Today Via Google I Learned The Home Of America's Biggest Boondoggle Is America's 17th Largest City

Last night I Googled Seattle. When I did so I saw that Google put a blurb about Seattle on the right side of the search results.

I was Googling Seattle because I wanted to find a paragraph I had previously read in the Wikipedia Seattle article about Seattle's print media, as an example of a town with real news sources of various sorts compared to a town without a real newspaper doing real investigative journalism.

The point I was going to opine was that in a town with real newspapers you don't have things happen that result in becoming something like America's Biggest Boondoggle. Or a public works project never voted on by the public, where a local congressperson's unqualified son is hired to be the executive director of the project, where the son's executive directing goes into planning things like floating beer parties in a polluted river.

The Wikipedia article also mentions that Seattle has the highest percentage of college and university graduates of any major American city. And that Seattle is the most literate of America's 69 largest towns.

How do you go about measuring how literate a town is, I am left wondering? Percentage of people with library cards? Number of libraries? Hours libraries are open? Number of books sold in bookstores? Number of bookstores? Amount of print media produced in a town?

Anyway, after I saw that Google puts up a little blurb about any town in the world that you Googled, I thought I would check in on a few towns and see what Google blurbs about them.

Well, Google pretty much waxes poetic about Seattle....

City in Washington
Seattle, on Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest, is surrounded by water, mountains and evergreen forests, and encompasses thousands of acres of parkland (hence its nickname, "Emerald City"). It’s home to a thriving tech industry, with Microsoft and Amazon.com headquartered in its metropolitan area. The futuristic Space Needle, a legacy of the 1962 World’s Fair, is its most recognizable landmark.

I then Googled Fort Worth to find that Google did not have a lot to say about Fort Worth....

City in Texas
Fort Worth is the 17th-largest city in the United States and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas.

One would think that Google could at least point out that Fort Worth is known for its Stockyards and for currently hosting America's Biggest Boondoggle. And that Fort Worth has a long history of making other towns, far and wide, green with envy. Google does point out that one can stay in a 3-star Fort Worth hotel for around $120, while Seattle's 3-star hotels will cost you around $300, with 5-star hotels running around $510.

Now let's look at Fort Worth's sister city, Dallas.

Well, Google has more to say about Dallas than it says about Fort Worth, saying....

City in Texas
Dallas is a major city in Texas and is the largest urban center of the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. The city proper ranks ninth in the U.S. and third in Texas after Houston and San Antonio.

Apparently Dallas has 3-star hotels cheaper to stay in than Fort Worth's at around $110. Dallas has 5-star hotels way cheaper than Seattle's at around $180. Google really does not have much more to say about Dallas than it did about Fort Worth. No mention of Dallas being the location of the State Fair of Texas. Or being the location of America's most recent presidential assassination.

Let's go back to Washington to see what Google has to say about the town I was living in before I was exiled to Texas.

City in Washington
Mount Vernon is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The population was 31,743 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included in the Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area.

I just now noticed that Google is getting some of the blurbs from Wikipedia, which would explain the sparse Fort Worth entry, because the Wikipedia Fort Worth article is sort of pitiful.

Mount Vernon's 3-star hotels are a more expensive stay than Fort Worth and Dallas at around $150. I've stayed in a Mount Vernon hotel or two on return visits to Washington. Never paid anywhere near $150. I have no idea if I was staying in a 3-star hotel.

All the blurb examples I have used here came from the first sentence of that town's Wikipedia article.

Except for the Seattle blurb.

Which I assume means there must be a way to edit Google's description of a town. I think someone needs to get on this serious issue right away and spruce up the Fort Worth and Dallas blurbs.

And Mount Vernon's as well, with mention made of the annual tulip festival attracting over a million tulip tiptoers, the annual Skagit County Fair, the Riverwalk, Little Mountain and other stuff I am not remembering right now....

To Be Safe From Texas SWAT Attacks Arlington's Garden Of Eden Should Move To The Skagit Valley

Today we have another entry in our popular series of bloggings about something I see in a west coast online news source which I would not see in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

This morning it was my old home zone's online news source called the Skagit Valley Herald, in its online version called GoSkagit, that I saw something one would not see going on in Texas.

