On Today’s Show

➢ For many, March 11, 2020 — the day Tom Hanks announced that he and wife Rita Wilson had tested positive for COVID-19, while the NBA suspended its season — marked a new chapter of the coronavirus pandemic; The fact that elite athletes and movie stars could be susceptible underlined the seriousness of the virus’s spread. 

As we hit the one-year anniversary, Wilson reflected on her illness, writing on IG: “I want to take a moment to say how grateful we are for our health, how thankful we are for the medical care we got in Queensland (Australia), and that we share in the sorrow of each person who lost a loved one to this virus. I’m hopeful for so many being able to get the vaccine.”

It’s been a year since the COVID-19 “stay-in-place” shutdown, so Jimmy Kimmel ran a bit from a year ago.  It’s people on the street commenting on coronavirus.  

(From “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Wednesday, March 10, 2021.)

➢ An organic food company called Nature’s Path recently discontinued a line of frozen waffles.  And Jenna, a Mom in B.C. panicked, because they’re the only thing her nine-year-old son with autism Jerico will eat.  So the company tracked down all the remaining boxes that were out there, and delivered them to her for free.  And they’re working on a special at-home recipe for her.  So when they do finally run out, she can recreate them. 

TODAY IS……………….

• “Johnny Appleseed Day”, Yes, there really was a Johnny Appleseed. His real name was John Chapman when he was born in Massachusetts in 1774. He didn’t just walk around the U.S. sprinkling apple seeds all over the place. He was a serious nurseryman who established orchards in the wilderness of the Midwest. He then gave or sold trees to pioneers who depended on apples as a staple in their diets.

2011 [10] A massive earthquake measuring 9.0 in magnitude strikes Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands and causing the second-largest nuclear accident in history

_____________________________________________________________________________

COUNTRY MUSIC NOTE

Josh Turner‘s “Your Man” hit Number One in Billboard in 2006.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Texas Rangers Will Pack Their Stadium to Full Capacity for Opening Day

The Texas Rangers plan to pack their stadium to FULL CAPACITY for their home opener on April 5th, which is less than a month away.  For better or worse, that will make them the first major sports team to abandon crowd-size restrictions.

So what are the protocols?  For starters, the team will REQUIRE fans to wear a mask at all times, except when they’re eating and drinking.

Of course, if you’ve watched any sporting events during the pandemic, you know how well that’s worked.

It’ll be even harder in Texas, since Governor Greg Abbott has already lifted the mandate to wear masks in public. 

The Rangers are also erecting plexiglass barriers to protect the players from potentially contagious fans.  And the team will ask fans to “socially distance” as they enter and leave the stadium.  (Good luck with that one!)

The concession and merchandise stands will all be cashless, and there won’t be paper tickets . . . everything will be digital.  The stadium’s retractable roof will also stay open during games “if the weather cooperates.”

Oh and check this out:  The Rangers are playing the Toronto Blue Jays at their home opener . . . and the Jays aren’t even allowed to fly back and forth to Canada yet, so they’re playing their home games in Florida.

The Rangers’ home, Globe Life Field, can hold more than 40,000 fans, and pre-pandemic, they were ranked 18th out of 30 teams in attendance.

By the way, Marlins Park in Miami will use DRONES to disinfect their stadium.  The Marlins will start the season at 20% capacity, which is about what they were drawing pre-pandemic. 

(It’s TRUE!  20% is about 7,300 fans.  In 2019, they only averaged 10,000 fans . . . the worst in baseball.)

____________________________________________________________________________

FOUR RANDOM FACTS 

1. It takes 5 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water.

2. Some species of ants explode when attacked (T-ant-T?).

3. July 16th is said to be the happiest day of the year… Only 172 days to go.

4. Men get hiccups more often than women.

_______________________________________________________________________________

GOOD NEWS 

A Hamilton company is converting shipping containers into surgical rooms.

Sabrina Fiorellino owns the company that is helping hospitals address issues like bed shortages and surgical cancellations by turning containers that were once meant for construction projects into spaces to treat patients

She was inspired by her own Mother he is a double lung transplant recipient. 

