The Other Chip

I took the family to Sunday's Rangers-Blue Jays game, and as usual, we had a great time.  Rangers were kind enough to hit 3 homers (love those fireworks) and get some good pitching too, for an exciting 3-2 win to earn a sweep.  And to top that off, my son took home his first bona fide major league foul ball.  Love it.

But look at this picture.

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This is Section 18, first level along the third-base line.  Perhaps the third inning of Sunday's game.  With the execption of about 20 people in the first two rows, the rest of our section was empty.  Folks, these are good seats, and while most are owned to season ticket holders (like my company), it's a shame they're empty on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

My boss and friend Bruce is a huge Rangers fan just like me.  We're the resident Rangers historians here at FOX 4.  He says the Rangers can't just stay in the hunt this season.  Even if they're competitive in what looks like a weak division, they won't win back any fans.  Bruce says the Rangers need to run off a 30-5 streak to get fan excitement back.  I agree.

Rangers, I love you still.  But you gotta start winning.  How about a sweep of the Yankees this week, and then another of the Angels this weekend.

OK, enough of the preaching.  Now, more pictures:

Here's my son with his first foul ball!  (It helps to be sitting in an empty section.)

Here's the fireworks after Michael Young's 8th-inning home run that proved to be the game-winner.

As much as I've enjoyed seeing the Rangers win 4 of the past 5, I also enjoyed watching the Sunday night game they lost.  Despite the fact we came up on the short side, Sunday's game was pretty darn entertaining. 

One of the highlights was the pitcher's duel between Curt Schilling and Vicente Padilla.  Padilla allowed only two mistakes, the two HRs by David Ortiz that cost him the game.  Schilling was shaky early on, but then pitched masterfully through the middle innings. 

Schilling has started a new blog called 38pitches.com .   And the morning after the game, he blogged a batter-by-batter account of the game from his perch on the mound.  It's good reading.

The schedule is out.  Gotta tell you, it doesn't look that daunting.  But who knows, it's April and no one has played a down.   The AFC was middling at best last season, and except for the Bears, same goes for the NFC North.  Between those two divisions, that's half the schedule.  Throw in six divisional games, and two more tilts with St. Louis and Carolina, and that's your 16.  

A decent Cowboys team could go 11-5 or better with this lineup.  What do you think?

Sept. 9, NY Giants (NBC), 7:15 p.m. (Home Game)
Sept. 16, at Miami (FOX), 3:05 p.m.
Sept. 23, at Chicago (NBC), 7:15 p.m.
Sept. 30, St Louis (FOX), Noon (Home Game)
Oct. 8, at Buffalo (ESPN), 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 14, New England (CBS), 3:15 p.m.  (Home Game)
Oct. 21, Minnesota (FOX), Noon  (Home Game)
Oct. 28, BYE
Nov. 4, at Philadelphia (NBC), 7:15 p.m.
Nov. 11, at NY Giants (FOX), 3:15 p.m.
Nov. 18, Washington (FOX), Noon  (Home Game)
Nov. 22, NY Jets (CBS) 3:15 pm (Home Game)
Nov. 29, Green Bay (NFLN) 7:15 p.m. (Home Game)
Dec. 9, at Detroit, (FOX) Noon
Dec. 16, Philadelphia, (FOX) 3:15 p.m.  (Home Game)
Dec. 22, at Carolina, (NFLN) 7:15 p.m.
Dec. 30, at Washington, (FOX), Noon

We took tons of calls tonight from viewers who were upset with us for interrupting House.   Tons of calls, and many more went unanswered.  We aboslutely understand your concern.  Many of us at FOX 4 like House too, and a lot of us working in the newsroom tonight were hoping to watch it at home on our VCRs, DVRs and Tivos after work. 

But please understand our first concern at FOX 4 is your safety.  When the National Weather Service issued a Tornado Warning for southeastern Tarrant County, about 8:15pm, we had to go on the air right away to tell those people about the imminent danger.   Tornado sirens were sounding in Arlington, and later Grand Prairie.  Spotters were seeing low-level rotation in the clouds overhead.  This was a very dangerous situation.

Folks asked us why don't we just give the warning, and then return to regular programming.  Most of the time we do that.  We try to keep our "cutin's" as brief as we can.  But when there's an imminent tornado threat, we're going to stay on the air as long as public safety is at immediate risk.  And there was a tornado-capable storm passing over about 200,000 people.  And with nearby storms dropping golf-ball and even baseball-sized hail stones (confirmed by trained spotters), that's a life-threatening situation too.

All during our coverage, we were in close touch with the National Weather Service and with the ham-radio operators spotting the skies around the storm.  As soon as the storm threat passed, we wrapped up.  (Keep in mind there was another storm with a hail threat emerging in Hood and Bosque counties at the end of the 8pm hour.)

