Rob_Haswell's Blog

If you're a regular reader of this blog or a regular viewer of Fox 6 Wake Up News then it will come as no surprise that I am not an athlete.  Despite trying every sport offered from first grade through Jr. High, I was never on a team  -  well o.k. I was on the Ping Pong team but that was a club and anyone could join!

I threw in the towel on athletics in high school and focused more on the arts.  Which is good really because it is the base of what I do for a living.  The downside is that passing any pure athleticism down to my kids via DNA isn't likely.  My father was a solid hockey player so I had hopes that maybe the sports gene could just skip a generation but there are no signs of that yet in my kids.  My son is like me.  He tries hard but has to put out double the effort for about half the return.

Noah is in hockey this year and really enjoys it and that's what counts.  But while many of the other kids fly around the ice and make the big plays, it just never really comes together for him out there in that same magical way.

That is until this Sunday when the sports gods smiled on the Haswell men and Noah scored his first game time goal!

It was as if the planets aligned for a moment and a play we'd practiced at home fell in his lap!  He prefers to call it a "trick" instead of a "play" because he likes the idea of pulling a fast one on the other team but the basics of the play ...er trick ... are to get yourself in front of the opposing teams goal, wait for the puck to get centered, get some lumber on it and bang it home!

So, there he was out front with a cluster of kids just off to the side all trying to get the puck.  Noah is rarely in that cluster fighting for possession but in this case it was a good thing.  The puck came loose right in front of him, he lined it up and fortunately got the shot off just in time to score!

It was a thing of beauty except some bozo in the rink kept screaming and waving his arms around!  Wait, that was me!  Hey, I couldn't help it, my kid scored his first goal!

So, after the game I treated him and the family to donuts and we called the Grandparents to brag - er, share the news!

No, I won't be booking seats for his first NHL game.  I'm not even sure he'll be playing in a couple of years but as a kid who rarely scored in a game myself it was great to watch my own personal "mini-me" net one and watch his self esteem and confidence soar - at least for a little while.  I suppose that is the beauty and the point behind youth sports at the end of the day.

January 2nd is indeed - as announced today on Wake Up - National Science Fiction Day!

I am a big fan of Sci-Fi.  As it turns out I am alone in that as far as this mornings Wake Up crew is concerned.

Sci-Fi is unfairly weighed down by some highly popular but not necessarily high quality movies, books and conventions.  I won't name names because it'll start a nerd war (LOL) but you know what I am getting at right?

However, if your thoughts of Sci-Fi begin and end with images of people dressed up as Klingons or Wookies, you are missing out.

I LOVE Star Trek and Star Wars - both are classics - but there is so much more to Sci-Fi than all that.

Some of the greatest novels of all time have been Science Fiction.  Among my fav's are Fahrenheit 451 (no there's no weather plot in this), Brave New World, The Time Machine and the Postman ( the book is SO much better than the movie).

Many of the greatest movies of all time are also Sci-Fi like Star Wars ( I prefer the first 3); 2001: A Space Odyssey; Back to the Future; The Matrix; Blade Runner; Planet of the Apes (just the first one); E.T.!!!

Of course at the end of the day it's a matter of taste and some folks just prefer a murder mystery or a love story and others would rather watch movies or read books about the past rather than the future.  I love movies, books and TV of all kinds but I must say there's a sweet spot for me in the Sci-Fi genre.

What about you?   Love it?  Hate it?  Comment.

As a meteorologist, I am fascinated by numbers. It's a pretty basic requirement for the job.

We crunch numbers all the time. We look at basic things like highs and lows, to the more complex pressure gradients to the downright complicated calculus that makes up the numerical forecast computer models we rely on everyday to help us make up the Fox 6-day forecast.

But the one number that everyone seems obsessed by - meteorologists, weather enthusiasts and average Joe's and Jane's alike - is the snowfall numbers!

I must get a half dozen calls a week and several dozen more when it snows, asking about how much snow fell.

Well, as a happy new years gift for me, the fine folks down the road at the National Weather Service in Sullivan has done the math and crunched the numbers for me!

