Someone who needs to know when to bail out of a plan

If you were a lone crook, and you were trying to steal someone's truck, how far would you go to get it once things started going wrong?

This guy probably should have quit sooner than he did.

SAN ANTONIO -- A man was shot in the leg while trying to steal a truck early Tuesday morning, police said. The homeowner told police he heard someone breaking into his truck outside his home near Rada and Renova on the city’s south side.

Police said it was around 2:30 a.m. when the would-be thief had trouble starting the engine, so, officers say, he tried to push the truck down the street.

(from WOAI-TV)

And he didn't get very far pushing that big ol' non-started truck before its rightful owner decided to slow him down a little more with a good dose of lead weight.

Jumping overboard -- or bridge

You know, I can think of better ways to try to escape from the police. Or, at least, less painful ones. Especially if I were handcuffed.

A man is in the hospital Monday afternoon after escaping from police, then jumping off an Interstate 35 overpass and falling 20 feet to the ground below.

According to San Antonio police Sgt. Jay Vinson, Johnathan Gomez, 20, was handcuffed and had escaped police custody after being arrested on a felony warrant charge of possession of a controlled substance.

Witness Robert Garcia said the man leaped over the bridge over Salado Creek.

...

The man was taken to SAMMC with a broken back and head injuries.

(from KSAT-12)

Ouch.

"Two people trapped inside their cars by down power lines"

Happy Thanksgiving!

And here's something to be grateful for: Not being trapped in your car by high voltage power lines.

The accident happened on Patricia near Vista Knoll early Thursday morning. According to police, the driver of a Nissan lost control and hit the pole. Then another driver coming in the opposite direction crashed into him and the pole. Both drivers were trapped inside their vehicles due to the fallen power lines outside.

Crews had to cut the power to several blocks in order to rescue them.

(from WOAI-TV)

Tigers?

Did you hear that some tigers got loose today? Somewhere near San Antonio?

Turns out it was nothing more than someone who was a bit confused. Apparently.

Bexar County Sheriff's deputies were sent to a home in the 27000 block of Okent Drive, near Blanco Road and Old Blanco Road around 9:00 a.m. Tuesday after receiving reports about large cats being loose on the property. Timberwood Park Elementary School was placed on lockdown after officials there were contacted by the Bexar County Sheriff's Office between 9:00 and 9:30 a.m. and told officers believed three white tigers could be loose in the area.

A Bexar County Sheriff's Office spokesperson told News 4 WOAI when their officers arrived, they found three tigers inside their cages. However, the owner kept insisting he could see at least one running loose. The San Antonio Zoo was called and a three-person team was dispatched to assist with the capture of the cats. The officers continued searching the property but found no other exotic animals. They were then told two panthers were contained inside the man's bedroom, so they went inside to check. When they opened the bedroom door, they found two stuffed panthers.

The Bexar County Sheriff's Office says the owner apparently became confused and may have been hallucinating. They asked him to get a medical exam, but said he refused.

(from WOAI-TV)

Sounds like that guy needs some kind of examination, and I hope he gets the help he needs. But perhaps now would be the time to find new homes for the tigers. Or at least the stuffed panthers.

Talking about the weather, again

Back in October, I pointed out -- with mirth -- how a simple weather forecast on WOAI-TV regarding the approach of cold weather had prompted an astounding number of comments from readers and viewers. At that time, I said this:

I know it has been quite some time since we've had real cool weather here in San Antonio, but really? 822 freakin' comments about how cold it is?!

I don't think I have ever seen that many comments on any news story or blog post I've ever read. 400, 450 maybe. But never over 800, and never when the topic is as commonplace as the weather!

All I can say is: puro san antonio.

But now, almost a month later, WOAI is forecasting the weather for Thanksgiving, and here's what I see:



Yep, there it is, the same slate for "Storm Tracker 4" on the forecast, and there I see a whopping 860 comments!

