Merry Christmas From The Jones Family

Last Saturday a package arrived from Arizona. When I opened the package and saw the box inside was festively wrapped I stuck it under my Christmas tree with all the other incoming packages waiting to be opened on Christmas.

What with it now being Christmas that box from Arizona has now been opened.

Among the many things I found inside the box was the above "Christmas Card" from my mom and dad.

I thought mom and dad are being just darn cute in this picture, so I felt compelled to share. How can you not like how mom and dad coordinate their Christmas outfits, color-wise?

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Santa Takes A Christmas Morning Pool Dip

The incoming Deep Freeze is still a day or two in the future.

So, I decided to get in my Santa costume and go for a quick Christmas morning pool dip.

Yesterday the temperature high was in the 70s. Over night the temperature dipped below 50.

Making the pool a bit cool.

Which made for a very brief time in water, taking a quick selfie before shivering set in.

And now I am going jogging to warm up.

There will be no selfie jogging documentation. I jog phone free.....

Christmas Eve Concrete Ghost Town Visit With Spencer Jack

What you see here showed up in my email Christmas Eve, photo documentation by Spencer Jack's dad of their Christmas Eve visit to the Skagit Valley town of Concrete.

The following explanatory text was included with the photo and video documentation...

Spencer Jack and I drove up to Concrete today. 

I think we were the only two people in town literally.  Note that Main Street was empty and the only car in town was ours.

CONCRETE must be a really HARD place to live, we figured.

We were expecting to find more snow than we did.

______________________________________________

Concrete is the last town-sized town one comes to when heading east on Highway 20 in the Skagit Valley on the way over the currently closed for the season North Cascades Pass. There are a couple small settlements as one continues east, with gas stations, convenience stores and a restaurant or two. Newhalem and Marblemount come to mind.

Concrete is sort of a tourist town. I don't know why it was a ghost town on Christmas Eve, looking like downtown Fort Worth on the day after Thanksgiving.

Concrete was the setting of one of Leonardo DiCaprio's early movies, This Boy's Life. I remember when that movie was being filmed, but I did not go upriver to gawk. During the filming of the Michael Douglas / Kathleen Turner movie, War of the Roses, I did drive over to Coupeville on Whidbey Island to join the throngs gawking at Danny Devito directing a fight scene between the Roses which did not make it into the movie.

Below is video of Spencer Jack tossing a big snowball into the Baker River. I wonder if my Favorite Nephew Jason knows that if you head up the primitive road that heads north from the Baker River Bridge you will soon come to Lower Baker Dam, it being a very old, sort of scary looking dam, built years before the more frequently seen Upper Baker Dam, which does not look scary. Unlike Upper Baker Dam, I don't remember being able to drive across Lower Baker Dam.

Anyway, Spencer Jack making a big splash....

Is A Major Post-Christmas Winter Storm About To Hit Texas?

Tis the day before Christmas, with not a chance of anything white and frozen contributing to the holiday spirit at my currently balmy location on the planet.

However, according to my favorite Texas weatherman, Storm Spotter, John Austin Basham, the currently balmy-ness may soon come to an end....

MAJOR WINTER STORM: - TEXAS AND OKLAHOMA - ***THIS IS NOT AN NWS PRODUCT*** AT THIS TIME STORM SPOTTER METOPS IS FORECASTING A MAJOR WINTER STORM ACROSS THE WESTERN, NORTHWESTERN, AND PANHANDLE PORTIONS OF TEXAS AS WELL AS THE WESTERN 2/3 OF OKLAHOMA THIS WEEKEND STARTING SATURDAY THE 26TH THROUGH EARLY MONDAY THE 28TH. BLIZZARD AND ICE STORM CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE ACROSS THE FORECAST REGION. This bulletin is being sent out as a courtesy to customers across the area prior to the detailed forecast by early Thursday morning. With anticipated holiday travel during this time all persons in the affected areas should prepare for near white-out conditions or impassible roadways. Again, a more detailed forecast will be issued by Storm Spotter METOPS meteorologists by early Thursday morning. For customers needing site and time specific forecasts, please contact your assigned meteorologist or the METOPS forecast hot-line for additional help and details. For official watches and warnings refer to the NWS website ***THIS IS NOT AN NWS FORECAST*** Meteorologist John Austin Basham Storm Spotter METOPS

I am not in the mood for anything frigid. One thing for sure I will not repeat my mistake of the past two winters by driving during an Ice Storm. I've lucked out twice doing so. The third time likely would see my luck running out with me careening sideways into something best not careened into....

