Day: July 29, 2009

At least he wasn’t texting

The last time police arrested Waldo Baca for drunken driving, an officer found him passed out cold in his truck by the side of Interstate 25 near Santa Fe.

It took the officer several minutes to rouse him, but even then Baca was too intoxicated to speak, according to a state police report. The officer found a mostly empty bottle of whiskey, an empty whiskey bottle and an empty beer can inside Baca’s truck, the report says. Later, after refusing to take sobriety and breath-alcohol tests, Baca told a nurse who was drawing his blood at the hospital that alcohol, marijuana and cocaine would be found in his blood, the report states.

His blood-alcohol level at the time was later determined to have been .24 — three times the legal driving limit, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Health, which oversees the blood testing.

The arrest — which occurred about 6:30 p.m. June 26 — marked the ninth time in the last 17 years Baca, 40, has been taken into custody by police officers from Santa Fe to Los Lunas for drunken driving, according to court records and statistics kept by the DWI Resource Center in Albuquerque.

The New Mexican has more on how Mr. Baca has skirted the system.

Someone just like him may be alongside of you the next time you take the kids to soccer.

Click if only for the mug shot.

Vin Scully

One of the great moments in baseball — not just the story, but the storyteller. Go listen to baseball’s best broadcaster describe the last inning of Koufax’s perfect game in 1965.

Scully talks about virtually nothing but the action in front of him. Even allowing for the drama of this moment, compare and contrast to most current broadcasters who seem incapable of keeping their eye on the ball. And Scully says nothing for 40 seconds after the last pitch. He allows you to savor the moment. It’s not about him.

Link via a fine tribute to Scully at the Bats Blog.

Lightning

A weather front rolls in from the horizon, storm clouds darken the sky, and (at least 1.3 billion times a year) lightning strikes. Last month, the National Weather Service promoted their Lightning Safety Week, with information designed to call attention to safe practices, helping people avoid lightning strikes which kill an average of 100 people every year. While the exact nature of the initial formation of lightning remains a subject of debate, what is known is that lightning strikes are caused by electrical imbalances present in the clouds. Those imbalances correct themselves suddenly, with an often spectacular light show – which I’ve tried to show here, with a handful of recent photographs of lightning from around the world. (26 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com