The Dawn Of Martin Luther King Day In Texas Thinking About Going To Fort Worth's Stock Show

I went to bed early Sunday night and yet still somehow managed to sleep in late after a long night of very strange nightmares which I will not go into detail about because my memory of the nightmares is sketchy.

My chicken football fajitas turned out good yesterday. Much better than the football game. I erroneously thought the Seahawks were scheduled to start getting beat by the Chicago Bears around 1 in the afternoon.

I did not get back to my TV until a bit after 1 in the afternoon yesterday. By then Seattle was behind by 3 touchdowns and the second half was under way. By the time the 4th quarter was ready so were my fajitas.

I did not last long watching Seattle play football before the boredom syndrome kicked in. How do people keep watching these games through all those commercial breaks? I think I suffer from a bad case of FADD, Football Attention Deficit Disorder.

Changing the subject from football back to my dire existence in Texas. As you can see looking out my computer room window, it is yet one more gray sky winter morning. Currently nothing is precipitating from the sky. And it is again a balmy 13 degrees above freezing.

I have no idea what lies ahead for me on this Monday Martin Luther King Day. If it were warmer I might consider going to the Fort Worth Stock Show. I've only gone twice. It can be interesting. Saturday's Fort Worth Stock Show Parade drew a smaller number of parade watchers than what shows up when it is not cold. It has been several years in a row now that it has not been warm for that parade. If I remember right, ice cancelled the parade a couple years ago.

Well, it is time to go for my morning swim before it gets any later.

Sunday Dawns Foggy In North Texas While I Ready Fajitas To Watch Seattle Beat Chicago On Their Way To The Super Bowl

The Ides of the first month of the New Year dawns late with the ground covered in wetness from last night's downpours and fog making a haze of the view into the distance, which you can sort of see from the view from the window I am currently looking out.

On a happier note, it is currently 13 degrees above freezing.

I did not stay up all that late Saturday night, but, for some reason, I got up later this Sunday morning than any time in recent memory, as in, my eyes did not open to the dawn of this Sunday til well after it dawned. As in, past 8 o'clock.

It feels borderline scandalous to sleep in in this manner.

It is now almost 9 am. I have just a few hours to get my Football Fajita Feeding ready to watch the Seattle Seahawks beat the Chicago Bears so that the Seahawks can play in the AFC Championship Game. Which apparently will be a home field advantage game for Seattle, if I understood what I was reading correctly.

All Seattle has to do is win today, and then one more game and then they will be visiting here in Texas to play in the Super Bowl in the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium where the Dallas Cowboys are not allowed to play in the Super Bowl.

In anticipation of an exciting day of football, I guess I will go swimming now, out in the fog.

Monday Morning With No Snow On The Ground In My Zone Of North Texas

Looking out my bedroom window this Monday morning we can see there is no snow on the ground. At 30 degrees it is cold enough for snow to stick if some fell after it was cold enough to avoid melting.

I was not much in the mood to deal with multiple inches of snow, so I'm glad the predicted accumulation did not accumulate.

I keep forgetting to get anti-freeze. I am going to have to make sure I remember this as we slide ever deeper into an Arctic Deep Freeze this week.

I learned this morning that the Seattle Seahawk's next step towards playing in the Super Bowl next month in the Dallas Cowboy Stadium is beating the Chicago Bears. Apparently Seattle already beat the Bears this current football season, doing so on Chicago's home field, where the Seahawks will need to beat them again to get to the Super Bowl.

Meanwhile the Dallas Cowboys have a new coach. Methinks if the Dallas Cowboys ever want a winning season again what they need to do is somehow get rid of that re-animated cadaver who runs the team who has the same last name as me. Until that happens it really seems hopeless that that hapless football team will ever have a winning season.

But.

What do I know? I really don't like football at all.

A Rainy Sunday In Texas Musing About America's Team: The Seattle Seahawks

Saturday night when the sun set on North Texas the sky was blue. By Sunday morning's arrival of the sun the sky had filled with clouds and was dripping with extreme prejudice.

In other words, it is raining. Cold and raining. 36 degrees out there right now, with the temperature dropping and snow scheduled to arrive as Sunday progresses towards Monday.

I had planned to return to the Tandy Hills today to search for missing sunglasses. Not mine. Sunglasses belonging to one of those Manly Men who was hiking the Tandy Hills yesterday. I suspect, due to the rain, the lost sunglasses will remain safe until hiking conditions return to normal.

Yesterday, in yet one more clear indicator that I do not pay much attention to NFL football I said something like I did not know if the Seattle Seahawks are out of Super Bowl contention or not.

