Red shirt, identified

The man in the red shirt sat down for an interview, finally, and we know his name. Mike Byers. A man doing a difficult job, not chasing fame.

Full story below the fold in case the link doesn’t work.

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There we go

Mike Keefe’s cartoon in today’s DPost is too good not to share:

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Red shirt

Hollywood being what it is, plenty of ugly is being freely shared from Balloon Dad’s personal history. He did, it seems, little to endear himself to folks out there.

But Tina Griego’s column in today’s Denver Post is a gulp of clean air among this story’s many kinds of stink.

It’s about the man in the red shirt, a father himself, running hell for leather after the silver balloon in the field to get the kid out safely. It was about a child – the fast dash, the fierce grasp of the tether ropes, the total focus on getting that contraption to the ground and keeping it there.  It wasn’t about him.

And he didn’t want his name in the paper.

Yesss!

Full column below the fold in case the link expires.

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Skid, crash, tweet

Another news story covered via twitter. See http://twitter.com/2drinksbehind. The saga starts with the tweet that reads “Holy f*g sh**t I wasbjust in a plane crash!”

HFS, that’s my airport. God, I am so glad everyone got out of the plane. (Continental flight 1404 from Denver (DEN) to Houston (IAH), went off runway into ravine on takeoff at 6:18 p.m. last night. Our local TV news is now giving us pictures of the plane sitting upright, covered with firefighters’ foam that looks like snow. But isn’t. DFD says the fire was intense but apparently didn’t get into cabin until everyone was out, nobody got burned.)

I was out there yesterday morning for my volunteer shift. Noticed it was windy as hell when I left, but that was six hours before the accident.

It’s bad enough that evil winter weather all over the rest of the country is messing up airline flight schedules. This accident has caused closure of half of DEN’s 6 runways for several hours, although I hear now that 1 or 2 of the 3 West airfield runways have been reopened, meaning that 4 or 5 of DEN’s 6 are again in operation.

Sorry, air-traveling people, looks like delays and cancellations all over the place this weekend.

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Good behavior by restaurant staff – again

I posted the other day about how an alert waiter in Colorado Springs recently prevented a woman from being victimized - by a drug placed in her drink by her date while she was away from their table. 

Yesterday I read another story about the good deeds of restaurant staff.   Details here and below the fold if the link has gone dead.

You can bet your rigatoni that I’m likely to have lunch or dinner at one of the Pulcinella Ristorante locations sometime soon.

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Adjusting

Thanks to Fighting Windmills for asking, I’m getting adjusted to having these braces on my teeth.  I’m even able to eat again.  No fear that The Pigout Queen here would ever fall victim to any condition that would keep her from eating for any serious length of time.  Like three hours or more.

I’m busy – working.  Really cuts into my time to sit around and goof off and write silly things on my blog.

For some reason this morning I’m thinking of recent local headlines concerning Men Behaving Badly.  And in one of the two stories, a man behaving very well indeed.  Knight-in-Shining-Armor well.  Literally rescuing a damsel from the brink of peril.

The biggest bunch of men behaving badly were young:  9 CU frat pledges who comprehensively trashed an Estes Park motel.   Assumptions are always risky, but why do I think that these guys may have felt somehow entitled to act like rock stars in a Super 8 Motel?  I’d like to think that they will face no consequences as hellish for this rampage, as looking their mamas in the eye. 

In the other story, an alert waiter spotted a man putting something into his date’s drink while the date was away from the table in the ladies’ room.  As soon as she returned to the table, the waiter brought her a new drink, took the tainted drink away, and called the cops.  The doctored drink contained Valium – not an item on the menu at Ruby Tuesday. 

The date was arrested.  Robert Lawrence Psaty, 56, has a history of abusive behavior toward women, but has managed to skate away from serious legal consequences, to the extent of being able to pass a background check to work at the state hospital.   Scary.  He met the date through a dating service.  Extra scary.  They were meeting in a public place – per the accepted wisdom of safe dating.  Mega scary.

Bless that waiter. 

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Ink-stained riches

I hear that the future of American newspapers is in doubt.  Which makes me sad.  As much as I love rooting around online, I also love hearing the slap of today’s local daily hitting the doorstep, and paging through the paper while sipping the day’s first cup of coffee.  And I’m even used to having slightly ink-smudged fingers afterwards.

And if we lose the Denver Post, who will bring us stories like this?  Not TV, this whole tale is a little too complicated for the average 1.9 millisecond (or whatever the time is) TV news story.  We may see some very simplified blurb about this on the tube.  But it won’t be the same. 

So thanks to the Post.  And hooray for Wray, where you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

And another reason I like the newspaper:  the daily advice columns.  In the Post, it’s Ask Amy.  Today, Amy Dickinson included this observation when handing out some relationship advice:

Love is patient, love is kind, and sometimes love leaves you in a quivering heap by the side of the road.

The perfect Quote of The Day After.

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