Spring Sprouts, Tornado Joggers and Googly Eyes. A Few Notes

Look very closely  and you can see daffodil shoots trying to
emerge from the soil next to the retreating ice on Thursday
in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens. 

It's been a relatively warm week for early March in Vermont. The snow is retreating the sap is running and it feels like spring might get here. Eventually.

True, it's going to be on the cold side tonight and Saturday and we surely have more cold spells and snowfalls to come. But we've made a little progress.

It's hard to see in the accompanying pboto, but I spotted such progress in my yard amid the Thursday afternoon sunshine.

Next to the retreating ice in one of my garden beds, the first hint of daffodil shoots appeared.  It's not much, but a guy looking forward to spring will take anything he can get.

I don't anticipate anything blooming until April.  Still, it was nice to see something green, however tiny, instead of the shades of white, gray, black and brown we've been limited to since November.

Daffodil shoots are tough, so I'm not too worried about what will happen in cold weather. Today, a  huge nor'easter that's developing well off the New England coast today but it will miss us. The storm will throw a brief shot of gusty winds and chilly air at us, but nothing odd for early March.  It'll warm up again Sunday afternoon.

Given that the weather is relatively quiet, here's a couple other odd, unrelated things I've noticed recently, including an odd jogger and a googly-eyed TV reporter in a snowstorm:

THE TORNADO JOGGER

As soon as those awful tornados in Tennessee passed early Tuesday, first responders, as always, swooped in and did their best to help.

This brief video is a little strange. It shows firefighters arriving in a tornado-battered Nashville neighborhood. The power was out, and you could see little in the darkness.  But in firetruck headlights and firefighters' head lamps, you could see downed power lines, glimpses of debris and hints of chaos.

As the firefighters started heading into the neighborhood, presumably to pull people from the wreckage, a female jogger zips on by.

No, she's not running from the wreckage. Nothing, not even a tornado, complete darkness, debris and possibly live downed wires is going to interrupt her odd 1:30 a.m. running routine.  I love the look on the face of the firefighter at the end of this brief video:



SNOWSTORM REPORTER'S MANY FACES

In late February, a snowfall hit Asheville, North Carolina,  Justin Hinton, a reporter for television station WLOS was out in the snow, giving a live update for viewers via Facebook Live.

He said he somehow activated some sort of Facebook filter and this is what viewers saw as Hinton gave his report.

World's Most Unique Newscast Advertising Slick Roads, A "Frozen" Parody

Pity the poor television newscaster by the time you get toward the end of February in what has been a tough winter.

Reporter Bob Herzog belts out his "Frozen" parody
about icy roads. It's certainly a sight to behold.  

For so many days, these news anchors have gotten on the air to tell you the roads are icy and snowy and dangerous.

How many different ways can you say this day after day and remain engaging, not boring?  Will people just tune you out?

One reporter is bravely (I think) trying to prevent us from tuning out.

Bob Herzog, an anchor and reporter for television station WKRC in Cincinnati,  decided to do quick a performance on air with his song "Just Don't Go," a parody of the Idina Menzel song "Let It Go" from the Disney movie "Frozen."

Hmm, I wonder if this silliness is related to the comedy of the old radio station comedy "WKRP in Cincinnati. Even the call letters of the real and fictional stations are similar.

Anyway, Herzog is a bit of a strange one, doing traffic reports of sorts by performing parody renditions of George Michael's "Faith,"  and something called "Traffic Man" done to Elton John's "Rocket Man"

When he can't come up with a good report, he just does  really odd lip syncing to the likes of "Gangnam Style,"  and  Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me Maybe"

But he really hit his stride, of sorts, when he did this report on the nationwide scourge of dangerous, icy roads this winter with this parody from "Frozen":