Entry 56: 10 May 2003, 10:26am
Another round of tornadoes last night. As opposed to the one
Thursday, which struck the south and east sides of the Oklahoma City
area, this one struck the north and west sides. Hope it wasn't because
those people were feeling left out: this is
not the kind of event
you would want to wish on other people. We've got one more night of severe
weather possible tonight, and right now I don't feel too lucky for the
people living in
central OKC.
Tornado sirens went off in the Tulsa area around 1am, but
all Tulsa got was some much-needed rain. Almost willing to bet, however,
that the airport only got another damn trace. Last I heard the closest
damage around here was just south of Glenpool. Once the storm left Tulsa
County, it pretty much fizzled out.
Putnam City West High School was, for all intents and purposes,
totalled last night. With less than a month remaining before the end
of the school year don't be surprised if the same thing happens to
these students that happened to those going to Owasso High School in
1993 after the Easter tornado: school was let out early for the year
& the students finished with the grades they had up to this point.
Weather Channel just ran some stats: the national average
is 248 tornadoes for the entire month of May. After nine days this
month we've
already had 299! More than
doubled the previous May 1-9 record.
Got an email from Eric over at OKRoads. Turns out his Wendy's
was about the only food place in the area that
wasn't totally
destroyed. Just blew out the windows. They expect to be back up and
running possibly as early as Tuesday. (Eric, lemme know when it does
reopen & where it is, I may just swing by there on my next roadtrip
in that direction.) Once it does reopen, they'll have a lot more business
for a while: the Mickeydees, Braum's and Western Sizzlin' in the immediate
area were levelled.
Currently watching an OKC reporter talking to the Weather
Channel, admitting that he's ready to move out of the state, doesn't
know how much more of this he can take. I've heard that before from
other people. Little sis moved to Southern California to get away from
the tornadoes. Real smart: leaving an area that could see an occasional
small swath of destruction for an area that could have an earthquake
totally obliterate everything in sight!
Tornado warnings currently being sounded in the Indianapolis
area. Got a feeling today's first round of Indy 500 qualifying might
not happen. Today's NASCAR Bucsh race in St. Louis may be a rainout
as well.
Channel 2 did a little better on the weather coverage last
night. I'm sure that was only because the severe stuff was a lot closer
to Tulsa last night. And you might accidentally be wondering why in my
last entry I never referred to their El Chiefo by name. Simple: these
pages eventually show up on Yahoo & Google web searches, and I
don't want any of my pages to be connected to a search for this guy.
Jeff Lazalier! Just remembered the name of the previous chief
meteorologist there, the one they so unceremoniously canned. Hope
he's bounced back someplace, with station owners who really appreciate
him.
Back to politics real quick. Interesting
article
about what President Dubya was doing the morning of September 11th,
2001. At least, as near as anyone can figure out. His detailed itinerary
has still never been released.
And now that the war is over, the Republican-controlled department
at work has put the TV back on CNN Headline News. Apparently one instance
of Pat Sajak's talk show was too much to bear!
I don't remember (and don't feel right now like checking the
old pages) if I ranted about how much Fox News Channel's slogan "Fair
and Balanced" is the most
un-true statement ever made in television.
The channel is so blatantly pro-Republican. Everyone else at work said
I was crazy, that the channel
is balanced.
Oh, really! News Corp., the company that owns the Fox networks,
including Fox News, is attempting to purchase the DirecTV satellite
service, which, as antitrust issues are involved, requires testimony
from the owner of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, before the House Judiciary
Committee. Most of the congressmen spent the time telling Murdoch what
they thought of the Fox News coverage. The Repulican congressmen praised
it, the Democrats blasted it. Don't sound too balanced to me.
But my vindication is coming, the whole reason I'm bringing
the topic up: here's a
link to a
news story reporting that Fox News may soon be banned from airing in Britain.
Seems the British version of the FCC requires that all news channels
follow a standard of "due impartiality", something the British claim
Fox News is blatantly ignoring.
