aubreyturner.org

Updated 4/17/2007 at 12:55PM:  Jim Carson forwarded an email to me from someone who was looking for a lost dog in the same area where we found this dog.  It turns out that it was indeed the same dog and I have just returned from taking her home.

While out walking Boots on the Bear Creek trail this afternoon we came across a stray dog:

She seems to be friendly, and from her overall condition she probably hadn’t been away from home for more than a couple of days.  However, she had an injury on her left rear leg.  Some other dog walkers loaned me a leash so I could get her back to my truck.  I took her over to the Southlake animal emergency center for an evaluation.  The vet assistant thought that she was probably about three or four years old and that she was well-nourished.  The vet said that the injury doesn’t appear to be too serious and there is no bone involvement.  In fact she thought that it might just be some sort of sore caused by allergies.  She prescribed a course of antibiotics and Benadryl (and possibly an e-collar, should she decide to pick at the sore).

She was found on the trail at the edge of the clearing to the West of the intersection of Bear Run and Bear Ridge:

She did not have a collar nor does she have a microchip.

For those who might be reading this in the Keller area, if you know who this dog belongs to, please click the “Contact” link at the top of the page and let me know who she belongs to.  My schedule is bad tomorrow, but on Wednesday I will make up some fliers and post them in the park and on the bench at the intersection of Bear Run and Bear Ridge.

I’ve decided that if no one comes forward, that I will go ahead and keep her.

I see in the letters to the editor section of today’s Keller Citizen that not everyone agrees with me that it’s about time that TxDOT fixed the dangerous left-turn problems at several intersections along Keller Parkway.

Seeing red
Editor:
Ah, Big Brother is at work in Keller again. The Feds are now forcing us to use 10 percent ethanol blend in our gas, even though it results in a 10 percent reduction in gas mileage, and is doing nothing to reduce our “dependence” on foreign oil. And they are talking about forcing us to use 30 percent ethanol. With refineries running at reduced output on purpose, because nothing is better than big profits a year before an election, and gas prices again approaching $3 a gallon, TxDOT (with Keller city officials cheerleading) wants us to burn our gas idling at an intersection for 3-5 minutes waiting to turn left even if the nearest oncoming traffic is a quarter mile away!

Now I may grant TxDOT’s premise that it can be a little difficult to see oncoming traffic coming from the west if there is the ubiquitous gravel-semi or SUV in the east-bound left turn lane while you are trying to turn left onto Rufe Snow, but I’m not buying that that premise holds at the Keller/Smithfield or Anita/Bourland intersections. As one who waits to turn left at Anita at least four times a week, sitting at that intersection when there is clearly no traffic coming – I can see almost all the way to 377 – is beyond frustrating.

Now, I’m all for the Keller PD enforcing the speed limits and busting red-light runners, but that is a separate issue. Good grief, are Keller drivers stupider than Southlake drivers? The intersection at 1709 and Carroll Avenue is very busy and, I hate to give them any ideas …but they haven’t felt the need to impede traffic there, yet, by putting up a “left turn on arrow only” sign.

If you feel as I do, may I suggest an aggressive letter campaign to TxDOT and your Keller councilman to put the “left turn yield on green” signs back up at Keller/Smithfield and Anita/Bourland. Maybe even some civil disobedience is in order?

James Lenaburg
Keller

I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Lenaburg’s letter.  I have nearly been hit a number of times at all three intersections.  So much so that I generally avoid those sections of Keller Parkway if I have a choice. 

Both the intersections at Rufe Snow and Keller-Smithfield suffer from the offset problem, and both have high accident rates.  Now I will grant his argument that the intersection at Anita/Bourland doesn’t suffer from the same vision/offset problem.  But it’s still a dangerous intersection and despite the clear vision I’ve had several near-misses there, not to mention personally witnessing a serious wreck caused by the failure of the left-turning driver to yield (or more accurately, the failure of the driver to stay put, as she had stopped but for some inexplicable reason pulled out in front of a pickup truck that had the green).

