Queen Of Wink Finds Whisky Missing

I just heard from the Queen of Wink that when she returned to her kingdom, from her recent journey east, she found that the court cat caretakers had allowed the escape of the kitty Whisky.

Learning of the missing Whisky reminded me I am supposed to check in on Miss Puerto Rico's cat, Tasha, every day. I forgot til late yesterday and was on course to forget totally today until learning of the missing Whisky reminded me there is a cat who's welfare is dependent on me.

So, after I finished lamenting about the missing Whisky I headed over to Miss Puerto Rico's. That is the 4 in the afternoon balcony view in the continuing "View from Miss Puerto Rico's" series.

Note the color of our afternoon Texas blue sky. It looks tropical. Sometime tomorrow it will start looking like a winter northwest sky again, with incoming warm clouds from the south likely bringing us a lot of rain. The National Weather Service already, this morning, issued a Flash Flood Warning through Thursday night. So, this could be a real wet one. With us only barely dried out from the last real wet one.

The Queen of Wink told me that the New York ZipLiners told her that several people have told them they came to New York to ZipLine after reading about it on my blog. Miss Connie also told the Q of W that there are still 2 tickets waiting for me. The Q of W had so much fun ZipLining she'd love to do it again, though it was a bit expensive.

Looking Over A Tandy Precipice Into My Bleak World In Texas

That is the precipice looking over the edge of Tandy Falls you're looking at in the picture.

A couple hours ago, looking over a precipice into a dark abyss, was a perfect metaphor for how I was feeling.

In my website world I've been feeling a bit insecure lately due to the hacking incidents with bogus code being injected into my webpages. The problem seems to be easily fixed, once I discover it.

Today I thought to myself if someone could alter my code, what stops them from altering the code that tells Google that a click should be credited to my AdSense account? So, I got back here from taking a picture of the Tandy Falls precipice and clicked on my Eyes on Texas index page to check out the Google code. It was all as it should be.

But when I got to the bottom of the HTML there it was again, the nefarious code about which no one can tell me what it does. I quickly looked at the usual other suspect pages, then the other websites. I found no other problems.

I over wrote the bad index page with a clean version, went to my webhost and submitted a support ticket. I was hungry and wanted lunch and did not feel like sitting on the phone waiting to talk to support.

After lunch I had a reply from a tech guy telling me the problem had been found, fixed and I should have no further problems. I've been told that before.

So, I then go to my Eyes on Texas website and what do I see? In big bold letters "DUE TO TECHNICAL COMPLICATIONS THIS WEBSITE IS NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE."

I bet you can guess how happy this made me. My first impulse is to call customer support. Then I decided to see if I could over write the file. That worked.

I was afraid the entire website had been deleted, due to verbiage in the reply from customer suppport that said, "I have looked through your whole account and I stumbled across a php file that has been granting access to the hacker. I have deleted this file and your site, and your site should be completely clean, I have placed another cleaner script inside your account to remove any added scripts that file may have left."

I figured he meant "on" your site, not "and" your site. Apparently I was right, because the website is still there. I have heard this blather about being completely clean before.

We'll see.

The Texas Dish That Is Incredible & Inedible

I don't know why I paid no attention to all the incoming DISH, Texas information when it first came at me. Barnett Shale burnout? Maybe. I picked up just the gist, that being more accusations of Barnett Shale activity poisoning the air, killing animals, ruining lives.

Maybe I tune it out because no matter how big the latest offense might be, it seems nothing is done about it.

This week's FW Weekly's cover article, titled "Sacrificed to the Shale" is the first indepth look I've had at what has people upset about DISH. And now that I'm up to speed on DISH I'm more aggravated by what is happening in DISH than I was about what happened in Arlington so Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys could have a new stadium.

DISH's first claim to notoriety came when the town agreed to change the name of their town from Clark to DISH (spelled with capital letters) in exchange for the DISH Network providing all DISH residents free basic cable for 10 years and a free DVR from the DISH Network.

The short version of what has gone wrong in DISH is several of the Barnett Shale natural gas exploiters decided the somewhat isolated Denton County town of DISH was a great location for gas compressors. I believe there are now 7. They are very noisy, 24/7. Like a jet engine type of noisy. Pipelines bring un-odorized gas to the compressors, where it is compressed, odor added and then pumped out on more lines.

Eminent domain was used to take land for the pipelines, leaving the property of several people in the DISH area with property sliced up and useless.

And then farm animals began to get sick and die.

And then vegetation, like hardy trees began to die.

And then people started feeling sick. Some moved.

And then it was discovered that emissions from the compressors put a dangerous level of nasty chemicals into the air.

No Texas regulating agency seems to do any regulating of these type bad behaviors.

The EPA, as in the Federal Government is starting to get a bit cranky about how lax Texas is regarding what is spewed into the air that people breathe.

So, there you have the short version. Read FW Weekly's article to get the whole picture.

Read Texas Sharon's Blog for a lot more info about the DISH Scandal and other nefarious Texas gas woes.

An Hysterically Laughing Baby & Skiing In The Desert In Dubai

I have a few corespondents who consistently send me amusing things to see and read. I always see and read their incoming because of their established track records of good taste when it comes to what is interesting and funny.