Why, that's only 38 comments more than the last time I noticed. And, you know what? I think I was a bit wrong before. Those of us who live in San Antonio are not great big weirdos with nothing better to do than crash WOAI's servers with floods of weather-related comments. No, it seems the weather people at WOAI are the strange ones, because they seem to be updating the same entry over and over again with new weather and letting the comments from previous forecasts pile up on it with nary a care for how heavy that one entry gets.

But now, I'm hooked. Now, WOAI has me.

Because I can't wait to see it hit 1,ooo!

Tagging into the golden years

I guess you can never be too old to be a ne'er-do-well.

A police report shows officers arrested Richard Reta, 58, at N. Flores and Krempkau streets around 11 p.m. Saturday after seeing him spray painting an anti-corporate greed message on the ground.

He was charged with one count of graffiti, $1500-$20,000.

The report said Reta had a can of spray paint in his possession and paint on his clothing when he was arrested.

It also said he admitted to scrawling graffiti in several other locations, mostly along the route of the Rock 'N' Roll Marathon, which was slated to begin hours after his arrest. All together, the damage was said to be in excess of $2,000.

Police said Reta told officers he's part of Occupy San Antonio, a group of protestors who have been staging a sit-in in Hemisfair Park for weeks to show their displeasure with they call [sic] corporate greed.

(from KSAT-12)

To their credit, the Occupiers seem to be distancing themselves from this guy's actions. But KSAT also offers this:

[Occupier Joe] Ballard said Occupy does not condone any behavior that involves defacing city property.

If KSAT is accurately representing what this guy said, I find it noteworthy that the Occupiers do not condone defacing city property, but they make no mention of private property.

Noteworthy. But not surprising.

Dealing with animals

If you had an accident on the highway involving a big wild animal, you would think that your friends might help you out. Or you might think that they would not make the situation worse, at the very least.

But, if you were this guy, you would have another think coming.

SAN ANTONIO -- Police say a motorcyclist crashed into a deer and then had his bike stolen by his friends.

Investigators said the motorcyclist was riding with a group of people on motorcycles and a pickup truck when the man hit the deer and lost control of the motorcycle and fell onto the access road at Loop 410 and Ingram Road at around 2:30 a.m. Monday.

But instead of helping him, police said two women and a man picked up his motorcycle, put it in the back of the truck and left.

(from KSAT-12)

I think there's more to this story than is being reported by KSAT. A lot more.

Salad!

OK, maybe it's more properly called "coleslaw".

San Antonio--The scene is finally clear after an 18-wheeler overturned on I-10 downtown near the I-35 off ramp. The trailer was carrying produce including heads of cabbage and lettuce. The accident happened at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, but crews didn't finish getting all the debris until 7 p.m.

(from WOAI-TV)

Car crashes into house

The auto gets the house and the fence, too. And a couch.

A woman driving a Ford Mustang was traveling south on SW 34th Street when she attempted to turn on Motes Drive at a high rate of speed and lost control of her vehicle, traffic investigators said. The car went barreling through a fence and into a home at the 600 block of SW 34th Street.

A man who was sitting on a couch inside the home was apparently struck, and he was taken to a local hospital with minor injuries.

(from MySA.com)

That's one ambitious auto.

Inheriting the mantle of solar leadership

Bill Sinkin has long been a proponent of solar power in the Alamo City. But he is nearly 100 years old now (literally), and his son has taken over the reins of Solar San Antonio, a local non-profit that tries to get people to convert to solar-powered systems.

Lanny Sinkin, however dedicated he may be to furthering his father's legacy, may still find time to devote to his other interests and pursuits. And you will have to be the judge of whether or not that ends up being a good thing for the local environmental movement.

A few years before Lanny Sinkin became the leader of a local nonprofit that advocates for solar power, he flew to Washington and knocked on the door of the White House with a document that would prove an even harder sell than investments in solar panels.

It was a declaration that the Kingdom of Hawaii had seceded from the United States.

...

The Kingdom of Hawaii, illegally overthrown by the United States more than a century ago, has been restored, he says, and a king, to whom Sinkin serves as chief advocate and spiritual adviser whenever he's not running Solar San Antonio, is in place.

