Apocalypse Eve

I'm spending New Year's Eve at my sister's house, where I'm told some sort of yearly tradition of revelry shall take place. They tried to explain something that sounded a bit apocalyptic. I guess they spend the night watching the end of civilization on television. Like anyone preparing for the end of the world as we know it, they spend the evening drinking heavily and trying to feign a good time.

A few seconds before midnight, they watch this monstrous ball come tumbling down from a skyscraper. They're so certain it will land and kill all the people that they start counting it down. When they get to zero and the ball stops, they're all so happy that they start singing and kissing each other. It's really pretty amazing people do it every year.

Remember me?

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. For that I have many regrets, since I've had a lot going on in my mind lately.

It's not even that I haven't had time to do it. I'm just lazy.

So here's the quick update. If you're looking for the regular cynicism that's followed me for years, you ought to look elsewhere. This is pretty upbeat stuff.

* I love my new job. I'm not going to say every minute of every day is full of ecstasy and joy. But for the most part, I don't mind what I'm writing about. I'm enjoying meeting all the new people on my beat (everything that happens in Putnam County, Ohio). And I like writing more than designing or editing.

* I love my new hours. Sure, I have to work a night or two a week. Big whoop. I used to work 70 or 80 hours a week at the old job. I'm sticking pretty solidly with the 40 hours a week (or 32 for these holiday weeks), and I'm getting everything done. I'm happy with that.

* I love my new apartment. Silly as it sounds, the best thing here is the electric heat with separate thermostats in each room. I'm a notorious cheap-skate. I'm able to keep the rooms I use all the time, such as the bedroom and living room, nice and toasty. Then I was able to turn my extra bedroom into something of an office/workout room, which I keep cold except when I'm using the room. It's a miser's dream come true.

* I had a great Christmas. For most of the day, I came out of my shell a little bit. I reverted somewhat later in the day when the number of kids and number of adults was at its peak, as I'm overwhelmed by large groups that I can't talk over. But I think we got through a second holiday without any major feelings hurt and without pushing anyone to tears. That's a good thing. Presents-wise... well, I'm too old to do this for the presents. But the little bit I got was nice.

* Hobbies. With the glut of free time as a result of not working so darned much, I have more free time. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it. I'm considering taking up a musical instrument. I'm leaning toward the guitar or piano, since my musical leanings (blues, rock and country) could all use those.

That should do it for now. I'll probe deeper into my head soon. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about why I'm so stubborn on some things. That should be a fun one for the whole family...

Done packing

It's like deja vous all over again. I'm done packing, sitting here on the couch with my last possession that isn't in a box or bag, my laptop.

I'm looking at all the stuff in the handy Sterilite totes. They're all stacked neatly in a row, biggest ones on the bottom and lightest on the top.

Two things come to mind which are completely contradictory: 1. I have too much stuff. 2. I don't have much stuff.

Over the course of the week I've been packing things up. I held off the "essentials" until today, which mostly meant cookware, the radio, that sort of thing. The laptop packs up so easily, I'm not so concerned about that.

So that leaves me thinking that I must not really need that other stuff. (OK, the clothes that I packed on Monday and delivered to the new place Wednesday are necessary. I'll give you that no one wants to see me walking around without those.)

So much of the other stuff just seems like clutter, though. I'll have to decide if "sentimental" items really need to follow me or if my memories are good enough.

On the other hand, I'm looking at everything in these boxes and thinking how little it really is. The entire area they're using can't be more than 8x8 and perhaps five feet high (excluding bigger pieces of furniture). That really isn't all that much accumulated over a 29-year lifespan, is it?

So I feel good and bad. I consider myself something of a minimalist, where I don't need a whole lot of things to be happy. (Just an Internet connection and a laptop, and I'll be mostly happy.) So I'm glad I don't have more than that, but I also wonder if I could do with less.

I suppose there's something about the holidays that just makes me feel guilty about what I have, so I have to reason out whether I deserve it or should have it.

I'm sure I'll ponder this more tomorrow night, as I begin the pain-in-the-neck process of unpacking, which is worse in my opinion.

Red was here too

Tonight marked my last shift at the Delaware Gazette.

As my friend Jeremy and I left the office tonight, he asked if I left any messages from beyond for people. He asked if I etched "Red was here too" in any of the woodwork.

Truth be told, no. I'm not sure I've ever worked someplace where I've left less of a mark. Much of it was the brief five-month stint here. Part of it was the circumstances surrounding the place. Primarily it was the fact I gave up two months ago at making this place any better, as I didn't -- and don't -- honestly believe it wants to be any better than it is.

In some ways, the "Shawshank Redemption" reference my friend made seems ideal. It's almost like the end to a sentence for a crime I willingly committed.

A number of people asked if I'll miss the place. No. Not even remotely. It was the most miserable working experience I've ever had in my life. The 70-hour weeks wore me down. The ever-devolving focus on good journalism depressed me. I've never questioned if I wanted to stay in journalism as much as I have here. And I really won't miss how cold my office was when I came in at 6 a.m. and a wind current developed between the two windows there.

Will I miss the people? Sure, some of them, but I can socialize with them still. But overall, I'm much happier knowing I don't work there anymore.

Red might've been there, but no one will remember him. It's probably better that way.

I wanted to ask, but...

I went to the local watering hole -- the one with attractive ladies, as opposed to the one with overweight men -- tonight.

Much to my surprise, a rather forward offer was made to me within half an hour of being there, on behalf of an attractive girl by her not-so-attractive friend. I, like any red-blooded American male, said it was certainly a possibility. Unlike most American males, I said I wanted to know more about her first.