Here's a select list of some December 2008 snow totals. For the full story from the NWS just CLICK HERE


Town     County     Snowfall

PADDOCK LAKE KENOSHA 33.8

BURLINGTON RACINE 31.5

EAST TROY WALWORTH 47.6

MITCHELL ARPT MILWAUKEE 35.3

TIMMERMAN ARPT MILWAUKEE 38.3

BROOKFIELD WAUKESHA 43.0

OCONOMOWOC WAUKESHA 42.4

CEDARBURG OZAUKEE 41.1

PORT WASHINGTON OZAUKEE 49.2

BELGIUM OZAUKEE 37.0

ALLENTON WASHINGTON 48.5

HOLY HILL WASHINGTON 50.7

JACKSON WASHINGTON 54.2

JEFFERSON JEFFERSON 35.4

FORT ATKINSON JEFFERSON 38.3

NWS SULLIVAN WI JEFFERSON 44.5

BEAVER DAM DODGE 45.6

HORICON DODGE 39.2

FOND DU LAC FOND DU LAC 44.6

TAYCHEEDAH FOND DU LAC 42.2

ELKHART LAKE SHEBOYGAN 58.6

SHEBOYGAN SHEBOYGAN 58.2

How much weather could a weather widget wedge if a weather widget could wedge weather?

Have you put the new Fox 6 weather widget on your site or blog yet?

It's pretty cool.

Just CLICK HERE

And then follow the directions.

On the big scale of Packers Fans with 10 being that guy who strips to a thong and paints his body green and gold and 1 being a fan who watches a game or two a season, I rank around 3 but I had to watch Sunday's game.

It hasn't been a great season but to end it with a loss to the Lions would have been some very undeserved shame.

Of course, you have to feel for the Lions. Having been on many a losing team, it hurts even when it's just a recreational league! I can't imagine how it feels to professional athletes who define themselves by their job and their performance.

So... what about you? Have you ever been on a losing team? I don't mean a team with a losing record, I mean a team that could get a win if they were handing them out on the street corner.

I played in a hockey team like that once. Strangely it was the year right after my team went to the championship game! It was certainly a reality check. You play far more games in a hockey season so we weren't winless like the Lions but it sure felt like it and after having come just one goal short of hoisting a championship trophy the year before it was a hard year.

Tell about your winning and losing teams!

On a day like today or yesterday, I get this one a lot: "Hey, what happened to global warming?!"

It is sort of hard to think about about and get your head around on a day with sub-zero temperatures and dangerous wind chills!

I won't even get started on the Global Warming Vs. the more accurate Global Climate Change but believe me when I tell you that as a planet we are still warming!

In fact, the combined global land and ocean surface temperatures for this past summer was the ninth warmest since records began in 1880. 

Add to that the fact that average temperatures for October were the second warmest since records began!

So even in this bitter bitter weather, as a planet, we are still trending toward warmer average temperatures.

Here's another great article that links the increase in severe weather to the increase in Earths temperatures.

CLICK HERE

 

If you remember last years cold snap you probably remember that I've made a bit of a tradition out of freezing things solid out there on the weather deck.

If you forgot you can watch it by CLICKING HERE

So, any ideas for new frozen favorites?  Tomorrow will be a sub-zero day so we'll make the most of it in true Wisconsin fashion.

Be watching!

We had this story this morning on wake up but if you missed it, here's the basics of the crazy tale:

A pregnant woman - in labor -and her husband were rushing to the hospital.  They got
stuck in traffic so they used the breakdown lane of a Massachusetts highway.

A pair of troopers wave them through but the a third not only stops them but makes them wait while he writes out a $100 ticket!

But wait there's more...

Then the trooper asks the woman in to prove she was pregnant by lifting up her shirt to show her belly!

She said there were tears running down her cheeks and the car was packed for the hospital - it was pretty obvious she was pregnant and in labor! 

Now my two cents worth....

Let me start by saying I have the utmost respect for the wonderful men and women who serve our communities as law enforcement officers.  More often than not, they do an amazing job in some very difficult situations.

That said, every rule has it's exceptions and the guy who ticketed this poor woman and her husband definitely qualifies.

I would assume his defense would be that speeding is speeding.  While that may be true, the couple were not driving at an outrageous speed.  The size of the ticket - just 100 dollars - proves that.  They were moving quickly to get the woman and impending baby to the hospital so they could both be safe.

The woman's contractions were just 3 mins apart!  Now sometimes that can mean you're hours from delivery but it can also mean you're minutes from delivery.

How do I know?  I lived through this.

When my oldest daughter Nyla was born she was a real rush birth.

My wife went into labor while I was at work.  I raced home to pick her up and when I got there she was in full on labor.  We raced to put my son in the car seat and hit the road for the 10 min drive to the hospital.

On the way there, it was obvious that Nyla was on her way and fast!

I will admit, I not only sped, I ran a red light (after checking both ways), and passed a pair of slow moving vehicles!

Had an officer put his lights on, I am pretty sure I would have simply proceeded to the Emergency Room and explained myself there.

