Bad Boys, What-cha Gonna Do

A reader pointed out this video of a Chatham, NY cop getting tough with a kid for skateboarding in the village. Many say the cop appears to have a complex. I say if you're under 18 and a police officer tells you to do something, you do it and call him "sir".

THE VIDEO CONTAINS LANGUAGE NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG VIEWERS

Sound Off

Give Me Something To Work With

It seems Schenectady residents aren't too happy about their mayor making 96 large. I'm not going to say anything about Brian Stratton or the city of Schenectady, but I will say this... if you want high-caliber people in charge, you need to give them an incentive to take on the role. I'm sure the mayors of bigger communities receive plenty of gifts and free meals; but to me, $96,000 is not an excessive salary for running a mid-size city in tax-bloated Upstate New York.

Tell It Like It Is

Speaking of mayors, it was good to hear Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings pooh-pooh Albany City School Superintendent Eva Joseph’s scheme of transforming Philip Livingston Middle School into a nano-technology high school. A nano-technology high school? C'mon. Creating a school for gifted students that concentrates on science in general would be one thing, but focusing hyper-specifically on nano technology seems a little over-the-top. Stop trying to be ultra-progressive and focus on the real problem... why this school is in trouble in the first place.

Justice?

Ex-Comptroller Alan Hevesi gets a five-grand fine and the owner of the Ethan Allen death trap... er... tour boat gets a $250 penalty. I guess thievery and negligence pay.

Giving Selflessly

I was at Home Depot this evening buying a new mailbox to replace the one some gutless, punk teenager ran over... or maybe it was my father-in-law -- I don't know. Anyway, I saw a group of people picking up building supplies for that new EXTREME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION house in Colonie.

Donations for the family have been surging, so I thought, "what can I do?" And it came to me -- I think I'll put on a little concert to benefit the family. Sheena Easton's For Your Eyes Only, Elton John's Rocket Man and Billy Joel's It's Still Rock & Roll to Me are just a few songs I could sing. People would pay at least $50 to hear that. I could also rock the house with some Billy Idol and Journey. Bring your lighter -- or do they use cell phones now...

Big Piles

Who picks up after Clifford The Big Red Dog? I think we need to teach kids that having a giant dog has a down-side.

Blow

Is it possible the stronger winds of the past few days have been caused by Ty Pennington's [EXTREME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION] motor mouth? Nah -- he just arrived in town. The stronger winds are a result of increased solar heating form the strong, March sun producing thermals, mixing the atmosphere vertically and transporting stronger winds aloft down to the surface.

Wilford Brimley - A Random Tribute

Who doesn't love Wilford Brimley. Whether he's pushing oatmeal, bullying Roy Hobbs in The Natural or trying to kill Tom Cruise in The Firm, he's still everybody's grandpa -- like in Cocoon, where he's selfishly leaving his grandson behind.

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I saw one of his Liberty Medical commercials recently and googled him. Here are a few things you may not know...

l Mr. Brimley stars in Liberty Medical commercials because he's

____in fact diabetic.

l He was a bodyguard for Howard Hughes. Maybe his character in

____The Firm wasn't much of a stretch after all.

l He won a Golden Boot Award in 2005. What kind of lame award

____is that?

l Back in '93, he played Ebeneezer Scrooge in

____A Christmas Carol at Albany's Palace Theater.

Po-TAE-toe, Po-TAH-toe

Referring to our 22-month-old son, my wife said, "He's definitely more persistent than the girls [our two older daughters]."

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So I looked up the word "persistent" in the mother-to-English dictionary and sure enough, "persistent" means "spoiled".

I'd Tap That...

Let the watered-down mineral water at the Saratoga Spa State Park be a lesson -- never pay for a bath. (Unless the bath is stocked with super-attractive members of the opposite sex, or same sex if that's your thing).

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If a class-action lawsuit is filed, I'm getting in on it -- so I can get my $1-off coupon that expires at the end of summer.

Dig

I See... Obscenity

This is one of the pictures timesunion.com uses as a link to their astrology page. All-righty then. What's in your future?

March Madness? It's March INSANITY!

For my money, there's no sport better suited for viewing than NCAA Division I, men's basketball. I like it. And I love the volume and excitement of the big tournament.

U-Albany

Nobody thought they'd be dealt a 13 seed and certainly nobody's complaining; after all, playing a #1 or #2 would guarantee an early exit. Some say Virgina is beatable. I say good luck Danes -- Virginia's beaten Duke; Florida; Maryland twice, including a 103-point showing; and they dropped 108 on Gonzaga. Hey, getting to the tournament is what matters... just ask Syracuse.

Syracuse

Yeah, they should have been invited. Syracuse Athletic Director Daryl Gross said of the loss, "I think it's the shock of the country." Hey Daryl -- Syracuse isn't America's team... now go yell at the selection committee some more.

Florida

Did anyone else see Florida's Joakim Noah after the SEC title game? Wow - what a meat head. It looks like his brain got stuck at eight years old. I hope mom and dad watch over his money while he's playing in the NBA.

Wisconsin

My alma mater. They lost a solid player in Brain Butch, lost two of their last three regular-season games and were spanked in the Big 10 Tournament's title game (going 5 of 23 from behind the arc didn't help). It's never good entering the tournament off balance; still -- if you're filling out brackets -- don't be afraid to take this team deep into the tournament.

Props

Congratulations, Danes -- enjoy your trip to the NCAA Tournament! Keep building that program.

Flip The Switch

Some seasons change more quickly than others. Summer in the greater Capital Region seems to come on suddenly around June 1st, give or take a week.

