Category Archives: Texana

Same old Rangers

Posted on August 13, 2008 | Comments Off on Same old Rangers

Down 10 runs to none in the first inning, Mr. B.’s Texas Rangers came roaring back last night, looking by the seventh like they were going to finish off Boston 16 to 14. So Mr. B. went off to bed happily. Alas, the Red Sox then came back, winning the game 19-17. This is the problem with being a Rangers fan. Even when they seem to be winning, they lose. Their hitting is tops this year, but their pitching stinks. It’s always half-a-loaf with the Rangers, and by August they turn into bums. Luckily for Mr. B., he also likes the Red Sox–especially Ortiz who hit two three-run dingers in the first.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Texana

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Hello, rain

Posted on August 12, 2008 | Comments Off on Hello, rain

Got a brief shower at the rancho this morning, with the weather service saying there’s a fifty percent chance of more to come. More than two inches fell at Harper, northwest of Fredericksburg in the hills out west. Doubt we’d get that much. The LCRA’s Bob Rose says the cause is a couple of unusual cold fronts sliding south into Texas after a shift in the Jet Stream moved the dome of high pressure that’s made recent weeks so hot south to where’s now over northern Mexico.

Bob says this is on track to be the hottest summer on record, 87.2 degrees average temp vs. the previous hottest of 87.1 in 1998. But the city records he’s talking about only go back to the 1840s, so that’s nothing to get very excited about, all you global warmists. Rain chances are expected to end later today but a "cooling" trend, at least dropping temps into the nineties, could last a week to ten days. That would be nice.

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Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate

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The Barnett Shale

Posted on August 10, 2008 | Comments Off on The Barnett Shale

tommyleejones.jpg

The Dems may be holding up exploitation of oil shale elsewhere in the U.S., but not in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex where these billboards are common along the interstates–as energy companies seek to extract natural gas to run such as Austin’s electricity-producing turbines. That’s Tommy Lee Jones up there, although it doesn’t look much like him to me.

Mr. B.’s grandma was telling us the other day about how her neighbors are all talking about the money to be made if they allow the shale under their property to be drilled. But, as you might expect, it’s controversial. Some people are telling stories about natural gas pipelines built through yards. Hence the billboard campaign to encourage the sales. All I know for sure is if American resources aren’t exploited, the only choice will be to keep depending on foreign supplies, because the Democrat’s notion of wind and solar replacing oil and gas is a fantasy.

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Posted in Texana

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The lollipop pitch

Posted on August 5, 2008 | Comments Off on The lollipop pitch

It’s fun when you start learning things from an eight-year-old. Mr. B. is so infatuated with baseball that he’s constantly rattling off player and team statistics. So many that sometimes I’m tempted to believe he’s making them up. So when he described a Ranger reliever in Monday’s 9-5 Ranger win over the Yankees throwing a lollipop pitch, I couldn’t quite believe it. Never heard of it. He said it was like a curve ball. Sure enough. Also this: Hall of Fame reliever Bruce Sutter’s split-fingered fastball "came in high, looking like a lollipop, then dropped straight down."

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Scribbles, Texana

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Rangers, ho-hum

Posted on August 3, 2008 | Comments Off on Rangers, ho-hum

The first disappointment of our attendance at Saturday’s game was when Mr. B. learned that the big-headed Rangers only autograph baseballs for kids on Wednesday nights. Jeez. The second one was when we watched Toronto warm up in the outfield and take batting practice from home plate. Meanwhile, the Rangers never stirred from their dugout until a few of them came out for stretching exercises a few minutes before the game began. Thereafter, it was no surprise to us that they lost, 6-4. Sure was hot. Well over a hundred degrees when the game started. Didn’t seem to deter Toronto, however. Nice park the Rangers have. But, we decided, that as bad as the Astros are, at least their park offers air conditioning.

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Umpire ejects pitcher

Posted on July 31, 2008 | Comments Off on Umpire ejects pitcher

I think it was the first time I saw a pitcher cuss an umpire, as happened in last night’s game between the Rangers and Seattle. Mariner’s reliever Arthur Rhodes is under some pressure, apparently, not knowing whether he’s going to be traded to the Marlins. But when he was pulled in the bottom of the eighth, after loading the bases with walks, and giving up a pop fly to bring one of them in, he left the field saying bad things to the homeplate umpire, who ordered Rhodes ejected, as well. The Rangers won 4-3.

Rhodes, it seems, has long been controversial, according to Wikipedia: "In 2001 [he] was pitching against the Cleveland Indians when Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel said that Rhodes’s glowing diamond earrings were distracting him from seeing the ball. This incited an argument…that led to Rhodes’s ejection…Since then, players have not been allowed to wear distracting jewelry on the field."

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Posted in Texana

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Texas regulates breast implant size

Posted on July 28, 2008 | Comments Off on Texas regulates breast implant size

"The limit in Texas is 1,000 cubic centimeters of silicone in each breast."

Who knew? We do, now. That’s a triple F, by the way.

Via Dustbury.

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Posted in Texana

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