Interesting day seeing and riding a train.

 I'm a train buff , Always have been. And I think it is pretty safe to now say, "always will be". Interesting also, is that while I rode deep into south Oak Cliff to the UNT Dallas Station, before transferring to the 415 bus which took me even more deep. 

My original intention was to see the old Red Bird Mall. It did undergo a name change to the Southwest Center Mall, a massive amount of roof in South Dallas. Malls are somewhat falling from grace and are not as fashionable as they were once upon a time. But, as some know, this time of year is still hard on me, even though I did end the 20 year long mourning for my son's untimely death last year. So, I retreated to going that extra few miles to see the old malls new face and name. Another time might be better suited for such a visit. 

I had a very good lunch---A super Taco Bowl at an indoor super Shell station. Actually was about the same size as Fuel City but no where as large as Buc-ee's. The Dallas area has two Buc-ee's and I haven't been to either one yet. I have been in the massive one in New Braunfells, south of Austin. But, I must say, Taco Casa was matching up for price and quantity as any Buc-ee's or even Dallas' Fuel City, (sorry, Brandon) when it comes to food. Taco Casa cannot come close to Fuel City's number of pumps, but the two combined come no where close to Buc-ee's 60 pumps for starters.

On the the trip outbound, I saw the DG&O ( a short line) engines waiting for the big bucks intermodal crossing the T&P bridge over the Trinity being pulled by Union Pacific engines. A fairly normal scene, I might add. But on the inbound trip is where a first for me was encountered under Reunion Town at Union Station. It runs both Red Line and Blue Line, Dart light rails, and also the regular diesel electric engines that pull the TRE between Dallas and Ft Worth. It is the same as a commuter rail with the double deck cars.Then, the famous Texas named trains that Amtrak runs cross country. But there it was, on all four tracks, the two Dart trains, the TRE and the Amtrak at the same time at the Union Station. I only wish that I had been on the platform and not onboard the Dart moving. I have ridden the TRE to Ft. Worth and that is a pampered trip from down town to down town. The TEXrail, is yet not ridden by me, but I hope to be able to ride it in the fall. That leaves the two other rail systems that are in various stages of construction. The Dart Silver Line--not light rail,but diesel electric like the TRE and of course, the Bullet Train from Dallas, Ft. Worth to Houston in 90 minutes. 

 Dart is the largest light rail system in the US with 93 miles over 5-counties and 500-million passengers in 25 years.

Dart also just approved a new underground system ( a second in downtown Dallas). So, if you are a train buff, Dallas is the place to be.

Least we not forget our amazing DFW International Airport with three control towers, 7-active runways with a future 8th just waiting for traffic to increase even more. Acreage larger than Manhattan. Pre Covid-19 the number of Internatinal  carriers serving Dallas, three major Package delivery cargo lines, and the increasing foreigh air cargo that here. Just this week, American has returned to the volume pre-Covid-19, they say.

Hang On For The Ride. The Worse Is Yet To Come.

 Ever notice just how much we really don't know about the weather? We have only been keeping records for a Jackson over 100 years. So, what do  we really know beyond that? Not very much. And, it is beginning to worry me somewhat.

Triple digits in Seattle where most of the population has no air conditioning because they don't really need it for the most part.  Death Valley setting new records again as the already hottest place on earth. Lake Mead's conservation levels can be seen on the walls and the markings tell the story of how low the water really is.  It's the 28th day of  Hurricane season and already named storms are into the D column. Tropical Storm Danny is delivering 40 MPH winds on the Eastern Seaboard tonight which is low county in that part of the country where it is doing its thing. 

We are getting showers every day through the rest of the week. If it keeps that up, there won't be any firework displays. It just seems to me that are having things tossed at us faster than we can handle them. It does make me wonder what in the world is going on. In other words, it has actually caused me to watch the rerun of Mad Max tonight.  Natural Disasters coupled with all the other things going on could make the old normal we talked about after Covid-19 hit. Just as we start to create the remake of our old normal again, the bottom of the bag is springing leaks so to speak. I'm not living in a make-believe world. My mind is telling me to be ready for almost anything. Kind of like the Police telling you to be aware of your surrounding kind-of- thing. 

Volcano threats, earthquake threats, Just today, Atmos Energy had a pipeline blow in Collins County with two works killed.  We used to make jokes about the name ATMOS. "At most it can blow up," we would reply. Well, it's doing that more often than we like. The old pipelines are long past their lifetime past investigations have reported. 

 

Karma!

Had Lunch At Whataburger Today.

Picked up my new glasses

Enjoyed a Whatachicken at Whataburger. Getting there was a bit of a walk, but I needed that.

Got a good walk in while traveling to and fro.

Although hot and humid, I was not effected by the heat. Last year, I would not have been able to do any of that. 

Once home, working on the computer was more clear today than yesterday. Guess I did need a change in my prescription. 