One of my regulars who sends me good stuff is Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast. Another is Miss BSM in Hawaii. She has been absent for awhile, I believe due to acting on a TV show. And then there is Miss CVB up in Washington. She sent me the "Laughing Baby" video you see above. I've never before seen a baby laugh hysterically like this kid does.

Speaking of video. Last night I went to watch my DVR recorded latest episode of The Amazing Race. I have the DVR set to record 2 extra hours past the scheduled time due to football games running long. Last night an extra 2 hours was not enough. The recording stopped with 15 minutes left in The Amazing Race.

I did get a good look at Dubai though. The Amazing Racers had to fly from Phnom Penh to the Persian Gulf and find the tallest building in the world. Unlike most of the racers I knew this meant go to Dubai and find the Burj Tower. At least one of the racers thought Persian Gulf was a country.

Once they got to Dubai they had to get to the top of the still unfinished Burj Tower to find their next clue. Scary looking skinny skyscraper.

I've heard of the Dubai indoor ski attraction. Now I've seen it. I somehow thought this was in a mall. Instead it was in its own free-standing, sloped building. Inside it looked like night skiing, complete with ski lift. Outside, the racers were sweltering in the desert 100 degree plus heat, inside, the mountain was barely above freezing.

The task at the snow zone was a Detour. To non-viewers that means a choice between 2 tasks with varying levels of difficulty. All the teams chose dig through snow to find a little itty bitty figurine. I think it was a tiny snowman. One team found the thing and then one by one the teams gave up and decided to try the other task, which was using the snow to build a classic snowman, with coal chunks for eyes, a carrot nose, I forget what else. Oh, yeah, they had to build the snowman out in the desert heat and get it done to some judge's satisfaction to get their next clue.

My recording stopped before I saw a desert snowman building attempt.

The Bright Blue October Sky Of Texas

I forgot there was a cat over at Miss Puerto Rico's who was relying on me to keep her fed and her water bowl full.

So, that's the view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony a little after 3 in the afternoon. The cat still had plenty of food and water, so I'm not too irresponsible.

As you can see it is another bright, blue sky day here in Texas. That recent unpleasantness of weeks of rain and fog and no blue sky is fading from memory.

It is 74 out there right now. Windows open temperature. I left a patio door open the night before last. That morning was in the 40s. Which is about what it felt like inside here. The patio door is open right now. Must remember to close it tonight.

Due to the cool temps the pool was a bit bracing this morning, but I quickly got used to it. It should be warmer tomorrow morning.

Princess Annie's Flowers For The Tandy Hills Hobo

I saw photo proof of the Queen of Wink and Princess Annie ziplining in New York. But I saw no photo evidence of the visit to the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

I was suspicious about the Queen of Wink's Tandy Hills story, due to the fact that I was there during the time frame of the Queen and her entourage's visit. I was on the trails the Queen was on. We should have crossed paths. I can not figure out why and how that did not happen.

Now, yes, I may have earlier indicated that I was onboard for this trip to New York and getting scared at Thrillvania. But that didn't work out.

So, until today around noon, I had no real hard evidence that the Queen of Wink had actually been walking on the Tandy Hills.

An elaborate story had been told by Princess Annie of picking flowers, while at the Tandy Hills, and putting them in a bottle she found floating by Tandy Falls. Then putting the vase of flowers at the Tandy Hills Hobo's Campsite.

If I saw a vase of flowers, this would be the physical evidence I was looking for to prove the Winkettes were not pulling some sort of Balloon Boy Hoax on me.

Well, when I got to the Hobo Camp I saw the vase, well, actually it was a whiskey bottle. There was a nice floral arrangement in the whiskey bottle. Sitting in front of the vase were 16 bits of Royal Coinage, left I assume, by Princess Annie, for the Hobo.

What a thoughtful kid. I mean princess.

It is past the middle of October and there are still flowers blooming on the Tandy Hills. Today I saw a big group of purple flowers I'd not noticed before. They were clustered around a tree by the Hobo Camp.

The Queen Of Wink Flies Through The Trees With Ease

That is the Queen of Wink zipping along on a zipline, up high in the trees of New York, in East Texas, at New York Zip Line Adventures. A satellite powered tracking device guided the Queen and her entourage on their journey from Wink to the Piney Woods Region of Texas.

The Queen of Wink is a blonde and is true to her species in that she is a bit directionally challenged, hence the use of a GPS to guide the way.

The GPS worked perfectly to direct the Queen and Princess Annie to the Tandy Hills Natural Area where they hiked on the prairie for 3 hours.

Princess Annie used her Royal Prerogative and chose to ignore the "Do Not Pick The Flowers" warning signs, picking a bouquet, using a bottle that was conveniently floating near Tandy Falls for a vase. Princess Annie then put the vase of flowers in what she thought was a hobo's camp, that being the location where for a couple months a tent served as someone's home. The tent is now gone, but a chair and a tarp remain.

The Queen and Princess Annie liked what they saw of the Tandy Hills and want to come back when the trails are less muddy. I think I'll go there today and see if the trails are less muddy.