Spencer Jack's dad called me last night. During the course of that conversation I was informed Spencer Jack was going to be voting in his first presidential election in the morning, and that I would be receiving documentation documenting Spencer Jack voting.
It did not occur to me that this documentation would be in video documentary form which you can view below via YouTube.
The text accompanying the video documentation...
Spencer and I were up before the sun this morning excited to cast our ballot. We know that to make a democracy work we cannot just be observers. We voted!
Texas voters, stuck in some point in time in the last century, may be surprised to learn that in Washington there are no polling places. One does ones voting from the comfort of ones home, or wherever one feels comfortable voting. And then you cast your vote by dropping your ballot in an Official Ballot Drop Box.
No Photo I.D. required.
However, in Washington, unlike Texas, there are no absurd electoral fraud issues, such as the vote harvesting currently being investigated in Tarrant County and other Texas counties.
Watch the YouTube video below and see Spencer Jack voting and then drive to deliver the ballot, followed by a real good clue for whom Spencer Jack (and his dad) voted....
This morning of the day before I hope the 2016 election comes to its merciful end the outer world at my current Texas location is being like a stereotypical winter day in my old home zone of Western Washington.
Rain.
But, looking out my bedroom window this morning I see something I doubt anyone in Washington sees looking out any of their windows.
The Lone Star Flag of Texas, blowing in the wind under the more well known flag of the United States of America.
This election has taken a toll. During the course of the past year I have learned things I did not know before about so many people.
So much ignorance, bigotry, racism, downright stupid idiocy has been cluelessly, I assume, been laid out bare for anyone to clearly see, by way too many people who, prior to this election causing previously undetected slime to rise from the swamp, I had assumed were not ignorant, bigoted, racist, stupid people.
Tomorrow starting around 6pm I will be having myself an Election Party. I am hoping the party ends early with me going to bed feeling secure that my country has not descended into utter madness.
If the party does not end early I will have a pot of coffee brewed, hoping to be perked up enough to remain vertical until I get the news that I can get horizontal feeling secure my country has not descended into utter madness....
I saw this photo on Facebook yesterday via Skagit Breaking News.
Seeing this photo sort of made me homesick for my old home zone. On a clear day I was able to look out the window of my Mount Vernon kitchen and see Mount Baker. Not quite the zoomed view you see in the photo, but impressive nonetheless.
If I remember right the last time I hiked up Mount Baker was with Spencer Jack's Favorite Uncle Joey.
To say I hiked up Mount Baker, which sounds like I hiked to the summit, would be more accurately stated that I hiked up Mount Baker as far as is feasible, to the point where going further gets a bit tricky.
And dangerous.
If, or when, Mount Wichita gets a snow cover I wonder if anyone will attempt to hike to the summit carrying skis to attempt a short run of downhill skiing?
Last summer I was on the summit of Mount Wichita where a guy regaled me with a tale of watching a foolish person push his mountain bike to the summit. Many were watching when the mountain biker attempted a fast descent. The attempt lasted about 20 feet before the biker lost control, was tossed over his handlebars and proceeded to tumble down the mountain, along with his sliding bike.
I recollect asking if the guy was hurt by this embarrassing debacle. The reply was that when his tumble came to a halt the guy stood up and gave the assembled watchers an I am okay thumbs up type signal.
I suspect a skiing attempt down the steep snow-covered slopes of Mount Wichita would meet a similar fate to the mountain bike attempt...
Friday, November 4, 2016 I had the pleasure of attending my first Official Spelling Bee.
I may have been in a Spelling Bee or two or three during my school years, but those Spelling Bees were not of the sort I experienced at the Wichita Falls Spelling Bee.
The Wichita Falls 20th Annual Spelling Bee, a production of the Wichita Adult Literacy Council, had all sorts of Spelling Bee twists I had not experienced before.
Such as before the spelling started a buffet provided a food boost to the spellers and spelling watchers. A buffet with multiple barbecue items, along with the usual barbecue suspects, such as potato salad, cole slaw, beans and a couple type peppers. Plus iced tea and ice cream.
And cake.
A BIG cake celebrating "Spelling For 20 Years!" With bees flying out of hives in trees.
Bees and their hives were one of the themes of the evening.
Above we see a Bee Woman letting us know "ALL HIVES MATTER".
I really think such goes without saying. Anyone with any sense of decency knows All Hives Matter.
Spelling Bees can be a rowdy affair, I assume.
But I did not experience too much rowdiness. But it is always reassuring to see a police presence at any event.
