Friday Snippets and Soundbites

Welcome to the final Friday of March! And you know what that means . . . OK, maybe not, but here on the ec magazine blog it means our online edition of "Snippets and Soundbites."

Yep, we've been digging through this week's news of the weird and watching interesting videos and it's time to share some of what we found this week.

Let's get the weekend started right!

Delayed? Again!
No one likes a delay at the airport. Full of people rushing to get to their next flight or their destination, it's one of the best places to get a glimpse of someone having a complete and total meltdown. Delays usually come from weather issues, mechanical problems, or flights that are running just a tiny bit behind. That wasn't the case at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta this week. Apparently, on Tuesday, a coyote wandered onto a runway and delayed flights by a few minutes while the ground crews chased the animal off of the runway. The whole delay only lasted about five minutes (the time it took ground crews in a vehicle to chase the animal into a ravine), but that's five minutes at the world's busiest airport. You can read all about it here.

Snowball fight! Lawsuit!
Most of us think a snowball fight sounds like fun, but that's not the case for two Massachusetts men. In defense of the guys: this is not your run-of-the-mill fun-with-your-friends-in-the-snow snowball fight. Apparently, Charles Dow of Newton, Mass., and Robert Earley of Nantucket, Mass., were in Jay, Vermont, earlier this winter. On that fateful Friday, Earley was driving his car down the street when Dow fired off a snowball at the moving vehicle. The Vermont State Police report that Earley then stopped his vehicle and assaulted Dow for throwing the snowball. Dow was injured and treated at a Newport, Vermont, hospital. But both of the men now face charges: Earley was cited for simple assault; Dow was charged with disorderly conduct. They're both due in court in May. And we're glad there will likely be no snow around for that court date! Read all about it here.

A sweet story.

We love good stories about dogs as much as anyone. OK, if we're honest, maybe more than most people. But this week we ran across the story of Alice, an 8-week-old springer spaniel who had been abandoned by a breeder at an animal rescue shelter in Ireland because she was deaf. That's where Marie Williams and Mark Morgan ran across the puppy. Deaf themselves, they fell in love with the dog—the fact that she was deaf just made her all the more special. Alice's new family is working to teach her sign language. It seems like she's found a happy new home! Learn more here. Be sure to check out the video!

As always, if today's edition of "Snippets and Soundbites" wasn't enough strange news and quirky stories for your taste, check out page 38 in this month's (and every month's) print issue of ec. You can subscribe to ec here: www.lifeway.com/ec.