That apparently was some sort of turn-off. While her friend at one point still ended up in my lap -- her battles with gravity will one day be legendary -- nothing came of the original offer to "let her jump my bones."

I did start observing this duo, though, and it made me wonder greatly about what, exactly, women want. I'm sure philosophers and theologians will long debate this very question.

I'm generally a pretty respectful guy. I have a number of sisters (five, if you're counting), and I learned from that the importance of treating women with respect. I'm not overtly forward. I consider feelings. I, by watching the rest of my gender tonight, am not a man.

I watched guy after guy grope, fondle and otherwise touch these two girls for the rest of the night. Most frighteningly, I observed a bald fat man stroke the girl of the lovely lady who happened to be wearing a rather flattering green sweater. I observed hands smacking backsides. I saw guys move extremely close to these girls.

I wanted to ask why these girls permitted it. I wanted to know what possessed these fellows to be so presumptious. Most of all, I wanted to know why these gals didn't smack them flat across the face.

I didn't ask, thoguh. I wanted to ask, but I didn't. I don't know why not. I guess I'm a coward. I wanted to ask these girls to talk, too, but I didn't. I don't know why.

Thanksgiving Dinner

In the past few days, a number of acquaintances have asked how my Thanksgiving was. It's a friendly enough question that requires a fairly length response on my part.

For those who don't know, I'm the fifth child out of seven in my parents' family. Yes, we're Catholic. I know that's what you were going to ask next, so I'll beat you to the punch.

We're all at least 21 years old, with four of those children having children of their own. We still gather as a family, which is unique and wonderful and nuts all at the same time.

Here's what makes it nuts. Just take the original seven kids and two parents, and put them back into the home we had as we grew up in Northwest Ohio. My parents have more knick-knacks than when we were here. We're all bigger than when we all lived there together. It's a challenge.

Then add in spouses and significant others. Sprinkle in the grandkids. There's a healthy dose of noise as people are all trying to communicate. It's sort of like trying to have a conversation at a subway station during rush hour or discuss your innermost thoughts as the home team scores a touchdown.

In short, it's nuts.

It's great, though, getting to play with nieces and nephews. That's the payoff for coming back to Ohio, getting to play with them. There's nothing more satisfying in life than having a child simply happy you're there.

Dinner was delightful. Because of the limited seating availability, I swear every time someone got up for a new plate of food, someone else took their seats. I think that might be how the rotation worked, where you're counting on someone standing at all times. It's sort of like the "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" game where one person has to stand, one has to sit and one has to lay on the floor.

Anyway, I'm glad I could come up for the holiday. It certainly reminds you what you're thankful for. There's nothing like family, for better or for worse.

Greener pastures

I've always described journalism as a calling to people. It's like the priesthood. If you're not devoted to it, it just won't work. If it ever stops feeling like the best line of work in the world, you should stop doing it.

I've hit that point with sports journalism. Don't get me wrong, it can be fun. Covering games and writing features can be some of the most rewarding work you can do. You get to know young student-athletes and record what they do. But for every minute you get to do the fun stuff, there are 10 minutes of designing pages, dealing with irate callers or answering calls so you can take a swimming meet.

Between that and an onslaught of frustrations with my current job, I'm getting out. I'm going over to the daylight side. I'm returning to my roots somewhat, going back to Lima (Ohio) to take a news-writing job covering Putnam County.

I'm looking forward to it. Will I miss sportswriting? Absolutely. Will I miss sports editing? Not for a second.

It's been a tough couple months since I moved to Delaware. We're talking about 60-hour weeks at a minimum and 80-hour weeks at the worst. I had two 18-hour days in the same week a couple weeks ago. I've been doing the work of two or three guys -- literally -- and I don't mean Larry, Curly and Moe.

Anybody who knows me knows I hate to give up. I hate to quit. It's not in my nature. But I'm also realistic enough to know that if I stuck around here much longer, I'd become such a bitter hack that I'd hate what I do. I don't want to hate journalism. It's all I've ever wanted to do since I grew out of the 5-year-old "I want to be a fireman" phase.

I'll send out the relevant contact information to those "on the list" once I find a place in my new corner of the state. I'm excited about the change. I'm excited about taking a writing-only job, and it'll be challenging to tackle new types of stories.

One of the most common reactions I've gotten at my current paper when I put in my notice was this: "News? How can you do news? You're a sports guy." First off, that feeds into one of my most frustrating stereotypes, that sports guys somehow aren't real journalists.

Second, it's worth mentioning that news jobs were what I'd chased coming out of college. My internship was in news. I wanted a news job out of college, but bless his soul, Lima News sports editor Paul Smith talked me into applying for his sports job.

It's been a lot of fun ever since, and it's taken me places I'm not sure news would have. I've seen the Browns' first game. I've covered a Georgia Southern-Furman football game in Georgia with a conference championship on the line. I watched Virginia Tech topple Miami last season. And at this moment I'm sitting in Ohio Stadium, awaiting the Michigan-Ohio State game in what might be the last football game I ever cover.

What a way to go out, huh?

Breaking the law

I've been a fugitive for the past two weeks. Like any criminal, I won't take the blame myself. I'll blame someone else... not my parents, or society, though. I'm blaming Chrysler Financial.

My Virginia license plates expired in August, which was fine since I was in Ohio by then. When I went to get Ohio plates, the nice lady at the DMV (never thought I'd use those words together) explained I needed the original title changed over from Virginia to Ohio. I got a temporary 30-day tag, and all was well with the world.

I left with the appropriate paperwork, which needed faxed to Chrysler Financial's offices. I spent about an hour on the phone -- "Your call is very important to us" -- waiting to find the appropriate fax number. Upon getting it, I faxed the information to their offices in Michigan.

