Jared W. Smith

I’ve had a lot of reservations in the weeks leading up to the kickoff of the NFL season about the performance of the Panthers and the Chargers. The Panthers looked awful in preseason; they looked flat and one-dimensional. The Chargers were entering the 2007 season with almost total turnover of their coaching staff, headed up by Norv Turner, who had won two games as head coach of the Raiders in 2006 and held a 58-82-1 record overall.

After today, I felt a little better. The Panthers, while it appears they still have some work to do, played really well today (especially in the second half) in defeating St. Louis 27-13. I was concerned that it took a whole half (and an injury to Rams offensive lineman Orlando Pace) for the Panthers to put anything resembling pressure on Marc Bulger, but they eventually did. Consider me a fan of new offensive coordinator Jeff Davidson’s new scheme — the Panthers hadn’t called plays that creatively at any time in John Fox’s tenure. Jake Delhomme was as calm as he’s ever been, and he wasn’t running for his life, either. The Rams aren’t a slouch of a team, either. Let’s see how the Panthers do against Houston next week — that will be an interesting game to see Matt Schaub go up against an actual defense for the first time this year. :)

Chargers-Bears was, to put it lightly, quite the defensive exhibition. Both defenses were all over the field, hitting extremely hard and making their presences felt. The Chargers made some crucial mistakes on offense, and it was their defense that did a marvelous job in keeping it a 3-0 game into the half. The Bears had LaDainian Tomlinson’s number throughout the game — but there’s something about that LT. You can’t keep a good man down long, so if he couldn’t run with it, he’d throw it, and throw it he did to Antonio Gates for the go-ahead touchdown (which ended up being the game winner). This is one of those games that also will remind Charger fans just how lucky we are to have Michael Turner spelling Tomlinson in relief. He’s very much a changeup back, almost a perfect compliment to Tomlinson’s style, and he helped soften up the Bear D so that the Chargers could finally make an impact. Fourteen points won’t cut it in that high-octane Charger offense, though, so they do have some work to do. I think today made a good case for Tomlinson to resume taking some reps in the preseason. He’s been held out of preseason the last two years to avoid injury, but it also means he has to find his game shape in the regular season, not exactly the best time to find that.

Keep your thoughts with the Bills and, specifically, tight end Kevin Everett. He underwent surgery for a potentially serious cervical spine injury suffered on the field earlier today after he covered a kickoff. After the violent helmet-to-helmet collision, he showed no signs of movement. It’s a very frightening reminder of just how violent and dangerous football can be.

Well, that was short-lived. :) The Hurricane Center canceled the tropical storm watch at 11, as it looks like Gabby will get just close enough to kick our winds up a little bit and spatter us with rain, but no full blaze of tropical storm force glory.

Wow, I sound almost disappointed. But hey, I guess we don’t really need all the problems that come with the beneficial rain of the storm, after all. :)

Looks like Invest 99 became Subtropical Storm Gabrielle, and the Hurricane Center has just put us under a Tropical Storm Watch. Here’s the watch text in full: Continue reading Why, hello, Gabrielle: Tropical Storm Watch just issued »

So my friend Mel and I were out celebrating his 23rd birthday tonight at Tsunami, when our waitress comes up and shares some interesting news. It goes a little something like this:

“I have a secret.”
“Really?”
“See that table over there? At about 9:00, Ryan Seacrest and Randy Jackson from American Idol are coming in.”
“No waaaaay.”
“No, seriously, they’ll be here…”

With skepticism, Mel and I stuck around for curiosity’s sake. And I’ll be damned if the clock didn’t strike 9, and Ryan and Randy were walking through the doors with their entourage seated at a table about 15 feet from us. Once word got around as to WHO was at the table, the entire room began texting. Like, I have never seen an ENTIRE room raise their phones and begin sending text messages rampantly. Naturally, Mel and I both joined the throng of eager texters all relaying OMG AMERICAN IDOL PEEPS OH NOES.

People were cool about it, though. Sure, people kept looking at ‘em, but nobody went up to them and talked to them or tried to bug them (at least from what we saw). Randy appeared to give Mel some props as we were leaving, giving him a nod. You could see the star-struckness on many folks’ faces. It was interesting.

It definitely will be a birthday he remembers, for sure — it’s not every day you see people from the highest-rated television program ever, after all.

It’s not a depression, yet (but it’s damn close), but Invest 99L, spinning around in the Atlantic, is quite likely to become at least a tropical storm if not a Category 2 hurricane, according to Weather Underground’s Dr. Jeff Masters.

Taking a look at the computer models shows that there is at least one set of guidance that basically brings whatever this thing would become over Charleston. These models, of course, are preliminary. However, it’d be a good idea to begin thinking about what to do in a hurricane.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this thing classified at least as a tropical depression by 11PM. We shall see…keep alert!

So two days ago, Felix was just a disorganized mess near the Windward Islands, stirring up some trouble. It organized into Tropical Depression Six, and then got its name about 12 hours later. Since then, it has exploded into a storm way beyond any forecast — a Category 5 storm packing 165 MPH winds. At first, I thought about calling it Dean Lite because of its similar trajectory and formation location, but this one wants to upstage Dean in a very nasty way. Don’t be surprised to see it pack 175 MPH winds at its peak before it peters out — it seems like the sky’s the limit for this storm.

You know a hurricane is strong when you see this in the storm discussion (and you don’t see this often):

BECAUSE OF THE EXTREME TURBULENCE AND
GROUPEL THAT THE AIRCRAFT EXPERIENCED…THE MISSION IS BEING
ABORTED AND THE AIRCRAFT IS RETURNING TO ST. CROIX.

If it’s too hairy for a hurricane hunter aircraft, you know it’s a beast.

It looks like things are really going to take off here in the next couple weeks. It’s possible that the area of disturbed weather that was affecting us this weekend could become tropical in nature and form into something, too. Keep an eye to the seas…