So, I'm not nuts after all. Well, at least not about this.
Entry 57: 18 May 2003, 7:37pm
No road trip this weekend either. One, because we had another
big round of storms on Friday, my only available day of the week to
go on these things. Two, because if the car broke down, the people I would've
called to come help me are all out of town.
And three, my dad is back in the hospital. Ten years ago his
condition was so bad that the doctors had to perform a heart transplant
operation on him. It left him more susceptible to other ailments (such
as a nastier-than-Letterman's case of the shingles), and he was told
that, as some of the arteries weren't reconnected, if he had another
heart attack he'd never know it.
I took him in to the hospital Thursday morning, as he was having
trouble catching his breath, especially whenever he leaned back or
lied down. After a few tests they admitted him, and a little later the
doctors told him that the tests concluded that he did, indeed, have another
heart attck sometime during the previous week.
He's feeling better now, but staying in the hospital over the
weekend until the doctors can decide if he's up for an arteriogram.
Will hopefully know something tomorrow.
The broadcast networks' new fall prime-time
schedules have been released, and between, cancellations, pre-scheduled
endings, and new timeslots, the networks have conveniently placed all
the programs that I want to see on two nights, thusly:
--Wednesdays at 7pm:
That 70's Show on Fox,
Enterprise
on UPN, and
Smallville on the WB (only two VCRs,
but fortunately Dish Network provides me with a west-coast feed of
the WB network, so I can catch
Smallville
at 10.)
--Wednesdays at 8pm:
Angel on the WB (with one of the
original
Buffy cast members who transferred
to this show leaving it to start a family, and a current
Buffy cast
member moving over this fall)
--Thursdays at 7pm:
Friends on NBC (the last season),
and a new series,
Tru Calling, on FOX (I doubt
it'll last long; shows in this timeslot on FOX rarely do.)
--Thursdays, 8-9, NBC:
Will & Grace, followed by
the previously-mentioned-on-these-pages American version of the BBC
hit
Coupling.
Leaving Friday nights for anything that might be showing on
the Sci-Fi Channel, and Saturdays for my newest guilty pleasure,
Trading
Spaces on TLC. Got hooked on it ever since my first episode, the
live Vegas reveal. Since then I've seen all but three episodes of the
original BBC version,
Changing Rooms (and those three
will be airing during the next week), and a
Trading Spaces Memorial
Day marathon is scheduled eight days from now.
Virtually any room in this house would easily qualify for a
Trading Spaces makeover, and part of me would love
to do the show. Unfortunately, I don't have the stamina anymore to do
a show like that, and I don't qualify to be on
While You Were Out
(the person doing the surprising also has to live in the house, and
I don't think any of my cats know where to write to).
Unfortunately, I'm beginning to realize I'm a pretty good candidate
for
What Not to Wear.
Entry 58: 23 May 2003, 2:26pm
Still gonna try a road trip tomorrow instead of my usual Fridays,
after I was reminded that today is the start of the Memorial Day weekend,
and traffic this afternoon & evening is going to be horrible. Hopefully,
by tomorrow everyone will already be at their weekend destinations.
My dad is still in the hospital. The doctors are now working
off the assumption that he didn't have a heart attack after, but rather
a stroke. End result is the same, but if this is the case it's kinda
good to know that his new heart hasn't started failing as well.
For the past few days he's been complaining of serious pain
in his leg. It had been hurting a little bit before we took him to the
hospital, but the new medication he's on has aggravated it. Doctors are
still running scans and doing other tests; they're afraid he may have
bone cancer in his leg. More as it develops.
Currently watching qualifying for this
weekend's Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race. I have to agree with many other
Winston Cup fans who feel that last weekend's running of The Winston
was a major disappointment. Many of the drivers and owners are considering
not running this exhibition race any more because of the risk of injury
and the expense of wrecking a car at a non-points event. The inversion
vote process is ludicrous, because EVERYBODY knows going in that the fans
are gonna vote to invert the maximum number of cars. But winner Jimmie Johnson's
admission that he didn't even attempt to win the first two segments, knowing
how the inversion would go, was basically the last straw.
