Wise County Economic Hit

But it will reopen as an addiction recovery center.

Story

Old Timer Alert

I have a vague recollection as a kid of seeing a similar, but smaller, sign in Boyd as you entered it eastbound on 114. Am I right?

Living Beyond Your Means

The average DFW resident has $24,775 in "consumer debt" which includes things like credit card debt and car loans (but excludes mortgages.) But it seems to me like there's a huge difference between a $24,000 car loan that has a scheduled monthly payoff vs. a similar credit card debt that would be like a black hole.

Source.

We Got A Lake Bridgeport Issue Brewing?

The lake is already completely full and the watershed had been getting pounded all morning. And, since I'm the most trusted name in weather, I think the cold front stalling over the metroplex is causing all the rain to stick to the same pattern without moving. And it's supposed to do that for a couple of days? Edit: They opened up one gate Friday afternoon (thanks, Joey):

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• I watched a little of Nancy Grace for the first time in a long time last night. She's as crazy as ever. (And does every guest have a mandate not to challenge her?)
• Also caught a little of Parks and Recreation. It's a little like The Office, isn't it?
• I'm beginning to be sympathetic to the anti-fur coat crowd. (It's odd how watching Sharon Stone trying on a chinchilla coat in Casino spurred that emotion in me.)
• If it keeps up, the Rangers have the best pitching staff ever and they'll make the playoffs. No one around here will care, but it'd be fun.
• As weird as everyone is today, I'm surprised that being called "mom" and "dad" is still in style. Wouldn't be shocked if someday everyone want to be called by their own unique moniker by their kids.
• Diff'rent Strokes star Dana Plato committed suicide in 1999. Now her son has done the same.
• Didn't know the Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie (which I've never been to) is no longer called the Nokia Theater.
• A district judge lectured a defendant for 20 minutes after the jury's verdict yesterday in Fort Worth. Ridiculous. The range of punishment for a crime does not include being dressed down. A few words are OK, but twenty minutes? Please.
• Worst wedding DJ ever.
• I saw that some girl won the first ever State title for Byron Nelson High School in Trophy Club. It's fitting that it would be in a high tone sport: Tennis.

Man Hit By Car, Hangs Onto Baby

And I've learned Australian TV needs some new editors/producers. When you have great video, show us the video like a million times and in slow motion. We don't want to hear some woman yapping about what she saw, we want to break down the game film ourselves. Sheesh. That's American TV News 101.

More Proof The World's Gone Crazy

Fox 4 has the youtube video.

(Thanks emailer Jenny.)

From The Email Bag

"North of Bridgeport" at 11:25 a.m.

It was a cellphone pic with no other explanation. I'm not saying thats a tornado dropping behind those trees, but it's worth a look.

Messenger Casually Tweets That There's A Tornado

Wait. What?!!

(Post went up at 10:23 a.m.)

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• If a law enforcement agency has a bomb squad, the greater the probability that a "suspicious", yet ultimately harmless, package will be blown to bits in that jurisdiction.
• That was a heck of a lightening show we had last night.
• I heard that the victim in the Wise County burglary case from yesterday became so emotional during a victim impact statement that he had to be helped out of the courtroom. (The defendant had stolen scrap metal from him.)
• And one of the jurors snapped at a lawyer who wanted to talk to him about the case. It's not uncommon for jurors to not want to talk, but rare for them to get snippy.
• I always laugh when I recall Al Gore saying, "You don't have to get snippy about it" when he called George W. on election night to withdraw his previous concession.
• While watching a little bit of the Ranger game last night, it occurred to me that it's no longer little kids that scramble for home run balls when hit onto the grass in center field.
• What's up with all of these college "undie runs"? Even the University of Texas had one.
• Has life in Wise County really changed that much now that basically every town has legalized the sale of alcohol?
• Did you guys see the new footage of the oil gushing out of the pipe in the Gulf? Holy, cow.
• Two things royally criticized over the last two days that I don't care about: Lost and LeBron James.
• Richie Whitt suggested the Byron Nelson Golf Tourney allow Tony Romo to play with one of its player exemptions. What a great idea.
• To you runners out there: I destroy the outside heel of my running shoes before the rest of it. Any suggestions on shoes?

