Blue Sky Saturday Playing Soccer While Hiking At Sikes Lake

On this second Saturday of the New Year of 2024, at my North Texas location, snow clouds have totally left the sky, leaving bright blue behind.

In shady areas, some snow remains, but, for the most part, the snow has melted into oblivion. No further such nonsense is in the near-term forecast, though there are a few days of such, predicted in the not so near-term forecast.

Judging by the number of people I saw today on my hike around Sikes Lake, I would have thought today was the first day of the New Year, with people out making good on their New Year's Resolution to get more exercise.

But, I think today's large number of people was likely due to the relief at the end of being housebound the past couple days. I know that is how I felt.

There was also some sort of soccer tournament going on today on the Sikes Lake soccer field. I saw three Fort Worth school buses which had transported soccer players to Wichita Falls. It seems a long way to go to play soccer on a field with no viewing stands, with soccer match viewers viewing from their perch on folding chairs on the sidelines.

I think of few things sounding more boring than watching a soccer game from field level with the temperature barely above freezing, with a strong wind blowing.

By some means snow had been removed from the soccer field's artificial grass, leaving a short wall of snow all around the perimeter of the field.

Is it considered normal to play soccer in Winter?

The temperature was in the 40s when I visited Sikes Lake today. As you can see via the photo documentation, a steady wind was making waves on the lake. That and making those 40 some degrees feel much colder...

Day Two of Wichita Falls Winter Wonderland

The temperature is currently one degree above freezing this morning of the second Friday of the New Year of 2024, with my North Texas, Wichita Falls location, still sporting a white dominated color scheme, slowly disappearing, as you can see via the view from my kitchen window.

When the sun began its daily illuminating duty this morning, I looked out my bedroom window to find myself surprised to see snowflakes still making their way to the ground.

The snow flaking has since abated, with patches of blue sky now appearing, with less than two hours to go til noon.

I have yet to make it to ground level. I suspect later today I shall do so. 

Ever since two winters ago, when I experienced a surprisingly sudden slip on ice, whilst walking at MSU (Midwestern State University), resulting in a semi-long recovery from a bruised butt and lower back, I have had an aversion to walking in any sort of winter wonderland.

The February of 2021 deep freeze disaster, with most of Texas losing the power of electricity, along with a lot of snow on the ground, making driving way too adventurous, I have had an aversion to driving in such conditions. 

Particularly after having such reinforced by last winter's incident where I found myself with tires spinning, unable to make it up an extremely slight grade connecting Taft Boulevard to Southwest Parkway. That time, other drivers kindly realizing my predicament, backed up far enough to allow me to back up to get a running start at getting up that slight slope. 

I made it to Walmart, that time, and then back to my abode, making that the last time I have driven in wintry conditions...

My Texas Location Has Turned Into A Snow Covered Winter Wonderland

This time the Texas weather predictors predicting snow got the prediction totally on target.

When the sun arrived this second Thursday of the new 2025 year, I looked out to the south, from my bedroom window, and saw big white flakes falling, with the ground painted white, and the usual multi-color landscape turned into a black and which color scheme.

Basically, a snow-covered Winter Wonderland.

We are now coming up on 9 in the morning, with the temperature two degrees below freezing, and snow still copiously falling.

Let's leave my bedroom to take a look to the north from my living room window.

 I do not think I will be leaving my abode this morning.

A doctor's appointment was re-scheduled yesterday due to anticipating this morning's likely travel challenges.

It seems so odd to me to go through my usual morning ritual of checking various online news sources, to get to my old home zone of Washington news sources, to see the temperature up north being way warmer than my currently frigid Southern location.

So far, the Texas power grid has had no problems, at my location, or anywhere else that I have heard of.

My interior space is comfortably toasty, for now...

New Look At Fort Worth's Multi-Decade Trinity River Vision Boondoggle

It has been a while since I have read an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about America's Dumbest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, or TRV for super short.

A couple days ago I found myself writing a blog post titled New Zealand Family's Seattle Visit Reminds Me Of Fort Worth's Infamous Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, written after seeing the result of a successful public works project completed in a more modern area of America, then finding myself comparing that project to what many simply refer to as The Boondoggle.

And then, ironically, the very day I posted the blog post referencing Fort Worth's embarrassing Trinity River Vision mess, the Star-Telegram publishes an article about the current state of The Boondoggle, in typical Star-Telegram faulty information fashion.