Then I waited. A lot. When the 30-day period expired, I checked with the title office, which said they hadn't received the title yet. When I checked with Chrysler Financial -- "Your call is important to us" -- apparently my fax wasn't as important as my call. They couldn't find any record of my request to send the title to Ohio. I had to file another one.

Fine. I got another 30-day Ohio tag. I already had the fax number, so I sent it out to them again. Again, I waited.

Again, the tags came close to expiring. I returned to the DMV and found a woman not nearly as kind served me. She informed me Ohio wouldn't give me another set of 30-day tags. I could drive until they expired, then I'd be in violation of the law.

That's when I became a criminal. That's also when I became irate with Chrysler Financial -- "Your call is important to us." When I called to find out what the holdup was, they informed me they had no record of my request. At that point, I asked the person on the phone to MAKE a record of my request, and I had to fax them the same form for the third time.

That's when I became a law-breaker, on Nov. 5. My temporary tag expired, and my Virginia tags had long since become extinct. I decided to save myself trouble, I'd avoid driving on highways, just tooling back and forth to work.

Every time I saw a police officer, I panicked. I had one follow me for several blocks coming home from work, and I was convinced I was sunk. I doubted having an expired Virginia plate and an expired Ohio temporary tag would impress them, no matter the reason.

Fortunately, Chrysler Financial finally came through for me earlier this week. The title office received the title, and I found the time to go in there and get everything straightened out. I'm proud to say I'm a legal Ohio driver once again, complete with a driver's license (missed four questions out of 50... slipping from my old college days) and plates.

But for two weeks, I was a rebel... a lawbreaker... a fugitive, trying to avoid the man... Sadly enough, this is probably the best "me against Johnny Law" story I'll ever be able to tell my grandkids.

COMING SOON... A fairly major announcement on the job front.

Fun for the whole family

It'd been a rough week, and I've written an awful lot of words for work. So I've been avoiding unnecessary words...

You never know what you might find on the Internet.

Click here for a strange little program where you can look at the mascots for all sorts of different Major League Baseball teams.

I think my favorite might be San Diego's Swinging Friar.

Learning about me

You'd think as much time as I spend with myself, I'd know enough about me already. But that doesn't stop me from engaging in the occasional online survey.

Tonight I took one that was offered on a link from Yahoo personals (an experience all its own that I shall write about some day). After about a 10-minute survey, I'm convinced it knows more about me than many people I've dated. Its summary:
---
What Sets You Apart?
You enjoy spending time one-on-one with someone or being with a small group of close friends. Crowds drain your energy, while time spent alone or relaxing with a friend revitalizes you.
You have a natural intellectual curiosity and love to explore new facts and ideas.
You're overly modest at times and tend to sell yourself short.
You're an incredibly loyal friend and co-worker who's always thoughtful, polite, and available to help.

Individualists have a knack for innovation. Like pioneers, you have the potential to chart a new course and break new ground in your career and community. Not everyone will appreciate it, but you're a true original.
---
It was also nice to see that I am, in fact, not like other guys. In fact, only 4 percent of men have my personality traits. Another 36 percent are "very much like me." That means that 60 percent of men are not very much like me, and 96 aren't exactly like me.

I don't know if that's comforting or frightening. But it is accurate.

To wrap up this post, I can't say it any better than something else I just noticed on the site:
---
Individualists in Love
It's rare for an Individualist to be a Romantic. Your natural skepticism doesn't fit well with the leap of faith that romantic love requires. Then again, Individualists are always full of surprises. You're a rebel at heart, and romance is the ultimate rebellion against rules and rationalism.

Politics stink

The ads on TV keep getting more and more mean-spirited. Whether it's for president or dogcatcher, the ads are simply vicious. There are attacks based on personality, record and mere distrust. It's frustrating and sad to see.

After watching some of these, it really makes me wonder why anyone would ever get involved in politics in the first place. Opponents drag your name through the mud, often only telling half-truths as to what you believe and what you stand for.

I started thinking about this as I filled out an intriguing form called Candidate Match on the Columbus Dispatch Web site. It asks you a number of questions and, based on your responses, tells you how closely you align with each of the two mainstream presidential candidates as well as the Libertarian and Constitution party representatives.

The trouble is similar to what you see in the attack ads. You can pick a point of view, but you seldom get a reason to explain why. Take, for example, #4 on their survey: "Public schools across the country should be held accountable for their students' ability — or inability — to meet national achievement standards."

This is a two-pronged question, really. Are you speaking to the right of the national government to set standards? Or are you speaking of the accountability of local school districts to turn out good students who are ready for the modern world? These are two different questions that create two different answers in my mind.

My political leanings are a bit atypical. I classify myself as a Libertarian, which is to say I believe more in personal responsibility and smaller government than the role of the government to be a safety net for its citizenry. Similarly, I don't believe the government should have much control over what the people do and that we've unnecessarily ceded many rights to the government.

People hear Libertarian and think you're some sort of fascist or ultraliberal or ultraconservative, simply out of ignorance. I truly believe if more people took the time to read about the basic principles, they'd realize how moderate this point of view really is.

I discovered the party when I was in college, in a political science class. Having attended a state university, the professors all rushed past Libertarian and Constitution parties so they could spend more time uplifting the liberals and damning the conservatives. The ideas intrigued me from the start. Then, my first job was in a Libertarian-based newspaper chain (Freedom Communications), and I had a chance to see the real-world implications. I liked it even more.

I suppose this gets back to something that's bothered me about this election. It's turned into such a negative atmosphere. In the news-gathering business, there's no doubt there are a number of liberal-leaning individuals in the profession. It's bothered me to no end the amount of flak I get for not wanting to vote for John Kerry. One guy even offered me $10 to either switch my vote tomorrow or not vote at all.