Have not broken a dish in over 7-8 years. This week I broke  two coffee cups and tonight, I broke the ceramic spoon holder on the stove top. I don't think it is anything more than just not paying attention to the details at hand. Or, it could be, that I am adjusting the the new lines on the trifocals. 👀🙏

Yes, I really do make my own English Muffins. 

Buy the Fully Cooked Sausage Patty from Krogers.

Cook in 1-minute and 15 seconds. Slap on some Strawberry Jam 

Bingo. Breakfast on the run.

The Whole World is a Puzzle

and not all the pieces fit. The older I get, the more I realize that fact. Now, some are not going to like this but, what I do see is the biggest problem in social media is Facebook. It  might seem that it fits into society from a social media aspect, but it doesn't. It's actually been the root of a lot of hurt, pain and suffering from the so-called experts. And the closest to it is Tik Tok and their "hacks". But still not inflicting the damage that Facebook has done.

First,

 you must have and then apply some basic common sense. The generations today just do not have basic common sense. I'll use one of my most favorite examples where it was said that millennial generation, those born between 1981 and 1996, don't eat cereal for breakfast because they had to wash the bowl afterwards. Just imagine those in the generation that follows, Generation Z, where someone on one of these channels says to rub this in your eye to do this. The example was that the girl went blind temporarily. It has been worse than these two examples by all counts, but hay, it may take a village to raise a child, but today, the village continues to serve up all kinds of wrong information. You do not want to know what the generation beyond Generation Z will be like. 

I counted 117 times in one weekend that I heard  the word safe used in the news. Keep our community safe, Keep our children safe. Keep our patients safe. On and on it goes.... because, and I'll use the word government as a catch basket, continues to use the scare tactic as a form of control for the adult population. And if the ones with the good common sense are dying off at about 100 a day now. Even with prolonged health care and medication, eventually that generation, my generation, will be gone and what is left behind is the No Common Sense Generations. 

Second

 you cannot be helicopter run villages. Kids need to discover things on their own.They have an innate wiring for them from birth. Using the dictionary's third meaning: " originating in or derived from the mind or the constitution of the intellect rather than from experience".

So for those that were ready to pounce on the experience avenue you thought I was walking toward, it is this definition that trumps as it originates in or derived from the mind or the constitution of the intellect rather than from the experience.  And that is where helicoptering parents go wrong. They think that they have the experience that trumps the kids mentality.

Having said all that and leading up to this, I think that Facebook is the Evil Incarnate. I have held that feeling since the beginning. Notice how you cannot call a Google or a Microsoft or Apple Help line.They simply do not want to talk to you. They have their forums  where users can help you. Come on people, don't you know that when you use these forums you are not going to get real help. The only help you are going to get is more misinformation and if you are lucky and you can spot the red flags when they pop up, you might not loose you identity to a crook. 

My generation has lived by one old adage for almost a life time: Let the Buyer Be Ware. That's were common sense and intellect rather than experience alone, join forces to fight evil and return the pieces that don't fit. to the world puzzle.

,

Do As I Say, Not As I Do, says E.R.C.O.T. the state house , the governors mansion

with no response to the Dallas reporter that called those that issued to conserve energy warning until today at 6  or 6:30. It ended at 7:00 o'clock. The reporter called each of those noted in the title and ask them at what temperature they had their thermostats set. Not one replied. The news report also showed those that are not only angry, they said they want the governor to stop their pay like he is doing for the legislative body that walked out of the last day of the legislative session so they didn't have to pass a bill that they didn't want. The closing conclusion is that The Public Utility has no one to answer to at all. There really isn't any public in public utilities. They set their own rules. So the overhaul by the Legislature this session did little or nothing. A list of those voting no for the Juneteenth Holiday in Washington was made public today. Two were from Texas. I think it is time to start pushing the sales of my t-shirt that said, "my hobby is watching congress.There are little eye balls on top of the "M,H.I.& C". Now, it seems also that I need to be working on one for this beautiful state and former Republic. It's sad, actually. To rephrase Gov. Abbott from his speech a couple of weeks ago,"Pretty Goofie". Everyone knows the Gov is grandstanding for his re-election. It's so obvious even NBC's Chuck Todd noticed.

Men's Large T-shirt
by sam6372

 

I was on  Twitter this afternoon for a hot second  and Texas Monthly magazine ask what is you thermostat set on. Because it is, I said, 78°. Some troll said, I got 3 already that have lied about their thermostat settings.

I'm so tired of trolls. I just closed out and went on the TXU to see what my bill paid last month was. $77.00.

And that's no lie. I got up this morning, turned off the ceiling fan and went to my desk waiting for coffee and turned on my energy safer floor fan. My AC has been on  a total of 1 time all day. By the way, my thermostat is set at 78° in summer and 62° in winter. It has been for over a decade.

My energy dashboard as of 11:45 PM yesterday said that I had used $57 of the forecast $74-$77 for the billing period ending on 24 June. 

