Saturday Look At Texas Flooding & Town Talk

Swimming and hiking were not doable on this last Saturday of the next to last month of 2015, due to rain and air chilled to only a few degrees above freezing.

I did go jogging in the rain this morning, though. I did not get too cold.

Before noon I headed west, towards Town Talk, via Randol Mill Road, not knowing if the road was open or closed due to flooding.

As I drove by Quanah Parker Park I saw the park was flooded more than I'd ever seen previously. Then I got to the bridge crossing the Trinity. I decided to park and walk out onto the bridge to see how the new  bridge construction was faring with the flooding.

As you can see the Trinity River is moving a lot of water. I don't recollect seeing it this high before. The river appears to have wreaked some havoc with the new bridge construction. Unlike America's Biggest Boondoggle, this Trinity River bridge project did not have the option of being built  over dry land, with the water to be installed at some distant point of time way in the future.

Were no warnings given that gave the road and bridge builders time to evacuate their heavy equipment? Did the river rapidly rise due to the reservoirs being full from last spring's flood? Mary Kelleher has a farm on Randol Mill Road that also got flooded with Mary not warned a flood was on its way. Mary was alerted to the flood in the middle of Thanksgiving night when she heard her water trapped cows crying.

After checking out the flooded bridge construction I was back in my vehicle, heading west towards Town Talk, dodging some deep water covering the road in several  locations.

Town Talk was not busy and was a bit of a bust, again, in the treasure finding department.

After Town Talk I headed back east, again via Randol Mill Road, continuing to Mallard Cove Park to see how much higher the water has risen since yesterday.

Well, this flood has flooded higher than last spring's flood, at this location. When the previous flood subsided I figured a mess would be left in its wake in Mallard Cove Park. Instead, the water quickly receded with nary a sign of it having been there.

I saw a lot of flood looky-loos, both at Mallard Cove Park and in the Gateway Park/Trinity River Bridge zone. I forgot to mention, the north entry into Gateway Park is currently not doable, due to too much water.

The above was one of the Mallard Cove Park looky-loos. I do not know what this person is doing in the picture. Framing something with his hands? As he was doing this he was also talking to himself. I kept my distance.

I have not witnessed any precipitation precipitating for several hours. Is the worst of this over now? I thought I read the remnants of a Pacific hurricane was scheduled to arrive in Texas after visiting Mexico.

Will this flood be the final nail in the former Cowtown Wakepark's coffin? How has that other project of The Boondoggle, that being those V-pier forms under construction that The Boondoggle seemed so proud about, fared during this latest deluge?

I suppose The Boondoggle's one little bridge being built over dry land likely has not been too impacted by too much water....

Black Friday In Walmart Wondering About Humanity Sanity Before Seeing A Flooding Trinity River

Donald Trump being the Republican front runner has a lot of people concerned about the sanity of a large number of my fellow Americans.

Well, I was finding myself concerned about the sanity of a large number of my fellow Americans when I had myself a Walmart visit on this Black Friday.

As I drove on to the Sam's Club/Walmart parking lot I saw the largest woman I have ever seen. She was loading stuff into her trunk. She was as wide as her trunk. How was she able to drive I found myself wondering. But, I did not linger long enough to satisfy my curiosity.

The two ladies you see using motorized transplant inside Walmart were dainty in comparison to the large woman I just got done telling you about.

In Walmart today I saw an inordinate number of people ill-fitted into clothes, sporting too much weight for the clothes they were stuffing themselves in to, along with sporting tattoos, piercings and one with his ear lobes enlarged into big circles.

The guy with the expanded ear lobes looked quite slovenly.

It always perplexes me when I see such things, wondering why would getting tattoos and piercings and ear lobe expansions be something one thought improved or enhanced their appearance, when there are other things one would think would come first. Like losing weight, getting a haircut, wearing clothes that fit, that type thing.

I did not realize so much rain had dropped during the current storm til I  learned, on Facebook, via Mary Kelleher, that the Trinity has once again flooded her ranch, with some of her cow babies needing a middle of the night rescue from the unexpected flood.