One of the things I like about Libertarian belief is the thought that people should just do what they believe is right and just. I may not agree with you, but I'll respect your right to believe it. I think this basic belief is lost nowadays, though. It's certainly turned into a more "us against them" attitude in the world. It's been that way since the last election.

That brings me to another gripe about this election. There is obviously some anti-Bush sentiment in this country, and that's your right. The most common reason I've heard for it, however, is because "the majority" voted for Gore in the last election. Perhaps the people in the country need a government refresher course. We don't popularly elect a president in this country. It's not a direct election. We use an electoral college system. That means it's possible to win the popular vote and not win the electoral college. It's happened before, and it's by design. (For fun political reading on the electoral college vote, click here.)

If these people don't like the electoral college system, they need to rail against that, not the sitting president. All it will take is a constitutional amendment, and it's such a popular idea I'd be stunned if it didn't become law within an election or two if we acted now.

I'm reminded of something my high school football coach during my sophomore year used to say: "Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has them, and usually they stink."

So what's this come down to? You don't need my endorsement to make up your mind. You should consider the facts. You should vote with your heart, your conscience and your mind. You should have informed opinions and really consider what you think this country should be and who will take you there.

Most importantly, you should vote.

Halloween candy

I'm rejoining the Halloween ranks.

I haven't really done anything with Halloween since high school, when I handed out the candy at my parents' house. Through college, it just wasn't an issue. In my first few jobs, I always had to work the "Beggar's Nights," as I recently heard a woman call it.

Today is Trick or Treat night in Delaware, and I have no valid excuses to avoid this community-building event. One of the guys at work mentioned he'd had his trick or treat night in his community, and they only had two children come to their home. Always the deal-seeker, I bought his remaining stock of candy, which amounted to four 10-packs of candy bars and two half-bags of suckers. Speaking of suckers, I bought all this for $5.

But then today I started thinking about the neighborhood where I live. There seem to be a number of children here. I know of at least 10 kids just in a three-building area. Another coworker told me a lot of parents just drop their kids off at one end of my street and pick them up at the other end an hour later. So I had to wonder if 30-some candy bars and a couple dozen suckers would do the trick.

So I returned to the store and got more. I'd hate to run out. I'd hate even more to have to be one of those people who gives a kid one mini-candy bar. Now I think I have too much. I'll know for sure between 6 and 8 p.m. today.

Shopping in dad's closet

I'd been thinking about getting a jogging suit lately, mostly because it's been cold outside and I wanted to have something I could zip up and zip down prior to our softball games. Anyway, I mentioned this to my parents while visiting tonight.

Suddenly out came a whole wardrobe of that sort of thing. My dad's put on a pound or two lately and said he didn't think he'd ever fit some of these things, so someone might as well get some use of it. Given that I'm his height, I thought, "What the heck. I'll see what he has."

He had exactly what I wanted, some simple jogging suits, not too flashy, not too bland. Ended up with a decent loot of what I'd wanted.

Here's the question that comes up... Just how much of a geeky loser do you have to be before you start taking hand-me-downs that you dad has determined aren't stylish? (Those who have met my dad get double points for understanding just what that means.)

To put a happy ending on this story... since I've saved the money on a couple jogging suits, I've decided to stop being so cheap and buy some candy to distribute on Halloween.

Weird wake-up

I keep having the same really weird dream, about once a week. I keep dreaming my alarm starts buzzing.

When I hear the alarm go off, I truly wake up. I get out of bed, walk over to the alarm and turn it off. Then I head to the restroom for the morning routine.

One morning, I stepped into the shower and began thinking about how strange it was to feel so tired, like I'd only slept a few hours. I walked around the apartment to find the clocks all saying 2:30.

Since that first day, I'm smarter when I dream about the alarm ringing. Now usually I'll figure out what time it really is about the time I'm done shaving.

I'm not sure what it says about your life when all you dream about is waking up and going to work.

Random thoughts

It's been the kind of day that, even though nothing happened, I could easily generate five or six blog entries. Sometimes it's easier to say something about nothing than to talk about something. (See Exhibit A: The last three weeks of my last relationship).

* Sleep. I absolutely love sleeping. I've always known I enjoyed it, but I never knew how much until I started a job where the alarm sounded at 5:30 a.m. After staying up to about 3 a.m. Friday due to a rough night of work and an hour to come down from it, I slept until 12:30 p.m. It was wonderful. Sleep is so stressless. You're not worrying about the woes of your life. You're not anxious about how today will be better or worse than yesterday. You merely rest.

* Pretty girls. A college girl came by today to sell magazines. If she were younger, I'd tell her I wasn't interested. If she were male, I'd tell her to buzz off. She was pretty, and she said she was 18, so I bought magazines from her. I invited her in and bought magazines from her, giving her enough that she said she'd get her bonus and get to go home and return to college. This is where I'd get in trouble: She mentioned she was thirsty, so I offered her what I have: Milk, beer and Dr Pepper. It reminded me how old I've become. I'd forgotten some adults can't drink beer.

* What are you working for? I saw this ad, I assume for an insurance or investment company, that asked the question, "What are you working for?" Its message was we work for our families, to provide for them and take care of them. I don't have a family of my own yet, and I've already paid off my college debts. So it made me wonder... what AM I working for?

* Wet T-shirts. I went to a place called the Red Rock Cafe tonight, hoping to integrate into the social scene. I hate going out alone. I always have. Tonight was no different. I stuck around for three frosty cold beverages and witnessed an amusing contest, where female contestants each bent under a stick that held a hot dog in the quest for who could bite off the most hot dog. (There are perverse implications you'd better not consider.) Then they started talking about having a wet T-shirt contest among the rather attractive clientelle there. Another clue you're not in college anymore: You're not interested in a wet T-shirt contest.

