By Nathan Stout (of According To Whim.com)
We here According To Whim live in the North Texas area. As you probably have heard about Texas: “Don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.” That’s a fairly accurate statement. Of course it is exaggerating but give it about eight hours and it can change drastically.
So here is the setup: Stoopid Bowl 45… Ok, I’ll stop calling it funny names. It really doesn’t help our attempt to get people to read or stuff if we misspell it so it won’t show up on searches. If you want to know why we keep misspelling it read this. Anyway we Super Bowl 45 was coming to Arlington (to Cowboy’s Stadium) on Sunday February 6th, 2011. This has been hyped as a big deal since the stadium went up. The media blitz has been getting bigger and bigger as the ‘big game’ approached. Two weeks out you couldn’t’ fart without hearing about the Superbowl. This year Fox had the rights to broadcast it so that’s all you heard about if you watched any of the newscasts.
Even without all that setup I am sure you realize how big this event was to the DFW (Dallas / Fort Worth area).
The weather in the DFW area had been very mild for winter time. Very mild. I kept telling people the more mild the weather the nastier the winter wake up will be. Sure enough a week before Jerry World (as it is called sometimes) the forecast called for an Arctic blast with ice and snow and all that good stuff. It was expected to be done and over three days before the game but those ice-laden days meant MEGA money loss to all the business (the NFL to say the least) who were hoping to make some big cash off the hype and all the visitors to North Texas.
The sleet started Monday night/ Tuesday morning and before dawn there was a nice layer of ice covered with snow. Me and wife didn’t care. We turned on the faucets to drip and turned up the heat. No point in trying to go to work (or even out of the driveway). We spent the next 4 days cooped up in the house. I tried to do a lot of cleaning, laundry, and editing (of our public access show: According To Whim) so I didn’t feel like I had wasted all that time just sitting around watching Fox go on and on and on and on and on and on about the weather and it’s effects on the Superbowl. Luckily the pipes didn’t freeze up this time (probably because I was actually prepared with the right tools this time). The main roads and freeways were probably clear enough to drive on after the 2nd or 3rd day but we live in the boonies and the back roads that lead to those larger roads were undriveable. We were finally able to get out on Saturday and it felt so good. Its funny how much we want to be at home but when we get stuck there we become unhappy. I think we like to stay home because we always KNOW we can get out when we want to.
Mother Nature was unkind to Jerry and North Texas. There is no telling how much the weather cost the NFL, Jerry, or North Texas in general. Who knows if the NFL will bother coming back for some other Superbowl. I have seen several stories on how the weather might have cost Arlington future Superbowls but I think in the end the NFL looks at their revenue (which they share those numbers with NO ONE) and that will determine where future Superbowls will be.
As for me I am soooo glad it is all over. I was just tired about hearing about it every time I picked my nose. It was a novelty for the first few weeks then it just got OLD. I think Mother Nature was tired of it all too.
I've written about my struggles with the weather the week of the Super Bowl (and some of the effects on Dallas I heard about) but it's going to be posted as a column. I'll announce when I have my back log of columns posted.