After leaving Walmart, on the way back to relative safety, I drove Randol Mill Road and was surprised to see how high the flood waters  had risen.  Eventually I drove into Mallard Cove Park.

The water appears to have risen higher than last spring's flood, which was the first time I ever saw Mallard Cove Park flooded. I did not get out of my vehicle. Those are big raindrops hitting my windshield you see above looking like Village Creek ghosts.

More rain is on the menu for the next several days. Not good.

A Happy Thanksgiving Pre Turkey Taco Tandy Hills Hike

Hope you all are having yourselves a mighty fine Thanksgiving.

The last 48 hours the temperature average has been just slightly below 70, so I was able to have a nice long swim this morning in the not too cool pool. I do not remember the pool being so easily doable this far into fall in previous years.

Makes me a fan, sort of, of Global Warming.

Turkey tacos are my take on the traditional Thanksgiving feeding today.

I'd not been on the Tandy Hills for well over a month. Not since something slashed a tire whilst parked on the summit of Mount Tandy.

As you can see via the view of the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth we are being a bit stormy at this location on the planet. Only a few drops dripped whilst I was doing the hill hiking. Now that I am back under cover rain has begun dripping in greater volume.

I saw some colorful tree leaves today, likely being more colorful since the freeze of a few days back.

Also coloring up the Tandy Hills today were hundreds of yellow flags.

I assume the hundreds of yellow flags are part of some complex science project. That or it is some madman's abstract art installation.

It is time to work on those turkey tacos now.....

Texas Bullet Trains May Cut Off Texas Milk Supply

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

Today it is something in the Star-Telegram I would not expect to see in a west coast online news source, such as the Seattle Times.

What you see here was on the Star-Telegram's front page this morning.

For those reading this who are outside the Texas news orbit, there is a proposal afoot to make a high speed bullet train connection between Dallas and Houston.

Bullet trains exist in various advanced countries, such as France, Japan and China.

I suspect France, Japan and China have dairy cows, with some dairy farms close to train tracks.

Are Texas cows known to be easily frightened as opposed to more courageous cows in other countries?

There is some opposition to the bullet train in Texas plan. Are the opposition's arguments so weak that they are claiming a possibly dried up milk supply as a reason not to lay track through rural areas?

I would think there would be a lot better arguments against the Texas bullet train proposal.

Such as would there really be enough riders to make the train economically feasible?

The countries which already have bullet trains have elaborate train networks connecting to the bullet trains. Both Dallas and Houston have areas of their towns served by light rail. I suppose one might be able to exclusively use rail to get to your final destination.

I have only taken a long train ride once. Amtrak from Tacoma to Portland for a long weekend. The train was a rockier ride than the ferry crossing from Keystone to Port Townsend during a big tide change. Meaning it was almost impossible to walk on the train. And using the restroom facility became a treacherous balancing act.

By the time I got to Portland I was what amounted to being seasick for the first and only time ever. This was made worse when the lady who picked us up at the train station turned out to be a driving maniac. I remained seasick and head achy the entire weekend.

Since that train ride from hell, back in the last century, the track  has been upgraded and a new faster train has replaced the thing which sea-sicked me. I have been told the ride is now smooth.

There is a California high speed train proposal to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. I think that may be further along than the Texas train. I wonder if the California's know about the possible danger to their milk supply?

Anyway, I think the Texas milk supply is safe. I doubt we really are going to be seeing bullet trains speeding at this location on the planet any time soon.

According To Experts Evil Wins When Good People Do Nothing

Yesterday I blogged about the fact that Before Facebook I Had No Idea How Scarily Stupid The Racists Are.

Some of the reaction to that blogging got me thinking that while bigoted racists are a vile disgusting sub-set of humanity, those who collaborate with bigoted racists may be even worse.

I think that to be a bigot and a racist you have to be at the low end of the IQ scale.