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For folks in south Texas, the warmth and humidity gets turned on like a switch around March 10th; and with it, a dramatic enhancement of strong convection (t'storms). The picture shows a severe weather threat over Texas for March 11th -- nasty t'storms become an every-other-day occurrence over south Texas this time of year.

So celebrate the warmth down south, because from mid-March thru April this warmth is occasionally drawn far to the north, giving us a brief taste of summer.

Go Out With A Bang

James Leggiero is the veteran state auditor of 26 years accused of fleecing the state out of $1M plus. He has five cars, three homes, one illegitimate business, and is rumored to have more dirty secrets -- his story has Lifetime Movie Network written all over it.

NOTE: When a man invokes Lifetime Movie Network, it's a dead giveaway he's married.

Since James is apparently hosed, I say make the most of things. Demand a press conference. Tell the world, "At least I've lived my life to the fullest." Look a reporter in the eye and say, "Is your life this exciting? Didn't think so. Next question."

Show no regret, James -- and have a great trial.

Ho Hum

While the current cold snap may be annoying, it's hardly unusual or "incredible"; in fact, if anything there's been a lack of cold.

Glens Falls is a good guide to gauge the cold. Tonight (early morning of March 9th) is only the fourth time this winter season that the temperature has dipped into the double digits below zero at Glens Falls.

FEB__25TH__-12
MAR__6TH.....-17
MAR__7TH.....-19
MAR__9TH__.-18 [updated]

The winter season of '05-'06 was also lackluster when it came to painful cold, not that anyone complained. Again, only four nights of -10 degrees or colder.

The '04-'05 winter season was more typical, except almost all of the cold came in one unholy burst at the end of January.

DEC__20TH__-10

DEC__21ST__.-10

JAN__21ST__.-18

JAN__22ND__-20

JAN__23RD__.-17

JAN__24TH__-25

JAN__27TH__-23

JAN__28TH__-25

JAN__29TH__-17

FEB__.1ST___-10

Remember, Glens Falls gets a bit of a bad rap as the capital of cold nights. The temperature is taken automatically at the Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport, which lies in a sunken, slightly marshy area -- an ideal spot for the coldest, most dense air to seep down into.

"Who's Floyd Bennett", you ask? Bone up on your local history here.

X-Ray

I have fond, childhood memories of going to the dentist, being covered by 50-pound, lead blanket and being bombarded by an x-ray cannon that made a buzzing sound.

X-rays are not just for looking inside the human body -- astronomers use x-ray detection to learn all sorts of amazing things about our planet, solar system, galaxy, and even distant universe. Check out the special features from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory page.

For Parents With Younger Children...

My 21-month-old son is afraid of the Teletubbies pinwheel, putting him in an exclusive club of kids who are actually frightened by the show's content (although I should point out that many adults are frightened by the show's content).

My only guess is he had a bad experience with a lawn mower in a previous life.

Think Spring

I had a flashback yesterday. No, it wasn't my Lieutenant yelling, "give me some eight millimeter on that tree line."

It was a visit to Hamagrael Elementary in Delmar during the middle of May, a few years back on a warm, sunny day when everything was flowering and leafing. I don't know why I had it -- I suspect it's because the days are getting longer.

It was a vivid and pleasant reminder, but we still have 9 1/2 weeks (that movie always makes me hungry) to go before we see leaves, flowers and cottonwood seeds floating thru the air. Last year, the temperature reached 75 degrees on March 31st.

Wipe Out

Hope you laid some salt/ice-melt down on your sidewalk and driveway. There's nothing worse than a thin film of water that re-freezes. Yikes.

Hey Snow Birds... Listen Up

The Southern Oscillation has... well... oscillated -- El Nino has become La Nina. Sea surface temperatures over the Tropical Pacific have become dramatically cooler, and this will likely impact our weather this summer.

Of particular concern is the effect on the Atlantic hurricane season. Weaker, upper-level winds over the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico may spell more tropical cyclones for the Caribbean islands and Gulf Coast, particularly Florida.

Sorrow

"The whole building just collapsed on everybody. A bunch of people were trapped under cinder blocks, and people had their heads cut open."

- Chase Baldwin, Enterprise High School student

Every precaution seems to have been exercised. The Storm Prediction Center had upgraded the region to high risk that morning, the tornado sirens wailed and students had gathered in interior hallways -- a widely practiced safety measure. But it wasn't enough. Maybe it was unavoidable... maybe it was a weakness in the school's structure... time will tell.

In this country, roughly 50 people die every year from tornadoes, which means your chances of being killed -- even in Tornado Alley -- are exceedingly small. But a tragic loss like this, where a community loses so many kids in the blink of an eye, makes statistics obsolete.

OH - THAT NATIONAL MEDIA

I only flipped around for about 30 minutes of national media coverage. CNN was great. I gave Fox News Channel a shot, but they were doing a story on the decline of Hip Hop in the U.S. -- why am I not surprised.

MSNBC was covering the event, but I was amazed at what the idiot anchor had to say. She reported that a local hospital was operating without power, and the people there couldn't even watch TV for information. Yeah, that's it honey... I'm sure the people at the hospital -- tending to body after body rolling into their triage center, and working without power -- were real concerned about what was being reported on TV.

Strange Sunshine

The first words out of my oldest daughter's mouth this morning were, "why's it so sunny out?" This reminded me of two things: 1) Upstate New York is a cloudy place during the winter, and 2) the days are getting longer in a hurry.

March 1st is the first day of meteorological spring. The beginning of celestial spring -- the one you see on your calender, and known as the vernal equinox -- starts on the evening of March 20th.