I suspect the reporter writing this article is new to Fort Worth, and the Star-Telegram, and thus does not have a well-developed ear for hearing nonsense.

We are now in the third decade of what has become America's Oldest Boondoggle. Over the years I have written dozens of posts about this subject. Just go to the Durango Texas blog and enter "TNT exploding ceremony" into the search function, or "Kay Granger Boondoggle" and you will come up with many of those posts about this subject.

Now, something I have not made mention of during the many years of writing these blog posts about America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Over the years I have been sent information from persons close to the problem. As in, someone with access inside J.D. Granger's inner Trinity River Vision operation. I referred to this person as Deep Moat. I was told a couple times, by a couple sources, that the TRWD and the TRV were annoyed, a time or two, by things they saw on my blog.

Also, regarding the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, someone working for that newspaper, anonymous to me, has long found my making fun of that newspaper to be amusing. And accurate. It has not happened for a couple years, but yesterday it did. That person, who they are, I do not know, sent me the link to this new article about The Boondoggle, a link I am not blocked from reading. I assume I would always have been able to read the Star-Telegram, if I was a subscriber, but I cancelled the hard copy long ago.

Anyway, I clicked the Fort Worth’s Panther Island riverfront project has seen years of delays. What’s next? and read it. And copied it.

I then messaged Elsie Hotpepper, asking if Elsie had read this latest, because her dear departed friend, Clyde Picht, is quoted. Elsie then asked for the link. I sent it. But, for her, she was blocked. I then sent Elsie the copied article.

Interesting that the Star-Telegram successfully blocks Elsie Hotpepper, but not me.

Anyway, let's now go through some of this article and comment as we read along. Let's begin with the first paragraph...

Government officials and curious citizens left no seats empty in Fort Worth’s city hall chamber on April 5, 2005. That day, then-Mayor Mike Moncrief locked horns with skeptical City Council members over the purpose and price of the “Trinity River Vision,” a grand plan to revamp the river’s flood control system and transform a sliver of the waterway twisting around downtown into a haven of urban leisure and recreation.

2005. Two decades ago. And that is years after The Boondoggle actually began. Flood control system? This project was originally touted as a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme. So vitally needed, almost three decades later, little has been done. So vitally needed, the public was not asked to support it via a bond issue.

Moving on, the next paragraph...

Fort Worth’s powerful optimists first fleshed out plans for the venture the year before. Moncrief and fellow proponents hailed the undertaking, later rechristened Panther Island, as “the most significant local project since construction of Dallas/Fort Worth airport.” “Everyone feels the synergy of this project,” Moncrief told the audience in city hall, among them Panther Island champion U.S. Rep. Kay Granger. “They realize this will create a new gateway ... a new face for future generations.” Doubters weren’t sold on the mayor’s lofty aspirations. “I think the final cost of the project will be substantially higher” than the original $360 million price tag (around $613 million today), said council member Clyde Picht during the hearing.

The "later rechristened Panther Island" remark is what made me think this reporter is new to The Boondoggle. This pseudo public works project started out being called the Trinity River Vision. Then Uptown was added to the name. Then Central City. Then Panther Island District. I do not believe the project has ever been somehow rechristened as Panther Island. Such is just how some have come to refer to it, even though it is an imaginary island which no sane part of the world would refer to as such.

Moving on to the next paragraph...

The project’s budget ballooned to $1.17 billion around 2017 (a figure still listed in project documents today despite inflationary pressures). The most hopeful Panther Island advocates in the early 2000s expected a pocket of high-rises and tree-lined promenades to take form by the end of the decade. No development has happened since. The Tarrant Regional Water District has yet to acquire 23% of the land within Panther Island’s future boundaries; the body agreed in December to pay a real estate consulting firm $1 million to start thinking up a strategy for selling off land to interested developers.

Just the info contained in the above paragraph, one would think, is enough to make one think maybe it is time to just kill this embarrassing failure. The "no development has happened since" line is so telling. Basically, little real development has happened for almost three decades, not in the way developments happen in parts of the world known to be more, well, developed.

It gets worse. Next paragraph...

Much of the new flood control system has yet to be completed. TRWD and the other bodies tasked with bringing Panther Island’s renditions to life predicted in 2018 that every dam, channel and storage pond would be complete by 2028. The project’s latest completion date, as of June, is 2032.