I have known no intelligent, educated people who were blatantly bigoted and racist.

I have known some intelligent, educated people who collaborate with racist bigots, rationalizing doing so in ways which make no sense to me.

Thinking about this had me thinking of that quote one hears fairly frequently about evil people. To get the quote right I started to enter into the Google search window "For Evil to...."  and then Google filled in the rest.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

That's the quote I was looking for. What I did not know before looking for this quote was its origin and its many variations.

It is the Irish statesman and philosopher, Edmund Burke who, in 1770, is credited with first expressing this truism, writing, "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

Edmund Burke's original is more poetic in the way the idea is expressed, than its later permutations.

Almost a century later, in 1867, British political theorist John Stuart Mill gave a speech in which part of what he said was, "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."

And then, again almost a century later, in 1961, an American president named John F. Kennedy, in a speech to the Canadian Parliament, credited Edmund Burke for the quotation, but used the modern version, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

As for Albert Einstein, and the version of the Burke quote that particular genius is quoted as uttering above, that is not a version which Einstein is thought to have said. What Einstein is believed to have actually said, in a tribute to Pablo Casals, was, "The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it."

So, what lesson do we glean from this history lesson?

DO  NOT TOLERATE RACIST BIGOTS AND THE HATE SPEAK THEY SPEW.

Before Facebook I Had No Idea How Scarily Stupid The Racists Are

A week or so ago I blogged about being No More Mr. Nice Guy Regarding Pseudo Conservative Reactionary Racist Republican Right Wing Nuts.

A few days after that particular blogging I read that a right wing nut job in Las Vegas had been indicted for death threats directed at President Obama.

Does the FBI and the Secret Service monitor Facebook for presidential death threat types? If not, they should.

I have seen death threats directed at the president being spewed on Facebook from one of my Facebook "Friends" who I do not know and have never met and with whom I would never actually be friends.

The guy making death threat type comments is clearly an idiot. He may be insane. He clearly has some sort of mental impairment. But none of that excuses his spewing  hateful racist nonsense.

Idiots are not able to understand that the First Amendment, you know, the one guaranteeing Free Speech, does not mean you can say any fool thing your sick mind tells you to say. The cliche example of that is you are not free to scream "FIRE!" in a crowded theater.

And, you are not free to suggest that some "patriot" save America by taking out the President. Suggesting such a thing is what is known as a crime, with a possible life sentence.

If you read the "No More Mr. Nice Guy" blogging you already know that the idiot who has been appalling me with his racist, bigoted, ignorant, hateful, idiotic nonsense calls himself David Patriot Lambertsen. Clearly this idiot is no patriot. What he is is what is known as a traitor.

Over and over again this idiot traitor refers to our current President as being a traitor, as you can see via the below screen cap.

I found that second comment, above, by the Lambertsen Traitor, to be very amusing. Is he confessing that he is clearly out of his mind? Because he clearly is. But can he possibly have the self awareness to realize he is what is known as an asshole, and to describe himself as such?

How is it someone living inside the borders of America can be as cut off from reality as this David the False Patriot idiot? Did his education end at grade school? What explains this level of stupidity? Does this idiot have no contact with normal people? Is that the explanation?

It's just perplexing. And equally perplexing is though this David Traitor Lambertsen person might be an extreme example of a right wing nutjob, people of a similar simple minded mindset are scarily large in number. And on Facebook they cluster like a little cult of crazies that you only get to witness if you accidentally accept a Friend Request from one of them. Then it becomes hard not to look at the train wreck madness, like a window into ignorant insanity.

How do so many people come to believe so much idiotic, stupid, ignorant nonsense?

Though Rush Limbaugh's audience is dwindling, he still has millions of listeners. Rush Limbaugh is very articulate. But he articulates nonsense, which then morphs into even more ridiculous nonsense when his poorly educated illiterate listeners try to repeat the nonsense.

Rush Limbaugh's education ended at high school. Rush Limbaugh already knew it all when he tried to go to college where, according to his mother, he enrolled in Southeast Missouri State University where he flunked everything and left the school after two semesters and one summer.