Mount Baker Skiing With Spencer Jack

I thought I had myself a Spencer Jack Exclusive last night when a dozen, give or take one or two, snow photos of Spencer Jack showed up in my email. Along with a video.

This morning I saw some of the photos on Facebook, including the one you see here of Spencer Jack practicing driving in snowy conditions.

One of the emails included a message from Spencer Jack's papa, my Favorite Nephew Jason, explaining what I was seeing in the photos and video.

In the email message FNJ makes it sound like he and Spencer Jack had made it to the top of an active volcano called Mount Baker.


However, where Spencer Jack actually drove to was the Mount Baker Ski Area. The Ski Area is not on Mount Baker. It is north of the volcano. But is in the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest.

Spencer Jack needs to drive his dad back to the Mount Baker Ski Area in late summer to drive to the end of the road, where he will find a big parking lot from whence he will be looking directly at Mount Baker, and then find himself tempted to hike the trail that heads up the mountain, or hike the switchbacks the lead to the top of Tabletop Mountain.

Spencer Jack is eight years old, about three months shy of being nine. My first attempt at skiing happened when I was 12. At the now defunct Mount Pilchuck Ski Area. It did not go well. I had trouble holding on to the tow rope. Apparently Spencer Jack had no similar trouble and quickly graduated to using the chair lift.

I don't think I was still a teenager when I first went skiing via chair lift transport. If I remember right that took place at one of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas.

Following is the email detailing Spencer Jack's ski adventure, and following that video documentation of Spencer Jack skiing and gracefully falling....

FUD --

FNSJ and I had ourselves a mighty fine time today on top of the active, snow covered volcano, known to the locals as Mt. Baker.

He finished his schooling for the year last Friday, and we are sitting around, bored, awaiting Santa's Thursday night arrival.

Some of the locals spend the days before Xmas in malls, however, FNSJ and myself finished our shopping weeks ago.

FNSJ suggested we go sledding today.

Once we got a top Mt. Baker, sleds in hand, I suggested that he FNSJ try skiing.

He concurred.

So off we went.   I'm pretty sure he had one of the best days of his life. He was all smiles and loved riding the chair lifts, after I quickly graduated him from the rope tow, which by the way is no longer a rope, but rather a cable.

I have a poor quality video of FNSJ wiping out down the slopes. The video was not of good quality, as the IPhone it was taking on, was fogged up in the near blizzard like afternoon conditions.

Hope you have your Xmas shopping done, and can relax and enjoy these winter days in the mountains too!

-FNJ

Isn't that nice of FNJ to hope I enjoy winter days in the mountains too. Winter? I went swimming this morning. Yesterday got into the 70s, this morning the air was chilled to 64.

Mountains? Relax on a mountain? We ain't got no stinkin' mountains here. All we have is some pitiful hills. A couple years ago a few inches of snow covered those pitiful hills. I got out my cross country skis and discovered the summer heat in the storage closet  had partially de-laminated the skis. I attempted skiing anyway. It did not go well. Insufficient steepness.

Below is the aforementioned video where you will see that Spencer Jack did find sufficient steepness....

Pirate Whitebeard In Arlington Walking With Village Creek Indian Ghosts

I have not gotten any better at taking those selfie things, even after I figured out how to set a two second delay.

I need to consult the Tarrant County Kim Kardashian of Selfies, Elsie Hotpepper, as to proper technique.

As you can see I am almost  ready to be Santa Claus. Either that or a Pirate named Whitebeard.

This particular selfie attempt was taken in the Village Creek zone. I'd not walked with my favorite Indian Ghosts for weeks, or so it seems.

The temperature seems to be being unnaturally balmy for a couple days before Christmas. With the outer world being heated into the 70s on this second day of winter, by tomorrow morning the semi-cool pool should be doable.

