Ned Hibberd's Blog

This job has its hazards.  I've been attacked by drunks and suspects and the subjects of Fox 26 investigations.  But until this month, I'd never been attacked by bees.

We were shooting a follow up story about an elderly lady living next door to an abandoned house that was infested with bees.

Our initial story sparked interest from a bee-keeper, who offered to relocate the bees, for free.

As my photographer rolled video, I snuck in to snap these pictures for our website.

But the bees apparently felt that their removal was none of our beeswax!  They swarmed both me and my cameraman.  Neither of us was wearing protective gear.

I ran down the street for a full block, flailing my arms and removing my suit jacket as i fled.  I even did a "stop, drop and roll," but without success.  The bees were in my hair, on my suit, and the buzzing sounded like it was coming from everywhere!

I ended up with three bee stings.  My photographer was stung a couple times, as well.

I'm just grateful he was distracted by the bees at the very moment I was running for the hills, or else I'm betting my graceless bee-swatting ballet would have been posted on YouTube by now!

Ned

If you've ever driven south on the Southwest Freeway, I'm sure you've witnessed a safety-conscious scene like this:

I say "LIKE" this, because I'm not really talking about Joe and Jane Idiot's journey to the lakehouse.

I'm referring to the clusters of connected cars and trucks, stuffed to the gills with small appliances, heading south of the border.

I'm guessing the vehicles are being transported for sale in Mexico or Central America after being bought dirt cheap at auction on this side of the Rio Grande.

Usually, the last of several hitched vehicles will have "IN TOW" painted across the rear window.  Usually.

On one occasion I observed "IN TOW" clearly marked on the vehicle doing the towing, while the one actually being towed had no markings at all.  Another fine example of a driver who was unclear on the concept.

I've always thought many of these rigs were patently unsafe.  Especially those in which a bus is towing a truck which is towing a car or two.

But the other night, I witnessed one that put all previous dangerous driving to shame.  I tried to take a photo, but the night was too dark.  So use your imagination.

Picture a flatbed wrecker carrying three cars, the last one hanging off the back, its rear wheels dangling.  Now add on another car that's hitched to the flatbed.  And another being towed by that car.

It was so ridiculously risky, I couldn't imagine why the entire perilous parade hadn't been pulled over by cops in every jurisdiction along the way.

But that's just my experience; you may have a different point-of-view.

I think they ought to hire enough drivers so that nobody's towing more than one vehicle.  What do you think?

Ned

So you think your boss is generous (or not)?

Check out what one Houston-based company is offering all of its employees if they meet annual goals.  Here's the video:

Houston Company Rewards Workers with 'House Money' Bonus

Now, I'm going to ask you what I asked everyone at the beginning of that story: What's the best bonus your employer has ever offered YOU?

Do you think incentives like this achieve the desired effect of getting employees to work together to meet company benchmarks?

More importantly (for those of us NOT currently employed by ATP Oil & Gas) do the Volvos and mortgage payments give you the urge to FedEx your resume to ATP, pronto?

Ned

Now you see it...now you don't.

Sounds like a nifty magic trick, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, it was not so nifty when it happened to my voicemail.

Last weekend, they changed out the phone system here at Fox 26.

The benefits: being able to hear a pin drop?  I don't know; I can't tell the difference.

But I can tell you what DID get dropped: several voicemail messages stored on my phone.  Gone.  Vanished.  Poof!

A couple of them were pretty good story ideas and I had planned to follow up on them.  Only now they're all missing in action.

So if you left me a message and you haven't heard back, don't blame me!  Blame technology.

And then, when the finger-pointing is over, call me back and leave another message on the NEW voicemail system.  Hopefully, I'll be able to figure out how to retrieve it!

Ned

When people talk about the "good old days," I doubt many are referring to this:

How would you like 30 gallons of gas, every year, absolutely free?

That's how much gas is lost, according to some estimates, by every single vehicle with a faulty gas cap.