It would have been the right call because Nyla was born less than 10 mins after getting to the hospital.  So quickly that my wife barely made it into the hospital bed!

A delay like the one the Massachusetts couple dealt with would have caused her to be born in our car.

What the trooper in the story may not have understood is that he was putting that baby and the mother at risk!  Sure, babies are born in cabs and cars without incident from time to time but it's far more often that complications make for very difficult deliveries.  That could easily have happened in this story and it could have ended very badly. 

Besides the obvious fact that even the cleanest car isn't clean enough for a newborn, that baby could have been breech, it could have had respiratory or heart issues!

That trooper was just way, way out of line and to be quite frank, I would argue that he was negligent.  His job is to protect the safety of the people in his community.  He was putting that mother and her baby at significant risk while their speeding was only a slight risk to others.

Now, if that trooper had instead given the couple an escort to the hospital to further reduce the risk of speeding and THEN given them a ticket, I'd say that was just insensitive but to hold the couple there while he wrote out the citation and then degrade the poor woman by demanding she prove her pregnancy is, in my opinion, reckless and  absurd.

The couple says they'll fight the ticket.  I think that is the least they should do.  An apology, and some sort of disciplinary action for the officer is the least the Massachusetts State Police should be doing.

What do you think?

I work with high tech, cutting edge computers everyday but I must admit when it comes to the world wide web, I am often a bit behind the curve.  I'm still trying try to figure out what exactly "twitter" and instant messaging is all about!

Facebook is another good example of that.  I have had a personal page for a while but I signed up long after millions of others.

Then one day I log on to find that I have a "fan page"!  Huh?

I guess a fan page is like a personal page for those who have a public personae.

I am not sure where it came from but I quickly took over as administrator of the page to make sure the page wasn't a cruel trick or perhaps just somewhere for some less than fan types to post pics of me picking my nose (that doesn't exist) or dressed up in a teletubbie costume (that one does exist)!

So while I'm not sure where it came from, it's out there and since the world (or at least the true center of the universe AKA Milwaukee) will judge me by how many fans I have on that page, I feel it's best for me to ask you out there in the blog-o-sphere to become a fan!

It's easy, just CLICK HERE.  Also remember to check out the Fox 6 Weather Page while you're on Facebook or FB as the true FB fans call it!

Today is supposed to be the busiest travel day of the year.

I makes me remember my family and our trips to see Grandma!

Of course this was in the late 70s and early 80s so we had none of the car seats, booster seats, or any safety equipment at all!  I'm not even sure if the seatbelt law had been passed at that point.

We'd put pillows down on the floor to make a kinds of bed so we could sleep if we wanted.

Sometimes we put blankets in the back window of the Oldsmobile and nap there!

Seems pretty crazy now!

We'd fight over who was on who's side and who was hitting too hard during punch buggy but we seemed to survive most trips.

Now we keep the kids busy with the built in DVD and hand held video games!  Back then my sister and would load up the back seat with toys and games and make a GIANT mess out of it all and it would come spilling out when we opened the doors!

What are your memories of traveling with the family for Thanksgiving or just to see the Grandparents?

I had one or two calls a few days ago about a light in the sky and it seems likely that what you may have seen was a meteorite.

A much larger meteor was spotted over parts of Canada that same day.

Here is a link to some dashboard video of the meteor over Edmonton, Canada.

CLICK HERE

Enjoy!

A belated thanks and a Happy Holidays to all those that came out to the Germantown Christmas parade this past weekend!

I thought I'd share a pic of me and the kids in our cool horse drawn carriage that we got to ride in for the parade!

As a kid growing up in Canada, one of the most important days on the calendar was November 11th. Here we call it Veterans Day, Canada calls it Remembrance Day but either way it is indeed one of the most important days all year. It's a day to pause, step back from all we do everyday and remember those that gave their all so that we could live the lives we do today.

I remember every year in grade school, we'd learn this poem and I still feel it's among the greatest ever written so I thought I'd share it with you.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

It doesn't matter if you're a Republican, a Democrat, an independent or other you need to get out there and....


Millions of people around the world don't have this basic right.  Thousands, if not millions, have died to protect the right to vote and it all comes down to you deciding to make your mark!

Even if you can't decide on some of the races, you need to vote on the issues you feel strongly about and have your say today.

Remember, if you don't vote today.... don't complain tomorrow!

If you want my face or any Wake Up face on your pumpkin -we're here to help!

Nicole and I carved all the Wake Up faces this morning and you can see that on the Wake Up page but if you want the stencils we used to do it please CLICK HERE

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!