Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• There's a fire going on at an old house near the courthouse this morning and, although the picture on the Messenger's website doesn't look that bad, Decatur Fire Department has called for all sorts of help from neighboring fire departments. And, based upon scanner traffic, they are extremely concerned with firefighter safety (which might be due to the recent news of firefighter deaths.)
• Drownings over the holidays: (1) A 21 year old at Lake Grapevine, (2) a 27 year old at Possum Kingdom lake (which caused the fireworks display to be cancelled), and (3) a 7 year old at Joe Pool Lake.  And a 20 year old woman was left in the water for hours in the dark before found. 
• Told ya: Dwight Howard decides not to sign with the Dallas Mavericks.  And one rumored reason that free agents don't want to come to Dallas is that ol' South racism still exists here. So who did the Mavericks send to visit with Howard in LA to try to bring him Dallas? Six white guys: "Cuban, Mark Cuban, Dirk Nowitzki, president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson, head coach Rick Carlisle, athletic trainer Casey Smith and director of analytics Roland Beech."
• There's a political rally in Austin today by a pro-life group. Among the speakers is Rev. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas. Is that guy running for office somewhere? 
• Watching the Wimbledon finals -- men's or women's -- on the 4th of July weekend in the morning is always fantastic. 
• How more people didn't die in the 777 crash in San Francisco is amazing. That plane got so close to cart-wheeling on the runway and, had it, all of them would probably be dead. 
• I ended up laying "four square" with the Kids In The House over the weekend. Unfortunately, the four squares were set up right by a curb going into a parking lot. As I should have expected, I ended up falling into the parking lot.
• As I'm on my back, with two faces staring down at me, my first thought at my age was "did I break anything?" Fortunately, I just ended up with a scraped hand since I broke my fall better than Emmitt Smith ever did. 
• So those in charge of Wise County's Vampire No Refusal Weekend, what are the stats? 
• Rick Perry makes a "big announcement" today at 1:00 a.m. I bet he's nutty enough to make another presidential run. 
• For some reason I watched a portion of the Arkansas/Texas 1969 classic game on the Longhorn Network this weekend. The crowning moment for the Longhorns was a shocking pass on fourth and short with about four minutes remaining. I looked up the stats on the game and learned Texas threw only 10 passes and had two of those intercepted. Oh, how the game has changed. 
• No arrests in the murder of that little Saginaw girl? 
• From the Update:  "The Decatur City Council will discuss a $261,500 incentive package for 'Project Walter' . . . . " What the heck is that? 

Little Pink Houses For You And Me

Above The Fold

Houston Rockets Dancers Taking You Into The Weekend

Like They Need Help: Texas Judge Assists Prosecution

Link.

No Justice. No Peace.

I'm coming to help you, Marilyn!

Entertaining Maid Of Honor Toast

Not bad, but the chances of this chick being annoying in real life are off the chart.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Police called the murder of the six year old girl in Saginaw an "isolated incident." Uh, once you make an arrest and know exactly what happened you can get back to me on that. Until then, everyone has a reason to freak out. 
• Double motorcycle death in Venus in Johnson County. (No link yet). 
• There's a 21 year old missing in Lake Grapevine. He was discovered missing when a party boat carrying 60 people got back to shore with only 59. It's like a fresh water version of Open Water. 
• I had a discussion with the County Attorney the other day about the public's seemingly acceptance of Vampire Weekends. He believes the public supports it and has grown comfortable with the concept. He's probably right, but it may be more public apathy than public acceptance.  
• We were at a fireworks show in the Mid Cities last night but the crowd got captivated by some strange flying object with green and red lights. The kids thought it was an alien UFO, and I tried to calm them down by telling them it wasn't --- but it was the most bizarre thing I've seen in quite some time. It would hover and then streak for five seconds and hover again. 
• For some reason, I'm fascinated by this photo before/after the speech of I'm "the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."
• Bret Michaels got handsy with Fox 4's Fiona yesterday. (Speaking of, here's Fiona re-enacting the Flashdance water scene. Hey, now.)
• If I listened to music I'd probably listen to John Mayer. 
• I saw a "sponsored tweet" by David Dewhurst the other day on his abortion stance. I suppose if you are going to do political advertising, that's as useful as anything else. But if he only had mentioned something about the Chinese.
• But the irony is that Dewhurst is using social media when he acts like (and is) a politician stuck in the 1970's Old Boy's Network.
• A rising star on my most despised list is Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. I never knew he was paralyzed by (an almost unbelievable) event of being hit by a falling tree while jogging. And, get this, the tort reformer sued the property owner and is believed to have received $10 million. 
• The "average asking price" for the TCU/LSU game at Cowboys Stadium is $584 -- the second highest price for all games this season behind Aggie/Alabama ($626). But those numbers have to be skewed because of the prime and ridiculously priced seats.
• When I see footage of the Hot Dog Eating Contest from Coney Island I can understand why the "hate us for our freedom." 
• You should really think twice before watching this, but there's a video of police in California arresting a man for videotaping their conduct (which is absolutely legal) and then shooting his dog who comes to defend him. It literally made me sick to my stomach and furious with rage. 
• If George Zimmerman is convicted it'll be a massive tragedy of justice. I'm not saying he's innocent, I'm saying that no jury can believe he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (And whoever is sitting second chair in his defense is really good. He's dry but good.)
• Grand finale inadvertently on the ground injures 28. (Video.)

