I just don’t understand.

I am a dad, I’ve got troubles and worries just like every other parent.   I don’t like some of the things my children do, I don’t like some of the things my wife does, and I suppose they don’t like some of the things I do.   But what I like about the things they do far outnumber the things I dislike.   That I understand.

What I don’t understand is a man who’s frustrations grow so large they overpower his sense of humanity and ability to control his actions and turn a gun on his wife and children.  There are no problems that large to justify a father and husband killing, I don’t care what explanation is offered.

See the story here from our 6pm News Wednesday.

Avery gone. Still a class act.

You win, you get to keep your job.   You lose and you don’t.   Dallas Mavericks  owner Mark Cuban fired Avery Johnson today, he is frustrated the team failed to  make it past the first round of the NBA playoffs again.    I can’t say that I blame him, I am a Mavericks fan and I feel Cuban’s pain.    Avery did not win, end of story.

But, not quite.   Avery is a class act, he is not a belly aching complainer, he is fully willing to shoulder the blame for his team’s performance.    Few people know about Avery’s activities off the hard wood, but I can tell you I have seen him in action helping Phil and Lily Romano with “Hunger Busters” in Dallas.   Avery has gone into some of the most unsavory neighborhoods of this town to help feed and clothe the homeless, but does not want one bit of attention for his efforts.    Why?   Because he knew it was the right thing to do, not the politically correct or corporately correct thing to do, just the right thing to do.

So often when someone gets the boot from a high profile job, little attention is paid to what that person brought to the table beyond a winning record for that season.    What Avery did in this community, beyond basketball, made a difference.  I hope we will remember him for the victories both on and off the court as we say good bye.

Are you ready to drill yet?

Gasoline, premium grades at least, are already nudging toward $4 per gallon in north Texas, I paid $3.89 per gallon this morning.    After my past blogs about drilling for oil on our own turf in Alaska and off our coasts, I got a couple of nasty notes from readers who think me insensitive to environmental concerns.   They think we ought to be plowing hard and fast into alternative fuels and not spend another dime looking for oil.

Well, how do you feel now that we are bleeding money through our noses after being sucker punched with the price of gasoline now, and what it has done to the cost of our food and other basics we cannot do without.    What I am insensitive to is people who preach the future and ignore our immediate needs.   If we don’t take care of our gasoline needs now, and get prices back under control, our economy will slip further into the tank and we won’t get any closer to an alternative to gasoline.

Look, I love clean air and water and Caribou as much as anyone else.   But, it is irrational to ignore the fact that we have some of the world’s largest oil reserves under our own feet, and to know we have new technology that will let us drill, extract and transport that oil in environmentally safe ways.   Using old environmentalists scare tactics and global warming arguments to prevent us from dilling is to ignore the fact we must buy survival time until we come up with the alternatives.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer is a big offender of distorting what is possible in Alaska.   He said yesterday the President’s proposal to drill in Anwr would not produce oil for 10 years.   My oil industry sources say otherwise.   They suggest a crash program could locate potential drill sites within weeks and drilling could start immediately, and with luck oil could be out of the ground before Christmas.    There would also need to be a crash program to build a pipeline to get the oil to market, but that too is possible I am told.

Add to that, Congress needs to move quickly to remove barriers preventing construction of new environmentally sound refineries in this country.    We need to at least provide incentives to rapidly expand our existing refineries, achievable in a much shorter time frame that building a new one.    You want a jobs program to boost the economy and lower gasoline prices?   Here is the plan.

Folks, I am all for hitting the oil companies with windfall profits taxes, or incentives that will force them to use that money to help GM, Ford, Chrysler and all others to develop alternative fuel vehicles, I happen to like the hydrogen approach.  But, we cannot wait for those alternatives to get here.   We need help now, and here it is, right under our own feet.  When are we going to wake up.

No body’s perfect.

For the uninitiated, that is the title of a Miley Cyrus song, a tune my 6 year old sang at a talent show in Hunt, Texas over the weekend. I am the morning school bus in our family, and guess what the conversation was on our way to school this morning? Yep, the adult magazine Vanity Fair and my little girl’s favorite teenage star posing in suggestive pictures.

My 6 year old gets it, Gracie said the word “inappropriate,” my 8 year old Madi gets it too, she said Miley made “a poor choice.” I second both of those assessments. From the mouths of babes comes the most amazing truths. But then after a spelling drill, we turned on the Disney Channel for a couple of minutes before getting to school, and there Miley was in full blown song, and there were my little ones singing right along.