I was in Arlington this morning to go to a Tom Thumb. That's a grocery store for those who don't live where Tom Thumbs exist. I went to Tom Thumb due to last night I was informed that Tom Thumb had a CoinStar Gift Card exchange machine. I was at a Christmas Party where I acquired a $200 Lowes Gift Card. I remarked to a fellow partygoer something along the line of what am I gonna spend $200 on at Lowes? To which the fellow partygoer informed me of the CoinStar Gift Card exchange deal.

Back to the Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

As I was walking along one of the more isolated areas of Village Creek I came upon the above fisherman enjoying the balmy weather to catch himself some likely inedible fish. Having typed that I just realized  that unlike at Fort Worth's Oakland Lake Park there are no signs along Village Creek warning that it is not a good idea to consume the fish one might catch.

I just got a text  message informing me that Miss Puerto Rico needs a ride to where her vehicle is being serviced. That should turn into an adventure going all sorts of sideways that my limited imagination will not pre-conceive until faced with whatever has gone sideways....

Don't Be An Anonymous Corrupt River Rat

You are looking at the handsome face of my most frequent blog commenter.

Anonymous.

I never see most of the comments Anonymous makes. Google does a good job of detecting Anonymous spam or nuisance comments.

I have 5 or 6, or is it 7, blogs. And one humongous website. All of which generate emails and comments. I have to moderate the comments rather than let them be auto-published, because the spam comments would make for a mess if they all got published..

Adding up all the posts on all the blogs I would guess the number is in the 8 or 9 thousand range. Any of which  on any given day can generate a comment.

A person making a comment has the option of using their Google account name or OpenID, whatever that is or make up a fake name or be Anonymous.

Some commenters do not notice the message about the comments being moderated.  A few times this has resulted in someone making a comment multiple times, with each effort slightly different and increasingly strident, because the commenter does not see their comment instantly appear.

If a commenter wants to make sure their comment gets read by the moderator don't make the comment as Anonymous.

If you don't have a Google account, simply make up a name. Those I always notice, particularly if the name is clever, like JD Mama Boy, or Corrupt River Rat, or Betsy Price Not Right.

Names like that.

Does Anyone Need Some Longhorn Bulls To Ramrod On The Chisholm Trail?

And now for something completely different.

I think I have likely mentioned a time or two over the years I have received dozens of email queries asking to buy my various rattlesnake products.

People, usually from Europe, often Germany and the UK, go to my Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup webpage and somehow that leads them to think I am a purveyor of rattlesnake products.

The following non-rattlesnake related email arrived from my Eyes on Texas website over the weekend....

Subject: Longhorn bulls for sale

I was told to contact Chisholm trail for purchasing longhorn bulls. If this is correct and u r interested, please call me @ 214-xxx-9477. I have a two year old, one nearly one yr, and a younger one to be weened soon. All registered with TLBAA.

Thanks, Barbara

I explained to Barbara that my only connection to longhorns is I have a webpage or two or three with longhorn related info. And that I also made a webpage of the long defunct Chisholm Trail Days event in the Fort Worth Stockyards.

I also made a webpage devoted solely to the Fort Worth Herd, complete with video, if I am remembering correctly. And, again if I am remembering correctly, Elsie Hotpepper shows up for a second or two in the Fort Worth Herd video. I may have made more than one video of the Fort Worth Herd. I am fairly certain the one with the Elsie Hotpepper appearance is the one that uses a repeating loop of the Lonesome Dove theme song.

I digress.

That longhorn photo you see above is the photo which turned me into a highly paid professional photographer. Backpacker magazine paid me a whopping $100 to use that photo, almost 14 years ago, way back in February of 2002.

I had webpaged photos of an encounter with a rogue longhorn herd on the mountain bike trail one rides at the west end of Lake Grapevine. Someone from Backpacker magazine saw my longhorn photos and then began grueling negotiations for the publishing rights to that one photo.

When Barbara asked me if I was interested in purchasing some longhorn bulls, I drew a blank regarding knowing anyone who might be interested in such a thing.

Well, about a minute ago I remembered Mary has a farm. With a lot of critters. Mary Kelleher, if you are reading this, are you interested in purchasing some longhorn breeding stock? If so, I can get you Barbara's phone number with the xxx replaced with the actual numbers.