I don't blame Johnson one bit, given the circumstances I probably
would've done the same thing. The problem lies with the inversion process.
It needs to be totally revamped. If NASCAR insists on keeping the fan
vote to determine the inversion, fine. But don't vote to invert
x
number of cars: vote to invert by patterns. Such as:
...inverting all the cars by their even (or odd) finishing positions
...inverting all the cars by their even (or odd) car number
...by their standings in the points
...chronologically by the drivers' (or crew chief's, or front
tire changer's) birth dates
...numerically by car number, starting with the car whose number
comes closest to the two digits to the right of the decimal point in
the number of seconds separating the first and second car when they crossed
the finish line just prior to the inversion (OK, I thought a bit about
that one)
...invert the first
x number of cars with the last
x
cars, leaving the cars in-between unchanged.
...driver Kevin Harvick's suggestion: for Segment Two, invert
all the cars based on their starting position in Segment One, then
for Segment Three order them by their average finish in the first two
segments.
The point is, if ya gotta invert, there are lots of other ways
to do it than by just inverting ten cars (disregarding the voting process,
cause we know how it'll turn out). The problem remaining is, how do
you make the race important enough to keep drivers and owners from skipping
it?
Simple: make the results of the Winston (and Winston Open) the
starting order for the following week's Coca-Cola 600. Under this plan,
the twenty-four cars that participated in The Winston would fill starting
positions 1-24 in the 600. Positions 25-36 would be filled by the cars
that finished 2-13 in the Winston Open (the winner participated in The
Winston), and positions 37 on existing us usual in Provisionia. This way,
any driver who doesn't participate will automatically start no better that
37th in the 600. That'll keep the drivers in the race.
Entry 59: 31 May 2003, 11:45am
My dad came home from the hospital yesterday. A cancerous tumor
was found in his asophagus, and it's currently too large to operate on.
The doctors are gonna try radiation and chemo to try to reduce the tumor
enough so they can operate.
Kidney dialysis begins Thursday. The pain in his leg is pretty
much gone. And the stroke turned out to be a heart attack after all.
A "mildly-severe" one at that, and there is some heart damage as a result.
But he was allowed to come home, so he must be feeling a little
better.
I was led to believe that by expressing my thoughts on pages
like this would be theraputic, and make me feel better; after all, that's
one of the reasons I started this rant page in the first place. But every
time I talk about my dad's condition here, I get the totally opposite effect;
it makes me just think about it more. So if you guys don't mind, I'm
not gonna talk about my dad's condition anymore here unless there's a
major change one way or the other.
Did do that road trip last Saturday,
and got the area around and just east of I-35 all the way to the Texas
border (and yes, Lee, I stopped at that video store, just across the
river and got a "souvenir"). That trip only lasted around 400 miles.
("Only" 400 miles. Sheesh!)
Did one more big road trip yesterday, the last major trip before
I start back on the night shift next week. Spent yesterday in the southwestern
part of the state. Basically, yesterday's trip comprised everything
in the picture at right that was south of Chickasha & west of I-35.
And you wanna talk hot? For most of the day I ran without the
air conditioning, as the car has had a tendency on the past to begin
overheating with it on. Especially with all the stop-and-go motions I
do with it taking pictures. So for the first half of the day it was sun
roof open, front passenger and rear driver windows cracked for ventilation.
By the time I made it to Wichita Falls (saw some falls while there; if
those are the falls the city was named after, I must say I'm really disappointed)
my right arm was cooked a nice crispy brown, with my forehead not too far
behind.
I have since been able to confirm an official high in the Lawton
area yesterday of 100°, although there was an Indian casino just
south of Lawton that was showing a 5pm temperature of 116°! I really,
really hope their thermometer was broken!
