I Don't Need A Government Permission Slip To Buy An Allen Patterson T-Shirt

This morning I received instructions from my primary blog content instructor instructing me to post that which you see here.

Along with a link to the Tarrant County Libertarian Party website.

As you can see, I usually always do what my primary instructor instructs me to do.

I was unable to attend last night's Allen Patterson celebration at the Stagecoach Ballroom. I blogged about my absence in I Am Missing The Celebration Of The Resumption Of The Vices Of Allen Patterson.

I assumed the reason I was instructed to link to the Tarrant County Libertarian Party website was because that website was where one could get oneself one of the t-shirts you see here. However, when I clicked the link I did not find such.

UPDATE: T-shirts can ordered by emailing Brook Bailey at brooklbailey@gmail.com and paid for via the Tarrant LP site.

My instructor sent me the version of the t-shirt you see above, with the message that "Allen Patterson is my Homeboy" along with the "I don't need a Government Permission Slip" version you see below on the left.

My instructor did not send me the image you see below. I found that image on my own without any instructions. This added yet one more t-shirt version, with the additional one saying "FREE Market Economics. It's This simple. I'd like to Purchase your Labor. I'd like to Purchase your Product."

Money raised via the selling of these t-shirts goes into a college fund for Allen's daughter. Which seems to me to be a very worthy cause.

Regarding last night's Celebration of the Resumption of his Vices (and the t-shirts) Allen had this to poignantly say this morning on Facebook....

I've never understood it when someone wins an award and then says "I'm humbled by this." It seems to me that you're humbled when people throw rotten vegetables or dead fish at you.If you are awarded in some way you'd say "I'm honored by this." 

But I get it now. I get it. I'm truly humbled by this night. I'm not worthy of what all was done for me and for my family.. Saying that I'm humbled doesn't even come close to making the point. Thank you all so very, very much. The state Libertarian Party now has something going called The Allen Patterson award? 

Allen Patterson T-shirts? 

You folks have thrown all this on the wrong person. What the hell am I going to do if anything bad ever happens to John Spivey?? Get a stretch of Tom Landry highway named after him? 

Seriously, folks, that was way over the top. I really can't thank you all enough for being there for me during this bad stretch, and thank you all so very, very much for being part of my life. I'm fighting as hard as I can to experience as much more of it as possible. 

And yeah, I'm humbled. I get it now...

I Am Missing The Celebration Of The Resumption Of The Vices Of Allen Patterson

I have had myself being bum puzzled by distractions the past few days.

Problems in need of solution.

Me not being a good problem solver.

For the most part.

Earlier today I had to bail on a lunch invitation lunching with two of the finest ladies I have the pleasure to know, and someone I have not had the pleasure to meet, in person, though we have exchanged many a word via electronic means.

And now, tonight, I am bailing on an invitation I accepted upon receiving it.

The "Celebration of the Resumption of the Vices of Allen Patterson".

I have been amused by Mr. Patterson for years. I was knocked in the gut, along with countless others, when the news of Allen's cancer hit the Internet.

Missing tonight's celebration I am missing many things. Such as seeing Gar the Texan and his latest wife.

It has been over a decade since I have seen Gar the Texan. Or any of his wives....

Under Water After A Night Of North Texas Booming

I saw that which you see here, this morning, on Facebook via Elsie Hotpepper.

I wish the thunder would do its booming during the day instead of causing me sleep deprivation. The latest night of booming had some close strikes, with the boom arriving simultaneous with the lightning flash.

Earplugs block the distant booming, but when the booming gets close it wakes me up, and I stay awake, with the earplugs no longer doing their job.

Last night's booming sleep disturbance was compounded, when it woke me up, by a bedroom so cold I got up to see if I left the A/C on.

The A/C was off. But by dawn's early light I found out why my bedroom was unnaturally cold and why the booming seemed louder than the norm.

I don't remember opening it, but my bedroom window was slightly open, thus allowing the naturally air-conditioned outer world air to blow in.

Currently that aforementioned outer world is being chilled to only 56 degrees. That is way colder than air-conditioned air.

I have a bad feeling about this current syndrome of day after day of storms in North Texas.

There has been a lot of building in the D/FW zone since the last time a mega gully washer hit. Particularly in the north Fort Worth area, which is where the flood above is located.

This area needs some sort of government agency to address flood control issues in towns like Haltom City, which has had some killer flash floods, with little done to mitigate the bad planning which leads to the bad flooding.

