The New National Holiday

Last night 120 MILLION people watched the Super Bowl on television... the most watched program EVER.

Is it just me, or is the Super Bowl becoming more and more of an event than it used to be?? There are more parties for the Super Bowl than there are for New Year's Eve. Electronics stores sell more TV's for this event than any other. I mean these days, you don't feel like a real American unless you watch the Super Bowl. And even if you don't care who wins or loses, it's still fun to watch the commercials and talk about it the next day. I noticed last night, that even those who were with others to watch the game, still stayed on Facebook to interject their comments like "You can do it!" and "Touchdown!" and "Packers baby!" and "Go Steelers!"

Listening to them critique the half-time show was entertaining itself. Here are some of my FB friends comments (and these are all in their 20's): "THE HALF TIME SHOW SUCKS! Fire the sound guy and teach fergie how to sing!!" and "They should fire the guy that suggested the Black Eyed Peas for halftime" and "Well not all electronics can make everything sound great as it was clearly shown with black eyed peas as well as the mix was done by monkeys." I personally thought the Half Time show was a huge production but seemed to be missing something.... It was breath-taking to see the Black Eyed Peas descend from the heights (I could NEVER do that!) and there was some impressive choreography, and lights and tons of extras, but it just lacked soul. And the sound, at least for television, totally messed up for all the viewers at home.

I was texted by everyone after Christina Aguilera botched the Star Spangled Banner... That's all anyone is talking about today. It was priceless to see the cameras showing the faces of the players and coaches, as they seemed to notice she was clearly screwing up. Lea Michelle of Glee knocked it out of the park, and she WAS a hard act to follow, but Christina has the talent to do it, if only she had... I thought the Fox Network did an AWESOME job with the hosts, cameras, production on the game itself and also pre-game. The NFL, on the other hand, needs to fire a lot of people who had responsibilities in this, the biggest area, was the seat snafu. I feel so sorry for all of those people that came all the way to Dallas, and then didn't have seats inside. Even though they get three-fold back, it doesn't matter. It was a one-time shot.

And since I'm in the business, I love to watch the commercials! They were great fun; my favorite was the Bridgestone Tire commercial (see above) where the guy who thought an email had been accidentally sent, was trying to destroy computers, phones and all things electronic, only to find it really hadn't been sent.

Super Bowl 45 was a great investment of my time viewing this three ring circus.

All in all, it was SUPER!!

Wonderful TEXAS Super Bowl commercial

Jack Ingram's Exclusive HEB Commercial - HEB (click on this sentence)

Check out this Super Bowl commercial that captures the essence of Texas. This truly is our way of life.

(Warning! It will make you want to live here!)

Happy Birthday Mr. President

Tomorrow would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday, so I wanted to send him a letter posthumously....

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for your service to our country. It's not easy to be the most powerful man in the world, but you pulled it off with dignity, humility, character and humor. Your confidence was contagious. And your deep faith in what you believed was refreshing. You didn't wake up each day and read the polls to see how you would react to something. No, you followed your principles and did the right thing. I can remember the day you came into office, and the previous stressful year for Americans watching the Iranian hostage situation came to an end the moment they knew you were in charge. You were the real deal for 'hope and change.' You are still the benchmark for conservatives everywhere. The day you stood at the Berlin wall and said, "Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall," gave me goose bumps; it still does... You stood behind your speeches; they weren't just words, you meant them. I wish you could still be with us, and if not, someone with your same beliefs. If you could see America and the world today, you might be surprised. While you were here, you were the George Bailey from "It's a Wonderful Life." The world delayed being what it is today because of you. This country, and world, need another person just like you, and we are looking, but you're impossible to replace. You left an indelible mark on me and this nation. For that, we are eternally grateful.

Happy 100th...

"All dressed up and no place to go..."

Poor Dallas... This was supposed to be THE year for them to shine... welcoming people from across the nation to one of Texas' finest cities, for one of the biggest 'parties' of the year - Superbowl. And being from Texas, I can tell you this weather is soooo rare, that it's the worst in 100 years. I talked to my niece in Dallas today who is a school teacher, and she said this is the FOURTH day they've been off from school this week. As a matter of fact, schools were out today in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi and Dallas. This is unheard of!!

All of the best laid plans have been spoiled all week from the nastiest norther in my life, and possibly on record. It truly has been the Perfect Storm... Last weekend and through Monday, we were in the 70's, and it was spring-like. Then Bammo!! This front blew in with more force than I've ever heard, and I'm not exaggerating. It was scary wind, and unlike other fronts, the temperature has never really risen all week, and isn't supposed to break above freezing until tomorrow. Only a day before the Big Day.

And DFW is trying their hardest to accomodate all of these scheduled planes in this wicked weather, but we're just not prepared for this kind of ice for this long. And today, several people were injured, two seriously, from falling ice off of the new Cowboy stadium (and home to this year's Superbowl.)

At my first job out of the University of Texas, at the Dallas Times Herald, a man that sat across from me in national advertising had been outside in his car on the street (our office building was in downtown Dallas) and this HUGE block of ice fell off of the TV tower next door, and landed three feet in front of his compact car. I remember him saying, that just a few more feet and he would've been killed for sure. I said, "Chuck, it wasn't your time yet." (Ironically he died in his sleep a month later...) But it was a nasty ice storm in the seventies, and power lines were so heavy with ice, that it was knocking everyone's power out. But IT only lasted a couple of days. This storm? It's timing with the Superbowl is catastrophic... I cannot imagine the money that has been lost this week...