As to whether Keller drivers are more “stupid” than those in Southlake, I won’t bother to hazard a guess.  But I will say that they certainly seem more impatient, as evidenced by Mr. Lenaburg’s assertion that having to wait to turn is “beyond frustrating,”  and the numerous near-misses I’ve personally observed at Rufe Snow and Keller-Smithfield.  Many of the near-misses were saved only by the good reflexes of the driver who had the right of way (perhaps local residents with plenty of familiarity with those intersections?).  If oncoming traffic has to slow down to avoid hitting you as you turn left, you’ve failed to properly yield the right-of-way.  By the way…. I’ve come across the aftermath of a couple of accidents caused by people who didn’t grok that whole yield-on-green thing at 1709 and Carroll.  One involved serious damage to one of the vehicles and another was a rollover.  Perhaps that intersection isn’t as safe as you may think?  [I will grant that these were Friday evening incidents, although they were all well before 9:00pm. ]

Anyhow… as I learned long ago, it may seem frustrating to wait at the light, but the amount of time is actually small in comparison to your overall trip, and in the end is far more bearable than being in a collision.  As someone who has been hit twice in the past by drivers who failed to yield right of way through disregarding traffic control devices (i.e. red lights and stop signs), I’m particularly sensitive to this issue.  Consequently I make it a habit to watch for such things.

In February, Dreamhost moved my sites to a different server as part of what they called “our efforts to spread load and make your hosting experience more pleasant.”  So far, I have not experienced any of the “more pleasant” part, but I do seem to be experiencing the load spreading bit.

In 2005 I got a nastygram from Dreamhost telling me that I was using too many resources on my shared server account and that if I didn’t fix it I would have to move to a dedicated account.  What I discovered was that referral spammers and other lowlifes were hammering the server.  I took steps to correct the problem and I use some fairly aggressive .htaccess blacklisting to keep it from even hitting PHP and EE.  Those steps helped a lot, and my server usage decreased quite a bit. 

Then, late last year, I undertook a comprehensive review of how I was using Expression Engine and made quite a few changes to streamline things.  I increased the EE template caching interval and disabled unneeded tags.  This had the effect of getting the main page render time down to under 1 second, which was pretty good. 

But ever since my sites were moved to the new server I’ve been seeing horrible page render times:

This page has been viewed 970582 times
Page rendered in 6.5218 seconds
38 queries executed

And that’s a fairly good one!  The problem seems to be someone else on the server, because whenever I log into the system to check, the load averages are very high (it was 60 when the above was generated; one day I saw it at 300) and it’s not being caused by me.  Ever since the nastygram incident I’ve had resource monitoring enabled on my account, and my account usage never goes above about 9% of the CPU and consistently seems to hover around 5% (they used to say that anything under 10% was great).

After dealing with it for so long and hoping that Dreamhost would get onto the people causing the problem like they did to me, I finally opened a rather annoyed problem ticket today.  Let’s hope they do something about this soon. 

I’m not expecting to have the equivalent of a dedicated server, given what we pay for Dreamhost.  But I do expect to be able to actually use the damn service that I’m paying for. 

What especially irks me about this is that my sites were doing just fine on the old server and I did not ask to be moved.  They undertook the move on their own and now I’m paying the price in crappy performance. 

I see that TxDOT is finally putting up “Left On Green Arrow Only” signs at Rufe Snow and 1709.  And from the article in the most recent Keller Citizen, it appears that they will also be doing so at Keller-Smithfield and 1709.  All I can say is that it’s about time they did this. 

Because of the crazy offsets of the turn lanes and the lights at these intersections, people making left turns can be a serious hazard.  Hopefully, once people get used to the signs, we’ll be able to cruise through those intersections without fearing for our lives.

So it appears that the City of Keller is going to be paying $290,000 in sales-tax kickbacks and impact fee giveaways to bring Stein Mart to town.  I suppose I should be used to this sort of thing by now.

But having seen the Stein Mart commercials and knowing the frou frou sensibilities of our mayor and some on our city council, I’m a bit surprised that they still approved it. 

