Friday Night TMS Recap

Did you see me on Trackside? I needed a better sign (and I'll have one in April!). But if you look real hard at the lower left corner I sent a shoutout to a follower.
The truck race was rather disappointing and the wind was terrible. The action afterwards more than made up for that.

I'll have video when I get back to my computer and can figure out how to post it. There was a portable stripper pole from Chico and I think a couple girls may have lost their amature status.

Good times!

Tranquility Base Here...

The South 40 has landed!

OK, I've figured out how to post using Opera on my MotoQ. Let me just take a moment to say Windows Mobile sucks. IE mobile sucks even worse.

I was in a semi-MAJOR panic attack before I left for work. I could'nt find my race tickets! I finally located them in the bottom of my scanner bag.

Thank you Baby Jesus!

But in my panic and ensuing late for workness, I left a few things behind like clothes and shoes. Looks like I'll have to bum a ride with Brother In Law and grab my duffle bag or spendthe weekend in my work clothes.

Launch Sequence Initiated

I'm hitting the road right after work tonight and heading to Texas Motor Speedway. The posting around here may be slower than usual for a few days, but I will be updating from the track. Unfortunately, I will be limited to using my PDA. Maybe I can figure out how to post some pics from the track.

If you watch any of SPEED Channel's coverage keep an eye out for me. I'll be hanging around their stage for Trackside and a few other shows.

I'm thinking about making a sign to hold up during the broadcasts. Any suggestions?

Off topic: Last night's episode of Friday Night Lights featured a very funny cameo by Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach. It was shot back in September at an Austin area gas station.

edit: Tip of the Hat to Bryann for the clip. I got it several days ago but wasn't able to edit until now. Thanks!

There's Always Time For An E-Mail

From Bertha in Bugscuffle:

Dear South 40,

What are your views on the current administration and their effectiveness?

Dear Bertha,

Thanks for writing. My views are somewhat jaded since I thought we would be withdrawing troops and closing Gitmo. Surge?

Paul in Poolville writes:

Dear South 40,

My wife has become distant, my dog growls when I get home and my kids are calling my best friend "Uncle Frank". Should I change hair conditioner?

Dear Paul,

Perhaps you need a salon treatment. Take your wife's next shopping trip stash and book a carefree weekend in Cozumel. Trust me, it will cure any frizzies you may be dealing with.

Dear South 40,

My husband says we need new turf for our front yard or Cottondale will slaughter our young.

Signed Brittany in Balzora

Dear Brittany,

You have nothing to worry about front yard turf-wise. What you need is an indoor practice facility.

Remember, we solve life's little problems free of charge right here at The South 40.

This Is Why I Hate Anonymous Posting.

http://skattershooting.blogspot.com/2009/11/bonds-school-bonds.html

I reply to an anonymous poster in the same minute as 3 other posts. The wrong person takes offense.

How freakin' hard is it to make up a fake identity so people know who is talking to who?

Or is that whom to whom?

Make up a freakin' name already!!!

Come Over, Drink A Beer... We'll Have A Hayride!

Beware those words. Especially if you helped work on their baler the day before.

I do have to admit the hay loader is the greatest invention in the history of ever.

I remember hauling peanut hay during the summer when I was a teenager. Talk about a beating! Those peanut bales weighed 100-150 lbs depending on how much sand they had in them. Of course all that sand would fall in your face and stick to your body just to make the experience all the more memorable. We also worked without a driver to make more money. Point the truck in the right direction, put it in "Granny gear", pull the choke out 1/2 way and get after it!

Fortunately, this was coastal and the bales were only 60-75 lbs. Having to bend down, pick up, walkover and throw it up on top of the stack on the moving trailer, then run ahead of the truck to the next bale and repeat 300 times will wear your ass out in a hurry.

With a hay loader all you have to do is stand on the moving trailer and wait for it to spit the bale out then stack it. It still wears your ass out, just not as fast.

My Nemesis

I have discovered what boats and RV's have in common. They are big holes to throw money into.

What you are looking at is the water heater on board XRV-1. So far it has cost me $190 and still no hot water. I bought a new electric heating conversion kit, but couldn't remove the drain plug (the round thing behind the two round things with a pipe) to install it. Next, I bought a new circuit board (the square thing hidden behind the white square thing with all the wires leading to it) to get the LP system working... Fail.