* Good friends. This one belongs on Friday, but oh well. I took my friend Jeremy to the airport so he could fly to California to visit his girlfriend, who is out there on business. On the way home, I got to thinking. I bring a lot of friends to airports. I stop by a lot of houses to check on pets or pick up mail. I hear a lot of innermost thoughts and ideas. I'm entrusted with a lot. I feel lucky to be other people's good friend. I think that's a good thing. I think that's proof that I was raised well and am a good person.

I also should write about the disappointments of online dating tonight, but I'll share that for another time when I'm not chuckling at the way life works.

Raising $20,000

You really can find anything on the Internet. I've found a link for a company that handles athlete and celebrity marketing. Thus I bring you the price list for celebrities such as Mini Me, Jenna Jamison and Ben Afleck.

I noticed on the list one Shannon Elizabeth, of American Pie fame.



She can be here for two hours for a mere $11,000 to $20,000. If anyone wants to chip in on the fund, let me know.

Kickoff

I'm sitting in the press box at Ohio Stadium as we speak. The Ohio State Marching Band just finished up the "Script Ohio," and lined up in a big tunnel to greet the Ohio State football team.

The team ran in here, and the 101,000-plus fans in the stadium went nuts. Even though I'm insulated from the noise, it was still deafening to hear them roar as the Buckeyes came onto the field. From in here, it had the sound of a small jet engine flying by here.

As quickly as the cheers began, the noise turned into boos as Wisconsin wandered onto the field.

The National Anthem began, as a team of Marines helped hoist the enormous American Flag up the pole in front and left of me from my seat near the closed end of the end zone. It always sends shivers up my spine to hear that song. So much emotion in it. As the song concludes, I finished my only pregame ritual, clapping my hands twice before slapping my flat left hand onto my right fist.

It's game time. I believe in heaven, and I believe in the concept of your own personal heaven. My heaven would have a view like this and a football game that mattered for the rest of my life. If this were really my life, I'd be so happy.

What a job!

The great part of my new life is there's so much variety in what I can do.

Maybe it's your turn to design three or four pages, giving you a chance to come up with a creative way to express the sports news.

Perhaps a big high school golf tournament comes around, where you can go walk the course for a few hours, witnessing the highlights of a golfer's life. Then you can write the story in an intriguing fashion.

Some days are Ohio State days, where you get to write about the state's beloved Buckeyes. It's fun to use your carry-over quotes from a Tuesday press conference and express some insight into the football team, such as a story about how Justin Zwick's reacting to the pressure after OSU's first loss to Northwestern in forever.

Sometimes oddball stuff pops up. Maybe it's a story about the local summer league college team setting up a sponsorship with a local travel baseball league to improve the quality of baseball in your area.

One of the necessary evils is answering the phones from prep calls. It's just 15 or 20 calls, taking a couple minutes to get the relevant information and write it up. It's the nuts and bolts of high schools, really.

You have to work ahead occasionally. If you're writing about someone who will have a very busy Friday and you want to put it in the paper Saturday, you probably have to talk to him Thursday.

All of this variety is fine. It just stinks when you have to do it all on the same day. It adds up to a 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. workday with about an hour taken off to eat and do a few chores.

It REALLY stinks when it's the same day your mom's in the hospital having minor heart surgery, putting a stent into a vein. I came back to Ohio to be closer to family. First day it really mattered, and I might as well have been back in Virginia.

Something will change, and soon.

Joe Pa

I like Joe Paterno. I think he's a classy guy and a good football coach who just happens to be having a couple bad years in a row at Penn State.

That having been said, I've found some of the funniest pictures you'll ever see anywhere. I present to you "The Many Faces of Jo Pa." Just click here.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Fuzzy math

Five o'clock shadow is the nickname given to the beard growth in a man by the end of the work day. It doesn't always come at five o'clock, though.

That's something that's come to my attention. With my 5 a.m. wakeups lately and a quick run of the razor, it doesn't take that long before I look like an absolute bum. I saw a cohort from work today around 4:30 who asked if I just woke up, and I'd have to assume it had something to do with this fuzzy math.

Facial hair's always been interesting to me. Maybe it's just because mine's always grown fast. Maybe it's just because I've had full beards four times already in my relatively young life.

Truth be told, I'd probably never shave if it weren't for what a beard does to your social life. Some women really like beards. Many do not.

I recall hanging out with a friend at a hopping bar one night with a number of attractive young ladies. One of these ladies looked us over and made some comment about how old we must've been, guessing about 10 years too old. Within a week, the beard was gone. It's hard enough building a social life without people thinking you're older than you are.

So anyway, I'd never really noticed the five o'clock shadow before, and I figured out why today. Up to this point, I've always worked nights. When I shaved, it was at 2 or 3 p.m., and that shave worked all day. Waking up early, sometimes you need a refresher. So today I shaved twice.

The world continues to change...

You talkin' to me?

I'm sure this is going to sound terribly narcisistic, but I'm convinced Jim Tressel and our priest at church were talking to me. Or maybe their messages were aimed at people in my situation.

In the course of the last three days, I'm hearing the same message over and over: Fight the good fight. Stay the course. Good things in life aren't easy.

It was pretty strange hearing it in church, but I've always had a great deal of church sermons fitting well into my life. That's partly why I go. It's not just ages-old text, it's advice on what to do when you're frustrated with your life.