That being anything to do with legal marijuana, since nothing to do with marijuana is legal in Texas, not even medicinal marijuana.

The "changing landscape" part of the article's title refers to the limbo Skagit County pot growers have been in due to the county commissioner's multiple changing of interim pot growing ordinances en route to finally approving permanent regulations, sometime soon.

The changing ordinances were things like it is okay to grow your weeds outdoors, to not being okay to grow your weeds outdoors, that type thing.

The guy above, standing by his pot plants, at his Sugarleaf pot farm, applied for a pot license from the Liquor and Cannabis Board on the day it became legal to do so. A year later he got his license and has been growing cannabis ever since.

If I correctly understood what I was reading, the Sugarleaf pot farm can continue to grow its weeds outdoors, something to do with the outdoor patch being grandfathered in before the new ordinance banning outdoor pot plantings.

When I saw the photo above of the Sugarleaf pot farmer standing by some of  his plants, while it did cross  my mind that one would not see this in Texas, that thought was soon followed by thinking how bizarre it is that in one state something like growing pot is legal, while in Texas, in the town of Arlington to be specific, a  SWAT team terrorized a commune type farm known as the Garden of Eden.

Arlington police surveillance drones had determined that the Garden of Eden was growing marijuana, hence the fully armed SWAT raid, tearing apart the Garden of Eden, handcuffing the farmers, terrifying the children.

Turned out that which the police thought to be marijuana was tomato plants.

The SWAT team tried real hard to find something illegal going on at the Garden of Eden, to no avail. After a few hours the handcuffs were removed. If I remember right the police charged the Garden of Eden with some bogus thing to justify their SWAT attack. I think the complaint was the Garden of Eden's foliage was too dense, making difficult to see what was going on behind the wall of vegetation.

The leader of the Garden of Eden tried to negotiate a settlement with the City of Arlington. The City of Arlington should have been ashamed, embarrassed and apologetic, pledging to repair the damage done.

But, the City of Arlington did not do the right thing, so the town is now being sued by the Garden of Eden.

I hope the Garden of Eden gets millions in the eventual settlement. And then uses those millions to move the Garden of Eden to the Skagit Valley, where they will find fertile soil that can grow anything, including pot plants, free of any fear of a SWAT team invading their space...

FOX News Is Once Again Spewing Falsehoods About Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage

I saw that which you see here on Facebook today. A lot of what I see on Facebook appalls me.

I really think Obama should come up with a 21st century version of John Adams' Alien & Sedition Act and use it to shut down spewers of corrosive misinformation.

Like FOX News.

Back when Seattle passed its $15 minimum wage hike, FOX News came up with a totally bogus story which quickly spread to all the conservative nonsense purveyors of the talk radio sort, such as Rush Limbaugh.

FOX News claimed that four Seattle restaurants had closed due to the new minimum wage.

There were two problems with this piece of FOX propaganda. Number one was the fact that when contacted by legitimate journalists all four restaurant owners said their restaurant closures had nothing to do with the new minimum wage, and, in fact, they supported the $15 minimum wage.

Whoops.

It gets worse.

It was not possible for the new $15 minimum wage to cause a Seattle business closure because the new minimum wage had not yet gone into effect. The increase to $15 is being phased in over a three year time span.

Whoops again.

And now a new bogus FOX News story about Seattle's $15 minimum wage has become fodder for the doddering right wing chattering chicken head types.

The new claim is that Seattle's $15 minimum wage is causing minimum wage workers to ask for fewer hours because making more money will cause them to lose their welfare handouts, like food stamps and rent subsidies.

The reality is the Seattle minimum wage is currently around $4 shy of that $15 mark. Legitimate journalists were again unable to find any worker who was asking for fewer hours so as to be able to keep getting food stamps.

And, as was the case with the first bogus FOX News story about this subject, the Seattle minimum wage has not yet been raised to $15. Yet the FOX "news" story falsely makes the $15 claim.

FOX News online has now pulled their latest Seattle $15 minimum wage story.