Bottle To The Head

Guilty Verdict ...

Just handed down in a burglary of a building case in Wise County. Punishment phase to begin. He faces 2 to 10 because he has been convicted of two State Jail Felonies before.

Building was in Paradise. Happened after that huge grass fire a couple of years ago.

Barry (from iPhone)

Edit: He got 10 and a very odd $500 fine (the max was $10,000).

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• CNN keeps replaying an interview of an Oklahoma tornado victim who pronounced "windows" as "winders". I suspect that mispronunciation had something to do with his airtime.
• Greg "The Hammer" Williams will co-host on 105.3 The Fan at midday today for the second day in a row. Yesterday was fantastic.
• He said NBC5's Kim Fischer "kinda had a horse face." She tweeted back that he was a "washed up old sports radio dude."
• I was on 287 headed to Fort Worth yesterday when an 18 wheeler in front of me had a blow out. It was an incredibly loud explosion followed by white smoke that completely obscured my view. I pretended it was like NASCAR and went low.
• Fake hawt Sarah Palin.
• I think the girl who escaped in handcuffs over the weekend in Wise County might be in good shape: Cops don't know who she is.
• I'm hearing about a lot of money being spent up at the courthouse. Not sure how that's going to fly with the upcoming budget crisis the county is about to face.
• Weight loss update: Down 13 pounds. I'm close to sharing my weight loss graph which covers about 70 days.
• Always love this quote about Project Graduation: "Why do we have to bribe kids to do what they are supposed to?"
• Texas High School football announcer disappointment.
• I emailed my a friend yesterday who responded with a fake "auto reply" from her employer saying she was a "former employee" having been fired for doing naughty things. Funny.
• Somebody want to stop that oil spill in the Gulf?
• A plane crashed overnight in Libya killed 103 people, but one boy survived. Makes me think of the movie Unbreakable.

Crime Data: Wow

Here you'll find the most comprehensive database of inmates in Texas prisons available to the public. You can sort by name, county, offense, etc. Incredible.

Here's a place to start: A list of every current inmate sentenced out of Wise County, their crime, sentence length, begin sentence date, and home county.

(Credit: Grits For Breakfast.)

Since We're Talking Schools

HOUSTON (AP) _ A Houston charter school has fired a science teacher after she was seen on videotape slapping and beating a 13-year-old male student. Principal David Jones of Jamie's House Charter School says he reviewed the camera phone video shot by another student. Jones says ``there is no excuse for a teacher to behave in this way with a child.'' A school spokeswoman identified the fired teacher as 40-year-old Sheri Lynn Davis, who had been with the charter school for three years. Further details about the teacher, who was fired last night, were not provided to The Associated Press. AP was unable to secure a phone listing for the teacher for comment. A school spokeswoman says the boy is still enrolled in the school and was attending classes today. KRIV-TV in Houston reports the video was shot in late April. His mother says the boy suffered a black eye and other bruises.

Good grief.

Tuesday Afternoon Pick Me Up: Comedy Edition

Troops?