Boomtown

This particular firework explosion at the field of the Fort Worth Cats apparently scared a lot of people -- especially those at the new Drive In theater.

Here's one more traditional:

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Is the Update updating? No. Is Random Thoughts random thoughting? Yes. Once again proving I'm the hardest working man in show business.
• When I was growing up on the mean streets of Bridgeport, the neighborhood kids would divide into teams and go out onto the road and line up about 60 feet from each other. From there, we'd set up a ton of bottle rockets pointed at each other and light them with a "punk". It was nuclear war. It was fantastic.
• Every now and then a kid would get hit in the chest by one of the bottle rockets. Were we worried about him? Heck no. That was a moment of high comedy.
• You remember "cherry bombs"? My neighbor Chris displayed its power one time when his parents were getting some carpet replaced in their house. How thick is the hardened cardboard that serves as the tube that new carpet is wrapped around? A half inch around the circumference? More? Whatever it was, he put a cherry bomb in the end of a discarded one of them and it blew the end of it into a shreddy mess. 
• The Cherry Bomb was outlawed shortly thereafter.
• In high school, one of my buddies made a make shift bottle rocket launcher by taking an old golf club and sawing the the club end off of it. He would light a bottle rocket, insert it in the golf shaft, hold out his newly made launcher -- arm extended -- parallel to his chest, and let it rip. It was awesome.
• We might have tried out the golf club launcher on a house of a man who would later become the mayor of Bridgeport. He was none too pleased and called the cops. As my buddy and I hastily retreated to a nearby field and laid in a culvert, my buddy - as spotlights came and went overhead - gave me the greatest piece of criminal law advice I've ever heard: "Shut up and don't move."
• Changing gears . . . 
• I hate ESPN's Sportscenter, but they've been playing a montage of soldiers coming home to the surprise their parents, wife, and kids and . . . it's fantastic. It's overlaid with Daughtry's "I'm Coming Home."
• The Ticket's Jake Kemp had a segment this week of his upcoming 12 day trip to The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. I'm so jealous. I once heard someone say that disposable income should be spent on travel and not things. I'm so conflicted by that. You want to spend a week in Cancun or, these days, buy three monster flat screen TVs for the house? I guess the answer depends on your age, how much you've traveled,  and whether you've ever had a monster flat screen TV.
• Funny bit this week: Mrs. LL tried to buy a membership online to the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art and ended up buying one for the MoMA in New York. (I would laugh at her, but a Google search, and the MoMA's nondescript website, would have caused me to do the same thing.)
• She managed to get a refund, which will occur within the next 30 days, but, for awhile, I was a member of The MoMA.
• Still remember the person who told me that my posts are "over comma'd".
• Regardless of your position on the issue, here's a great Dallas Morning News piece on the stats about abortion in Texas.
• I'm not sure I've ever heard as many negative reviews as I have about The Lone Ranger. 
• Sports: (1) The Texas Rangers signed Manny Ramirez yesterday to a minor league contract. He's 41 years old. (2) Chris Davis hit another home run, and (3) Dwight Howard talk gives me Tired Head, and he ain't that great. 
• Someone asked yesterday about whatever happened to the PI Dallas lawyer who advertised that he would "bring you flowers." Oh, my. He died earlier this year after falling 1,500 feet while hiking in New Hampshire.
• Also from that obit: "He ran half marathons on the Great Wall of China, up Pikes Peak, and in Luxor, Egypt. He climbed mountains in places such as Nepal, Ecuador, and Tanzania." Once again, I jealous. 
• I tried switching to boxers from boxer briefs about six months ago but just couldn't do it. (I'm only mentioning this because the BagOfNothing guy wrote that he tried the same thing. Weird.)
• What's going on with Steve Eager at Fox 4? They are making him read social media comments on their newscast and he's also posting off-the-cuff opinionated Tweets? He seems like a good guy being bossed around in an unstable media market.
• If you aren't a documentary fan, watch The Wild and Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia and get back to me.
• And the new documentary of How To Make Money Selling Drugs -- a film attacking the War on Drugs -- looks promising.
• Sports Talk Radio: I've already listened to some of The Ticket's all day Rotten Radio extravaganza this morning and it's fantastic. 
• Egypt's Al-Tahrir newspaper takes a shot at the President in English:
  

From The Email Bag: "Brian Loncar loves Giant Burger"

That man is an advertising fool.