Now my options are:

1. Take it to an RV repair center where it will cost me at least $200 to get it repaired.
2. Buy a new water heater for $385 + shipping.
3. Douse generously with gasoline and add a match.

I'm leaning towards option #3.

Hello... Is This Thing On?

• I apologize for the lack of reading material lately. I've been slacking hard. To be honest I really haven't been in a writing mood during my life and death struggle with whatever mutation of the Pig Flu that I was exposed to.
• That doesn't mean I haven't been hard at work. I have been running around like the Little Dutch Boy and I'm running out of fingers.
• Race week is finally here! The part I need to get the water heater working on XRV-1 finally came in the mail. I plan on getting that installed and working today. I've packed all the camping gear, double double checked all the appliances and loaded everything except the beer, meat and ice.
• The weather forecast looks good for the next 7 days. Highs in the 70's, lows in the 50's. Perfect camping weather.
• Apparently there was a bad wreck over the weekend somewhere in Alabama.

Pirate Radio

HAAARRRR!!!

The trailers and early reviews look promising.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is always a huge plus.

Friday Night Lights

Just a quick hit...

The critically acclaimed TV series Friday Night Lights returns tonight. Brand new episodes from it's 4th season can be seen on DirecTv's 101 Network. Or you can wait until it returns to NBC in the summer of 2010.

edit: If you've never watched an episode of FNL, you would be hooked from watching this one. The series has really reinvented it's self. Peter Berg directs the season premier that breathes new life into Friday Night Lights and defines the new direction of the storyline.

Clear minds, full hearts... can't lose.

Newlyweds

Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss married Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen on Sunday in New York.

H1N1 And The South 40

Sunday night one of my crew was injured and I had to take her to Bridgeport Hospital Doctor's Hospital North Texas Community Hospital's ER.

I came away impressed with both the staff and facilities. It took less than 2 hours start to finish.

Say what you will in support of Decatur's Hospital, we need more than one facility in The WC and Bridgeport is fulfilling that need.

I came away with something else. A certain brush with death and the H1N1 virus.

They had a special seating area for Swine Flu symptom patients about 15 feet away from where I was seated. The problem was they had to walk past me from the entrance and stand at the admission window 5 feet away, then walk directly past me again on their way to the "special flu seats". If you were in the room, you were in the kill zone.

After hearing the 2nd patient check in saying "I think I gots me the pig flu", I decided there was a better chance surviving in the severe thunderstorm that was raging outside and staged a tactical retreat.

All turned out well for the employee. Nothing broken, but she did have a severe contusion.

I on the otherhand have gone into full Felix Unger mode. I'm debating about taking a bath in Clorox.

A Musical Interlude

Monday for you, Saturday for me!

In Case You Didn't Notice

There is a new poll up.



I'm leaning towards "C", but I don't want to all ACORN on you and sway the results...



I also have $5 on Halloween baby. If Monica's middle name is Rosemary, I'd be concerned.

[edit: Looks like I'm out $5!]

"It’s a mission. One down, next one up."

My beloved Horned Frog are for real! I've been a Frog fan since I was a boy and stepped onto the field at Amon G. Carter. I was instantly hooked. Twice a National Champion (waaaaay back when FDR was in his first term) and eventually banished to oblivion when the Southwest Conference was imploded, the TCU Horned Frogs are back, Baby! They had a good run a few years ago with Ladanian Tomlinson in the backfield, but coach Gary Patterson has put together a true team and has these Frogs focused on higher ground.

7 and OH! They are 58 and 1 when they allow 17 points or less. That's just insane! The Frog defense is making that stat work in their favor. Only once this season have the Frog's 'Fense given up more than 17 and that was against Texas State who they manhandled 56 - 21.

After hammering #16 BYU 38 - 7 in front of a sold out Homecoming crowd of 64,601 at LaVell Edwards Stadium and rubbing salt in the wound by breaking a 13 game home conference record winning streak for The Cougars, TCU is now #8 in the BCS rankings. The BCS deck is definitely stacked against them because of their conference and strength of schedule. But unless the wheels totally come flying off, there is a decent chance The Frogs will be playing on New Years Day with Rose colored glasses. That my friends would be a very Happy New Year!