Then, today, at the Ohio State weekly press conference, the Buckeyes' coach, Jim Tressel, went off on a tangent when someone asked him about eliminating the year's wait before playing if an athlete changes schools. A portion of his point was this: Life has challenges. Sometimes you'll want to quit when things seem difficult. What you should learn is to keep pushing through the hard times so you can enjoy the good.

I'm trying to improve my attitude here. I understand there are things I can fix and things I can't. I'm just doing my best on the things I can fix and laughing off the rest of it. I'm putting more value on my free time. I'm willing to give a great deal of myself, but I still need to have something for me.

We'll see how it works. I certainly hope those messages were intended for me, or else I'm investing more of myself in a place that could ultimately bring me down.

Gas it up... before 9 p.m.

I made the foolish mistake tonight of needing to buy gas after 9 p.m.

As it turns out, this is some kind of no-no in Ohio, particularly in major metropolitan centers such as Kenton, Ohio. There must be an immensely high rate of crime there, as the note on the pump said, "Must prepay after 9. No drive-offs! Thanks. Magt."

I'm not certain who Magt is. But if the pump won't start after 9 p.m., I'd say your odds of a drive-off tumble considerably. I also think the odds of me ever stopping off at Magt's store would go up if they'd upgrade to pay-at-the-pump.

I walked in to the store to prepay and explained to the girl that I wanted to fill the tank. She looked at me blankly and said, "You'll have to prepay." I looked back at her blankly and explained that I didn't know how much it'd take to fill my tank. Her look became blanker as she said, "You'll have to prepay."

At this point, I felt like a contestant on "The Price Is Right." I wanted to hit the actual cost of filling up my tank without going over. I guessed $15. Given that the genius at the counter wouldn't let me keep filling it up past $15, I suppose I created my own destiny there.

The pump, for some reason, would not hold open. You kept having to squeeze and unsqueeze the handle to get your bit of gasoline out of it. Every 11 cents or two seconds, you had to release and resqueeze. Reminded me of the amount of use I'm getting out of my stressball at work, come to think of it.

I eventually did get my $15 worth of gas into my tank and went on with my voyage home from visiting family members. But I think the next time someone asks me a completely valid question that deserves a more thoughtful response, I'll just respond, "You'll have to prepay."

Wit's End

All I ever wanted to do in my life was work for a newspaper. My first experience came with starting the "Fourth Grade Journal," well, in fourth grade. Ever since then, it's all I've wanted to do.

Right now, at this instant, I don't want to work tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that... well, you get the idea.

I'm just so tired of it, and I'm just not convinced it matters, not in a good way at least.

I know I'm good at what I do. There are certainly enough people who tell me that and enough awards that say it. I'm just tired of working so hard and getting so little out of it. For the past three or four years, it feels like I've been doing all the giving and none of the taking.

I hope the feeling goes away, and soon. If I wasn't a journalist, I'm not sure what I'd be.

Corey Dillon

Corey Dillon always used to bother me. Now I understand him a little bit better.

For the non-sports folks out there, Corey Dillon was a running back with the Cincinnati Bengals for seven years. He often complained about having to play for Cincinnati, which was a genuinely horrible organization at the time.

I always thought he was just a whiner. He agreed to go there. He took their money. He should just up and do his job.

Now I understand him a little bit better.

I'm not working for the Bengals, but I end up feeling that way on a frightningly frequent basis. I caught someone copying and pasting a press release into a file and claiming it was a "staff reports" story. Twice. He still works there, but "we'll watch him more closely now."

I'm not claiming to be God's gift to journalism. But I do try to be as honest and straightforward as possible. And I actually write all of my own stories.

I'm not sure what my next step will be. I knew things here weren't great when I got here, but I felt like I was brought in to raise the level of professionalism in Sports. I'm not sure it's worth the effort it'd take, though.

This place might wear me out before I can make any substantial change. I've never thought so seriously about working at Wal-Mart in my life.

Corey Dillon went to New England in the offseason. He's rumored to be unbelievably happy to be part of a good organization, and his play has been better. Joining a winning team made him happy.

Stress at work

I had an issue at work yesterday that genuinely frustrated me. It also reminded me that some people just deal with stress better than others.

A couple things popped up with the guy I work with. Basically what set me off is he ran an AP version of an Ohio State story today that I was planning on writing for Friday. There had been a number of other things he'd done recently to frustrate me, so I needed to address them.

I went through the list and watched him slowly self-destruct. I tried being as nice as I could while sticking to the laundry list of things that needed improvement. He started shaking a little bit. He got really quiet about things. He eventually got up, flustered, and said he needed to take a break because he didn't like getting reamed out.

I ended up calming him down, which really isn't part of my job description. But it made me realize that, as flustered as I might get sometimes, at least I'm not flipping out just over a chat about how to do the job better.

The new me

I finally got around to taking a picture with the new haircut and new glasses.

I'm not sure why, but there's something about a new haircut and new glasses that makes me feel like a slightly different person. Between that and the recent move, I feel like I'm starting fresh with life.

I don't know why that is, really. I'm the same person. I've always told people the inside's what matters, not the shell. But maybe I've been wrong all along. Maybe it is the packaging.

Bathroom humor

I'm covering my first Ohio State football game today for the Brown News Service, a fancy name for me doing it for my paper and sharing it with a bunch of others.

This one's for the adults only... so youngsters under 13, you probably should go elsewhere for this blog entry.

I'm standing in the restroom here, doing what you do in a restroom, when former Buckeyes coach John Cooper walks into the room and stands a couple urinals past mine. He looks back over at the handicapped urinal to my right.

He grins and says to me, "I don't know if that one's for a really short guy or a guy with a really long dick."

I joked about standing there just to brag. He told me he coudln't pull it off himself -- he wasn't equipped for that.