“If my mom needed a transplant during COVID, where transplant surgeries are being cancelled or postponed, there could have been a chance that she could have died,” 

Developers built air handling systems in each container, which allows air to filter, but also prevents cross contaminations between rooms, ultimately reducing air transmission of the virus. The units are also customizable and can be outfitted with ventilators and several other medical devices.

Outside of the heath-care system, the units can also serve as school classrooms, hotels and housing rooms for people who live in remote communities. The containers are equipped to accept various types of power and water systems that can connect to existing infrastructure.

______________________________________________________________________________

BIRTHDAYS 

[90] Rupert Murdoch, media magnate (FOX-TV, News Corp)/estimated net worth $23.5 billion

[52] Terrence Howard, actor (‘Lucious Lyon’ on “Empire” 2015-20)/movie actor (“The Butler”, “Iron Man”) COMING UP…”Triumph”

________________________________________________________________________________________

WORDS THAT DIDN’T EXIST 40 YEARS AGO:
✗ Booyah:  Goes back to 1990 when an ESPN sportscaster made it popular by using it to express his joy over touchdowns and homeruns and stuff. 

✗ Photobomb:  Thought to have been first recognized in a 2008 Urban Dictionary entry. 

✗ Foodie:  First appeared in New York magazine in 1980. Now there are more than 140 million Insta posts alone which are associated with the hashtag #foodie.

✗ Infomercial:  Goes back to the early ‘80s when they became popular on American TV. 

✗ Blog:  Short for “weblog”, the term began to be used in the late 1990s in the way that it is used now. 

✗ Adulting:  Popular with millennials, this word was nominated for word of the year in 2016 by Oxford Dictionary.

✗ Cougar:  Yes, it has been a word for centuries, but it’s only been used to describe an older woman who dates younger men since around 1999.  

____________________________________________________________________________

Would You Want a Bathroom with No Door? 

There’s a home design trend that’s been growing for the past few years: “open-concept bathrooms.”  That’s a bathroom WITHOUT a door.  Like, the toilet and shower are just out in the open, with no option for any privacy.

A house just hit the market in the Boston area with one of these open-concept bathrooms.  And the bathroom seriously just looks like a living room . . . same flooring, no door, same décor.  Only it’s got a toilet right in the middle of it.

The real estate agent selling the house says when he first saw it, quote, “I was like, ‘Man, was this designed for an exhibitionist?’ . . . but you know what?  It could work if folks, you know, don’t mind having it open and just can live freely.”

Has he found anyone yet?  Um . . . no.  As he’s been showing the house, quote, “The majority just felt like they were having a hard time really trying to visualize themselves living in that space.” 

(Here’s one picture that shows how the bathroom flows off the other rooms, and here’s one that shows JUST how little privacy you’d have.)

____________________________________________________________________________________

TIRED OF TELECONFERENCING:
Another day…another Zoom meeting? Are you a victim of “Zoom fatigue”? That’s the term given to the phenomenon that that many teleconferencers have noticed: It leaves them feeling wiped out. 

According to researchers at the University of California, the problem could be the very design of video-conferencing apps. Technology like Zoom places physical restraints on users, requires more cognitive labor, and forces everyone to stare at each other. The cumulative effect of all these factors can be exhausting. 

That’s right. We’re not used to staring at people’s faces for such a long period of time, much less the faces of several people. When teleconferencing, we also send and receive more physical cues than in normal settings, which can also be tiring, yet we’re physically restrained from moving around, unlike at a physical meeting, where you might pace or visit the water cooler. There is also an effect known as the “all-day mirror” where you become drained because there is a user view of your own camera staring you in the face. 

What can we do about Zoom fatigue? The scientists say to consider using an external webcam and keyboard to allow more space to move, and maybe use the ‘audio-only’ feature…or just pick up the phone.

THURSDAY MARCH 11TH  

1.   MIN 4 – VGK 3 EDM 7 – OTT 1 COL 2 – ARI 1 OT 

LAK 5 – ANA 1 MTL 5 – VAN 1

2.   A small town near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania decided to thankits only UPS driver for all his hard work this past year.  They waited for him at his last stop of the day . . . cheered when he pulled in . . . and gave him a card they signed, along with $1,000.