They have 5 games remaining against UNLV, San Diego State, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. They should have no trouble going undefeated... on paper. Real world is a different story, but it does look promising. The team is healthy and Gary Patterson has them motivated.

In the words of Horned Frogs WR Jeremy Kerley, "It's a Mission. One down, next one up."

You gotta believe.

Blah, Blah, Blah... Vol XIV

• If you knew how close I've come to cashing out, moving to Vegas and becoming a professional poker player you would question my sanity.
• You would join a long list of people that have questioned my sanity.
• A FOX News exclusive!
• Random pic of the day.
• Own your own hunk of "God's Country" for under $500!!!
• NASCAR's Michael Waltrip has a DWI near miss.
• I predict the Sarah Palin interview will be Oprah's highest rated episode in the history of evar!
• I also predict Sarah Palin will crawl away licking her wounds. Oprah is not Katie Couric.
• Become an ordained Dudeist Priest!
• Why there are no Unicorns.

It's Begining To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Lowe's can fill the lobby with trees and WalMart can pack the isles with toys. But just like a budding mesquite tree signals the true end of winter, the arrival of Borden's Egg Nog is the indicator that the holiday season has officially begun.

"I got the impression it was kind of a big deal."

From The San Antonio Express-News :

Jarrette Schule was cutting down trees on his rural property Tuesday in Comal County when he noticed a green metallic tube on the muddy ground.

“I had never seen it before,” said Schule, a 34-year-old Web developer. “I looked at it, and it kind of looked like a missile launcher.”

Schule took a closer look. It was a long, forest-green metal tube. A decal on it read: “Guided Missile and Launcher, Surface Attack.”

The launcher was deep in the wooded property far from the road, in an area he was familiar with.

“I don’t know if it fell out of something or if somebody just dumped it,” Schule said.

Schule’s property in Comal County is vacant, and he didn’t want to leave a missile launcher unattended. So he loaded it in his truck and took it to his house in the North Side neighborhood of the Ridge at Lookout Canyon.

But Schule spent Tuesday afternoon calling the FBI, Homeland Security, the Sheriff’s Department — every agency he could think of. He was stuck in a bureaucratic limbo.

“Everyone was handing it off to everybody else,” Schule said.

He was surprised at the amount of work it took to get the military to pick up its lost missile launcher.

Schule initially was nervous when he found the weapon. But as the hours passed, he did what most guys would do — marvel at the mind-blowing awesomeness of finding a missile launcher. He posted photos on Facebook and called his buddies, saying: “Guess what I found?”

Schule called the military police at Fort Sam. But their jurisdiction doesn’t extend off the post. Schule’s information was passed along to an Army criminal investigator, who visited Schule on Wednesday morning — about 19 hours after he started making phone calls.

The special agent walked into the house and saw the launcher sitting on the dining room table.

“She said this is the first time she ever encountered anything like this,” Schule said. “I got the impression it was kind of a big deal. Doesn’t happen every day, I guess.”

The decal on the launcher has a 13-digit “National Stock Number,” which is used to identify military equipment. The stock number is a match for launchers that fire Dragon surface-to-surface missiles, according to a database maintained by the U.S. Defense Logistics Information Service.

Military officials were unable to say Wednesday who last had the launcher and when it was lost. The launcher has a serial number that can be used to track the chain of custody. That will be part of the military’s investigation, said Phil Reidinger, spokesman for Fort Sam.

At Schule’s house, he and the Army investigator had to wait for about three more hours for an ordnance disposal team from Lackland AFB to confiscate the weapon.

The team arrived at about 1 p.m. Wednesday and retrieved the device, ending a crazy experience for Schule.

“I thought just driving down the road, someone would just know that I had a missile launcher in my truck,” Schule said, laughing. “You think that way about the government.

But really, you have to make an effort for them to come get their missile launcher.”

Whatta do everybody!

I'm a motherfucking crocodile, Baby!