You may be asking why, this being my last weekend before nights,
why I didn't finish the southeastern part of the state. Well, with
June having the latest sunsets of the entire year, I realized that,
even on the night shift, I could still get off in the early, early afternoon
on a weekend, head down to that particular area, and still have over
five hours of sunlight with which to take pictures; not enough time
to do the same in the southwestern part of the state. So hopefully,
by the time I'm back on days in August, I'll already have the entire
southeastern part of the state finished.
Oh, and the distance yesterday? A mere 771 miles. The trip to
the south
eastern part of the state was still longer.
Entry 60: 1 June 2003, 1:23am
Got a little surprise Saturday morning when I turned on my satellite
receiver and noticed that Dish Network was not airing KTUL's programming,
but instead was getting a repeating message from the Dish Network CEO
saying that Channel 8's owners, Allbritton Communications, has demanded
that Echostar stop broadcasting their local channels across the country.
The CEO, naturally, said Allbritton was not negotiating in good faith.
Later in the afternoon KTUL's web page mentioned the incident, although
they naturally insist Echostar is to blame. (
Here's
a link to Dish Network's side of the story, and
here's KTUL's
version.)
After reading both sides' versions, and not as yet hearing an impartial
third-party version (and not likely to until businesses reopen Monday),
I've made my decision on who to believe. Here's a copy of the response
I sent to KTUL about their article:
Having heard both sides of the issue, and given the
fact that Dish Network is NOT offering the NY/LA stations as a replacement
makes part of your story a blatant lie, I tend to believe Echostar's side
of the story. Allbritton's demand that the channels be dropped on a SATURDAY
MORNING is further proof for me that my five-year relationship with Dish
was not misspent.
If I want to watch ABC soaps, I can see them on SoapNet.
Reality programming, there's ABC Family.
NBA & NHL, never interested me.
ABC's "masterful" prime-time schedule? Puh-leese!
And Local News? Got three other channels for that.
You can make whatever claims you want, I'm sticking with Dish. Your
blatant attempt to switch me to Cox or DirecTV will not work. You're
only hurting yourself by refusing to work in the public interest.
Main reason I'm reprinting it here is because, as it is so anti-KTUL,
I fully expect it NOT to appear on their website, further proof of where
blame should be placed. Even if they do print it, I'm really not expecting
a reply from anyone associated with management.
They really are only hurting themselves. The only ABC entertainment
programming I watched on a regular basis has been cancelled, and nothing
new on their fall lineup has piqued my interest. I did watch their news,
but I also watch 2 & 6, flipping between the three, so no big loss
there.
In fact, for as long as those of us who were already subscribed
to Tulsa local stations have to do without channel 8, all our other local
channels are being comped. That's right, for as long as Allbritton management
remain greedy little
[expletive deleted]s, my Dish Network bill
will be $5.99 less each month.
I expect Allbritton will cave in pretty soon: they also own the
ABC affiliate in Washington DC, and that channel is gone too. Government
officials don't like things being taken away from them. Something'll
be done rather quickly.
Garfield is coming to the big screen.
In a format similar to the recent "Rocky & Bullwinkle" movie, Garfield
(and, I'm assuming Odie as well) will be CGI characters in a live-action
world.
This week they annouced that Bill Murray would be the voice of the
cat. Thinking about it, and being a big fan of the cartoon series, I can't
think of a better choice. He could match the tones and inflections we're
all used to hearing in Garfield. (In case you're wondering why they don't
just use the same guy who did the voice in the cartoons, Lorenzo Music
is sadly no longer with us.)
The part about the movie that's worrying me is
this
article, claiming that Garfield "is going to look like Garfield would
if he was a real, live animal."
But then he won't look like... well, Garfield. He may have Garfield's
sarcasm, Garfield's appetite, and Garfield's nap habits, heck, he may
even be orange with stripes, but he won't be Garfield.