(Thanks, Shawn.)

I Told You That Case Seemed Weird

Uncle of little girl found dead in Saginaw Mon. says his brother involved in 'reverse polygamy' marriage with girl's mother and another man.
— LARI BARAGER (@laribaragerfox4) July 3, 2013

Edit: Identified by ME

Why Didn't That Liberal Mainstream Media Star-Telegram Cover This Story?

She's from Keller Fossil Ridge. And for some reason I think a lot of you will enjoy the web site which this story came from.

Skype Comes To The George Zimmerman Trial

It was Zimmerman's online college instructor (or something like that) from Colorado.

And then the wheels fell off when he started receiving calls which created graphics and an irritating sound during his testimony. I don't use Skype, but apparently those watching were able to figure out how to call him.

Edit: Watch it on youtube here.

Aggie (Hullabaloo Caneck Caneck) Wedding

Just click around to get a feel for the great event. (The "pastor" in the referee outfit was a nice touch, no?)

And nothing says love like Journey:

Fox – Could this be every Aggie’s dream? Not sure about that, but at least no one will dare question Harvey and Heather Willis’ loyalty to their alma mater after making their wedding entirely Aggie football themed. From the referee wedding officiant, to the 12th man jersey-wearing groom and groomsmen huddling together before saying “I do,” this wedding had it all– if you’re an Aggie.

The journey apparently started on the Texas A&M campus, where Harvey proposed to Heather under the famous “Century Tree” according to the maid of honor during her toast. For those of you unfamiliar with this one of many old Aggie legends: The “Century Tree” is a live oak more than 100 years old, and if two lovers pass beneath the tree’s branches, they are destined to be wed, and if a couple become engaged under the tree, the marriage is said to last forever.

The wedding party was led down the aisle by a mini Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band drum major to the tune of “Noble Men of Kyle Field” followed by the bridesmaids complete with, you guessed it, Texas A&M dresses. The referee wedding officiant even tossed a flag for “misconduct” before starting the ceremony due to one of the guest wearing an orange shirt.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The Obamacare requirement that all employers with 50 or more employees provide them insurance in 2014 has been delayed by the Administration to 2015.  This is pretty surprising, but I'm not buying the right wing conspiracy theory that the delay was to get past the 2014 mid-term elections before it is implemented. How does that make sense? Thousands and thousands of employees would suddenly have had health insurance and that would have hurt the Democrats? 
• But how can the Obama Administration just stop the implementation of a law? That's a right wing criticism that I agree with. 
• Mrs. LL made the Kids In House wash our cars yesterday.  They did a fantastic job. Being a step-parent, I don't impose a lot of rules or chores instead deferring to Mrs. LL to do so with my role being to support her in front of the kids. But, man, I would run afoul of child labor laws if I were a biological parent. 
• The abortion hearing seemed pretty wild in Austin last night (the issue was being "debated" in a House committee hearing.) Love this picture of two troopers looking down on pro-choice/pro-life folks in the Rotunda. And confused that this picture is being held by a man. 
• Mrs. LL is taking the prosecution's side in the George Zimmerman case! She can't get past that he "provoked the difficulty." 
• Facebook pic of the ammo shelves in Decatur Walmart. 
• Porsche slams into DPS Trooper car in Dallas.
• This Saginaw-child-found-under-a-tarp case is weird. Everyone knows who the girl is (there was a vigil last night) and the media knows that her parents' home was searched yesterday. But no name is being released. Why?
• I'm not sure what her deal is, but this female Texas coach claims that this "prayful wish" post got her suspended from Facebook. 
• The Paradise/Bridgeport model is now in a Coed Magazine Miss July 2013 contest. 
• Radio talk show host Mike Gallagher said in righteous indignation this morning, "Have you ever been to a restaurant which had a mandatory-tip-on-your-bill policy?!" Uh, who hasn't?  Also about three months ago he had an African-American female caller who told him that the black man "likes the big booty".  His reply, "Is that true? I've never heard that."  That man sure knows America.
• Greatest July weather week ever? 
• Dallas DA Craig Watson is being accused of an ethics violation for appearing on The Fan and saying that he expected Cowboy Josh Brent to be convicted. That didn't bug me all that much (although it's improper), but what really got my attention is that he said the judge would order a psychological evaluation before sentence was imposed.  That's not true at all if Brent elects the jury to assess punishment if convicted -- something he would surely do. 

Above The Fold

More Austin Weirdness In The Legislature

State Troopers reviving woman who fainted while waiting in large lines for #AbortionBill debate at Capitol. pic.twitter.com/Kuf6Rymdb6
— David Schechter (@DavidSchechter) July 2, 2013