Doesn't anyone at FOX News ever get embarrassed at some of the garbage they spew? Shepard Smith seems like a decent fellow. Why does he continue working for FOX News? They must pay him a lot.

And another thing. Right wing conservative naysayers opine that Seattle's $15 minimum wage is economic idiocy. And that Seattle is a socialist hell on earth.

Well, Seattle does have a socialist mayor, along with one or two socialist city council members. Seattle is one of the most liberal, if not the most liberal city in America. Along with being one of the most progressive.

Socialist Seattle also has the fastest growing economy in America. I read today that there are so many construction projects under way in Seattle that there is a shortage of construction workers.

I suspect construction workers in Seattle are paid a wage much higher than the minimum.

Maybe towns like Fort Worth should try the socialist, progressive approach and see if that produces better results than the current construction crane free skyline of downtown Fort Worth....

Sunday Is A Fort Worth Funday Floating In The Trinity River Around Gator Island

I saw that which you see here this morning on Facebook.

Apparently Rockin' the Trinity River on Thursday did not adequately meet the local River Rockin' demand, so a Sunday version of Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube floating was added.

Called Sunday Funday.

Isn't that clever? Funday rhymes with Sunday.

Sunday Funday is yet one more Trinity River Central City Uptown Gator Island Vision Boondoggle product.

Way back near the start of this month of July, or maybe it was in the latter part of June, I verbalized being appalled regarding the plethora of websites, with custom domain  names, America's Biggest Boondoggle was using to promote its various products.

I recollect listing the various websites, which then had someone telling me of yet one more, that being the special website America's Biggest Boondoggle has had made to promote its Sunday Funday.

I did not remember to check out the Sunday Funday website until reminded to do so by that Facebook posting you see above, which faintly lists the Sunday Funday web address. Below is a screen cap of most of the Sunday Funday website home page.

You will surely want to go to the Sunday Funday website yourself to witness the animation which has multiple inner tubers floating around the imaginary island which used to be known as Panther Island before getting renamed Gator Island.

However, the Sunday Funday website, as you can see, has not been updated with the new name for the imaginary island, still inviting locals to a "Sunday Funday at Panther Island  Pavilion".

Panther Island Pavilion, where there is no island, where there is no pavilion, where no one has seen a panther, but where many have seen an alligator, hence the name change.

Did you notice that the "U" in Funday is a mug full of beer? Why do the Trinity River Central City Uptown Gator Island Vision Boondoggle products all do so much beer consumption promoting? The Boondoggle even turned the old Tandy Subway maintenance building into a beer hall called The Shed.

How much money is America's Biggest Boondoggle spending on all the websites promoting its products? After a decade and a half of boondoggling, with very little to show, but with an astounding amount of propaganda spewed in various media, as in mailed hard copy propaganda pieces, multiple websites, advertisements in local print media, and other places, how is this propaganda expenditure accounted?

When The Boondoggle gets federal money, is that money not intended for a specific use? Like taking down levees, building bridges in slow motion, planting magic flood prevention trees.

Who approves of The Boondoggle spending money on things like Sunday Funday? How much did that website cost? How come the budget of America's Biggest Boondoggle is not an easily accessed, readily available, public document?

If only The People had someone on the TRWD board who could get answers to these type questions....

Why Are Armed Bubbas Guarding Burlington's Army Recruiting Center?

What you see here arrived via email a couple minutes ago.

I thought it was only in Texas armed Bubbas were guarding Army recruiting centers.

Burlington is the town in Washington I lived in from age 5 til 20, give or take a year.

Is the open carrying of firearms now legal in Washington like it is in Texas? Can a Washington Goober now stick a gun in a holster and wander around in public? And guard things the Bubba Goober thinks need guarding?

What is it these volunteer guards are thinking? Is it that the Chattanooga murder of five military men by a mentally ill Muslim is some sort of conspiracy that is threatening to be replicated all over America? Including the little town of Burlington?

You just know if this epidemic of Bubba Goobers guarding military personally keeps spreading that something bad is going to happen.

The Burlington Bubbas should hurry themselves to Texas to help fight the Jade Helm invasion....