Including a Spelling Bee.
Though the photo above sort of seems to indicate one had to go through some sort of security check before entering the Spelling Zone, such was not actually the case.
The above photo and the one which follows were taken from the vantage point from whence I watched most of the Spelling Bee.
Myself and a lovely young lady named Andrea were the designated cheerleaders for the spelling team which called itself The Misfits.
Andrea and I did not know why our team called itself The Misfits. We speculated the reason might have been because of the team member's remarkable resemblances to Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Thelma Ritter.
Andrea and I took seriously our cheerleader duties. Other teams may have had noisier cheerleaders and larger groups doing the cheerleading, but Andrea and I really did a bang up job of cheering on The Misfits.
When the spelling finally began, about half an hour later than we thought it would, the first round was easy words, such as one might find in a first grade Dick and Jane book. Even so, Andrea and I were a bit concerned when Team Misfit got their first word, but, to our relief, they spelled it correctly.
I should have written down the words The Misfits were tasked to spell, but it did not occur to me to do so. So, I have forgotten all the words The Misfits spelled correctly. All I remember is the word, to the horror and shock of myself and Andrea, which The Misfits misspelled, knocking them out of the competition in the fourth round.
As The Misfits struggled to figure out how to spell what turned out to be their last word I zoomed my camera in for a closeup of Alex, she being the lady on the right, looking at Big Ed trying to figure out how to spell the word which ended up spelling The Misfit's doom.
Azimuth.
Andrea and I both wrote down the correct spelling when we heard the Spellmaster say the word.
And then Andrea and I recoiled in horror as we heard Dana, she being the third member of The Misfits, spell out A S I M U T H.
Like I said, Andrea and I were mortified.
With this type high level, highly sophisticated, complex type Spelling Bee there are all sorts of twist options.
Such as, for $100 you can save your team, buying their way back into the Bee.
Andrea was ready to pay for the save, but I objected, opining quite determinedly that The Misfits did not deserve a save from their Cheerleaders after so shamefully misspelling a relatively simple word. az·i·muth
ˈazəməTH/
noun
the direction of a celestial object from the observer, expressed as the angular distance from the north or south point of the horizon to the point at which a vertical circle passing through the object intersects the horizon.
the horizontal angle or direction of a compass bearing.
_______________________
All things considered, the Wichita Falls 20th Annual Spelling Bee was an enjoyable evening. But, I was sort of relieved when I heard Dana spell azimuth with an 's'. The time was fast approaching my regularly scheduled bedtime...
I have tickets tonight to both of Wichita Falls Friday November 4, 2016 Cultural Events.
One of tonight's Wichita Falls Cultural Events is Moby-Dick In The Falls.
The Dallas Opera's production of Moby-Dick is being simulcast live to the Kay Yeager Coliseum in the Wichita Falls Multi-Purpose Events Center, also known as MPEC.
I can not remember the last time I attended a live simulcast of an Opera being performed in Dallas.
Actually, I can not remember if I have ever made it all the way through an Opera to the part where the Fat Lady sings.
While the Opera is singing on the west side of downtown Wichita Falls, on the east side of downtown Wichita Falls the 20th Annual Wichita Falls Literary Council Spelling Bee takes place.
The Spelling Bee is spelling in the Stone Palace on Indiana Street, a short distance east of the Wichita Falls Public Library. The Spelling Bee event begins an hour and a half before the Opera begins to sing.
I have not yet made up my mind as to which of tonight's Wichita Falls Cultural Events to attend.
I am leaning towards the Spelling Bee.
First off it is likely I would better understand what I am watching at a Spelling Bee than an Opera.
Also in the Spelling Bee's favor is the fact I already have my ticket in hand. My Moby-Dick Opera ticket is waiting for me at the Kay Yeager Coliseum will call ticket window.
The Spelling Bee includes a dinner before the spelling begins. And, to help facilitate and lubricate the spellers, and make the spelling more bearable for those of us in the audience, adult libations are available.
I am almost 100% certain no dinner is part of the Moby-Dick opera. And I am fairly certain adult libations will not be available. At least I have seen no mention of such.
I am assuming whichever Wichita Falls Cultural Event I decide to attend tonight I will be able to photo document the event for blogging purposes tomorrow morning.
In the meantime below is a coffee cup with some spelling tips for you Spelling Bee spellers....
A couple days ago I blogged about America's Biggest Boondoggle and the stalled bridge building aspect of The Boondoggle.
