No Wichita Falls Sirens Yesterday While Tornado Touches Down In Monroe Washington

This blogging falls into the category of being a variant of blogging about something I read in a west coast online news source which I would not expect to be reading in a Texas online news source, such as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, about something in Texas.

In other words. It is not unusual to read an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about a tornado or two touching down in the D/FW zone.

However, it is unusual to read an article in the Seattle Times about a tornado touching down in the Western Washington zone.

In this case, the town of Monroe, where a tornado touched down yesterday, Thursday morning, knocking over a couple RVs, tossing a trampoline and doing some damage to a car.

I do not think the Monroe tornado is going to warrant an F rating.

Monroe is in Snohomish County, If my memory is working correctly Monroe is about 40 miles slightly northeast of Seattle, 20 miles east of Everett, maybe 50 miles slightly southeast of my old home zone in the Skagit Valley.

I hope this Western Washington tornado is not part of a trend, brought about by the ongoing climate change. There are no Tornado Sirens in Western Washington. Tsunami Evacuation Routes, and Volcano Eruption Evacuation Routes. But, no Tornado Sirens....

Again Hoping To See Fort Worth Boondoggle's Bridge Under Construction

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before yesterday, an incoming email informed me that Mr. W had mentioned me in Facebook. Or maybe it was that Mr. W had flagged me. I don't remember if it was a mentioning or a flagging. Maybe it was both.

Anyway, when I went to Facebook to see why or what was mentioned or flagged I saw that which you see here.

Mr. and Mrs. W live in a penthouse atop a bluff in downtown Fort Worth overlooking the Trinity River and the area known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, more commonly known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

With Mr. and Mrs. W having a Bird's Eye View of America's Biggest Boondoggle in mind, upon first look, I thought I was seeing a photo Mr. W took of America's Biggest Boondoggle's bridges once again under construction.

I only thought such for a second or two, then realized that flat area was not flat Fort Worth land, and that that could not be Fort Worth, what with those hills in the background. If such hills existed in the relatively flat Fort Worth area the hills would likely be known as mountains.

What we are actually looking at above is not a bridge being built over dry land. What we are looking at is a bridge being built over one of the Pacific Ocean's bays called San Francisco Bay, which would make that bridge being constructed the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Golden Gate Bridge, built over water, took about four years to build. I have mentioned this a time or two previous, including mentioning it in Spencer Jack Has Me Wondering Why It Will Take Fort Worth Longer To Build 3 Puny Bridges Over Nothing Than It Took To Build The Golden Gate Bridge.

A couple years ago Fort Worth started building three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island. That construction  has been halted for over a year, due to the extremely complex engineering problems involved when one builds a bridge over dry land, unlike easy bridge construction, such as the Golden Gate, built over water which moves swiftly due to this phenomenon called tides.

I have blogged about the pitiful Fort Worth bridge building and America's Biggest Boondoggle dozens of times, with one of the most recent times Looking For What Fort Worth's Stalled Boondoggle Needs To Find.

Has anyone seen a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article this month mentioning the one year anniversary of  America's Biggest Boondoggle's stalled bridge construction? How about Fort Worth Weekly?

Fort Worth Weekly used to be the closest thing Fort Worth had to a real newspaper. And then Fort Worth Weekly lost Gayle Reaves with Fort Worth Weekly quickly declining relevance to reality-wise.

Maybe 60 Minutes will come to Fort Worth and do an expose of America's Biggest Boondoggle and the Granger Cartel.

America  deserves  to see the ridiculousness it is helping pay for....

Throwback Thursday To Gar The Texan's Buffalo Butt Beer Swilling Smoking Hot German

This would be one of the rare instances of me participating in what is known as Throwback Thursday.

Long ago, early in this century, the year may have been 2002, possibly 2003, for reasons I no longer remember, I somehow agreed to take Gar the Texan and his then girl friend on a tour of the DFW zone.

Well, the western half of the DFW zone.

Well, pretty much the western half of the western half of the DFW zone.

Anyway, this latest of Gar the Texan's long line of girl friends was one he had met in Germany. She was making her first visit to America, to visit Gar the Texan.

During the course of this extremely long tour of the western half of the western half of the DFW zone I took the tour to the Fort Worth Stockyards.

During the course of wandering the Stockyards eventually we ended up at the location you see above.

Booger Red's Saloon.

Where we had ourselves some of Booger Red's famous Buffalo Butt Beer.

