Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• What an insane snowstorm that turned out to be. I can look out the window forever at that stuff coming down. And I did even after everyone else in the house went to bed. 
• If one more local TV reporter tells me, "If you don't need to go out, stay inside", I might lose it.
• That being said, the live news shots of metroplex traffic this morning show that it is worse than anything over the last two weeks.
• Local Government Awards: Offices of the City of Decatur and the Wise County Appraisal District open later this morning. All others are closed. 
• I owe Alvord ISD and Paradise ISD an apology from last week. I dogged them a little bit for announcing their school closings almost at 8:00 a.m. I didn't realize that they had already delayed opening until 10:00 a.m. so parents actually had plenty of notice instead of being caught off guard at the last second. 
• Even though it is not going to get above freezing until after noon, this stuff will start melting  this morning pretty quickly.  Even when the temperature is below freezing, an unobstructed sun will melt it. (I think it has something to do with science.)
• I'm a fan of the flowering crape myrtle trees, and I've figured out that they bloom generally around March 10th. I hope this weather doesn't ruin that. Edit: Dang it. I meant Bradford Pears.
• There is nothing worse than visiting with a client who is about to agree to a plea bargain that requires prison time even it is the smart and wise thing to do. They are, in a bizarre way, the most intimate of conversations. And I'm devastated afterwards each time.
• There was an argument in the Supreme Court yesterday about the meaning of a phrase within the thousands of words in the Obamacare statute. From a legal standpoint, I'll admit to being clueless because it would take me an hour of serious study to understand exactly what's going on. 
• Pete Delkus was doing a bit on Twitter last night by announcing school closings with the phrase, "I've decided that I will close [name] I.S.D. now".  His comedy is not any better than his forecasting. 
• A radio caller the other day identified himself as a retired forensic hypnotist. I hadn't thought about that in years. DPS used to actually have "experts" that they would use to "hypnotize" witnesses in an attempt to produce repressed memories. I don't think the Texas courts were ever dumb enough to allow such testimony. 
• Does a postal delivery worker smile if he delivers an actual handwritten envelope that looks like it includes an actual handwritten letter? Ninety nine percent of his deliveries have to be junk mail and bills. 
• My obligatory shot at Mark Cuban: Forbes annual list of billionaires lists him at #603 with a net worth of $3 billion dollars. Didn't he have a little more than that in the 1990s after Yahoo! buried him in cash? It's been over fifteen years and he's not been able to increase his net worth?
• GOP Golden Child Ben Carson presidential aspirations slid off into a ditch after voicing his theory on gays. It's not the gay issue that dooms him, it's the fear of his ability to reason. If he sees x there is no telling what his y conclusion will be.
• Jane McGarry now has a full time job at Good Morning Texas. She's an odd bird. Online she is shockingly funny and witty but if you ever hear her interviewed she seems to be boringly normal.
• Commercial disguised as a newscast/broadcast:  I noticed a few months back that various radio hosts on WBAP, The Ticket, and others would casually throw in Fandango, the movie search engine into a conversation. I heard it at least four times in one week. I haven't heard it since.