Is America's Biggest Boondoggle Stopping Downtown Fort Worth From Being A Boomtown?

In yet one more variant of our popular series of bloggings about things I read in west coast online newspapers, usually the Seattle Times, which I would not likely be reading in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, yesterday I saw that which you see here, an article titled Five takeaways from the downtown Seattle boom.

I have mentioned previously that hardly a week goes by without me reading about some new construction project in downtown Seattle.

For some time now I have known Seattle and Western Washington are booming, but I did not know til yesterday the extent of new project construction in downtown Seattle. The following paragraph is where I learned why I'm constantly reading about new projects...

The Seattle Times Sunday Buzz logged the report in, noting, “Thirty projects were completed in 2014. But, with 24 projects completed in the first six months of 2015 alone, and 36 scheduled for completion by the end of the year, downtown Seattle is on track to see the largest number of completed projects in the last decade…”

Can you imagine reading in the Star-Telegram about 24 projects completed in downtown Fort Worth so far in 2015, with 36 more scheduled for completion by the end of the year? It takes Fort Worth four years to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the mainland to an imaginary island.

Another interesting paragraph from the Seattle Times article...

The “back to the city” movement has legs. All over the country, millennials and others want to live in vibrant central cities with walkable neighborhoods, real downtowns and good transit. In Chicago, giant Kraft Heinz is the latest company to abandon suburbia for downtown.

Los Angeles is also seeing a big boom in its downtown as people and corporations return to the city center.

A few days ago in a blogging titled No Sturgeon Dying In Trinity River While Largest Hotel In Texas Is Not Built In Fort Worth I made mention of a comment made by Mr. Spiffy, where Mr. Spiffy opined along the line that America's Biggest Boondoggle boondoggling along in slow motion is the reason nothing of the big project sort is happening in downtown Fort Worth, due to no investor wanting to invest in downtown Fort Worth when there is a chance that the Trinity River Central City Uptown Gator Island Vision Boondoggle might actually become viable, with that being where one would want to invest, not in the existing moribund downtown.

Regarding America's Biggest Boondoggle, I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but I think the actual concept is a good idea. Turning a large area of urban blight into an urban village with water features, restaurants, residential towers, public transit.

It is the way Fort Worth has  gone about actualizing this "vision" that I find objectionable. Hiring the unqualified son of a local politician to run the project. Not having the public vote to approve and fund the project. No project timeline. Over a decade and a half after its inception, very little to show, except  for a slow motion boondoggle sponsoring floating beer parties in a polluted river, which really is just shameful.

Though the locals really do not seem to mind.

Which is baffling.

America's Biggest Boondoggle is basically killing downtown Fort Worth, with the town stuck in neutral while other towns in other areas of America are in boom town mode.

Regarding that "back to the city" movement mentioned in the Seattle Times article, where people are drawn to city centers with real downtowns, walkable neighborhoods and good transit. Fort Worth fails miserably on all three of those draws.

Fort Worth is the biggest town in America without a single department store operating in its downtown. Fort Worth is the biggest town in America without a single grocery store operating in its downtown.

Not enough people visit downtown Fort Worth to support a department store. Not enough people live in downtown Fort Worth to support a grocery store.

These are symptoms of something being not quite right with downtown Fort Worth, despite the downtown cheerleader's constant attempts to pretend otherwise.

How many department stores are in downtown Seattle? Several. Along with several vertical malls. And multiple grocery stores. And a huge public market drawing tourists from all over the world. With good public transit in the form of a transit tunnel running under the downtown zone.

Can you imagine a transit tunnel running under downtown Fort Worth? On the plus side, it would not need to be a very long tunnel...

Euless Doctor Appointment Takes Me To Palm Treed Viridian Beach Volleyball Court

Today was the day of my regularly scheduled monthly doctor appointment in Euless.

The doctor's workshop is near Collins Street. Driving south on Collins Street soon takes one to the north entry to River Legacy Park, which was closed today, and likely for several days, due to the road and parking lot surface being upgraded.