That would be Gar the Texan on the saddle seat in the foreground, with his German girl friend on the saddle seat next to him, enjoying one of her German cigarettes between sips of Buffalo Butt Beer.

I did not get to spend much time with Gar the Texan's German girl friend, but I did spend enough time to conclude she was a keeper. What is not to like about a fraulein who can chain smoke German cigarettes while chugging a gallon of Buffalo Butt Beer?

It did not surprise me to learn, a month or two later, that Gar the Texan and his German girl friend were getting married. The international chemistry was obvious even to my oblivious eyes.

That international union lasted the 2nd or 3rd longest of Gar the Texan's many marriages. Eventually the German was replaced with a good, wholesome, All-American Idahoan who does not smoke and has the good sense to not chug Buffalo Butt Beer, or sit on a saddle in Booger Red's Saloon.

Until the next time, that is my Throwback Thursday for now....

Texas Storm Chasers Killed Tracking Tornado Causes Skagit Darwinian Selection Thoughts

Earlier on this final Wednesday of 2017's version of March, regarding the past 24 hours, I mentioned It Was A Long Stormy Night Last Night In North Texas and that my Favorite Nephew Jason last night had inquired about what I was experiencing storm-wise.

Then, in this morning's email there was an interesting email from Jason in which he opined regarding the current state of Darwinian Selection in America, you know, that Survival of the Fittest concept where the most worthy have the best luck at passing on their genes to the next generation.

Jason's Darwinian Selection email in its entirety...

FUD --

Earlier today, I had concerns that Darwinism is dead.

Spencer and I checked out some books from the library last night.   This lead me to reading about Skagit pioneers first hand stories of settling the towns of Hamilton, the defunct Sauk City, Lyman, etc. circa the 1890s era.

There can be a lot to be learned by this one particular book.

I was reminded that both men and women often left the family home at a young age.  People, mostly women, sought out strong, smart significant others for reasons of pure survival.

If they followed the weak dumb ones, survival wasn't an option.  Or often lead to a miserable life.

In the book, worries of mother nature were of a concern.  Living close to a raging untamed river with ample dangerous wild life, amongst other dangers, were a daily concern.  Some figured it out, some didn't.

Today I talked to a young woman who works for me about the importance of finding the right mate.  I told her that Darwinism doesn't seem to weed out the dumb like it use to.  I explained that modern governments, perhaps our own, has set up a system to easily reproduce stupid people.  I let her know that I was reading a book last night about a young women who picked a smart husband and avoided tragedy many times over.

I stressed my theory, that being that life will be more pleasant if you choose to surround yourself, or perhaps cohabitate, with the intelligent. 

I further went on to explain my frustration that dumb people thrive in the 2017 version of USA living.

Until tonight's reminder news:  Storm chasers killed in pursuit of tornado. 

Going to bed tonight, knowing for sure that Darwin's theory still proves true.  At least in Texas.

FNJ

____________________

Now, I do not know if the three Storm Chasers who met an untimely end were Texans. All I know is they met their untimely end in Texas. West Texas to be precise. Two of the Storm Chasers did so for the Weather Channel.

In the CNN video one of the Storm Chasers is quoted as saying something like 'half the people wanna join us as Storm Chasers, while the other half think we are nuts".

Many Storm Chasers are scientists doing investigate field work, chasing storms so as to gather data to help better understand tornado behavior. So, I don't know if Storm Chasers fit the profile of someone doing a risky behavior due to, well, lacking common sense, and then meeting an untimely end, thus enhancing humanity by eliminating them from the gene pool, also known as Darwinian Selection.

But, regardless of that, Jason had some interesting  ideas regarding the current dumbing down of America and what it may mean for the Survival of the American Species....

It Was A Long Stormy Night Last Night In North Texas

Last night, around half past eight, my time, Spencer Jack's dad, my Favorite Nephew Jason, text messaged me asking...

Have you been hit by a thunderstorm tonight? NBC Nightly News reported severe weather for your region.

I replied a long reply which basically said no thunderstorm had yet struck my location, but such was expected to happen as the night progressed.

Sometime around midnight rain being to fall, with some frozen pellets of small size mixed in, judging the pellets to be small because they did not make much noise. Eventually thunder did boom. But the lightning strikes never got closer than about five miles, judging by counting the seconds between flash and boom.

When I woke up my phone this morning I saw Miss Puerto Rico had texted me at two in the morning, telling me all hell have broken out at her location in east Fort Worth, with the power knocked out, wicked wind blowing and tornado sirens blaring.