So, what effect did the pictures have on my little girls? Not much. They have only heard about the photos, they have not seen them, they didn’t ask to see them, and what they said about the pics is just a reflection of what mommy and daddy have said. That in itself is good, but that’s about it, a fleeting conversation and no desire to see the photos.

On a more broad adult scale, I think the Cyrus family, and specifically Miley, knew exactly what it was doing and why. I heard one analyst this morning suggest the result of this Vanity Fair photo spread will be a bonanza for Miley, setting her up for the transition from teenage “Disney” star to an adult singing sensation. Her career has been so well managed to this point, I can’t imagine this pictorial not being calculated for the exact attention it is getting.

Should this “promotional” step have waited until Miley was closer to 18 years old? If I were her dad that would have been the case. But, I am just the daddy of Madi and Gracie, mommy and I can only influence them, not their favorite Disney star. We don’t plan on cutting off their Miley viewing or listening privileges, they have already expressed how they feel about the unseen pictorial, and we think that demonstrates good judgment on their part. Like her song says, “No body’s perfect,” enough said.

I wonder why wander? Check out our own backyard.

Every year our family spends considerable time and effort trying to decide where to go on vacation. We likewise end up spending a lot of time, and money, away from home in another state or country. A short trip to the Texas hill country north of Fredericksberg last weekend made me wonder why wander elsewhere?

We took our daughters to a place called Camp Waldemar, which is just outside Hunt, Texas, along the banks of the Guadalupe River. Our oldest daughter will spend one week there this summer, in what we discovered will be utter camp heaven for girls. This past weekend we got to experience the “Waldemar effect” during “family camp,” so we could understand first hand what it means to be unplugged and totally focused on enjoying Texas nature.

Could this be Texas?

The rolling hills, covered in cedar, oaks and thousands of other tees and plants weaved a carpet of colors, shapes and textures sliced by a ribbon of the most clean looking river water I have ever seen outside of a Colorado mountain stream.

No crickets yet, just the constant cooing of doves, the tell-tale signs of deer and other wildlife everywhere to constantly remind that we aren’t anywhere near a city, traffic or hub-bub of humanity. Yes this is Texas, as it likely was long ago, or close to it.

A short stroll from the main grounds of the camp you can find Comanche cooking mounds along the banks of the Guadalupe, where Indians once sat for hours on end chipping and working prized Texas caramel colored flint into arrowheads and other tools of survival.

As if I wasn’t consumed enough by the bounty of things to see and hear in the countryside, I found another feast for the eyes in the architecture of the buildings at Waldemar. Many of the buildings in the camp date back to the 1920’s, fashioned from cedar, oak and the natural rock found nearby and display incredible imagination and craftsmanship.

What an unexpected joy to find in the middle of no where. But wait, this is not “no where,” this is the Texas hill country, and it is somewhere I hope every one of you get a chance to experience. You will not be sorry you passed up that trip to New Mexico, Utah or Mexico to hit the Texas hill country, especially around Hunt. You will be sorry if you miss it.    Here is the Camp Waldemar website: http://www.waldemar.com.

Summer camp, already?

Yep!   I will not be on the news today, my wife and I are taking our 2 little girls on a 5 hour drive to the hill country northwest of Austin to a place called Camp Waldemar.    This is the family weekend when we get a taste of what our 8 year old will experience by herself just a month from now.

I am so glad we have such a place in Texas for girls.   Waldemar is a lot like a finishing school with a healthy smattering of river swimming, horse back riding, tennis and sports of all kinds.     The girls get to do all the things other summer camps do, but laced in with training to handle fine dinning, networking with other girls and giving them a sense of empowerment to level the playing field with aggressive guys, if they choose to enter the business world some day.

The alumni list from Waldemar contains an impressive gathering of women who have made their mark in the world.   I hope my little girls benefit in a similar way.     I’ll let you know how things work out and offer up some pictures when I get back.   Have a great weekend.

David’s story of Jennifer.

I just got off the set doing the 10pm news, and I am still moved by the story about David Finfrock’s daughter Jennifer.    As I hope you learned tonight, she is in the battle of her life against breast cancer.   David, with the help of my partner Jane McGarry, told the touching story of how breast cancer struck with no notice, no family history and without regard to her young age.

David touched a nerve with me, saying a diagnosis like that hits the family like a ton of bricks.   He is so right.    My family, on my wife’s side, unfortunately does have a history of breast cancer.   Just 2 years ago we lost my wife’s beloved aunt Vickie to this insidious disease.   She was such a joy, a gifted reading teacher and diagnostician in Oklahoma City, beloved by so many children.   She fought her cancer so bravely to the end, and died with so much grace.   The way she lived with her cancer was an inspiration to all of us, and especially my two little girls who loved her so much.