Oddly enough, most Ohio State fans would disagree and say John Cooper was a big dick.

Interesting first meeting, and somewhat better than Virginia's Al Groh looking at me like I was an idiot for asking him anything.

Lazy

It's time for me to just admit it: I'm lazy.

I waited to do my laundry until I was wearing the absolute last pair of dress socks I owned.

I see one dish that hasn't moved since I arrived here a few weeks ago.

Boxes are still unpacked, sometimes still in the way of things I need.

When I get a free moment, though, I plunked down on the couch and watched a movie... when I still had clothes to fold. (Hey, they're clean, right?)

I think my fondness for watching DVDs might even stem from this admitted laziness. While watching TV, you need to flip the channel between commercials and possibly every half hour. For two hours with a movie, you don't have to do anything.

I got to thinking about this while reading about my college bud Michael Smoose's blog about running in a triathlon last weekend. Makes you sit back and think, "What have I done?"

I'll get to that triathlon... right after I finish unpacking and doing the dishes.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

It's safe to say I'm not one who changes things abruptly without careful consideration. I'm relatively conservative in dress, appearance and even diet. So, to anyone who knows me well, it'd take an act of God to get me to change my hairstyle.

Or maybe it'd just take an act of loneliness. Three times in the past three weeks, I've heard women tell me I'd be extremely attractive if I updated my look a little bit. After all, I've had the same hairstyle for as long as I can remember. I'm not so sure I wasn't born with that hairstyle. I've been wearing the same type of wire-frame, big-lens glasses since abandoning the thick, brown-frame look in sixth grade.

So Wednesday I finally did something abrupt. I got my hair cut off. Almost entirely.

Gone are the bangs and what some friends nicknamed the "sweep," the little wave generated by years of pushing the bangs from my left to my right. [I still try to push it occasionally.] Gone is most of the hair on the sides and back. Gone is a lot of the hair on the top. It closely resembles a military crew cut, really.

It's pretty dramatic. I'm not entirely sure I like it, but I entrusted myself to a female barber [barberette?] and told her I'd go with whatever she thought would look good on me. Now that the sides are growing in a little bit, I'm beginning to see the benefits.

It's amazing how much teasing a haircut can generate. Reminds me of elementary school, where people taunted you every time you had your ears lowered. Mostly it's a shock to them. It was something of a shock to me, the first time I saw it too.

The next step comes Monday, when I go in for a much-needed vision exam. I'm about ready to try something more stylish there too.

Those ladies better come a-callin' now...

Nightmarish weekend

Nightmare... now that's a word that makes you think, "Oh-my-gosh-what-the-heck-happened-to-David-and-where-should-we-send-financia-lsupport-or-perhaps-just-a-12-pack-of-Guinness?"

Girls high school tennis happened. LPGA golf happened.

Due to my vastly inferior knowledge about what events are important around here yet, we didn't have anyone around to cover the all-important Delaware County Girls Tennis Tournament today. And, because of my vastly inferior knowledge of how to say no to my boss, I'd already put myself down to cover the LPGA Tour stop in Dublin for the Wendy's Championship for Children on Thursday and Sunday.

In short, this is the absolute worst combination of things to cover that I can imagine. Maybe we could throw in a house fire from my intern days in between.

I'm not going to devalue these sports as a whole. Not right now at least. But I will rip on the difficulty in watching them and understanding what's happening.

We'll start with the golf first. A golf course covers perhaps 10 acres of land, all with little paths connecting each of the 18 holes. The players are moving along the course at an unknown rate of speed, in groups of three or so. There's really no telling where they might be. If you know where they are, there's no telling where they might be by the time you find that hole. If you find them, there's no guarantee that the player you've gone to watch will do anything interesting on the holes you follow along. And, oh yeah, while you're gone there's a chance the Tour officials will bring someone into the media center for an interview, so you'd miss that.

Thus you get some of the laziest good journalism I've ever seen. There are a number of golf writers [and NASCAR's the same, I'm told] who simply sit in the media center, watching TV, paying some attention to the boards on the wall that explain what's happening and then running into a press conference to gather quotes.

In short, they're covering a sport they're not really watching, just monitoring.

That's also my gripe with covering the tennis. The tournament locale today was just down the street, so they get high marks for my personal convenience. But there are eight matches going on at the same time. You can go look at the tournament official's cheat sheet to see which pairing might be what, but then you might miss something more interesting down the line.

Oddly enough, both of these sports force you to follow the favorite. You have to guess who you think might work and pray you won't miss out on seeing the real winner altogether.

Never mind writing about this stuff... it's all in cliches and terminology that typical people just don't understand. Heck, I'm in the sports realm and only understand it partially. This won't help people get interested in your sport which hasn't reached the mainstream.

In an effort to make this somewhat constructive, one of my favorite non-mainstream coaches to ever deal with was Rob Kilmer, the girls soccer coach at Sherando High School in Virginia. He wasn't amazingly witty or funny, but he was extremely informative. He used the terminology, then he explained what it meant to both me and my readers. More coaches should consider mainstreaming their language to build a better following.

Dinner with dad

Eventually you hit a point where your parents' nurturing isn't quite as necessary as it once was. You no longer need them to provide your next meal, your next pair of shoes or a reassuring word after falling off your bike.

In independence, though, you can find an even greater dependence on your parents, emotionally speaking.

One of the perks of being back near family is the resurgence of dinners with my dad. We'll often go out for a bite, just the two of us. You'd be amazed what a good friend a parent can be.

It's nice to slip out of the traditional roles of father and son and try to speak more as peers. We each have different perspectives on issues, with some 30 years between us and how we see things.

The beauty of it is it's one-on-one. It's not a regular family crowd, but just two guys going out for a bite.