So, I continued south, took a right on Green Oaks Boulevard and continued west til I got to the south entry to River Legacy Park.

Arlington seems to have the highly evolved good habit of constantly improving its parks. If River Legacy Park is not the best park in the entire D/FW Metroplex, I wish someone would point me to the park that is.

Today I rolled my bike wheels back across the Trinity River to the north side of River Legacy Park with the intention to take my handlebars to the Viridian development, if Lake Viridian had receded enough from last month's flooded state, to allow trail access from River Legacy to Viridian.

I think my last roll through Viridian was about two years ago. There were only a couple dozens homes built at that point in time. The development did not seem all that appealing, what with the high expectations of all that was proposed for the Viridian development before the Great Recession grounded the project to a halt.

Well, from what I saw today one would think the Great Recession is ancient history.

The paved trails along the lake have been expanded since my last visit. A school has been built. A sprawling club house, with swimming pools, has been added, part of which you see above, looking over my handlebars at a sandy white beach volleyball court surrounded by palm trees.

The landscaping at Viridian is impressive. I am a fan of a well landscaped landscape.

For quite a distance Collins Street has received the Viridian treatment, creating an aesthetically pleasing landscaped boulevard of the sort one sees in towns like, I don't  know, Phoenix, Tacoma, Mount Vernon, Los Angeles, and others.

Fort Worth should send a task force to Arlington to see what an improvement, aesthetically speaking, a well landscaped road can be, free of weeds and litter.

Check out the I-35 exits to Fort Worth's #1 tourist attraction, the Fort Worth Stockyards, and imagine those exits with the Arlington landscape treatment, rather than their current eyesore state of being a littered, weedy mess....

Once Again Maxine Has Made Me Homesick For Washington & Japanese Fishing Floats

Last Thursday, in a blogging titled A Hot July Day In Texas Thinking About Catching A Llama With Maxine I lamented about a Maxine salmon barbecue that had me thinking, yet again, about moving back to the Wonders of Washington.

Rarely a week goes by, of late, where someone from Washington does not send me something which makes me feel a bit homesick.

Yesterday it happened again, once again via Maxine.

Last Friday Maxine told me over the weekend she was floating the ferry to the Olympic Peninsula to drive to a knitter's convention in a cabin on the beach in Moclips.

Moclips?

The name was totally familiar, but my memory of place names and their location in Washington is fading as the years of exile pile up. I had to look up Moclips on my Street Finder program to restore my memory that Moclips is slightly north of Copalis, which had me further appalled at the sad state of my failing memory.

Copalis, as a kid, was just about my favorite place we would journey to for a weekend of camping, or a week of summer vacation. There was a store in Copalis which had all sorts of fun stuff.  Every trip to Copalis my brother and I would go to that store and spend a lot of time deciding what balsa wood rubber band propelled airplane we would buy and fly.

I was last in Copalis and Moclips the summer of 2004. I remember quite clearly that it was near Copalis I first saw the Tsunami Evacuation Route signs which had been added since the last time I visited Washington's Pacific coast.

With all the brouhaha of late regarding the impending 9.2 long overdue SUPER QUAKE off the Washington/Oregon coast, and its predicted 300 foot Tsunami, I wonder if those evacuation routes have been altered. Getting oneself to high ground above 300 feet would present a challenge along much of the coast.

In the picture above I am fairly certain we are looking at Maxine, standing on the Moclips beach, with the Pacific Ocean and a very bright sunset creating a Maxine halo, even though Maxine told me she took the photos she sent me. I think the above one may be an exception.

You looking at these photos, who have never been to the west coast, does it surprise you that a Pacific beach can be such a big flat space?

Above, that line you see across the horizon under the setting sun, that would be the line of waves crashing in from the Pacific Ocean.

Maxine told me she and her fellow knitters had fun finding sand dollars on the beach. Finding sand dollars constituted a really fine time when I was a kid.

Another big deal when I was a kid, on the beach at Copalis, and other Pacific beaches, was finding Japanese glass fishing floats. These were glass balls of various sizes, some quite large, which Japanese fishing boats used to float their nets.