Meet who must be the most frightened politician in America: John McCain. Fearful of losing his Senate seat in Arizona, he's now prepared to be toughest conservative in the West. (It's a new campaign ad.) And to think the Republicans weren't fired up about him during the presidential election because he was too moderate.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Minority owner Ross Perot Jr. sued, in essence, the Dallas Mavericks claiming the club is losing money hand over fist. Mark Cuban responded in his normal annoying fashion. But, man, those guys don't like each other. (That was a small news blurb at 8:00 p.m. last night and then blew up over night.)
• I'm not exactly sure what happened, but a lady was wailing (and I mean wailing) in the Wise County Courthouse yesterday after she lost primary custody of her child.
• There's a burglary of a habitation case being tried in felony court in Decatur this week. Not exactly riveting stuff.
• I really don't have any problem with Elena Kagan, Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, never having tried a case or been a judge. That Court is bizarrely academic.
• And I love Obama saying Kagan has a habit of "understanding before disagreeing." We could all practice that a little bit more.
• There was a perfect game pitched in baseball on Sunday (by a former Texas Tech player), and I was able to catch the last out on TV simply because I was tipped off by Twitter.
• This is funny: "Fake Yo Yo Trickster Fools Every TV Station Everywhere."
• Betty White is getting wildly praised for her performance on SNL. But it's a lot easier to succeed in this world when everyone watching you wants you to succeed.
• Maybe I didn't give The Pacific enough time since more and more people seem to praise it. But when I watched it there was a time waste with a long dinner scene and sex scene. That's not exactly what I had in mind when I thought I'd learn about the Pacific theater in WWII.
• The death of Lena Horne didn't get my attention at all because I was basically unfamiliar with her. Growing up a white boy in a small town in Texas will do that to you.
• I've had three people within the last week make it a point to walk across the room to tell me how much the like this silly Blog. Two of them were complete strangers. I get sooo uncomfortable when that happens.
• When MzChief goes on a tear, she goes on a tear.
• Dallas Observer's Richie Whitt releases his Top 10 Hottest Women In DFW TV. What? No Fiona? She only makes Honorable Mention? The Bush-Gore vote wasn't this flawed!
• I don't buy Tiger Woods "injured neck" proclamation which allegedly caused him to withdraw during the last round of last week's tournament. You can spot someone with that problem. Anyone remember Barry Switzer during the Cowboys final Super Bowl season? He looked absolutely in pain holding the Lombardi Trophy with Jerry.
• Do you know how many minutes my cell phone bill said I used last month?: 9. I don't do social calls.
• I wonder if the Wise County Sheriff's Office ever found that lady that escaped from a patrol car in handcuffs?

Channel 5 Headline Writer Did Not Go To Sensitivity Training

Link.

More Proof That Those Yankees Don't Understand Sports

This is a clip from UMass's intra-squad spring football game. (Yep, UMass apparently plays football.) So unlike every smart football school in the South, they allow their quarterback to get hit. And not only that, the think it's a good idea to run run some tricked up play which is the equivalent of throwing the QB onto Central Expressway.

Can you image that ever happening to Colt McCoy?

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• 287 was a mess this morning right outside of Rhome due to a wreck. Northbound cars were being routed on the service road all the way to the Saginaw cutoff. But they were hardly moving at all.
• A female is expected to be nominated for the Supreme Court today who, if approved, would put three women on the Court for the first time in history. (From The Ticket this morning: "How will they ever get anything done?")
• Fox 4 said this morning that since the nominee was Jewish, there would not be one Protestant on the Court (which I find hard to believe but am too lazy to look up.)
• I swore I saw a yellow Lamborghini in Bridgeport on Friday.
• Craziest story of the weekend: A Fort Worth middle school principal leaves her two little kids in a hotel and then gets arrested after being refused admission in a downtown Dallas club.
• Crazier story: A guy is shot dead during a child custody exchange in Denton on Friday in front of his kids. And the shooter is a retired federal law enforcement officer.
• Iron Man 2 pulled in $133 million this weekend. I'll continue to proclaim that real movies aren't made any more.
• Got all dressed for Mother's Day yesterday, got in my car, turned the key and ..... nothing. It then mysteriously started about five minutes later. I've got to get rid of that thing.
• I saw a 17 year old ordered to pay child support in Jack County on Friday. Not the best way to start off your adult life, hoss.
• There was also an indicted handed down over there on the same day where the Defendant's name included "Superman."
• Time Waste: Top 10 Wedding Dances on Youtube.
• Edit: Just checked the Update. If you see a girl in handcuffs running around, you might want to call the Sheriff's office.

Election Results

All of them from the Messenger.