175 pounds of pollution, annually, released into the environment, with absolutely no benefit to anyone...and that's per car!

Multiply that by the number of cars with missing or leaky gas caps (17 percent of vehicles, in one study) and you end up with a whole lot of gasoline, bought and paid for, vanishing into thin air.

About 147 million gallons of it, across the US, every year.  At $3.85 a gallon, that's more than half a billion dollars' worth of fuel, wasted.

So the next time you check your tire pressure, check your cap, too.  You might end up saving some green... while simultaneously saving the environment!

Ned

Sure, it's less expensive and more environmentally friendly.

But, for most of us... this fuel is no bargain.

It's E-85, a mixture of 85% Ethanol (an alcohol made from corn) and 15% gasoline.

It's made to run in Flex-Fuel vehicles, which, in turn, are manufactured to burn it.

The trouble is, E-85 is about 30-cents cheaper per gallon than regular unleaded.  And as gas prices skyrocket, people are tempted to "fill 'er up" with the E-85, which can deteriorate o-rings, gaskets and fuel lines, especially in older cars.

Next thing you know, you've got a fuel leak.  Say it happens in your garage at night.  Then your water heater (also housed in the garage) kicks on.  That spark could ignite an explosion and burn down your house.

Don't take my word for it.  Listen to expert Todd Hoffman, who explains it all in my story:

Expert: E-85 Fuel Bad for Incompatible Cars

With gas prices on the rise, experts are warning drivers about fuel that could be bad for your car. FOX 26's Ned Hibberd has this Only On FOX story.

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/myfox/pages/ContentDet
ail?contentId=6598029

Now, it's your turn.  Do you think most people are aware of the dangers of running E-85 through a non-Flex-Fuel vehicle?

Since regular unleaded contains some ethanol (about 10%) and that fact is usually noted on a sign at the pump, should the industry be more diligent in informing consumers that MORE ethanol content might not be good for their vehicles?

Or should consumers take it upon themselves to know what kind of fuel belongs in their tank?

Ned

By now you've all heard about former Fox 26 Chief Meteorologist Cecilia Sinclair's latest venture.

She is Executive Producer of a new series of educational DVDs called "Let's Learn Spanish with Frank and Paco."

Those of you who buy a copy will recognize another familiar former Fox 26 face: Christina Garza, who is one of the co-hosts.  You can learn a lot more about this project on the "Frank and Paco" website.  Here's a link:

http://frankandpaco.com/

Ceci's family got together with mine, recently, for coffee.  And she shared a funny story about her 6-year old daughter Sarah, which I told her I'd have to share with you.

Ceci and her husband brought Sarah along for a visit to an historic church in rural Texas.  As they looked around, they allowed Sarah to explore.

All of a sudden, the church bells started to peal.  And they just kept ringing.  And ringing!

Ceci and her husband looked at each other, puzzled.  No church service was in progress and no wedding was taking place.

They gathered up Sarah and started hunting.  In a closet, they finally found it: a switch, just within child's reach.  They flipped it off, and the church bells fell silent!

Just goes to show what an adventurous pre-schooler can do, if left alone for even one instant!

Ned

It's the end of an era for my son, who just turned two.

My wife and I have gotten used to watching DVD movies with him snuggling on the couch between us.  Normally, we'll be able to time things so that he falls asleep within the first few minutes.

This way, we can watch non-G-rated films without exposing him to "adult situations and language."

But this past weekend's screening of "There Will Be Blood" was different.

As promised in the title, there WAS blood.  A lot of it.  Near the beginning of the film, an oil worker is killed in a derrick accident.

Unfortunately our son was awake for this scene and he pointed to the screen and proclaimed, "Boo boo!"

This, of course, is how he lets us know when he has a minor injury that requires a kiss.

But the character in the film didn't need a kiss; he needed a coroner.

And with one proclamation, our two-year-old made it clear HE now needs to spend Movie Time in his bed upstairs!

Ned

Twentieth Reunions on college campuses are nothing unusual.