Surely there’s some ordinance against having that much leopard-print clothing in one place in the City of Keller.

Eminent domain is one of those things that give me an itchy trigger finger (that’s called hyperbole for those who might be humor impaired).  And if any of the accusations floating around concerning the City of Keller’s recent use of that power to take property due to flooding on Whitley Road are true, then there are some people down at Town Hall who need to be shown the door. 

As I understand things, Jack Brock was attempting to develop a property near the corner of Whitley and Bear Creek and after trying to work with the city to deal with the drainage issues on his property he finally dammed the channel.  The problem appears to be that the city had directed runoff onto his property.  After damming the channel, Whitley Road began to flood with even minimal rain.  The city then took the property needed for an easement using the power of eminent domain. 

This has been the subject of several letters to the editor in recent editions of the Keller Citizen. 

The first letter that I really took notice of was from Lisa Harper Wood (the former library director).  I found the tone and spirit of her letter to be rather harsh and if it reflects the way she views the role of city government in relation to the rights of property “owners,” then I’m glad she’s no longer in public service.  In her view of things, it appears that the rights of a single property owner aren’t highly valued, especially if they interfere with her ability to drive on Whitley Road.  Further, she admonished councilman Jim Carson for having the temerity to speak with Mr. Brock about the issue.  I find that attitude not only perplexing, but completely unacceptable in a so-called public servant.

In the most recent edition of the Keller Citizen there were letters of response from Mr. Brock’s son and from Jim Carson.  Cass Brock made several allegations against the city I find especially disturbing, if true.

…water was deliberately channeled through manmade ditches and three 60-inch pipes under Whitley Road onto my dad’s land.

…my dad asked the TxDOT engineers why they didn’t provide underground storm drainage alongside the highway toward Bear Creek.  TxDOT said that Dresher’s staff had told them to direct it down Whitley toward my family’s land, and so TxDOT wasn’t responsible.

…City Attorney Stan Lowry informed him in a letter that the city didn’t need an easement, and if the time ever came that they did, they would just take the land from him.

Mayor Tandy and Councilmen Trine and Holmes didn’t attend, and arrogantly told Mr. Brock they wouldn’t even meet with him unless he agreed in advance to their demands.

Of course I understand that Cass Brock is the son of the landowner, so perhaps he is seeing things in a light that is unfavorable to the city.  Still,  I’d be most interested in any proof that could be provided to substantiate such charges.

Most troubling would be a city attorney who views property rights with such a cavalier attitude.  But that seems to mesh well with Mrs. Wood’s scorched earth, adversarial, approach.  Such may gratify the urges of petty tyrants, seeking to gain control over the lowly citizen, but it only engenders ill-will.  Eventually, someone will reap the whirlwind that those of Mrs. Wood’s ilk have sown.

The only person involved with the city who seems to have been willing to listen in this whole mess is Jim Carson.

In the March 20 pre-council session, Mayor Tandy insinuated that because the Council functions as a body, I was not to speak to certain people regarding matters before the Council. Balderdash.  I am certain that any remaining political problems in Keller stem from too few conversations between council members and constituents, not too many.

Mrs. Wood wrote, “Mr. Carson should never have been there,” referring to the condemnation proceeding I attended. Eminent domain is perhaps the most brutal thing a government can do to a citizen who has been accused of no crime. After I reluctantly voted to forcibly seize Jack Brock’s property,  I wanted to hear for myself how gracefully the city of Keller exercised its frightful power that I had helped unleash for the greater good. Let’s just say I was a bit embarrassed by my vote.

Indeed.  I think Mr. Carson is one of the few councilmen who get how people feel about eminent domain, and how it should be used only as a last resort.  I can’t help but think that if perhaps the mayor and some other council members were willing to discuss the issue that it wouldn’t have had to come down to putting a gun to Mr. Brock’s head to take his property (that’s what eminent domain comes down to, ultimately; if he hadn’t acceded to the wishes of the city, eventually someone with a gun would be dispatched to take Mr. Brock into custody and take the land, so let’s not pretend that eminent domain is a civilized affair that takes place only in council chambers and courtrooms).