Rush Limbaugh is the Idiot Savant behind much of the hatespeak which spews from the right wing nutjob collection of idiots.

I explained in my previous blogging about this disgusting subject that this Lambertsen moron ended up on my Facebook Friends list because he sent me one of those Facebook Friend Requests. That request told me we had 13 "Mutual Friends". One or two of whom I actually know, and am fairly certain they are not racist bigots.

While it is a bit disheartening to find that there are so many Americans willing to spew hateful nonsense with zero apparent awareness they are doing such, it is also a bit heartening to see multiple Facebook threads where people express their shock and disdain for the ugly spewage of the racist haters. From what I see via my little Facebook window on the world, the sane, normal, sensible, non-racist, non-reactionary, non-bigot real Americans are in the majority.

By a large number.

Just this morning I read through the comments in a post about the latest Nazi-like idiocy from Donald Trump. A sub-set of that comment thread morphed into a lot of very wise comments about the absurdity of Rush Limbaugh and the ignorant hate speak he spews.

Well, I think I will hit the publish button on this blogging and then go to Facebook and delete a racist, bigoted non-friend, or two.

Maybe three......

Celebrating Retirement With Spencer Jack On A Beach In Maui

This was in my email inbox this morning, sent by Spencer Jack's dad, with the text accompanying the photo saying...

Thought you'd enjoy this picture of Spencer Jack celebrating his Grandma Cindy's retirement dinner on Kaanapali Beach tonight.   Absent in the pic is myself and FNJoey.

I see no beach in this photo.

The only Kaanapali Beach I know of is located on the Hawaiian Island of Maui.

Didn't Spencer Jack skip school a couple weeks ago to go to Disneyland? Maybe Spencer's school is closed for Thanksgiving, so he isn't skipping school.

PETA Throws No Party For Meat Eating Impotent Texas Cattlemen

I saw that which you see here this morning on Facebook, brought to my eyes by Miss Miki who saw this billboard near the intersection of I-121 and Beach Street in Fort Worth.

Along with the photo Miss Miki posted the following words, "Really ‪#‎PETA‬ you're pathetic!! Go ‪#‎meat‬ and ‪#‎texasstrong‬".

Go meat and texasstrong? I have no clue.

Several people made comments, including me. Here's a couple...

Carole Jeremy Shaffer: English being not my first language it took me a minute to get this... very tacky

Durango Jones: English is my first language but I didn't get it either, til I read the small print....

The message in the small print is "Eating meat can cause impotence. Go vegan!"

After I made a comment Miss Miki made a comment directed at my comment...

Miki Hojnacki Von Luckner: I want to read your musings on a blog about this Mr. Durango!!

Well, I usually always do what someone wants me to do, hence me musing about this billboard on this blog.

Haven't men been meat eaters going all the way back to our caveman days? One can not help but wonder how the number of humans got to be many billions with so many impotent meat eaters.

Who is the genius at PETA who thought this billboard message is an effective good idea?

Did it not occur to any PETA person that this billboard message is extremely tasteless and tacky?

Til I enlarged the image I did not realize the woman on the billboard appears to be stripping off her clothes.

I doubt drivers zipping by this billboard can read the small print, but drivers likely do notice the woman taking off her clothes and probably have enough time to read the woman's message, "I Threw a Party, but the Cattlemen Couldn't Come."

Keeping with the eating meat makes men limp theme, shouldn't the woman be saying something like "I Threw a  Party, but the Cattlemen Couldn't Come Up"?

That is if  "Cattlemen Couldn't Come" is the tacky double entendre I assume it to be. Which seems a bit counter-intuitive. I mean, if the woman's issue is that the Cattlemen could not finish the task at hand, doesn't that seem to indicate that the Cattlemen had been able to adequately perform their mating duty, except for the happy ending part of the job?