An agency called TRWD (Tarrant Regional Water District) is responsible for mitigating flood issues in some of the D/FW zone, but mainly concerns itself with building imaginary islands, building bridges to imaginary islands, building restaurants, building drive-in movie theaters, building ice rinks, building wakeboard parks, opening ballparks, rescuing bankrupt friends, staging floating river beer parties and keeping themselves employed or re-elected or both....

A River Legacy Trinity River Walk On A Freshly Painted Boardwalk While In Fort Worth...

Today I needed a mouse. I targeted Target as the location to get a mouse.

Target is near where the Indian Ghosts haunt Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area, so I figured after getting a mouse I'd go have myself a mighty fine time walking with my favorite ghosts.

Well, that plan went awry when I got to the Historical Area's parking lot to find it blocked, with the blocking gate telling me the park was closed due to flooding.

I then decided to drive a few more miles east and go walking in River Legacy Park, a location I don't think I had been to, this year, til today.

What you are looking at above is the Trinity River, flowing with a lot of water, with my river viewing vantage point provided by the River Legacy Park Boardwalk Overlook.

Arlington seems to maintain Boardwalks a bit better than Fort Worth maintains their Gateway Park Boardwalks, what with the River Legacy Park Boardwalk not being boarded up, not falling apart. And looking as if it has recently received a fresh coat of paint.

New signage has been installed at the trail head of the, currently closed, River Legacy Park mountain bike trail. There are three iterations of that which you see above. There's the big version you see here, in the parking lot, with two smaller versions, one at the entry to the mountain bike trail, one at the hiker's entry.

Very well done signage, showing all 12 miles plus of trail. The old sign was outdated, showing only the original few miles.

Arlington's River Legacy Park is, by far, the best park I've found in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

On Saturday I found rather bizarre signage in Fort Worth's Gateway Park, with that signage put up by America's Biggest Boondoggle.

I blogged about that signage in Finding Imaginative Sign Progress By America's Biggest Boondoggle On Saturday Gateway Park Bike Ride.

On that Gateway Park sign America's Biggest  Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision Boondoggle, tells the gullible The Boondoggle is launching projects which will turn Gateway into a "world class park" by adding some new restrooms and some other things, like benches and security lighting.

How it that Arlington builds what would seem to me to be what must be considered "world class parks" without putting up signs telling their park's many visitor that Arlington is turning a park into a "world class park"?

Would a world class city actually ever refer to anything about their town as "world class"?

It seems to me to be sort of, well, classless, to do so. That and tacky. And embarrassing.

Particularly when it is blatant propaganda puffery and not even remotely true....

Incoming Smoked Salmon From Nephew Joey While Nephews JR & CJ Find Hoodoos

Yesterday I blogged about Spencer Jack's Uncle Joey's Big King Salmon Catch Of The Day.

That would be Spencer Jack's Uncle Joey you are looking at, a few years prior to recently catching a big  fish.

I used to see that volcano you see here from my Mount Vernon kitchen window. That would make that volcano Mount Baker. This volcano has not erupted since the 1800s, if I remember right.

On the day this photo was taken Joey and I hiked up Mount Baker til we could safely go no further, but close enough to see the steam spouting from the volcano's crater and smell the sulfur.

I heard from my Favorite Nephew Joey this morning, with the following message....

FUD,
Fresh smoked salmon is highly requested by all of the non fishing family members. The  order in which I distribute my catch usually starts with my grand parental units on my mother's side, and filters down to bribes with my coworkers. However, I believe this is a third or forth time you have requested this highly sought after delicacy. I believe persistence pays off, so the next time I catch a fish it will be smoked and sent to Texas. I will inform you prior to its arrival.
FNJ

I don't remember making smoked salmon requests, but I am old and my memory is shot, sometimes.

Looking for a photo of my Favorite Nephew Joey I came upon the photo you see below.

That would be my Favorite Nephew Jeremy (JR) on the left, with my Favorite Nephew Christopher (CJ) on the right, a few years prior to moving to Arizona.

Behind JR & CJ is Mount Shuksan. This location is on the north side of Mount Baker, opposite the side of Mount Baker Joey and I were on in the first photo. CJ is looking towards Mount Baker, which looms large a short distance away.

Where JR & CJ are sitting is the top of Tabletop Mountain. Access to the Tabletop Mountain parking lot usually opens late in the summer, after a lot of snow melts. This year I suspect the parking lot will be opening earlier than the norm, due to Washington's current drought emergency.