The “king,” Edmund Keli'i Silva Jr., a fisherman and kung fu instructor on the island of Oahu, is also a convicted felon who served 13 years in prison for stealing more than half a million dollars.

...

A former environmental attorney, Sinkin once sued Bush on behalf of “the Cetacean Community” — whales — over the use of underwater sonar. An appeals court ruled that animals could not file lawsuits.

His father, the bow-tied, 98-year-old Bill Sinkin, is a civic hero who founded Solar San Antonio in 1999.

...

Sinkin's quest to regain a lost civilization began with plutonium in deep space.

As an attorney at the Christic Institute, a now-defunct public interest law firm in Washington, Sinkin fought a 1980s bid by NASA to launch a plutonium-powered probe to Jupiter.

...

“He sat down with me,” [jail-bound self-styled "king"] Silva said. “He looked like a person who lived out of a suitcase, his clothes all wrinkled. But he was full of light and full of energy.”

Sinkin helped Silva win parole in 2005, and the “king” returned to his “kingdom.”

“His Chinese animal's a horse,” Sinkin said. “He just galloped into it.”

...

The kingdom embraces natural laws and ecological principles. It shuns war, promotes love and seeks an age of transformation in which all human beings gain consciousness — “the 5th age,” Sinkin says.

...

Told of Lanny's aim to “create the 5th age, one solar panel at a time,” [Bill] Flannery [from the board of directors of Solar San Antonio] was nonplussed.

“That's kind of fascinating,” he said. “That never came up.”

(from the Express-News)

Is this the future of the "green" movement in San Antonio? Or has it always been the unvarnished present?

You decide.

Failing at Occupying

The "Occupy" movement seems to be flagging in San Antonio. After all, when a very like-minded, liberal organization like MoveOn.org starts looking at you askance, you've probably lost a bit of focus.

Occupy San Antonio's familiar rally cry, “Banks got bailed out; we got sold out!” sounded with particular relevance Saturday afternoon as protesters marched in solidarity with national Bank Transfer Day.

...

While they took a stand together against what they perceive as corporate greed, some MoveOn.org members such as Celeste Douglas, 55, were “a little disenchanted” by the occupiers' masks and costumes.

“They say it's a zombie movement because most Americans are acting like zombies moving along, but the thing about it is, who wants to be part of a movement of zombies?” asked Douglas, who said she opened a credit union account earlier that day while closing the one she has with Bank of America.

(from the Express-News)

Who, indeed, Ms. Douglas. Who, indeed.

Calling B.S. on "sonic drugs"

Geez, is it sweeps month again?

SAN ANTONIO -- Teenagers are using websites to get high, and it's completely legal.

It's called "i-dosing." It sounds like music, but it's not.

Sounds like a load of bullshit to me.

The sites play different frequencies that promises [sic] to deliver an effect much like opium, cocaine, or marijuana. Doctors say the danger is teens may want to end up trying the real thing after trying the websites.

How do they know this? Have any studies been done yet?

Since i-dosing is so new, there haven't been any real studies on its effects. But brain imaging experts say sonic drugs do change the brain. They're just not sure how much.

Nope. No real studies. And so many unknowns that haven't been explored yet. Why, it's as if we know almost nothing at all about this new trend. Nothing!

So, quick, WOAI! Run a story on it! And scare the pants off of parents!

"Vets Fix Tiny Tooth During Monkey Root Canal"

Monkey, mango, coke, and a broken tooth. Not so much a human interest story as a primate interest story.

SAN ANTONIO -- Mango the monkey has been suffering from a broken, infected tooth, just like humans sometimes get.

"People do it all the time (by) biting down on hard candy (such as) jaw breakers," Dr. Rob Coke, staff vet at the San Antonio Zoo, said.

But fixing Mango's mouth isn't as simple as fixing a human's, due to his tiny stature.

"It's a 2-pound monkey, so we obviously had magnification loops [sic] as well as ... tiny instruments to go in there to try to repair that," Coke said.

(from KSAT-12)

I'm picturing that ellipsis in Coke's second quote as hiding a well-placed curse word. It is monkey dentistry, after all.