Soon thereafter, whilst checking in on my various online news sources, I was to learn DFW was hit hard by last night's storm, with tornadoes, hail damage, other wind damage and thousands with their power knocked out.

As you can see above, via the view looking north this morning on the Wichita Falls Circle Trail, the sky is still looking a bit stormy. The wind is still blowing, but the temperature is in the mid 60s, so I was able to have myself a pleasant endorphin inducing high speed walk in my Caribbean neighborhood, going as far as Haiti and then visiting Barbados.

I heard from Miss Puerto Rico a short while ago that her power is still out. I have now been in Wichita Falls for almost a year, with nary a single power outage, not even a flicker.

I think we may be in for a very stormy, windy spring in North Texas and Tornado Alley....

17th Anniversary Of Downtown Fort Worth Tornado

I was surprised today when I read it was 17 years ago today that I experienced my first Texas tornado. It seems way more recent than that.

A couple hours from now, 17 years ago, I was driving to downtown Fort Worth, heading south from my Haslet home location, in far north Fort Worth. The house was in Haslet, the mailbox was in Fort Worth.

I was heading to the University of North Texas Medical Center area to meet up with someone, for reasons I no longer remember.

As I headed south I was seeing a weather phenomenon the likes of which I'd never seen. A big dark greenish gray wall of clouds, looking a sort of ominous which seemed to be obvious danger. Lightning was bolting in the greenish gray cloud.

I was a couple miles south of my abode, driving on Blue Mound Road when my phone rang. It was the person I was heading to meet telling me to turn around, that something bad was underway in the downtown Fort Worth zone.

At that point in time it was not  known by the caller that that bad thing was a tornado.  All she knew was everyone had been ordered to head to a safe place.

I did as instructed and turned around. By the time I got back to my abode the proverbial all hell had broken loose.

Huge balls of hail pounded the roof with a volume of noise which made it sound as if the roof could not last long before being pummeled into oblivion.

I do not remember at what point I learned tornadoes had struck Fort Worth. At some point in time during the following hours I learned a young man had been killed by grapefruit sized hail which struck him as he was heading to his car, hoping to move it to cover.

Eventually we learned of the tornadoes, and gradually of the damage done, and others killed. It was hours later I learned the person I had been heading to meet was safe.

I do not remember if it was the following day, or several days later that I pedaled my bike past the barriers blocking off downtown Fort Worth and took photos of the damage. You can see those photos on the webpage  I made about the Fort Worth Tornado. That is three of the photos, in thumbnail version, you see above.

Today, on this 17th Anniversary of the deadly, destructive Fort Worth tornado, the forecast for North Texas is for possibly severe thunderstorms, with hail. The type weather which spawns tornadoes...

Another Smoking Hot Wichita Falls Wok Up Call

In all the years at my previous Texas location I never set off all the fire alarms. As of today I have now done so twice, within a year, at my new Texas location.

Both alarming incidents have been Chinese food related.

The first occurred a couple months ago. I had turned the wok heating unit on high, inserted some oil into the wok, and them went to another room to attend to something else.

When I walked back to the kitchen I instantly saw flames shooting out of the wok. I moved fast and removed the wok from its heat source. And then compounded the problem by pouring flaming oil into the sink.

Pouring flaming wok oil into a sink had a sort of explosive effect.

Soon after the explosion I was able to put out the flames, but not before enough smoke had been generated to set of a half dozen real noisy fire alarms. I quickly opened windows and doors and then one by one killed the fire alarms. Some of the alarms have a button, such as you see above, which one holds down to shut it up.

Literally shut it up. Four of the alarms in this place turn into the robot on Lost in  Space, robotically repeating  "WARNING WARNING WARNING EVACUATE TO A SAFE  PLACE WARNING WARNING WARNING" over and over again. Four alarms in verbal warning mode at once is pretty much an annoying cacophony.

Pushing the shut up button turns the message into something less dramatic, like "You are turning off the fire alarm. Are you sure there is no danger?" Or something like that. It happens so fast it's hard to remember, and I don't feel like starting a fire, whilst holding paper and pen, to get an exact quote.

Two of the alarms do not have a shut up button. To shut them up requires yanking them from the ceiling and pulling the battery.

With today's incident there were no flames, just a little smoke. I was peacefully stirring a wok full of various vegetables when suddenly the nearest fire alarm went off, followed by the others. I quickly removed the wok from its heat source and opened windows and doors and began the shutting up the alarms process.