I am so proud of David for sharing his family story with us, grateful to Jennifer for letting her dad and Jane talk so deeply about her battle.    It is such a story of love, and hope and tenacity that cannot fail to inspire anyone who gets a chance to watch it.    If you missed the story, click here for a link to see David’s story of Jennifer.  (Click here to see story from Thursday 10pm).

They’re Back! Dallas Fire Fighters fill the boot.

Dozens upon dozens of drivers stopped at the corner of Mockingbird and Greenville today, putting money in the boots of Dallas Fire Fighters and telling me how glad they are Dallas Fire Fighters are back on the streets helping the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

5 years ago, Dallas Mayor Laura Miller put an end to the Fire Fighters street corner campaign for Jerry’s Kids, in the name of getting vagrant beggars off the streets. We all know how well that worked. What Mayor Miller’s ban did was starve almost half a million dollars a year from vital MDA clinics and research projects here in north Texas. Money that was going to such places as Scottish Rite Hospital and Children’s Medical Center Dallas.

There is a new mayor in town now, and Tom Leppert let the Fire Fighters out of the house to do their thing for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Crews from 57 Fire Stations hit the streets today, every one of them excited to be there. I ran with them at Mockingbird and Greenville. (Click here to see the video and hear 30 year Fire veteran Al Jeagers) Dallas Fire Fighters will be out there filling their boots at street corners through Saturday.

The money the Fire Fighters collect from you makes a real difference for those north Texans living with Muscular Dystrophy, and it helps fund important and ground breaking research being done in our hospitals and clinics. Thanks for your generosity, thanks for supporting the Fire Fighters on the street corners in Dallas, most of all thank you for helping Jerry’s Kids.

 

Why we don’t mow the NBC-5 front yard.

A lot of people who come visit at the NBC-5 Studios on Broadcast Hill in East Fort Worth ask; “why don’t you guys mow your front yard?” That is a reasonable question, given that the grass, weeds and things sprouting and blooming are in places 3 or 4 feet tall.

There is a reasonable answer; we can’t. In fact, we are prohibited by law from cutting this grass, because it is protected “Prairie Grass,” and dotted with protected wild flowers. Not only does NBC-5 have a Texas Historical Marker in our front yard, our front yard itself is historic.

This preserved Prairie Grass blankets a gently undulating hill that is covered with the same puffs of wild Milk Thistle seed pods that dotted the countryside when Fort Worth was not a town at all but a wide spot on the west fork of the Trinity River. When you look closely at these over sized dandelion like puffs, you can appreciate the beauty that deserves to be preserved, until a warm breeze shakes the seeds loose to find a new home.

Add to this thickly woven carpet are buttercups, flower aficionados cal them genus Ranuculous, delicate little flowers that soak up the yellow of the sun. They are joined by splotches of purple blossoms and purple stalk like flowers, both of which I am yet to identify. All woven together, this painting by mother nature is quite a canvass. While some of these grasses and flowers tend to cause David and me a bit of sinus misery, the feast for the eyes is worth the trouble.

Dodged the bullet, did you?

Wicked hail man.    As our storm covereage stretched into its 3rd hour last night, Jane and I sat there watching that purple-pink stripe of nasty looking hail move right inside loop 820 and draw cross hairs on the NBC-5 parking lot.    David kept say, “that purple core on the radar means hail up to grapefruit size.”  Grapefruit sized!   Yikes!

In 1995, I faced a similar situation at NBC-5, the infamous May Fest hail storm didn’t stop at downtown Fort Worth.   That storm marched right across east Fort Worth and slammed into NBC-5 just as I drove into the parking lot.   Hail stones the size of soft balls crashed through every window of my car, one stone of ice punched through my back window and into my trunk, another smashed through my windshield and into my dashboard!    Not one panel on my car was left untouched.    Every car in the lot suffered the same fate.    My damage was so bad, the insurance company totaled my one year old car.

Well, that was the fear racing through my heart, and Jane’s too, as we sat there watching the radars and that purple-pink stripe rush right toward us.    But then, almost miraculously, the hail shrank, down to tiny pea sized pellets, and did nothing but make a little noise as the storm cell passed over.   We dodged the bullet.

I know we were lucky, seeing all the pictures you sent us on isee@nbc5i.com.   Many people west of Fort Worth got pummeled, their cars are dented, homes and businesses got roofs damaged and a lot of trees lost limbs again.   My heart goes out to you.    But, as David says, it could have been worse.    Yea, I remember 1995.