KAUZ CBS Bumps Young Sheldon & Ghosts To Air Live Storm Chasing

The above is the short version of the weather forecast for my location, on this 5th day of May. Currently the forecast is erroneous, as there is no fog, not even a hint of fog, just a clear blue cloud-less sky.

That gusty thunderstorm prediction for this afternoon sounds interesting. 

Last night's predicted storm sort of arrived as predicted, sometime between 7 and 8. Rain, distant thunder, a little wind.

By 8 I was ready to watch Young Sheldon and Ghosts, which I had recorded during their scheduled airing time between 7 and 8.

A little after 8, with a big bowl of popcorn, I started up Young Sheldon. It was being amusing, and then a loud honk would interrupt the dialogue, followed by a screen crawl informing the viewers which areas were experiencing some storm action.

The honking interruption happened three or four times. It is quite annoying, what with the fact that the honking is so not needed. That and I was watching something I had recorded, hence the weather warning was irrelevant, as that time of extreme supposed weather danger had passed.

And then it got worse. About half way through Young Sheldon, the KAUZ weatherman, Ken Johnson, with his hands in his pockets, for who knows what reason, broke into Young Sheldon to go live with the important info that Doppler radar had detected a rotating cell, with tornado potential, east of Wichita Falls, near the little bump in the road, along Highway 287, called Bellevue.

Ken Johnson went on and on, breathlessly showing maps showing the possible severe storm action.

And then we switched to live footage of storm trackers trying to track the illusive storm which was so possibly dangerous that interrupting regular programming was warranted.

I hit the fast forward button. On and on it went, cutting back to Ken Johnson, excitedly pointing out the tornado potential. 

Soon fast forwarding went past Young Sheldon to Ghosts. And still we were live with the imaginary weather drama. Halfway through Ghosts being interrupted I had had enough and went to watch something else I had recorded.

In our current era of easily being able to record TV, of streaming, of multiple sources of TV input, is it not extremely stupid for a local station to go live, interrupting its programming because weather conditions might turn into something dangerous at some location in their viewing area?

If you are at home watching TV, you are likely aware of the storm potential. You can read the warnings on the screen. Why is there a need to go live with this type thing?

It is likely at the point in time where the local CBS station went live with all this storm information that most local viewers were not watching network TV, but were watching something streaming, on Amazon Prime, or Netflix, or ROKU, or HULU. Or something pre-recorded.

And this Ken Johnson guy is one of the worst of this type newsman I have ever seen. I remember one time, a couple years ago, he breathlessly went on air, because a rotating cell had been detected north of the local airport. He had a sandwich in hand, he could not get oriented to the screen. It was both highly amusing, and embarrassing.

This Ken Johnson guy is the Ted Baxter of local TV weathermen.

And now, this morning, I went to the KAUZ website to see if there was any news about last night's supposedly dangerous storm. KAUZ is the call letters for the local CBS station.

There was nary a mention, not one, made about last night's weak storm, which somehow warranted interrupting programming.

I had already made note of the fact that no mention was made of last night's storm in the local newspaper, the Wichita Falls Times News Record.

Now, I am certainly not suggesting that these storms are to be taken lightly. They do have deadly potential.

But, how does going live, like what happened last night on KAUZ, make any sense at all?

Doing such would make sense only if somehow there was a means to instantly break into anything being aired on any TV in the potentially affected area. Rather than just issue the dire live warning to the small percentage tuned into KAUZ.

It is so perplexing...

Fort Worth's First Of July Fosdic Lake Ghost & Birds With Possible Hurricane Oil Spill Nightmare Scenarios

A volume of rain has fallen on these parts since Monday, which was the last day I was able to go hill hiking on the Tandy Hills.

Good thing with this HOT time of the year, the hills dry out way faster than when they get drenched in winter.

I'd gone to Oakland Lake Park to walk around Fosdic Lake on Sunday, forgot my camera, so I took no pictures of the water deprived little lake and its newly formed beaches.

Well, the downpours of late have covered the Fosdic Beaches and water is flowing over Fosdic Falls. It's not a deluge of water, flowing after heavy rain, like you might see cascading over Washington's Snoqualmie Falls, but it's still water falling over a precipice, so, technically a waterfall, though manmade.

As I walked across Fosdic Dam, heading west towards the crossing over Fosdic Falls, I saw a big tree snapped apart. Struck by lightning? Blown by wind? I don't know. Flying in front of the murdered tree was a white ghost, named, by me, the Fosdic Ghost.

Soon after crossing Fosdic Dam I saw what I assumed was a grandma with her granddaughter in a stroller. The grandma was throwing bread into the lake. I assumed to feed birds, of which I saw none eating any bread.

I'd earlier, while walking, made note of the fact that I'd seen few birds. But, the grandma kept throwing bread in the water.

I sat on the picnic shelter overlook and watched. For 5 minutes, maybe more, grandma kept throwing bread in the water.

I started to think she was feeding Fosdic Lake's mutant fish.

And then a duck came into view. And then another. Soon a big flock of birds of different feathers surround edgrandma and the granddaughter, who was now joining in with the bird feeding.

Some of the birds were geese. Geese can be aggressive. I was a little concerned that the little girl might have a too close encounter with a goose beak. I have had one of those, and it hurts.

But, that did not happen, not while I watched. Instead the bird feeding frenzy grew more frenzied.

The sky has brightened, slightly, this afternoon, small patches of blue are peaking through in a few spots. It has been several hours since anything wet has hit my windows.

I have not heard if we are expected to get any moisture from the remains of Hurricane Alex. I remember Hurricane Ike, I think that was his name, gave us quite a drenching here. I think that was in September of 2009. I could be off a year. I know the South Padre Island beaches took quite a hit and are closed for their busiest time of the year, that being the 4th of July.

I think we are in for an interesting summer. I saw a supposed expert on Fox News (always suspect) who said if a hurricane crossed the path of the Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill that because a hurricane reaches into the sea up to 300 feet to suck water up into its wall of storming, the Fox expert said this meant oil would be sucked into the hurricane and when it made landfall big gobs of oil would be falling all over the place.

I'll believe that when I see it. And I hope I don't.

The Ghost Hunters Of Wink Texas

There is a very small town out in West Texas, in the Midland/Odessa zone, called Wink. By some odd confluence of natural forces, Wink is some sort of Texas Twin Peaks, X-Files episode type town.

Gar the Texan was spawned from Wink. He has special powers and regularly consults the stars, prays to his special gods and sings karaoke.

Currently back in Wink, after having escaped, and then drawn back, is a young lady I will call, for anonymity purposes, Jammin Mole.

Jammin Mole has a blog. She tells good stories.

A few days ago Jammin Mole told a Ghostly Wink story that she had experienced in Wink. It's a pretty good story.

And then Jammin Mole expanded on the originally story with an even better one, with corroboration, in the form of a comment, from one of the persons in the story. I tell you, we are talking X-Files/Twilight Zone territory here.

And then today, surprising new news, that being that, apparently, Jammin Mole hates men. I'm shocked. I was of the impression the exact opposite was the case...