That stalled bridge building had been ignored by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, except for one article last March, informing readers there was a design problem which would take about a month to fix and resume the bridge building.
Then, eight months after the bridge building was halted, the Star-Telegram finally acknowledged such in an editorial in which the boondoggle word was also mentioned.
Tuesday's blogging about The Boondoggle's bridges, and other aspects of The Boondoggle, such as outrageous abuse of eminent domain, generated a couple interesting comments, including one from one of The Boondoggle's victims....
Sometimes I think this whole fiasco is really hilarious. How a relatively late modern city can have something this ridiculous going on is phenomenal. But, then I remember what a blight these idiots have put on the city. The area they have ruined was nothing special. But, it was an honest area of urban industrial Fort Worth. There were real businesses with real people working and using that area. These morons just came in there with their "visions" and destroyed that piece of our heritage. What a sham.
That area was special enough to me. Owning property there was a decision made to have a productive place to work, in a central city location, with a view toward the future.
How could the decision to work hard to buy property adjacent to a growing and thriving downtown area, become a bad idea. This was an investment in the future. This was a solid calculation that free enterprise might one day, need this area to continue what was started downtown and along west 7th street.
Nearly a decade of anxiety and 3 1/2 years of constant stress and concern over trying to eventually get a more fair compensation for the property, after it was taken, building demolished, giving the project's representatives no real incentive to offer a better payment, finally came to an end.
However, no real victory.
There is nothing fair about this process. Property owners were not made whole.
Waging an expensive legal battle to seek just compensation, against a cadre of entities running this project, moving at a glacial pace, with trivial and frivolous activities and attractions, all occurring without the voter approval needed for a project this size, has left such a bad taste and repeated scars from the grinding down of our resolve over the years.
Unless it happens to you, no one knows how nasty is the threat of eminent domain. The bank didn't understand. The insurance company didn't understand. The contractors and surveyors that swarmed the area did not seem to be working in consort.
The county, a partner on the project, did not seem to have a list of taken properties. Tax bills were sent for full value for years after the Water District had the property in its name. Property owners were told that they might get a small refund. It took attorneys to inform the County that a "Whole Taking" situation, by law, means that no taxes should have assessed at all, once the properties had been signed over to the Water District.
I want my property and my decade of strife back. I bet my friends and neighbors do too.
Looking at this early morning sunrise view of a body of water and a mountain I might be looking west across Lake Wichita at Mount Wichita.
Or I might be looking at a photo from my old home zone, standing in Bay View State Park, looking south across Padilla Bay, to about 100 miles distant, at a volcano named Mount Rainier.
It really is difficult to ascertain, for certain, which mountain I am looking at,
Wichita or Rainier.
I think I am going to go with Rainier being the mountain in view, with the primary clue being that little mountain to the left of the big mountain.
Mount Wichita stands alone, with no mountains of any size anywhere to be seen for mile and miles and maybe hundreds of miles.
Well, it seems that perhaps the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has finally noticed that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark, I mean, the state of the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.
You in modern towns in America, with real newspapers, can you imagine something like you see in this photo, floundering at the heart of your town, for months on end, with your local newspaper not getting to the truth of what is going on with such a mess?
In that article the Star-Telegram could find no one who could explain the stalled bridge building problem. In today's Star-Telegram editorial, Val Lopez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Transportation said what the Star-Telegram characterized as what may be the only positive thing he could say about the stalled bridges, telling the Star-Telegram...
“We want to make sure we do this right,”
I would assume such is the case with just about any public works project of any scope.
The Star-Telegram goes on to say "...the fact remains that construction of the bridges started almost a year ago and was halted about three months later. They may not be finished until 2019, a year behind schedule."
More rare non-propaganda editorializing from the Star-Telegram...
"Other than Lopez, most of the people with direct knowledge of the bridge problem don’t want to talk about it."
"That’s understandable. After all, Trinity River Vision still has its share — maybe more than its share — of vocal opponents."
"Nobody involved wants to say the bridges weren’t being done right in the first place, but you don’t stop in the middle of a project like this unless somebody thinks something is wrong."
The Star-Telegram says the Trinity River Vision may have more than its share of opponents. I don't think opponents is the correct characterization. I think it is more accurate to say that which used to be called the Trinity River Vision has a lot of people who have observed the "vision" and have been appalled by how badly the "vision" has been managed.