By Saturday night I was watching the Seahawks play the New Orleans Saints in what I was to learn was a Wild Card game in which the Seahawks had themselves an upset win over the reigning Super  Bowl champs.

Back when the Kingdome was still alive it was known as the loudest stadium in both the NFL and whatever you call the league baseball is played in. I did not know, til reading the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article about yesterday's Seahawk upset, that the new Qwest Field is also known as the NFL's loudest stadium.

How can Qwest Field be louder than the new Cowboy Stadium? Qwest Field is open on the north end with a view of downtown Seattle. Qwest Field has no roof to reflect back noise, Qwest Field holds only something like 70,000 screamers while the Dallas Cowboy Stadium can hold around 100,000.

Has it yet to rain on a Seahawk game in Qwest Field? I read a couple years ago the lack of rainy games was wreaking havoc with Lesser Seattle's ongoing campaign to always portray Seattle as perpetually dripping.

Apparently Qwest Field is ruled out for a Super Bowl game. Partly because of the weather. The Super Bowl likes a warmer climate. So, why is it being played this year in Arlington? We are currently scheduled for snow followed by a DEEP FREEZE. Come Super Bowl Sunday we could easily be under a 4 inch coating of ice courtesy of an Ice Storm.

Seattle does not get Ice Storms. At least not in my experience. Holding a Super Bowl in Seattle you are right in the downtown of one of the world's trendiest towns, with Qwest Field served by multiple mass transit options. Arlington, where the Dallas Cowboy Stadium sits, has no mass transit.

Qwest Field sits surrounded by all sorts of touristy attractions, including a waterfront. The Dallas Cowboy Stadium is near Six Flags Over Texas and the Ballpark in Arlington, but other than that it sits surrounded by an awful lot of embarrassing urban blight. There is no urban blight surrounding Qwest Field.

I have no idea how many steps remain for the Seattle Seahawks to hurdle to get to the Super Bowl again. I strongly suspect the Seahawks will likely fail to get over one of those hurdles.

I really think, since the Dallas Cowboys don't even play in Dallas, as in the town could not manage to figure out how to erect a new football stadium in the town the team is named after, that this really should be the last nail in the coffin killing Dallas' ridiculous referring to itself as America's Team, which apparently dates from decades ago when Dallas actually had a winning football team.

I think Seattle should be the new America's Team. Seattle has been in a Super Bowl more recently than Dallas. Seattle apparently plays in America's loudest stadium. The team's stadium is actually in its namesake town. Qwest Field is in, by far, a more scenic setting than the Dallas Cowboy Stadium. Plus Seattle always shows up near the top of any of those Best of type lists, while Arlington rarely shows up on such lists.

Okay, that is enough locally politically incorrect verbiage from me this rainy Sunday morning....

The Manly Men & Wild Women Had Mostly Abandoned The Tandy Hills By The Time Of My Arrival

I was not able to make it back from Dallas in time for the 10 in the morning Manly Men/Wild Women Hike on the Tandy Hills today.

By the time I made it to the top of Mount Tandy it was well past noon. Nary a Manly Man or Wild Woman in sight from the view atop Mount Tandy.

Later on my daily hike I did see a man and woman hiking.

I was unable to ascertain if they were either manly or wild. I also saw a kid on a mountain bike pedaling north on the Tandy Highway, stopping at Tandy Falls.

As you can see by looking at the view from the top of Mount Tandy of the stunning skyline of the futuristic looking downtown of Fort Worth, it is a perfect blue sky day today in North Texas. A little bit on the side of being chilly, though, thus requiring long pants and two layers of long sleeved t-shirts, for the first time in several days.

On a totally different subject, this morning, Betty Jo Bouvier, after missing her plane that would have taken her to Texas to hike on the Tandy Hills, told me about a Beer Scandal that had erupted in the place where the Seattle Seahawks play football, a stadium that goes by the name of Qwest Field. Qwest is a phone company we don't have in Texas.

The Qwest Field Seattle Seahawk Beer Scandal seemed familiar to me. Has a similar thing happened in the Dallas Cowboy Stadium? Is that what I'm remembering? Anyway, I blogged about the Qwest Field Seattle Seahawk Beer Scandal on my Washington Blog.

I do not know if the Seahawks are out of Super Bowl contention yet. I do know their record is better than the Dallas Cowboys, who are out of contention to play football in the first Super Bowl to take place in their new stadium.

I must go watch the Seahawks/Saints game now, to cheer the Seahawks on to victory and that possible Super Bowl spot.

If I remember right the Seahawks have been in the Super Bowl one time previous. And blew it really bad.