From this day forth I will try to remember to open the window which is adjacent to the woking location so as to not  go through this a third time...

Thrashing No Pecan Trees Today In Lucy Park

I have been having myself  some computer aggravation the past two days. Usually I figure out what is causing this type aggravation and then be done with it.

This instance of computer aggravation continues with the cause still  a mystery. I  am giving up typing for now to try some more to figure out what is wrong.

Okay, I am back. Right now I am back typing and so far, with no aggravation.

To escape my computer I went to Lucy Park today for a pleasant Sunday stroll.

That would make that the Lucy Park suspension bridge you are looking at above. A bridge over the Wichita River, built, I assume, when water was flowing through the river, and not the preferred Fort Worth method of slowly trying to build bridges over dry land.

I also assume the Lucy Park Suspension Bridge was likely built in much less time than the now five year projected construction timeline of Fort Worth's pitiful little bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, originally with a four year construction timeline, but currently stalled for over a year.

After crossing the Wichita River via a swaying suspension bridge I was stopped by the sign year see below.

In Lucy Park a sign STOPs one with a warning "DO NOT THRASH PECAN TREES". I have no idea how or why one would want to thrash a pecan tree. The tree right next to this sign was a big oak with a lot of acorns on the ground. I do not know if it is okay to thrash the Lucy Park oak trees.

Flowers were a-blooming today in Lucy Park. I am fairly certain the blooms I saw were not wildflowers. The blooms seemed too organized to be wildflowers.

Above is an example of the aforementioned flowers a-blooming. There were being colorful at the base of the Lucy Park Japanese Pagoda.

Does anyone know why there are so many Japanese style pagoda type structures at various locations in Wichita Falls?

Did Wichita Falls host a Japanese Internment Camp during World  War II. Are the Japanese pagodas some sort of homage to that bad behavior from long ago when Japanese-Americans were unfairly, wrongly victimized?

Well, I seem to have successfully managed to type a few words with nothing interfering. After multiple restores and restarts and file deletions are my compu-woes now over?  I certainly hope so....

Looking For What Fort Worth's Stalled Boondoggle Needs To Find

I saw what you see here this morning in the Seattle Times. Another instance of something I read in a west coast online news source I would not be expecting to be reading in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about something going on in Fort Worth and the county of Tarrant, in which Fort Worth is located.

In the $225 million more needed to build light rail across I-90 bridge article there were a couple bits info of the sort one would not be reading about Fort Worth's bizarre Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, affectionately known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Five paragraphs from the Seattle Times article....

The cost to build light rail on Interstate 90 between Seattle and Bellevue has zoomed $225 million higher than Sound Transit once estimated, now that final engineering work has revealed the challenge of retrofitting the roadway.

Transit-board members voted unanimously to approve a contract increase Thursday afternoon with construction group Kiewit-Hoffman.

The additional money would come out of contingency funds for the Eastside line, without causing delays or a tax increase.

The vote raises the contract amount to $712 million for 7 miles of work, from the International District/Chinatown Station to South Bellevue. It’s a crucial phase in creating a $3.7 billion East Link corridor to downtown Bellevue and Overlake, where train service is scheduled to begin in 2023.

The job includes building the world’s only trackway on a floating bridge. The roadway moves with Lake Washington’s water level and must be kept buoyant despite the weight of tracks, ties and trains to be placed in the existing express lanes.

________________

First off, let's talk about the transparency inherent in the above information. Fort Worth's pitiful Trinity River Vision (short version of the ever changing project name) has had a mysterious malady cause the cessation of construction of the Boondoggle's three simple bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island. The bridge construction halt has gone on for over a year now.

The Boondoggle's boondogglers have not shared with the public why their bridge construction area has become a construction ghost town. And due to the fact that Fort Worth does not have a real newspaper engaging in this practice called investigative journalism, no one knows what has actually gone wrong with the Ghost Bridges.

Unlike the Sound Transit Light Rail project, Fort Worth's embarrassing boondoggle has never been funded in the way most public works projects are funded. Voters in the Sound Transit area have approved multiple funding measures over the years. Voters in Fort Worth have never been allowed to vote for what has become a boondoggly mess directed by a local  politician's unqualified son.

The Sound Transit project design has built in contingency funding to cover unforeseen cost increases.
 