Maybe bad karma from the stripper all call??!

"Be careful what you wish for..."

As much as I DON'T want to talk about Egypt, I will give my opinion, since it's all anyone on the news can seem to talk about... The Egyptians will fall into the many other country's fates around them, that is, the end result will be worse than what they had before the "transition." They had better 'be careful what they wish for,' because they seem to be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. When I was young, all of those Middle East countries were not in a religious war with the West, but now that the radicals are hijacking the Muslims, they want to take over the world and enforce Sharia law... and there aren't enough people who really care to stop them. We conservatives care and we care a lot. We keep saying to everyone, wake up, we're losing our freedoms, but everyone seems to be sleeping. And here in America, we have a 'civil' war going on between the right and the left, and without unifying, we don't have enough numbers. The president and half of the Congress are liberal, and don't think we have a problem with radical Islam. And Obama and the people he surrounds himself, think of conservatives as more of the enemy than the mad men in the other countries who want to end our way of life. We have a wolf in sheep's clothing at the head of this country, a man who is friends with the likes of Bill Ayres. Just tonight on the Glenn Beck show, he showed a clip of Bill Ayres saying he thinks that this country should be 'cleansed' of the 25 million capitalists, and when pressed about that, he said yes, killed. Beck showed clips of the "Code Pink" protest THIS PAST WEEKEND, that had all of these people on film saying they think we should hang (conservative Supreme Court Justice) Clarence Thomas, and his wife, and string him up and send him back to the fields. Oh but they aren't racist???? One man said he thinks that America should have a revolt (against conservatives) like Egypt, and (I paraphrase) kill the infidel (those that don't believe like him.)

And then there is Mubarak today, saying he would really like to go ahead and leave his post, but knows that if he did, that radicals like the Muslim Brotherhood would take over. Supposedly these protesters want freedom, but under MB it would get much, much worse.

And we learned this the hard way... freedom only works in Judeo-Christian, capitalist countries where there is law based on the Ten Commandments. For years now we have tried to set up democracy in Iraq, but it seems apparent to me that with Muslims in charge, it will never work. The two cannot work in tandem.

For the next US presidential election, we are going to need a VERY strong man, a man of character, that does the right thing to do, NO MATTER WHAT, and let's the chips fall where they may. It cannot be like the liberals, where the end justifies the means. No. We have to do the right thing always. It's like I tell my children; walk the path of life, and every time you come to a fork in the road?

Take the high road.

"You can always find the sun within yourself, if you will only search."

Well, it's Groundhog Day... one I won't soon forget. It never got out of the 20's here in the Texas Hill country, which happens once every 30 years or so. My toilet pipes are frozen so we cannot flush, and they are at work too... hmmmm... and no plumber will even try to start fixing things until it gets above freezing... Oh and it's supposed to snow tomorrow. Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!

AND, today we had rolling power outages for the first time in my life, because the electricity companies in Texas are not prepared for everyone cranking their heat. I guess I expected it for the big cities, but not the small towns around here...

Anyway, today was just weird.. It feels claustrophobic to have the biting cold keep you inside, no one can conduct business very well when the electricity goes out every few hours, the sky is gray, low and confining, and when you turn the radio or television on, all anyone is talking about is Egypt! And yes, I realize, the whole world is globally interdependent, but what can we do about all of this except talk AD NAUSEUM about something that is on the other side of the planet? The entire Middle East is being hoodwinked by the radicals and it seems inevitable that these 'infidel hating' mad men will soon rule by force. And, coupled with the apocalyptic weather worldwide, it does make you cause to pause.

The whole world feels like an earthquake, where there is shaking and nowhere is safe for refuge.

I need the sun to come out...

"How COLD is it??!!"

Well, here in Central Texas it's supposed to get to EIGHT DEGREES tonight. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!! We're just not prepared for that kind of cold here! I'm a Baby Boomer, and it's only gotten that low twice in my entire life!

Here in Texas we always ask "How cold did it get last night?" I'm not really sure why... When my parents used to go hunting in Colorado every fall their entire lives, they would laugh because, in whatever lodge/cabin they were staying in, they would ask this question, and the innkeeper would just say, "cold." They really didn't care because it was ALWAYS cold there in the winter.

Actually my dad was kind of obsessed with the weather, and had this huge weather predictor at his house, the ranch, and at our beach house. It measured precipitation, humidity, wind speed, and pretty much everything. In his retirement, every morning as he looked at the newspaper weather page, he would ask my mother to guess what was the coldest spot in the nation. She got pretty good in guessing over the years, since the towns were always one of three places. We all kind of humored him.

When I was growing up, my father was bigger than life, like John Wayne. And, according to my mother, he was tested as genius IQ, which I believe, because he was never wrong. I mean, seriously, he just was NEVER wrong. I learned never to bet him on things, because he always won. When he had a massive stroke at 46 years old, at first they said he wouldn't make it, but he somehow did. Then they said he would never walk again, but he dragged his paralyzed right side around, and refused a wheel chair. And he learned to talk again, and after about a year, he was STILL smarter than the rest of us on half his brain. Gosh, I wish I could've inherited his brains!

So.... Dad, I wish you were still here, so we could discuss how rare this arctic "Blue Norther" is, and then I could guess where the coldest spot in the nation is. Miss you....