I'd rather be making items from my photography than trying to make a point to a troll  that doesn't matter anyway. 




Laissez les bonstemprouler

 and if they don't, I'm looking for a new fox hole where I can live life uncharted. The reason why I say that is because June and the first two weeks of July are the hardest time of the year for me. Last year, I made a pledge to myself that I would end the twenty-year mourning for my son, although it has been twenty-two years since his untimely death. With the hospital stays, the surgeries, and everything else, namely the water, the power outages and rolling black outs that lasted for several hours beyond what we were told, I didn't have time to think about how I would approach remembering my son and honor him without the effects of the grief that was the genesis of my heart situation and the stroke that I had just a few months after my sons death. 

Since then, I take things one day at a time. Activities are designed as exercise to finish putting health matters back to a somewhat normal routine. However, as Mr. Murphy's Law would have it, I have been rehabilitation  nerve damage from the 6-surgeries and having said that, I have been scanned enough that I could become a hologram with little effort. From all the scans, each and every one came back from the biopsy reports as negative. My faith has remained strong  through it all. And I give The Lord the Praise.

But, it seems like every time I put out a fire that pops up, another one popes up. My spiritual thoughts on that is that I can't worry about things that I have no control over because worry is interest paid twice. That is why I don't worry over those matters. And when things seem to double up, I put them in order of their priorities and work them down to the last one. It seems to me that here of late, they seem to come back with something new. Never-the-less, I'll get through this. I have noticed already that the heat and humidity does no bother me at all now. Last year at this time and the times before over the past few years, I had to hang it up and come inside. So, I am still learning as an old man about to have his Diamond Birthday. 

E.R.C.O.T. SAYS Rolling Black Outs are Possible tonight and the days to follow.

the reason is that the power generation plants are all undergoing maintenance! Can you believe that? Grandstanding Gov Abbott is running for gov again, don't you see. Meanwhile, with the early heat wave in June (it's been 99° the past two days with heat indexes of 105-107°). There is a lot of apprehensive thoughts already,especially with those with need for air conditioning. There is already talk about the city opening cooling centers should the need arise. The amazing thing that I recall is that TXU Enegy built 6 new gas-coal generation plants. (TXU also then filed for bankruptcy, moved their corporate office to Irving and became the retail seller of electricity, or was it the wholesale seller, while their spinoffs competed to sell retail.) It's not time to talk about ONCOR the part of the TXU that strung and then maintained the wires to your house and business. Yet, anyway.

The old saying, " There is NO public in public utilities". Or-I told you so. Tonight the first reports from E.R.C.O.T. to the news media mentioned that with the plants were down for maintenance and an unusual heat wave this early in June, the wind generation has very light winds more than normal and when the sun goes down, the solar generation will not be available. Actually if you look at this statement and the one issued in February,  by changing heat to cold and vise versa  volia! the excuse is the same. 

Here is a list of the states power generation from all  sources:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Texas.

 What is interesting is that a state, the side of Texas has only two nuclear power plants and they are in the 3-5 years age range. Ohio has had 2 from 1970s.They are the Davis-Besse plant in Oak Harbor, near Sandusky, and the Perry Nuclear Plant, east of Cleveland.Both are on Lake Erie. Davis-Besse has two units. 1and 2. My hand made- coffee cup was named Davis-Besse because it looked like the cooling towers of that nuclear power plants. Cleveland Electric Illuminating  parent, First Energy,  now owns both Toledo Edison's Davis Besse as well as Pennsylvania plants, plus their own Perry plant

The Pennsylvania Three Mile Island had three units before melt down. In fact, I sold the steel I-beams that went into the containment vault built over the reactor that had the melt down. So, in one way or another. Oh, I forgot the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, a nuclear power plant on the shore of Lake Erie near Monroe, in Frenchtown Charter Township, Michigan. those reactors 1 and 2 are about 75 miles north of Davis-Besse along the shoreline of Lake Erie also. 

Back to the known facts.Texas has only two nuclear power plants less than 5 years old. Follow the money and the oil deals to supply the natural gas to the 6- new power generation plants that put TXU into bankrupcy and factor in the coal that the natural gas was aiding. Then, there is the E.R.C.O.T. board that ended up being fired after the loss of 150+ deaths that were caused by the shut down and rolling blackouts and the surprising fact that the board of directors of E.R.C.O.T. didn't even live in Texas. How amazing, absolutely amazing is that? And, while the Texas Legislative passed strong changes to the P.U.C.O.and E.R.C.O.T. with Governor Abbott speaking toccata spaced words that this cannot ever happen again. Well, it's been 4-months and according to the news tonight at this writing, that rolling black outs have been cancelled but E.R.C.O.T is urging residence to conserve power through Friday. What a roller coaster of emotions again in just four-months.

 It would take an entire graduating class of Philadelphia attorneys to figure out the maze of the electric grid, the power generator owners and where the money is dished out to executives nation wide. 

 

 

also see post of 02-17-21