Can you see what caught my eye in the photo of JR & CJ? Between where they are sitting and Mount Shuksan?

A line of Hoodoos!

Just yesterday Tacoma's Queen V pointed me to an extremely impressive video showing Hoodoos being made in exotic locations. Then destroyed.

The Tabletop Mountain Hoodoos are in a slightly more scenic location than that place I frequently find Hoodoos nowadays, that being the Tandy Hills....

How Come The People Of Denton Have Not Shut The Town Down Protesting Abbott's Ban of Anti-Fracking Bans?

A couple days ago in a blogging titled In Seattle Protesting Pot & Impeaching A Mayor I mentioned something along the line of the fact that I will be reading a west coast newspaper online, like the Seattle Times or Post-Intelligencer or San Francisco Chronicle and think to myself, well, that is something I would never read in the Star-Telegram regarding such a thing happening somewhere in Texas.

In that same blogging I also opined, "Protesting is something I have long made note of being absent, for the most part, at my current location on the planet, where there would seem to be so much to protest about. Fracking earthquakes come to mind."

Well, this morning it happened again. That which you see above is a screen cap from this morning's Seattle Times. Yesterday, thousands of teachers, and others, staged a protest march in Seattle during a one day strike.

Over the weekend hundreds of kayakers protested a Shell Oil rig being floated into Seattle's Elliott Bay before heading north to poke holes in the Arctic seabed.

Meanwhile, in Texas, yesterday the new governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, signed a bill into law which he claimed "protects private property rights from the heavy hand of regulation".

Last year a Texas town made national news when that town's voters voted to ban fracking in Denton. This upset the oil and gas industry, which pretty much controls Texas state government and so the oil and gas industry got their Republican lackeys, that they'd installed in Austin, to pass a bill banning Texas towns from banning fracking.

Denton banned fracking when that town's people  got tired of the heavy handed gas industry abuse of their private property due to shoddy operations causing things like a well explosion, and noisy drilling near homes and schools. Along with earthquakes and air pollution.

So, why are not freedom loving, independent, free-thinking Texans who live in Denton not staging massive protests over this heavy handed gas industry usurpation of their right to have a say over what is allowed in their town?

Denton is a college town, for gawd sakes. Why have the college students in Denton not shut the town down in protest?

Greg Abbott is already a national joke. Achieving that status far faster then his two predecessors.

If the people of Denton staged a massive protest march, such as you see above, it would get national attention, with the nation's outrage focused on the outrageous bill which yesterday the Texas governor signed into law.

Come on Texans in Denton, don't be sheep.

PROTEST.....

Spencer Jack's Uncle Joey's Big King Salmon Catch Of The Day

What you are looking at here is a 66 pound 12 ounce King Salmon.

The catcher of the big fish is Spencer Jack's Favorite Uncle, my Favorite Nephew Joey.

I am guessing the location of the Big Catch is either somewhere in Washington's San Juan Islands, or further north, in the Straits of Georgia or Charlotte zone of British Columbia, near Vancouver Island.

Vancouver Island is a real island, not an imaginary island of the sort Fort Worth imagines and then takes four years to build three little bridges, over dry land, from the mainland to the imaginary island.

No bridge connects Vancouver Island to the mainland. That would take one mighty long bridge. Ferry boats are how you get your vehicle to Vancouver Island.

Joey inherited the Jones Family fishing gene. Joey's brother, Jason, did not inherit the fishing gene. Nor did I.

I do not know if Spencer Jack takes after Joey or Jason and me in the fishing gene department.

Spencer Jack's Uncle Joey smokes a lot of the salmon he catches. It is safe to eat the fish you catch in the waters of Washington and British Columbia.

Unlike my current location, where, for the most part, fish you catch are not safe to eat, particularly if caught in the Trinity River.

I have a box of smoked salmon in my kitchen which arrived last Christmas. That smoked salmon did not come from my Favorite Nephew Joey.....

Borderer Texans Violent Plain Spoken Honorable Braggadocio

A couple days ago I was commiserating with a fellow former Pacific Northwesterner about how so much of what goes on in Texas is so different from what we'd long experienced whilst living on the west coast.

I wondered if it is just a Southern thing, myriad cultural differences, passed on through the generations from long ago, which seem so alien compared to our experience in a more progressive, liberal, free-spirited, highly educated part of America?

And then my fellow former Pacific Northwesterner said a word that made no sense to me.