No one knows how much extra funding will be needed if Fort Worth's cloudy vision ever becomes something someone can see. For instance, the diversion dam, which will direct flood waters into the ditch which may be dug under those three stalled bridges, has not been designed and engineered, yet. Who knows how much such a thing will cost?

In one of the above paragraphs from the Seattle Times article mention is made of the fact that the $3.7 billion East Link from downtown Seattle to Bellevue will begin train service in 2023.

In a Star-Telegram propaganda piece about America's Biggest Boondoggle's stalled bridges J.D. Granger was quoted as saying, "the project's infrastructure should be completed by 2023". No one knows what J.D. means by infrastructure.

I am no longer living in the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle zone, so my mailbox no longer sees the bizarre quarterly Trinity River Vision Authority Updates.  Currently I assume the Summer Update has arrived in people's mailboxes and that it is a slick full color propaganda production touting all the floating on the river music events upcoming, along with other bits of fluffy nonsense, with no mention made of the stalled bridges or any of the other myriad problems.

The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has never had a project timeline. Periodically the propaganda will tout something as having a timeline, such as having a big bang TNT ceremony for the start of construction of one of those bridges, with a  four year project timeline, to build a simple bridge over dry land. Now stalled for over a year.

Public works projects in modern parts of America have project timelines, and full transparency regarding the progress of the project.

For instance, below is a simple graphic from the WSDOT, via the Seattle Times. Have you seen anything similar from America's Biggest Boondoggle? Anything even this simple?

The Trinity River Central City Uptown  Panther Island District Vision can not produce a map showing what is under construction.

I suppose a map could be produced showing what has been constructed, and then gone out of business, like the highly touted Cowtown Wakepark.

I guess a project graphic map could show where the Boondoggle has produced an embarrassing water venue with an imaginary pavilion sitting on an imaginary island, with really cool concrete enclosed outhouses with outdoor showers to wash off the dirty river water when one finishes a Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Float....

Gruesome Murder Mystery On Wichita Falls Circle Trail

Approximately a quarter mile east of Mount Wichita, on the Circle Trail, in Lake Wichita Park, I came upon the death scene you see here.

If this were located on a road with vehicular traffic I would assume the armadillo was the victim of a hit and run.

But, there is no motorized vehicular traffic on the Circle Trail, except for city employees driving vehicles like oversized golf carts to empty trash cans.

Years ago at Gateway Park in Fort Worth I came upon a murdered armadillo, clearly the victim of a gunshot wound.

The Wichita Falls Circle Trail dead armadillo had no obvious cause of death, at least to my amateur forensic pathologist eyes.

Why would anyone murder an armadillo? Armadillos are such cute creatures. I tried to find the Texas armadillo due to foul play death rate, to no avail, but I did find the declaration by which the armadillo was named the State Small Mammal of Texas....

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The State of Texas traditionally has recognized a variety of official state symbols as tangible representations of the proud spirit and heritage of our state; and

WHEREAS, The bluebonnet, the pecan tree, the Guadalupe bass, and the lightning whelk are examples of some natural specimens that serve to symbolize the great diversity of the Texas landscape, while the state dish, chili, fittingly represents another aspect of our shared culture as Texans; and

WHEREAS, In keeping with this custom, the designation of an Official State Mammal of Texas has been the subject of an extensive statewide mock election participated in by hundreds of elementary schoolchildren throughout our state; and

WHEREAS, The two front-runners in this race have been the armadillo and the longhorn; and

WHEREAS, Once the cornerstone of the Texas cattle industry, an estimated 10 million longhorns were herded from Texas to midwestern and western markets during the quarter century that followed the Civil War, providing invaluable stability to the state's postwar economy; and

WHEREAS, The longhorn's distinctive profile commands an immediate association with the State of Texas nationwide and is fittingly used as a visual symbol by businesses from the Rio Grande Valley to the Panhandle; and

WHEREAS, The other candidate for designation as Official State Mammal, the armadillo is a hardy, pioneering creature that chose to begin migrating here at about the time that Texas became a state; and

WHEREAS, The armadillo possesses many remarkable and unique traits, some of which parallel the attributes that distinguish a true Texan, such as a deep respect and need for the land, the ability to change and adapt, and a fierce undying love for freedom; and

WHEREAS, As proud and indomitable as the state from which they hail, both the longhorn and the armadillo will serve as fitting symbols of Texas' unique heritage; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the 74th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby designate the longhorn the official Large State Mammal of Texas and the armadillo the official Small State Mammal of Texas.