took a walk around my neighborhood with Albertsons the final destination as as to acquire this week's Fort Worth Weekly.

When I got to the part of my walk that walks by the aforementioned Chesapeake Energy neighbor I saw that that which had been making noise has had an add-on added.

Is that a sound barrier surrounding the noisy compressor now? Or is Chesapeake hiding something? I suspect it's the sound barrier option, mostly because I was hearing no noise coming from that direction today.

Spencer Jack Staying Cool By Speeding Around Jones Island With His Dad

This morning in my email inbox I found a couple emails from Spencer Jack's dad, one of which had a subject line of "Circling Jones Island with Spencer Jack."

The text in the "Circling Jones Island" email said...

Spencer Jack and I rented a boat today in Deer Harbor. Circled Jones Island, witnessing up close many Sea Otters playing just like us in the PNW summer sun.

The "Circling Jones Island" email also included a video, which I YouTubed and you can view below. In the video Spencer Jack and his dad are boating at high speed on water out in the San Juan Islands zone.

Eventually Spencer Jack docked at Deer Harbor on one of the San Juan Islands, I assume. It's been a long time now since I lived in Washington and I am starting to forget place names. Like yesterday when I read that two men had drowned at Pilchuck Falls I did not remember Pilchuck Falls correctly, confused that falls with Granite Falls.

Anyway, below Spencer Jack is visiting the Deer Harbor Post Office.

Yesterday my old home zone had a record breaking temperature for July 1.

92 degrees.

When I walked out of the Dallas Cowboys stadium yesterday the temperature was 96 degrees.

Most people in Western Washington do not have air-conditioning in their homes, because there rarely is a need for chilled air. When it gets HOT in Western Washington a lot of people seek relief by heading for a beach. In Western Washington there are hundreds of miles of beach, due to there being hundreds of miles shoreline, along bodies of water of both the saltwater and freshwater sort.

In Western Washington if you don't want heat relief of the beach sort you can drive a few miles east and get way above sea level on these things we don't have at my location in Texas called mountains. On July 1 it is very easy to find snow still being chilly in the Cascades.

In addition to there being no mountains available at my current location, my current location also does not have hundreds of miles of beach available.

We do have a cooling off venue called the Trinity River where every Thursday hundreds of desperate to be cool sorts get in the river in something called Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats. There is a plan to turn the location of the Rockin' the River Happy Hours into a little lake. That plan is now well over a decade old, with no lake currently anywhere near being seen.

The water Spencer Jack and his dad are speeding on is not a manmade body of water. It's a work of nature....

In The Dallas Cowboy Stadium Watching Belgium Beat The USA With Chicken & Waffles

Well, my record is intact.

I tried to make it through an entire soccer game, but I failed. So watching the Seattle Sounders first soccer game way back in the last century remains the only time I have made it through an entire soccer game.

I actually enjoyed the experience of watching the USA and Belgium soccering on the Dallas Cowboy stadium's biggest screen in the world.

For awhile.

Then I had to find other venues of entertainment. Like text messaging. And people watching.

In the photo above I am following the throng heading into the stadium. I was more than a bit surprised at how many people availed themselves of this opportunity to attend this event. But there were obstacles, such as that documented below.

Obstacles such as going through a security check of the sort one goes through to board an airplane. I passed security effortlessly. But, Big Ed, with his arms in the air above, had all sorts of issues. He had items confiscated, such as a water bottle.

The USA/Belgium soccer match seemed to be a very patriotic affair. I don't recollect ever seeing so much red, white and blue. And I know I have never in person heard the "USA" chant at a sporting event. It becomes sort of annoying after hearing "USA" chanted a few hundred times. And who was the chanting for? The USA team playing soccer in Brazil could not hear it.

I found the guys below, seated to the right of me, to be highly amusing. Note their seat saving method. The seats were saved for a gaggle of girls. When the gaggle of girls arrived they seemed to mostly ignore the gaggle of guys behind them.

Among the people I texted whilst combating my soccer boredom was my sister in Arizona. I mentioned to my sister that I was being surrounded by people eating chicken and waffles. With the waffles shaped like Texas. I texted a photo of this to my sister. The chicken and waffles were heavily promoted, such as below via the big screen.

I must admit the chicken and waffles did look tasty. But waffles shaped like Texas? That is just weird.

Anyway, below is a short video of a little bit of my experience today watching a soccer game's regular time end in a tie, then watching Belgium scoring a point in over time. And then another point. Which had the masses bailing, including me.

I later learned that before the game was over the USA managed to score a point....

I Won't Be Pedaling The Cowtown Cycle Party To Arlington To Watch The USA Beat Belguim Today

On the left you are looking at the latest addition to Fort Worth's public transit system, with this latest edition being known as the Cowtown Cycle Party.

I do not know if this Cowtown Cycle Party thing is yet one more J.D. Granger brainstorm result, but that is Mr. Granger on the mass transit device, second from the right.

Fort Worth is known far and wide as a very green town, with this motorized by pedaling public transit option being yet one more example of Fort Worth's progressiveness in the saving energy, eco-friendly area.

I won't be taking any form of public mass transit to Arlington today to watch the USA beat Belgium on the world's biggest TV screen in the Dallas Cowboy stadium, because there is no form of public mass transit that covers all of Tarrant County.

If only the Cowtown Cycle Party ran a route to  Arlington, I could hop aboard and join the pedaling. However, even though this is a very energy efficient form of mass transit, it is also slightly expensive. Details on the cost later, but first I want to show you the Cowtown Cycle Party website....

That is Fort Worth mayor and biking enthusiast, Betsy Price, on the right, having herself a mighty fine time pedaling around downtown Fort Worth whilst enjoying an adult beverage and being eco-friendly while getting exercise and getting some fresh air, according to the Cowtown Cycle Party website.

So, how much does it cost to be eco-friendly, get exercise and breathe fresh air you are likely wondering, along with some other questions you may be wondering about, well, all you need to know I gleaned from the Cowtown Cycle Party website and have copied below...

Whether you’re a Fort Worth native or visiting for the first time, a ride on the Cowtown Cycle Party will give you a close-up look at Downtown that you can’t get any other way! Routes? We don’t need no stinkin’ routes! Your group can go just about anywhere in the Central Business District on the Cycle Party Bike. The two-hours are yours to spend as you like.

Hours of Operation
Full Bike Tours: Monday–Saturday 10am–10pm & Sunday 2:30-9:30pm
Make New Friends Mixers: Thursdays 8–10 pm & Sundays Noon–2pm

Pricing
Make New Friends Mixers: $30 / seat for a 2 hour tour
Weekday Full Bike Tours for up to 15 People: $160 / hour ( 2 hour minimum )
Friday, Saturday and Sunday Full Bike Tours for up to 15 People: $190 / hour ( 2 hour minimum )
Holidays: $190 / hour for a Full Bike Tour for up to 15 People ( 2 hour minimum )

Tipping
Tips are always appreciated! If you had a great time, tipping your driver the standard service industry amount of 20% is customary.

Pedal the entire time or make stops to visit:
Sundance Square Plaza
The Fort Worth Water Gardens
Historical and cultural points of interest
Cool architecture

_________________________________________

Tipping? There is a industry standard for the cycle party industry? 20% of $30 is $6.

What is the service industry standard for tipping drivers of the Fort Worth T buses?

Anyway, I suspect I won't be pedaling the Cowtown Cycle Party anytime soon......