Much of the flood control system is yet to be completed? Remember? This was originally touted as a vitally needed flood control project, to control floods in a section of the Trinity River which had not flooded for well over a half century due to levees installed in the 1950s. And now the completion date is in the next decade.

The final paragraph...

Past delays foreshadowed current ones. It took the Texas Department of Transportation roughly six years and $126.2 million to complete three bridges designed to funnel traffic to and from the island. Construction for the structures, totaling less than a mile in length, began in November 2015, with tentative completion dates set between 2017 and 2018. “This was a bad deal early on,” Picht said of Panther Island in 2018, a few years before he died. “It’s probably the worst managed public project in the state of Texas, if not the nation.” Where exactly do things stand today?

Why is the Star-Telegram blaming the Texas Department of Transportation for taking so long to build the simple little bridges? Did not the actual fault lie with the incompetent leadership of the TRV? As in, Kay Granger's son, J.D., made Executive Director, to motivate his mother to try and secure federal funds? J.D. Granger insisted the design of the bridges have these totally ordinary V-piers, which J.D. thought would make them Signature Bridges, which was part of the original Trinity River Vision, having Three Signature Bridges, matching the Dallas Trinity River Vision's proposed Three Signature Bridges, which was the actual start of The Boondoggle, Fort Worth once again trying to keep up with Dallas.

And failing.

Dallas did end up building two actual signature bridges, which add a cool looking element to the Dallas skyline.

As for The Boondoggle's employment of Kay Granger's son. Kay never did come up with federal funding. And when a Biden bill, the Infrastructure Bill, passed, sending funding to Fort Worth's un-funded project, Kay voted no. J.D. was then fired, given a $72,000 parting gift, and is now trying to open a restaurant.

Meanwhile, I have another nugget of news, sent to me anonymously, which I have no way of verifying, but which makes sense to me.

I have been told the real reason the Trinity River Vision project has stalled is due to serious engineering complications. When the Army Corps of Engineers was brought in, again, after those three little bridges were built over dry land, with a cement lined ditch to later be dug under them, an obvious issue became apparent.

As in, the cement lined ditch should have been built at the same time as the bridges. To dig under the bridges now presents serious engineering issues, as in without sufficient mitigations, digging under the bridges could cause a bridge collapse.

And so, the project is stalled, with the current funding now in limbo due to the project's ineptness, poor planning and bad design.

And, might I add. I have long predicted that eventually we will get to the point where it is realized the ground in the Panther Island zone is seriously contaminated, due to being a former industrial zone. There have already been some indications of this. I suspect it would take an EPA Superfund cleanup, which will likely never happen.

It is time for Fort Worth to kill this project, clean up the mess it has made, and get around to finally, at least, fixing Heritage Park, the boarded-up eyesore at the north end of downtown, a park celebrating Fort Worth's heritage, which, ironically, overlooks America's Biggest Boondoggle....

New Zealand Family's Seattle Visit Reminds Me Of Fort Worth's Infamous Trinity River Vision Boondoggle

I blogged about that which you see, in the above screencap, on my Washington blog, in a blog post titled Visiting Seattle With The New Zealand Family.

Click the link to read the reason I was visiting Seattle with the New Zealanders. And how I came to know this family of four.

The reason I am making mention of this on my Texas blog is because one part of the video made me think of something in Texas which has bugged me for decades now.

The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Ironically, the very day I posted the blog post about the New Zealanders visiting Seattle, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had a long article about the current sad status of America's slowest, dumbest, most inept public works project.

I'll blog about this latest piece of distorted Star-Telegram propaganda later.

Back to the above screen cap of the mom and dad New Zealanders. They are walking on the re-built Seattle Waterfront.

This video, which you can see via clicking the above link, is the first time I have seen video of the new Seattle Waterfront. To say I was impressed is to understate. I was super impressed. Gone is the double decker elevated highway, replaced with a wider road and wider promenade, and other features.

That and a new transit tunnel under downtown Seattle, replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

The rebuilding of the Seattle Waterfront was a complex engineering feat, involving removing a highway, digging a tunnel. And other things.

All of which began about a decade after Fort Worth began its pitiful Trinity River Vision, a supposed vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme. So vitally needed the Fort Worth public was never asked to vote to support a bond issue to pay for it. The bizarre vision was touted as being transformative, creating a Fort Worth waterfront, with an imaginary island, connected to the Fort Worth mainland by three little freeway overpass type bridges, which took an astonishing seven years to build.