Did it not occur to anyone at PETA that they were making this woman seem to be a bit of a slut? Cattlemen? She threw a party for multiple Cattlemen? Wouldn't the sign be just slightly less tacky if it said "I Threw a Party, but the Cattleman Couldn't Come Up."?

Still wouldn't cause me to cease being a meat eater......

A Supposed Post Flood Fort Worth Wakeboard Revival

A few minutes ago I saw that which you see here, on Facebook. A few minutes after that I got a text message from Elsie Hotpepper telling me "I see Andy sent you FOD on FB."

Which translated means Andy sent me blogging fodder on Facebook.

The blogging fodder is a link to an article in this week's Fort Worth Weekly titled Wakeboard Revival.

The blurb from the article, which you see in the screen cap says, "The city’s biggest wakeboard park is being resuscitated after it was flooded by Tropical Storm Bill in June. A new owner is rebuilding ramps at the donut-shaped watercourse at the West Fork of the Trinity River downtown and adding several..."

Adding several what? Lucky for me I had acquired this week's Weekly at my neighborhood library. I could not find where I'd put this week's Weekly, then remembered I likely left it in my vehicle. Soon upon retrieving this week's Weekly I found the rest of the paragraph following several... to be "new features, including shaded seating and a place to get food and drinks."

I have several problems with this FW Weekly article. For one,  it reads like a Press Release. I mentioned a couple other problems I had with this article in the comment I made to Andy's Facebook post, before I had actually read the entire article....

Durango Jones: City's biggest wakeboard park? Does that mean there is another one and it is smaller? How could one get any smaller? This being re-opened under new management has been the operating propaganda on the Cowtown Wakepark Facebook page for months. If it is being re-opened, will the problem with it getting flood damaged be fixed? After all, America's Biggest Boondoggle is primarily a flood control project. Sort of ironic that the first project completed by The Boondoggle has been flood damaged twice....

Well, the article answers the question about there being multiple wakeboard parks in Fort Worth...

About a half-dozen are in Texas, and two are in Fort Worth: the full-sized Cowtown WakePark, with its endless loop cable hauling people around in circles, and TXMC Wake Park, which has a smaller, straight-line cable system.

I have no idea where in Fort Worth this TXMC Wake Park is located. I'd never heard of it before today.

Another paragraph was very perplexing to me....

Water levels on the West Fork, according to the USGS National Water Information System, rose by nearly 6-and-a -half feet during the last two weeks of May. These waters normally flow at low levels –– the West Fork is part of a flood control reservoir.

Only a nincompoop would look at the Cowtown Wakepark pond and not realize that whenever the Trinity River goes into flood mode the little pond is going to be flooded. The flood in May was not the first time the little pond has suffered flood damage. What did they think was going to happen when the river next door floods? And what is this about this area of the West Fork of the Trinity being part of a flood control reservoir.

Huh?

Doesn't a reservoir require a dam which holds back water? Thus controlling a flood? Where is this downriver dam creating a reservoir?

I tell you, Fort Worth Weekly is getting to be almost as embarrassing as reading Trinity River Vision Boondoggle propaganda. Or a Star-Telegram puff piece.

So, when Cowtown Wakepark reopens it will have a new name, Republic Waterpark DFW. The new owner of the so-called "park" is a Philippine man named Lray Villafuerte who is paying for its reconstruction. Supposedly new parts for the renewed park are being assembled in a Manila warehouse owned by Mr. Villafuerte.

I remember when America's Biggest Boondoggle put up signage along the Trinity Trails pointing out the direction to the various wonders one could find along the trails I opined that etching "Cowtown Wakepark" on the signs seemed a bit of an obvious risk, with it seeming obvious to me that that enterprise would not be in business very long. Will The Boondoggle use whiteout to cover up Cowtown Wakepark and write over the whiteout with Republic Waterpark DFW?

Last summer after I discovered Cowtown Wakepark was closed and saw a sign saying it would open soon under new management, it only took a little Googling to find that Cowtown Wakepark had a Facebook page. On that page there were a lot of comments lamenting its closure and the misinformation as to when it would reopen. There were comments about financial malfeasance, funds being stolen. It wasn't pretty.