Borderers.

Huh? What does that mean?

Borderers?

I Googled "Borderers in America" and soon had some understanding of the Borderer concept and how it applies to Texas.

One of the links that came up from Googling "Borderers in America" was a book titled The Texas Right.

Below is a blurb from that book...

_____________________________________________

A degree of conformity within the community. With a suspicion of outsiders and a tendency to preserve local control over the behavior and beliefs of the community members.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Some links about "Borderers in America"-----------

The Borderer Legacy Haunts America

E Pluribus Contentio: The Origins (and Dangers) of the Tea Party Shutdown

Yo, Pundits! Here's What's Up With the Republicans

Why Aren't Thousands Of Kayakers Protesting Fort Worth's Shady Shenanigans?

Apparently Chief Seattle is watching what Shell Oil is up to in the Pacific Northwest, what with Shell Oil moving a big oil rig into Seattle's Elliott Bay.

Watching video of the massive protests taking place in Seattle this past weekend, contrasted with the massive herd of sheep who populate, for the most part, where I am currently located on the planet, well, it has me wanting to move back to a location in America where most of the people graduate from high school without needing the state's governor to negate graduation exams.

In Seattle, well, in the entire Pacific Northwest, well, let's expand the area to include the entire west coast, if a local congressperson's unqualified son were hired to oversee a public works project the public was never allowed to vote on, well, the outcry, the protest, the demand for a criminal investigation, would be so immediate that no idiot would even try to pull off something so absurd.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D., formerly a low level Tarrant County prosecutor, is nearing starting his second decade of being paid well over 100K a year, to oversee America's Biggest Boondoggle, currently taking four years to build three simple little bridges, over dry land, to connect the mainland to an imaginary island.

With the locals, apparently, having no problem with this embarrassing bit of nepotism, so used are they to the Fort Worth Way of their town being run as an oligarchy, where local elected officials can finagle sweetheart deals to rescue bankrupt friends by buying said friend's contaminated property for double market value, paying for the property with taxpayer funds and then finagling to build on that property the world's first drive-in movie theater of the 21st century.

Is the corrupt public official who finagled this deal currently under investigation or charged with a crime?

No.

In Fort Worth he magically gets re-elected with an improbably large landslide.

With nary a protest to be heard.

Meanwhile, in Seattle, a town filled with people who care about the environment, about social issues, about basic human values, this past weekend, and continuing on this week, we see what you see in the below video, something you would never see in Fort Worth, unless you called it a Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Float.

With beer....

In Seattle Protesting Pot & Impeaching A Mayor

I have opined a time or two, or maybe three, about the stark differences between my old home zone of the state of Washington and my current home zone of the state of Texas.

On Sunday, yesterday, reading the Seattle Times, online, those stark differences were starkly noticeable.

First example.

The mayor of Bothell, with Bothell being a Seattle suburb, is in hot water due to what some, apparently, believe to be ethics violations over the purchase of something to do with a golf course.

Resulting in impeachment signs sprouting around town.

Meanwhile, in Texas, in Fort Worth, the voters, and law enforcement, apparently, have no problem with an elected official finagling to rescue a bankrupt friend by arranging to use taxpayer's money to buy said friend's contaminated property for double market value.

In Texas such a thing does not cause an impeach impulse, it triggers a re-elect in a landslide impulse.

Supposedly.

Protesting is something I have long made note of being absent, for the most part, at my current location on the planet, where there would seem to be so much to protest about.

Fracking earthquakes come to mind.

Meanwhile in Seattle.

The Seattle locals, and other Pacific Northwesterners, are not happy with the idea of oil drilling rigs poking holes in the Arctic Ocean. Shell Oil moving an oil drilling rig into Puget Sound, and Seattle's Elliott Bay, is what set off the massive 'kayaktivists' protests this past weekend.

Which leads us to Washington's pot problem, a problem we do not have in Texas, because pot has not been legalized in the Lone Star State, where the Lone Ranger and Tonto regularly used marijuana to calm their jangled nerves.

I did not know that legalizing marijuana in Washington included pot snacks and confections, with those pot edibles migrating across the country to "dry" states.

Texas is a dry state, pot-wise. And also in the not totally over Prohibition-wise. I live in what is known as a Texas wet zone where beer, wine and liquor can be sold. A short distance from my location one enters a dry zone where one can not buy beer, wine or liquor.

If Texas legalized marijuana, which has been considered lately, would pot be legal in the dry zones?