Defunct Wakeboard parks, floating beer parties in a polluted river, little progress, a project timeline which constantly shifts, an unqualified son of a local politician made the project's executive director, a public works project drastically changing the town, but the townspeople have never been allowed to vote on the project. And even with no public vote on a public works project, eminent domain being abused to take property, over and over again.
Thinking such is not opposing the project, it is objecting to how the project has been mismanaged, in various ways, from the start.
The Star-Telegram editorial also mentions the "B" word for the first time...
"Panther Island/Trinity River Vision can’t afford many missteps. Too many people already see it as an extremely expensive boondoggle."
I have long thought the basic idea behind what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle may be a good idea, maybe even a great idea, but as the project approaches two decades of boondoggling, it seems it may be time to re-think The Boondoggle and fix what ails it, if it is determined fixing it is possible and a good thing to do.
The Star-Telegram is uncharacteristically feisty in this editorial. The editorial suggests, "Nobody involved wants to say the bridges weren’t being done right in the first place, but you don’t stop in the middle of a project like this unless somebody thinks something is wrong."
To which the TxDOT spokesman, Lopez told the Star-Telegram that “These are the kinds of modifications that can occur all of the time on a project this size.”
The Star-Telegram editorial incredulously then said, "Really? Nothing like this seemed to happen with construction on the new Seventh Street bridge. Same with an overabundance of freeway and toll lane construction across Tarrant County and even the buildings and parking garages being built downtown."
That Seventh Street bridge, which looks so cool one might legitimately describe it as a signature bridge, was built in less than a year. Three bridges near Gateway Park, recently completed, were also built in about a year, with one of those bridges crossing the Trinity River, which flooded twice during the construction, which was not halted.
I am not an engineer of any sort. I am blessed with basic common sense, as are a lot of people. I have long been puzzled by those V Piers which are supposed to support the bridge decks of those three bridges connecting the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.
Looking at the photo of the wooden form for one of those V Piers I don't understand how this would support a bridge deck.
Where the V hits the ground does this go deep? With a big solid foundation of concrete?
With the V Piers and bridges in place how does the ditch get dug under them? You can see that supports are currently holding up the wooden forms of the V Pier. When the concrete is poured and those supports removed, how does that chunk of steel reinforced concrete not come crashing to the ground?
Are these the type questions, with no answers, which have grounded America's Biggest Boondoggle to a halt?
Maybe the Fort Worth Star-Telegram will find answers now that the newspaper seems, sort of, to be on the case....
Last night, long after the trick or treaters ceased trick or treating in my time zone, Spencer Jack's dad text messaged photo and text documentation of Spencer Jack's Halloween.
Spencer Jack is loving handing out candy.
He chose this over trick or treating this year, despite having an awesome home made Lego brick costume he wore to his school Halloween function this weekend.
FUD needs to hurry over to get a treat. Supplies are quickly dwindling.
Our neighborhood is currently full of candy seekers.
________________
Well, I did not make it to Mount Vernon in time to trick or treat Spencer Jack.
Below is Spencer Jack in the aforementioned Lego costume, with the almost depleted Halloween candy supply on the table next to Spencer Jack.
I have had only one normal Washington type Halloween since I have been in Texas.
And that one time happened in 2005 when I was in Washington over Halloween. I was staying at my ex-wife's place in Kent. That is a suburb south of Seattle. The next door neighbor had their yard decorated like they'd hired Imagineers from Disney. Sound effects, motion activated ghoulish things.
The constant onslaught of groups of trick or treaters did not abate til after 10, give or take a minute or two.
When I lived in Mount Vernon, in east Mount Vernon, in what is known as the Thunderbird neighborhood, I'd get well over 100 candy beggars. Probably way more than 100. I did not count either the number of beggars or the amount of candy I had ready for them.
My first location in Texas was in a northern suburb of Fort Worth called Haslet. And isolated ranch type place with a long driveway to walk before a candy beggar would reach the front door. I don't recollect any trick or treaters making the trek to that front door.
My next location in Texas was in east Fort Worth, behind a security gate and fence. Zero trick or treaters.
My current location in Texas has no security gate or fence, is in a nice neighborhood, with something quite rare in Fort Worth.
Sidewalks.
And yet, once again, I got not one knock on the door from any candy beggars. I had a supply of Reese's Peanut Butter bars ready to go, but none went.
I purposely get a candy product which I do not care for, so as to not have any temptation to consume any leftovers.
I have never been much of a candy fan, but I did used to enjoy Halloween, when I lived in Washington. The trick or treating when I was younger, and like Spencer Jack, the handing out the candy when I was no longer young.