A Dozen Bogus Reasons For Flocking To Fort Worth

Yesterday's blogging about yet one more bridge feat of engineering completed in less than four years generated a comment which led to some amusing bum puzzlement....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Wondering Again How It Can Take Fort Worth 4 Years To Build 3 Simple Bridges":

Hey now Mr. Jones, more people than ever are flocking to Fort Worth and there are 12 reasons why! Durrr!

A dozen reasons folks are flocking to Fort Worth like never before

You know an article's gonna be great when a photo from Brian Luenser is included! Double durrr!! 

__________________________________________

Yikes! Yet one more embarrassing piece of inflated propaganda. You can click the above link to see all 12 amazing reasons for the flocking to Fort Worth.

Among the dozen reasons people are flocking to Fort Worth is....

#10 Best Downtown in the Country
Fort Worth has the No. 1 Downtown in the U.S.

When I saw this propaganda yesterday there were two comments at that point in time....

Helo: #1 Downtown in the US?

What is this research? Even us here in Fort Worth know that's not true!

Scott Pederson: -> helo
http://www.livability.com/top-10/downtowns/10-best-downtowns/2014/tx/fort-worth...

_________________________________________

This is not the first time we have seen this livability.com Top 10 list used to tout Fort Worth as having the best downtown in America, to the utter befuddlement of people who have been to other downtown's in America.

This particular livability.com Top 10 list has been blogging fodder several times, including....

Is Fort Worth's The Best Small Downtown In America? and America Is In Deep Trouble If Fort Worth Is The Best Downtown In America.

This particular Top 10 Best Downtown's in America list was looking at the downtown's of small American towns. I don't know how Fort Worth, with a population of around 800,000, qualifies as a small town, but that's how the town looked to livability.com, apparently.

I was born  in one of the small towns on this Top 10 Best Downtown's list, that being Eugene, Oregon. I have lived in another of the small towns, Bellingham, Washington. Both Bellingham and Eugene have lively downtown's of the sort that, unlike Fort Worth's, are not ghost towns on the biggest shopping day of the year.

Isn't it sort of an act of false advertising to boldly proclaim Fort Worth has the #1 Downtown in America, due to being on this livability.com list of 10 small towns?

Wondering Again How It Can Take Fort Worth 4 Years To Build 3 Simple Bridges

My Favorite Oregon Cousin, Scott, took the picture you are looking at here, yesterday or the day before yesterday.

In the picture we are in Oregon, looking north across the Columbia River, with Washington hidden in the fog.

That bridge is known as the Astoria-Megler Bridge.

I do not remember if I have blogged about this bridge previously in one of my continuing series of bloggings about feats of engineering, usually bridges, built in four years, or less.

Over water.

I am motivated to blog about these feats of engineering due to the astonishing fact that a bridge building project, currently sort of underway in Fort Worth, has a four year project timeline.

Four years to build three simple, little bridges.

Over dry land.

Eventually, some day, way in the future, if money can be found to do so, a ditch may be dug under Fort Worth's bridges, with water added, which at that point the bridges will be connecting the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

No one has an explanation as to why it will take Fort Worth's infamous Boondoggle four years to build three simple, little bridges. Most people's best guess is there is a shortage of funds causing the slow motion construction.

The Astoria-Megler Bridge is not a simple, little bridge. The bridge is 4.1 miles long. The bridge is designed to handle wind blows of 150 mph and a river current of 9 mph. This bridge is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America.

Obviously this bridge was built over water. With that water affected by tidal changes. While under construction the engineers had to contend with ship traffic making its way upriver from the Pacific, or heading downriver, out to sea.

Bridge building complications of the sort Fort Worth can only dream of.

And yet this bridge took less than four years to build, with construction beginning November 5, 1962, finished July 29, 1966.

As you can see via the above photo, the bridge as it leaves Astoria soars quite high. That is so ships can pass. Note that big pier upon which the cantilevered span rests.

I wonder if the local Astoria press made a big deal out of when that pier started to rise out of the water, like the Fort Worth Star-Telegram did when America's Biggest Boondoggle's pitiful little wooden forms for the bridge's V piers became visible rising from dry land?

I suspect not....