3. A new studyfound it takes three-and-a-half days for your feet to recover after you wear the wrong shoes.  Here’s a clip from “Pulp Fiction” where they talk about foot massages.

4.   Dave Chappelle.  Most people think he grew up poor, but he didn’t.  He explains.  (From his 2017 Netflix special, “Equanimity”)

There’s a Bipartisan Senate Bill to Make Sunday the Final Time Change Ever

There aren’t many things that could get a bipartisan vote in the Senate in this day and age . . . but there is ONE.  Both Republicans and Democrats REALLY want to get rid of springing forward and falling back.

There’s a new bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate to make Sunday’s time change the final one EVER in the country.

It makes a lot of sense to end the time changes . . . Standard Time might’ve made sense 100 years ago when it was established to help with train travel, but at this point, the best argument seems to be “well, this is just how we’ve always done things.”

Daylight Saving Time has been connected to fewer car accidents, lower risk for heart attacks and strokes, fewer robberies, and less energy usage.

So if this becomes a law before November, we’ll just stay on Daylight Saving Time for good . . . no changing back in the fall. 

MAREN MORRIS TEASES GRAMMY PERFORMANCE WITH JOHN MAYER 

In addition to having two nominations in the Best Country Song category at Sunday’s (March 14th) Grammy Awards, Maren Morris will also be performing. She teased the performance on social media sharing a picture with John Mayer and captioning it with “We’ll see you at the GRAMMYs.” Maren is expected to perform her nominated song “The Bones,” but no details about her collaboration with John have been revealed. 

Maren’s other Best Country Song nomination is as a member of the supergroup The Highwomen. She tells us this year in particular it’s a tough category. [“I mean, being nominated in a year where there were a lot of great country songs . . . I was saying earlier like all of our friends are in this category. Like, ‘The Bones’ and then my band The Highwomen also is nominated with ‘Crowded Table’ so I’m like competing against my own band, and then ‘Some People Do,’ Old Dominion . . .  I mean, there’s so many amazing songs in that category, so, yeah, being nominated this year is fun.”] 

The Grammys will air at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

BLAKE SHELTON SAYS COVID HAS NOT CHANGED THIS ONE PART OF HIS LIFE 

COVID has changed a lot of things for artists, musicians and songwriters in Nashville, but for Blake Shelton, the process of finding new music to record has always remained the same. The songs get to him the same way they have since he moved from Nashville a decade ago. [“Finding music is no different during this pandemic, and the shutdown and quarantine phase. It’s no different than it’s been the last ten years, because I don’t live in Nashville, I live in Oklahoma, and then when I’m not there, I’m traveling, or I’m in LA filming The Voice, so most of the music is either emailed to me, or sent to me on a disc, that I just listen to on my own time. So, that part of it hasn’t been much different.”] SOUNDCUE (:31 OC: . . . been much different.)

COVID has created some problems for Blake and his upcoming wedding to Gwen Stefani. In a recent interview with Extra, he said they’re going to wait to choose a wedding date until all their guests can be safe and comfortable together. 

JUSTIN MOORE’S SON BROKE HIS LEG ON DADDY’S ‘WATCH’ 

For the second time in his young life, Justin Moore‘s three-year-old son, South, has broken his leg. It happened on the trampoline at the Moore’s Arkansas home, and Justin was most upset because the accident occurred while he was home alone with his four children.

He relayed the incident to Taste of Country saying, “I go pick ’em up from school, we go outside. They’re all four on the trampoline and my 7-year-old is usually really good about keeping out for her brother and stopping her sisters from doing something stupid, you know. So I said, ‘I’m gonna run in, I’m gonna grab a glass of water. I’ll be right back.'” Justin says that’s when the injury happened, and he learned that his nine-year-old daughter had “double-jumped” South on the trampoline.

Justin says the first time South broke his leg — which happened to be his other leg — he was with his grandfather at church.

Categorised in: Mornings

This post was written by Dave Palmer