Ariel’s Story Picks: Texas Wildfires, 4-Day Work Weeks and Super Bowl Ads

With Chad on vacation, I’ll be taking over the “steaming pile” for a few days (and changing the name temporarily…) Here are my story picks for the day:

1.) Wildfires rip through Central Texas [link]

Over the weekend, a new round of wildfires ripped through the Austin area:

The fires struck west of Austin, in places like Spicewood at the edge of the rocky Hill Country. And they hit even more dramatically to the east, scorching more than 25,000 acres of the relatively flat pinewoods of Bastrop County. Fire crews are concentrating on saving lives and putting out the fires, and in most cases have not determined what caused the first sparks.

The on-going drought combined with winds from Tropical Storm Lee, causing the fires to spread even more rapidly. Keep those firefighters down in Austin in your thoughts as they continue battling these wildfires.

2.)4-day work week not such a great idea [link]

Utah's recent experiment with a 4-day work week for state workers proved a failure. Lawmakers said that the shortened work week wasn't saving them as much money as they thought it would, so now everybody is going back to work for the full week, starting after Labor Day. It's a shame this didn't catch on. I sure would've like a three-day weekend every weekend.

3.) Super Bowl Ads almost already sold out [link]

The 2011 NFL season kicks off this Thursday, but advertisers are already lining up for spots in the 2012 Super Bowl. There are only five 30-second spots left up for grabs, each one costing $3.5 million dollars, and NBC expects to have all spots sold out by the end of the year. We may not know who's going to the Super Bowl, but at least we know what's going to be advertised. And hey, a lot of folks just watch the Super Bowl for the ads anyway, right?