The floating balls would break free and journey across the Pacific to wash ashore on Washington beaches. I do not know if this still happens. I suspect Japanese fishing fleets no longer use glass balls. I do know that Japanese glass fishing floats are currently valuable collector items.

I do not remember if me and my brother ever found a Japanese fishing float. I do remember we had ourselves a mighty fine time looking for one....

Perplexed Replacing Deplorable Seats In Fort Worth's Doomed Convention Center Arena

I saw that which you see here this morning on the front page of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram online.

I am only allowed to read the Star-Telegram's front page, but that which I was allowed to read was enough to perplex me.

The Convention Center Arena's seats apparently are deplorable eyesores in need of fixing.

The seats are deplorable eyesores? How about the giant flying saucer the seats sit in? Is that structure not widely reviled as a deplorable, outdated eyesore which architecturally looks way out of sync with the look of the rest of the Convention Center? And downtown Fort Worth?

Am I remembering correctly when I remember that a few elections ago voters voted to build a new multi-purpose arena to replace the too small, outdated Convention Center eyesore?

If I recollect correctly voters were asked to approve three financing propositions to provide funds to build the new arena. With those financing propositions approving money making schemes such as charging a buck to rent one of the new arena's livestock stalls.

In the long period of time since the voters approved of the three financing propositions, thus approving of the building of the new arena, did someone figure out that those dollar livestock stall rentals were not going to raise enough money to pay for the new building?

Has anyone seen any sort of project timeline schedule for the new multi-purpose arena the voters voted for? Did J.D. Granger get put in charge of this project? Is that why it seems to be going nowhere?

My memory of long ago events may be shaky at times, but I am fairly certain I remember correctly that this new arena was intended to replace the Convention Center Arena, due to the fact that the Convention Center Arena is not big enough to attract the big acts that the new arena, with its additional couple thousand seats, would be able to attract.

Which really never made any sense to me, but must have made sense to the majority of voters, since they voted for the three silly propositions. Why would a couple thousand more seats be the tipping point that would bring One Direction or Maroon Five to town?

I opined at the time that I did not think it was the size of the arena which kept big acts from playing Fort Worth.  It was the fact that nearby there are much bigger venues. Such as the Dallas Cowboy stadium. And in Dallas, that arena where the Dallas Mavericks play basketball. Both with better transportation access and parking than one finds in Fort Worth's Cultural District location of the new multi-purpose arena.

Anyone out there know when ground will be broken for the new Fort Worth arena? Will there be a big ceremony with TNT explosions such as what was done for the ground breaking ceremony marking the start of the four year construction of America's Biggest Boondoggle's three simple little bridges connecting the mainland to an imaginary island, now known as Gator Island.....

Rolling My Wheels To A New Woodhaven Swimming Hole While Thinking About A Blue Mound Move

It seems as if it has been at least a day since I rolled my wheels around my Woodhaven neighborhood, so with the memory fading of my most recent having done so, today I took my handlebars on a roll around the Woodhaven Country Club Golf Course.

Today I came upon a new view, that being that which you see my handlebars looking at. That pool of blue looked very inviting on this day predicted to hit 101 degrees of HOT.

I saw no "NO SWIMMING" signs. But, I'd already had my early morning swim of the day, so the temptation was not too great.

Changing the subject from the above blue pool to Blue Mound.

This morning on Facebook I was messaged with an odd question, asking me if I was moving to Blue Mound. I replied, saying not that I am aware of, why are you asking this?

In a followup message the messenger explained that someone named Durango Jones had the power to their Blue Mound home turned off this weekend, with the power then turned back on in Durango Jones' name.

I then told the Blue Mounder that this particular Durango Jones was not the culprit, along with verbalizing being perplexed at the idea their is another Durango Jones working this territory. Adding to the oddness is the fact that myself and the Blue Mounder share six Facebook friends in common, but myself and the Blue Mounder are not Facebook friends.

I don't know how the Blue Mounder managed to Facebook message me without us being Facebook friends. I thought that was a Facebook requirement to send someone a Facebook message.

Anyone else out there had any contact with someone purporting to be Durango Jones? I hope not....