| Bet on Bettie: Avoid unwanted "surprise" parties
Birthday parties are a big deal to a lot of families. Parents certainly don't want anything to go wrong after weeks or even months of planning. So what do you do when the party equipment you've rented doesn't show up -- or gets there late? Many families rent moonwalks for their kids' parties; it's the main attraction. So imagine how you would feel if things started to go wrong. One Austin family says a party rental company almost ruined their daughter's birthday. Krystin and Mike Johnson ordered a Scooby-Doo moonwalk for their daughter's sixth birthday party. All was well until the scheduled delivery time which was between 11 in the morning and one in the afternoon. At one, the Johnsons started wondering if Scooby would ever show.
Arctic blast to continue today
The National Weather Service has issued a wind-chill warning for Kane County as wind-chills could reach 35 degrees below zero this morning.Cover up and dress in layers to prevent frostbite, warned National Weather Service meteorologist Rich Brumer."Wrap up as much as possible," Brumer said. "Wear a scarf across your face and cover exposed skin."It takes about 30 minutes for frostbite to set in, Brumer added.The wind-chill warning will remain in effect until about 10 a.m. However, Brumer said Kane County will be under a wind-chill advisory that will expire at noon.The average temperature in January for the Chicago area is about 29 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.Temperatures are expected to remain low in the afternoon, but slower winds will mean that wind-chill levels will be less severe, weather officials said.
Coming Soon: SR to Release E-mail Exchanges ... (Not so fast...)
Update: After reviewing the messages and our options (none good), we've decided not to post the messages. Here's the situation: Of the 50 messages, a few have explicit photos embedded in the message. We can't publish those photos (one shows a toddler's penis). We also have a strong ethical policy against blurring or otherwise manipulating photos. Some of the messages are completely innocuous. The rest of the messages only refer to attachments. Those attachments are explicit, so we can't publish them. We've also gone through each message to blur e-mail addresses for privacy reasons. So, if we don't publish any of the explicit images, and we refuse to blur, crop or otherwise alter them, all we're left with is a bunch of forwarded messages that say things like "take a look at this!" We decided that did not advance the story in any significant way.
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