Did Fort Worth Weekly not consider it might be worthwhile to dig a little deeper into the Cowtown Wakepark debacle?

Early on, when Cowtown Wakepark opened, J.D.  Granger very much touted this as an accomplishment of his Boondoggle, bragging about how The Boondoggle was bringing this wonderful sport to Fort Worth.

I have asked more than once how much The Boondoggle spent to build the wakeboard pond.

I  remember back in October of 2010, biking along the Trinity Trail and suddenly coming upon a ridiculous amount of signage touting the "TRINITY RIVER VISION UNDERWAY'. In the area that became Cowtown Wakepark I was totally bum puzzled wondering why so much earth was being moved, why a big hole was being dug, why the Trinity Trail was being re-routed.

I took pictures and blogged about it, asking if anyone had a clue. Connie D then sent me a link to page on the Trinity River Vision's website, touting this new thing they were bringing to Fort Worth. It was only an artist's rendering, but I could tell the hole I saw being dug was what is now the wakeboard pond.

How much money did The Boondoggle spend on this ill-fated enterprise? Shouldn't that information be readily available?

Changing the subject slightly.

This week's Fort Worth Weekly is their annual Turkey Awards issue. The prime Turkey Award went to the current extremely embarrassing governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.

I think Fort Worth Weekly should also have given itself a Turkey Award.

A Turkey Award is well deserved for firing Fort Worth Weekly Editor Gayle Reaves. Ever since Fort Worth Weekly lost Gayle Reaves the quality of Fort Worth Weekly has plummeted.

This article about the Cowtown Wakepark debacle is just one more example of that plummet.....

A Look At An Actual Fort Worth Pavilion Which Has Seen Better Days

In the picture you are in Oakland Lake Park's picnic pavilion which overlooks Fosdick Lake and the Fosdick Sputtering Fountain.

This picnic pavilion looks to have been built in the CCC era back in the 1930s, making that guess due to the style of stonework construction, which looks like other CCC structures I have seen elsewhere.

But this is Texas. Was the CCC allowed to build public works projects in Texas? Or was there an obstructionist Greg Abbott type governor of Texas way back then?

In its original glory the Oakland Lake Park picnic pavilion must have been a nice place to picnic. Large fireplaces are at both ends of the pavilion, currently boarded up and useless. It appears that at some point in the distant past running water may have been available.

I have seen a photo of a long ago drinking water fountain located near the picnic pavilion. Running water still runs under Oakland Lake Park, as evidenced by the fountain which sputtered back to life a couple  years ago, which you can see below if you look past the flock of Fosdick ducks.

If you have ever visited that area of Fort Worth that is called Panther Island Pavilion and wondered where the pavilion was you might have wondered if Fort Worthers know what a pavilion is. The Oakland Lake Park picnic pavilion is a good indicator that at some point in distant time Fort Worthers did know what a pavilion is.

Regarding this pavilion nonsense, additional nonsense occurs to me, as in the nonsense regarding how Fort Worth names things.

For decades Fort Worth's downtown had signs pointing to Sundance Square, where there was no square, confusing Fort Worth's few tourists. Now there is a square, goofily named Sundance Square Plaza, which apparently did not occur to the people naming it such that the name seems a bit redundant.

Then what is known as America's Biggest Boondoggle started calling a chunk of land "Panther Island" where there is no island. And then called an area of the imaginary island "Panther Island Pavilion" where there is no pavilion.

And then we have Oakland Lake Park, where there is no Oakland Lake in Oakland Lake Park. The lake in Oakland Lake Park is called Fosdick Lake.

Changing the subject from walking with the ducks to my other exercise woes.

Swimming went well this morning, which surprised me, because the air was chilled to 48. Tomorrow morning may be my last swim for awhile, because on Saturday the low is predicted to be 31.

Brrrrr.....