Over dry land.

If I remember correctly, the Seattle Waterfront project was started around the time Fort Worth had a TNT exploding ceremony to celebrate the start of constructing those bridges, with Seattle's waterfront renovation completed well before the seven years Fort Worth took to build those three little bridges over dry land, with, years later, those bridges still waiting for a cement lined ditch to be dug under them, with Trinity River water diverted into the ditch, creating the imaginary island, with the three bridges connecting that imaginary island to the Fort Worth mainland.

I can't imagine how long it might take Fort Worth to try to do something like dig a transit tunnel under its puny downtown. A half century?

The Polar Vortex Has Arrived Chilling Wichita Falls

Usually the temperature gets warmer as the hours of the day pass by, before going down when the sun dips under the horizon.

But, as you can see, via the screencap, this fifth day of the new year of 2025 is not behaving normally, with the temperature getting colder and colder after the sun's return.

The predicted damaging wind has also arrived, wreaking havoc with my patio furniture.

I will not be doing any extensive salubrious outdoor walking today, what with the windchill making 33 degrees really feel like 18 degrees.

I may do my daily hiking at Walmart....
 

Incoming Polar Vortex Coming In Strong Tomorrow

Snow has now been dropped from the coming, second week of 2024 weather forecast. With the incoming Polar Vortex still coming in Sunday, as previously predicted.

Today's predicted drizzling has yet to drizzle. 

Sunday's predicted damaging winds must be expected to be caused by strong gusts, not mentioned in the NW 22 mph steady wind forecast.

Winter is only a couple weeks old, and I am already tired of it...

Remembering Pawnee Lane, Elsie Hotpepper & Rumors About Being Forced Out of Fort Worth

Last night I found myself scrolling through my email archive, finding myself disturbed a time or two to come upon an email, which had been opened, which I didn't remember reading. These were all from the last year, so not all that long ago.

Age related memory loss is my explanation.

Among the emails I did not remember was one from my Favorite Nephew Jason, aka FNJ.

The house I built before moving to Texas was on the market again. Jason emailed me the listing and the above photo he took of the deck above the carport, with Jason remarking "I always loved your house on Pawnee and the big roof deck."

I can see a screen door has been added. Which looks tacky. When I had control of this roof deck it was covered with plants, hanging baskets, a couple barrels with big blueberry bushes, planters for strawberries and herbs, like basil. I miss having a constant supply of fresh basil.

And a BBQ grill. I did a lot of BBQing. There was also a deck on the other side of the house, out of the kitchen. That deck had multiple levels. The intention was to put a hot tub there, but that never happened.

Another of the emails I found, which I did not remember, was one I would have thought I would have remembered, what with the fact I replied to the sender and forwarded it to the party referenced in the email.

Way back when I lived in the D/FW zone, east Fort Worth to be precise, I was a bit of a rabble rouser. A rabble rousing cohort rabble roused with me, who I came to refer to as Elsie Hotpepper. Elsie Hotpepper started up a blog to have a venue to verbalize about D'FW issues.

Anyway, here is that email, which referenced concern for Elsie Hotpepper's welfare and blog, from April of 2023, with names omitted...

Hi

I am trying to find out what happened to the blogger on the Star Telegraph that has been blogging forever but suddenly disappears in October 2022. I ask because Tarrant County is known for its brutal retaliation towards truth tellers, and I was wondering if you might know if this person is okay. I am scared to death to even be writing this as this county is so corrupt in every sector and I find out more and more each day. Unfortunately, whistleblowers are taken out in Texas. Anyway, thank you for your time….

To which, back in April of 2023, I replied with...

She is fine. She just got less motivated to post on her blog. Just last week she text messaged something she wanted me to put on her long dormant blog. I told her she forgot she had to send me such via email so I could copy and paste. That was days ago. She has not gotten around to emailing me the info. It's about the current TRWD Board election. I often did her postings, at her direction. I was who talked her into doing the blogging thing, years ago. I sure do not miss living in Tarrant County.

And then this more elaborate reply to my reply...