But the group that congregated around "Willy's statue" at the center of Rice University's campus was a little different.

This 20th reunion commemorated the most infamous prank in Rice's history: the 180-degree rotation of the one-ton statue in the dead of night, using only muscle power.

Here's university founder William Marsh Rice facing Fondren library for the first (and only) time in his 78 years of existence.

The 11 student pranksters pulled it off with a lot of engineering talent and a little luck, using a pair of wooden A-frames and three chain hoists.

I was on campus that day, and I remember watching an engineering crew turn the statue back around, with the help of a construction crane.

It took the professional crew three times as long, in the daytime, as it had taken the students to accomplish in the dark, without the crane.

Twenty years later, nine of the eleven pranksters returned to Willy's statue and so did I...

...to shoot a story on the anniversary.

If you miss the report on Monday night's Fox 26 News at Nine, you can do a search on our website to pull up the video.

Time has taken its toll on all of us...and here's proof.  In 1988, the conspirators were photographed at the statue and the results looked like this:

By 2008, the photo looked like this:

Notice NOT ONE of these 40-something-year old men, myself included, were game for climbing up into Willy's lap!

Ned

Ask any English major about O. Henry's famous short story, "The Gift of the Magi."

 In it, a husband and wife scheme to give each other meaningful Christmas presents.

The husband pawns his prized pocketwatch to purchase elegant combs for his wife's beautiful, long locks.

The wife, meantime, chops her hair so she can sell it to a wigmaker.  This, so she can buy her husband a gold chain for his pocketwatch.

So much for man and wife second-guessing each other.  At least their intentions were noble.

But I was recently reminded of a similar situation, minus the noble intentions, which I stumbled upon while reporting a story.

I found myself in a Houston body shop, interviewing a man for a news report.  There on the shop floor sat a wrecked Dodge Viper, its entire back end crushed like a Coke can.

"What happened HERE?" I asked the body-shop guy.

He smiled (smirked, maybe) and related this story:

A woman and her husband were rushing to get to an appointment.  She was driving her BMW, following him in his Viper.

As they barrelled down the streets of Houston, a welcoming green traffic light suddenly turned menacingly yellow.

Now, this wife KNEW her husband.  She knew him well.  And she was certain he would gun it to beat the light.  So she gunned it, too.

The husband, meantime, KNEW his wife.  And he knew she would slam on the brakes rather than risk running the light.  So he slammed on the brakes, too.

And her BMW rear-ended his Viper.

I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall in their home, that night.  Title this story, "The RIFT of the Magi!"

Both husband and wife guessed each other's reaction.  Both were right.  And both cars were ruined.

Truth, you see, IS stranger than fiction.

Not even O. Henry could have invented that story.  Even though he DID live in Houston for a time.  In the 1800's.  Well before Vipers, BMW's and traffic lights.

-Ned

The call came in the middle of the night.  The ringing telephone sounded far, far away as I struggled to shake off a deep slumber.

Once awake, I realized that the ring sounded distant...because it was.  The digital chirp was emanating from somewhere downstairs.

By the sound of it, I could tell the ringing was not my phone, nor my wife's.  Then it stopped, the house was quiet, and I allowed myself to slip back to sleep.

Cue the music from the movie "Groundhog Day."  Another night, another ringing telephone.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

I possess no super powers, but eventually I figured out the source of my nightly torment...

It was my 2 year old son's "Mr. Incredible" cell phone.  When new, it would emit its distinctive bleat only when it was flipped open or its buttons were pushed.

But one ill-advised foray into the shower changed everything.  Now, the phone rings without human intervention.  And it seems to prefer to release its inner demons not in the daytime, but in the deepest recesses of the night.

I ought to remove the batteries and give the phone a decent burial.  That would bring an end to my nocturnal misery.

But any parent could tell you the consequences of such an action: a phoneless and furious toddler!

Mankind's only hope?  Intervention by a superhero, like Mr. Incredible himself.

Now if only I could find his phone number...

Ned