————-
Updated to fix the gender of Cass Brock.  You’d think that with a name like Aubrey I’d know better than to make gender assumptions based on someone’s first name. 

It now appears that I was incorrect in thinking that I was giving Boots safe food because I was giving her Alpo or Pedigree.  I learned this morning that Purina has recalled Alpo Cuts in Gravy because one of their plants obtained wheat gluten from the same Chinese source as Menu Foods.  They claim to have traceability of ingredients and are able to limit the recall to specific date/plant codes.  But when I heard about it this morning I just tossed all of the Alpo food in the house.  Fortunately I saw it on the morning news before I had a chance to feed Boots.  I wasn’t going to take a chance of fiddling around with date codes.

The wheat gluten was found to contain melamine, which is an ingredient in some plastics as well as used as a fertilizer in parts of Asia. 

So now I guess it’s back to Pedigree.  Although I got an email on my last posting that claimed Pedigree is horrible and that a vet told them that it’s like feeding your dog chocolate.  Frankly, I can’t help but think that many vets do this sort of FUD to try to sell their overpriced special food.  I’ve fed Boots Pedigree for years now and she’s shown no ill effects and all of her vet visits have been fine.  So I’m not buying the anti-Pedigree snobbery.

There seemed to be an increased police presence yesterday afternoon in the area of Bear Creek Park and Bear Creek Intermediate school.  I saw two patrol cars and the supervisor’s SUV at the school along with several cars patrolling the area. 

But while I was out on the trail I was a bit surprised to hear the distinctive ‘potato potato’ sound of a Harley Davidson motorcycle in the clearing behind me.  I turned around to see a Keller PD motorcycle officer coming down the path, whipping that big Harley back and forth around the curves. 

He disappeared somewhere in the trees near Bear Ridge and Bear Run, so I couldn’t tell if he went down the rest of the path or if he got back on the road over there.  Still, I’d be curious as to where he was going and why he was on the trail.  While these guys are well trained, it’s still a bit dangerous to have a 700-800lb Harley on a four-foot wide trail mixed with pedestrians, dogs, bicycles, and roller-bladers.

This saying has been bugging me for a while:

Guns cause crime like flies cause garbage.

This pithy little quote is popular among some in the pro-gun community, but I have to admit that it bugs me greatly.  I understand the sentiment, but most people (rightly so) have a fairly negative view of flies.  The quote just comes across as trashy to me.   

I confess to only paying sporadic attention to KISD, but I’m starting to take more notice of things, given recent goings-on.

Today’s Star-Telegram article concerning the resignations of two high-level district administrators after violations of district purchasing policies is only the last straw in a series.  There seems to be a rather nasty feud between two factions on the school board and between one of those factions and the district administration (more on this at Keller City Limits). 

The primary problem, from my perspective, seems to be an administration that wants to “manage” the school board, rather than acknowledge the board’s oversight role.  Well before the current issue, and well before the ADA kerfuffle, I watched a school board meeting where a district administrator was presenting some portions of the proposed budget.  When asked specific questions about certain line items, he squirmed and generally had the “deer in the headlights” look.  It was obvious to me that he was uncomfortable addressing the specifics and wasn’t used to being asked these questions.

The ADA issue, though, seemed curious to me (and helped raise my suspicions further).  When the administration takes the view that it can spend $411,577 without being questioned on it by the board, it seems to me that the administration is out of control.

Now if a trustee really threatened a district employee’s job over something, then that’s beyond the pale and shouldn’t be accepted.  But I get the sneaking suspicion that it’s just smoke being blown by those who oppose trustee oversight of administration activities.

If getting to the bottom of what’s going on at KISD and exercising fiscal oversight is considered “meddling” and “micromanagement,” then I all I can say is “micromanage on!”  I can’t help but think that the administration’s contempt for the trustees transfers back onto taxpayers.  The trustees are our eyes and ears at KISD, and I expect them to poke, pry, prod, and generally discombobulate anyone who wants to obfuscate how our money is being used.