Haha, I was trying to hide my email but that didn’t work. I’m in big trouble. I have found out way too much and I need to walk away because I will lose everything with the way they retaliate here. It’s brutal. I was just trying to be a voice for the voiceless, our wildlife. They literally have nowhere to go as the destruction of habitat in Northwest Tarrant is out of control and zoning commissioner LF has been approving at an unprecedented rate. I can tell you more later how this got started, my curiosity. 

Every safe person I feel is trustworthy ends up not being so, not even the Texas Scorecard. Well, I have my suspicions.

 Anyway, I read somewhere that you were forced out or something along those lines and maybe you were joking, but knowing what is going on here, it wouldn’t surprise me. I have finally, after a year of digging, found what I suspected and have proof but don’t want to go missing, incarcerated or hurt my family who have deep connections here. 

Also, I’ve been following these two, PM and LF, for over a year and you are the only one who commented recently on PM and him running. Is everyone here blind or just scared to say anything? All anyone has to do is look up each and every campaign contribution and you are well on your way. They have no shame; the writing is literally on the wall.

Anyway, hope you doing okay. I know I don’t know you but feel like I do because of your work. Please know, all that contribute to the Telegraph, you are being followed, your blogs are being read, and people want to comment but I truly believe people are scared. Thanks for having no fear as I am envious of that. 

_________________________

Never heard from this lady again. I do not recollect ever feeling too threatened, except for one incident where I blogged I was heading to Gateway Park to photo document what I thought was a fracking violation, sucking water out of the Trinity River. 

I got to the location. As I was taking photos a couple trucks showed up, with several men looking a bit menacing. I headed back to my van, walking around the group of menacing looking men. I got to my van to find more trucks showing up, with one blocking my exit. 

I got in the van, started the engine, and then rolled down the window and made it look like I was calling and talking to someone, acting like I was reading vehicle licenses. Suddenly the boss of the group made a signal, signaling everyone to back off and get out of my way.

UPDATE:
Last night, after being unable to find the one email I had actually been looking for, it being one from FNJ, Jason quickly emailed me back confirming my memory of the information was accurate. In my email to FNJ I made mention of seeing another email from him which I did not remember, the one with the photo of the deck in front of my Mount Vernon house you see at the top.

Jason replied with a detailed bit of verbiage, including...

PS — and your Pawnee home pic is in my front room.  I always thought that deck was really cool — especially when covered with plants.

Jason included a photo of the Pawnee home pic in his front room...

I can tell that is Spencer Jack, at the upper right, standing in front of the Riverside bridge across the Skagit River in downtown Mount Vernon. I do not know what to make of the Row to Alaska pamphlet at the lower left. Are those Jason's aunts, Fancy and Clancy, on the cover?

Snow Predicted to Arrive in Texas Second Week of 2025

 Apparently, the predicted incoming Polar Vortex is not coming in til the second week of the New Year.

As you can see, via the above screen cap of the current forecast for my Wichita Falls location, the first Tuesday of the New Year will be the coldest day so far this year, dipping down to 23 degrees.

With the start of the second week of the New Year of 2025 forecasting some snow during next Wednesday's morning.

Last night my interior climate control device was blowing warmed air almost non-stop, or so it seemed, when I'd wake up for a minute or two or three, during the night, hearing that heating device blowing.

I remember when I was younger, significantly younger, I liked a good Winter storm. But that was when I lived on the West Coast, in Western Washington.

I never experienced an Ice Storm til I moved to Texas, experiencing the first of that type disturbing weather event soon upon my arrival in Texas, in December, near the end of the previous century.

Since that first Texas Ice Storm I have experienced many more.

In Western Washington I never experienced the temperature dropping below zero, like it did at my current location, during February, a couple years ago. With the Texas electric grid collapsing, necessitating finding a motel that still had power.

I do not remember a power outage in Washington ever being so dire...

Happy New Year Chilly Walk Around Sikes Lake

I read this morning that something called a Polar Vortex is heading south, due to arrive soon. Last night the temperature at my North Texas location dipped below freezing. 

Does this mean that predicted Polar Vortex is already here?

As you can see, no clouds arrived with the frigidity. The first day of the New Year is a clear blue sky day in Wichita Falls. A chilly blue sky day.

It was to nearby Sikes Lake I ventured this New Year's Day morning. As you can see, by seeing the waveless blue lake, the air was dead calm whilst I was doing my nature communing.

I thought there would be a lot of nature communers today, something that always seems to happen at the start of a new year, with a lot of people making a New Year's Resolution to get in better shape.