Survivorman

Daniel McGregor

From The Anchorage Daily News

As wildlife advocates mourned the plane-crash death of Gordon Haber, the biologist who spent 40 years documenting the lives and societies of Denali's wolves, his pilot was recovering Friday in a burn center in Seattle after hiking 20 miles back to civilization.

Details of the crash and rescue operation in the heart of Denali National Park emerged Friday, two days after the Cessna 185 used by Haber crashed in spruce trees near the East Fork of the Toklat River, the locale of one of the wolf packs Haber was studying.

The pilot, Daniel McGregor, 35, told a park ranger that he was able to free himself from the wreckage, according to Clint Johnson, senior investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

But as McGregor struggled to free Haber, the plane caught fire and he had to abandon his efforts, Johnson said.

Johnson said he didn't know if Haber was conscious -- or even alive -- at the time, but hoped to get that information from McGregor when he recovers sufficiently to be interviewed, probably in the next week or two, he said.

Haber had a permit to study Denali wolves. In the air over the park Wednesday afternoon, he picked up a signal from a wolf's radio collar in the East Fork Valley, Johnson said, and McGregor began flying an orbiting pattern as they spotted the pack. It was gusty.

Nick Rodrick, a camper who drove McGregor out of the park, said McGregor told him that heavy winds coming down the valley "caught the plane wrong."

"He was pulling up trying to control the plane and he just lost it," Rodrick said.

McGregor told rangers he hit the trees at about 90 mph.

No one received an emergency locator signal from the plane, Johnson said. It was reported missing late Wednesday and a search was launched Thursday.

After spending Wednesday night at the scene, McGregor began walking south, up the valley toward the park road. The East Fork Valley is wide, with braided river channels, gravel and bluffs. Snow that had fallen earlier had melted.

A Civil Air Patrol plane spotted the wreckage first, around 3 p.m. Thursday. A trooper landed a fixed-wing plane nearby and hiked up to the smoldering wreckage. But it was getting dark and he had to leave. He was replaced by two rangers who planned to camp at the scene.

McGregor was walking while the search was under way, walking when the plane was found, walking when the trooper landed. It was seven miles to the road, and another eight to the unoccupied ranger cabin near the Igloo Creek campground.

The only two campers in the park were at that campground: Rodrick, 19, of Penacook, N.H., and buddy Jesse Hoagland, 20, of Loudon, N.H. The two aspiring filmmakers left home Sept. 25 on an adventure trip in a 1995 Chevy van, planning to produce a documentary of their travels.

Around 7 p.m., as dark was falling at the campground, Rodrick and Hoagland heard something in the distance.

"He thought it was a person, I thought it sounded like wolves," Rodrick said in a telephone interview Friday from Denali Park. "I was like, 'Don't worry about it.' And then we heard it again."

This time, it was clear. "Helloooo, hellloooo."

They walked to the entrance of the campground and spotted McGregor, wet and disheveled and obviously hurt, but coherent.

"He came staggering up to us," Rodrick said. "We saw him -- his fleece was all burned. It kind of freaked us out at first."

They got McGregor back to their campsite. They had no idea there had been a plane crash in the park or that a search had been under way all day.

"He told us he had lost a guy out there," Rodrick said. "He was really in rough shape."

They fed the man crackers, a granola bar and a banana and gave him water, Gatorade and a jacket. Their van was parked about five miles away at Teklanika Campground, the farthest that visitors are permitted to drive into the park this time of year. They set off for the van about 8 p.m.

"He was walking on his own," Rodrick said. "He told us he was starting to see things in the woods. You could tell he had been in the woods, with no food, no water. We kept him talking."

They got to the van but were out of cell phone range. As they headed toward the Parks Highway, they drove right by ranger headquarters near the park entrance. McGregor was finally able to reach someone on his phone, and they met some people at the headquarters of Denali Air, outside the park.

The pilot climbed into a car driven by a friend who was going to take him to a hospital, but they turned back after they called 911 and were told an ambulance was heading in their direction.

Moore, who is also a medic, examined McGregor in the car when it got back to Denali Air, then got him into an ambulance to Healy, the next town north of the park. There, he was met by an air ambulance that flew him to a burn center in Seattle, where he was reported in satisfactory condition.