So far there's been no reports of wind or tornado damage, and no tornado was ever spotted in the Arlington area, despite the persistent low-level rotation.   But as we learned from the Wylie tornado the other night, tornadoes can spin up with no warning.  And they can cause significant damage.  And they can hurt or kill people.  

We don't like making viewers angry at us.  But our first priority is keeping you safe.  To those callers I spoke with tonight, and to all the rest of you who are upset with us, all I can say is that we'll do our best to provide the same level of warning when a storm like this comes to your neighborhood.  And it will, one of these days.

Thanks for sharing your concerns and complaints, and thanks for reading our reply here.

The myFOXdfw.com blogs are a great place to share your  weather photos.  It's easy to start your own  blog and to post your photos.  Or, you can e-mail photos to fox4weather@kdfwfox4.com .  You send them, we'll post them or  even air  them on TV!

We've got severe weather moving in to  North Texas right now.  Here are two more ways you can stay 4Warned!

1) Look on our blog front page for the updated Severe Weather Update blog.   We'll update this throughout the day, so check  back frequently.  Better yet, look on the right hand side of  that  blog page, and click on the link that says SUBSCRIBE.  Now you'll get an e-mail  update everytime we update that blog. 

2)  Also, check out our new Severe  Weather  Tracker.  Click on  Weather, and look for the tab on the left that says "Severe Weather".  This is a state-of-the-art tool that uses the power of Google Maps to give you a dynamic look at real-time conditions.  You can zoom-in and zoom-out.  You can  overlay watches and warnings.  It's very slick. 

If you have comments about any of these features, please post them as comments below, and I'll try to help you out!

When we returned from Spring Break last weekend, I was surprised to see the Bluebonnets already in season.  In a few of the regular bluebonnet places near my home, I was also surprised to see the grass growing.  That's usually a bad sign that the bluebonnets won't look as pretty this year.

But that's just where I live.  What's it like in your neighborhood, and have you seen any great bluebonnets where you are?

I haven't shot pictures yet this year, but here's my favorite photo from long ago.  This would have been around 1998 or 1999, back before my first digital camera.  This is my wife Susan and my son Andrew, then either 2 or 3.  As you can see, it was shot just outside of Brenham in Central Texas.

Just got back from a Spring Break trip to Los Angeles and San Diego with my wife and kids. 

What I like about California?

• The weather...  except for last week when it was just as cool, damp and dreary as I'm told it was here.
• The 14-lane freeways...  except for when all 14 lanes are backed up.
• The good restaurants...  except for the long waits to get a table.

Wow, I guess I missed home more than I thought I would.  But while I'm glad to be back, there's one thing North Texas doesn't have -- views like this:

 This was the last picture of San Diego we took, as we were taking off on our flight back home.

I've had an iPod Nano for a year now, and I love it.  I've got lots of music on it, but what I listen to most are audiobooks.   Right now I'm listening to Doris Kearns Goodwin's new book on Abraham Lincoln, "A Team of Rivals".

In the mail today, I expect to get my first iPod video device.  If you have one of these, what video content do you like to watch the most?  I'll be searching iTunes tonight for interesting video podcasts and maybe a few TV shows too. 

Recommendations anyone?

So you see our new Music section on the myFOXdfw.com blogs -- another topic for you to write about.  We're hopefully soon going to be integrating these Music blogs with a cool new project in the works with our sister company, MySpace.  More later on that.

So for now, it's just you and us and lots to talk about.  Here's a question to start a conversation.

What's the most embarrasing song on your iPod (or mp3) playlist?  And if you don't have an iPod, then what is the most embarrasing single, album or CD you have in your collection?

For me, and this is bad, I'm pretty sure there's at least one Air Supply song on my iTunes at home.  Don't think it's currently on the iPod, but it counts if it's in the house.  There are a few other mushy songs on my list.

OK, I've shared.  Now you have to share too!

Here's a new and fast way to stay on top of developing severe weather situations.

We're starting a new Severe Weather Update blog on this site.  Whenever severe weather threatens, the FOX 4-Warn weather team will provide regular updates to this blog.

How will you know when they update the blog?  Simple, first go to the blog:

http://community.myfoxdfw.com/blogs/SevereWeatherUp
date

Then look at the bottom of the right-hand column for the link, "Subscribe to this blog via e-mail".  When you subscribe, you'll get an e-mail each time the blog is updated with new information.

Let us know how you like it1

So far today I've seen one wooden fence blown over.  And the FMPD and FD had part of Morriss Road blocked (just north of FM1171) where it looked like a tree was either lying on power lines or threatening to do so.

The skies are getting brown to the west.