Everyone should try to get to know their parents on some different level. It's reminds you what's really important about family.

Paper towels

I'm notoriously cheap. I tend to use and reuse things until they're completely unusable, mostly because I'm too cheap to buy a new one. Once soap gets into that unbelievably tiny size where it wants to slide down the drain, I put it off to the side with other tiny pieces of soap, hoping one day to mold them into a useable piece of soap.

That having been said, I think I've seen an organization even cheaper than me. And I couldn't be prouder of them.

In the newspaper world, you're never quite sure what to do with the "end rolls," which is a fancy name for the little bit of paper left at the end. A lot of papers will sell it to the public for something like 25 cents a pound. People in the public might use it for packing, or drawing, or creating three copies of their own newspaper... who knows.

The Delaware Gazette discovered another use for it. They hang the remaining part of the roll in the men's restroom... instead of paper towels. You rip off however much high-quality paper stock you need to dry your hands.

I couldn't be prouder to work here. As they say in those Guiness commercials, "Brilliant!"

First day of school

I couldn't sleep very well last night. I kept getting up in the middle of the night, checking the clock, just to make sure I wasn't late. When I got up, I couldn't decide what I was going to wear. I wanted to make a good first impression and start things out right. I even rehearsed in my mind a couple one-liners to answer inevitable questions about my move: "No casualties, that we know of yet" or "It was more fun than a root canal!"

It was really like the first day of school all over again. It's a baffling feeling that I haven't had in so long, trying something different and wanting to do it well.

Here's the biggest surprise from my first day on the job. My boss came in to check on me around 5 o'clock, to make sure I was planning on going home. It still seemed early to me, but then again I need to be back there at about 6 a.m. tomorrow. Much to my surprise, the newsroom was deserted at what would've been the busiest time of day at any morning paper.

This is a very different world I'll be living in. When I came home, I had time for a nap. And to finally watch "Vertigo," which I've had out from Netflix since last October. And to run out to BW3's for a "You Survived Your First Day" dinner and chance to watch the first half of the Hall of Fame preseason game.

I think I could learn to like daytime hours.

The people I work with seem genuinely nice and friendly. Quite a few people ducked into my office -- I actually have an office, with a door, that I share with one sports writer -- just to say hi. Five of us went to lunch together, and I'm told the group's usually seven or eight guys. In comparison, I never went to lunch with more than two work people in my two and a half years in the last stop.

The job itself is going to be a challenge. The space is pretty limited (two open pages for me to do tomorrow morning, vs. our typical five a day in Virginia). The bar is set frighteningly low on some things. I'm pretty much being thrown to the wolves, as everything I know about their system I taught myself today. [Ever try to set up your 0wn e-mail account on a system you don't know? When in doubt, try combinations of pop.yourdomain.com, smtp.yourdomain.com and mail.yourdomain.com. Sooner or later, you'll find something that works.]

Tomorrow's the real challenge... designing on a new system, figuring out how to find stories on a very stripped-down version of NewsEdit and trying to do all this at 6 in the morning. The payoff, of course, is another one of these wonderful nights.

The interesting thing about the comparisons to the first day of school is this: I always thrived in those school situations. We'll see if that continues.

Prioritization

The move is complete, and there were very few casualties this time. Nothing broken. Nothing ventured, nothing gained... wait, that's something else.

Now it's to the painstaking process of unpacking. These are the times you discover your priorities.

After a day and a half of unpacking... Bookcase: Empty. Kitchen cupboards: Empty. Linen closet: Half full. Computer: Set up, both of 'em to work on the new cable modem. TV, DVD player: Of course.

These are the days when I can say it's good to be a man... My entertainment is obviously more important to me than my nourishment.

All packed up

Finally and mercifully... I'm packed and ready to move. Which is good, since the guys helping me load up the truck will be here in about seven hours. I still have some cleaning to do around here, but that'll be easier when I can see the floor and sweep it.

Someone I worked with was teasing me about my constant organization. He commented, "I bet you have all the boxes lined up against a wall with little tags on them saying what's inside."

Guilty as charged.

I think I should have bought stock in Sterilite before this move. I ended up getting so many of their silly tubs. It did make packing easier and should make stuffing a truck easier too. But right now my old apartment looks like something out of a Star Trek episode involving the Borg, with stacks of identical boxes eating up a whole wall in my apartment at about three deep.

I'd better get this one last thing... my laptop... packed and get some sleep. Tomorrow could be a long day.

Last Goodbye

A Kenny Wayne Shepherd song, Last Goodbye, seems to be the best way to describe my last day at the Northern Virginia Daily:

Now pardon me if I appear
To see beyond the now and here
To try to save myself
I'm not the kind to pin the blame
But I can't take more of the same
Livin' on your shelf
I could lose myself
I could curse like hell
But I've lost the will to even try
If you ever doubt
Listen to the sound
No lies, no no no
This is my last goodbye.

I didn't particularly enjoy my last day. It's never a real fun experience, having people come by to wish you well who generally you'd wish just left you alone anyway. It's hard to act like you're going to miss the people who had a lot to do with why you're leaving.

It particularly doesn't help that once you announce you're leaving, you become dead to a lot of people there higher up in the chain of command. You hate to see anyone take anything that personally.

I don't want to come off as totally unaffected by my time here. I enjoyed myself, and we did some great things. I always enjoyed the exchanges of "Doctor?" with Charles. I enjoyed blowing off steam after deadline with Kevin and Charles. And I always liked going to the budget meetings, if nothing else as a prime time to people watch.

But another memory will probably overshadow them all, one from my last day. As I was working, one of my cohorts came walking up to my desk, like many other people did over the course of the day. She looked at me intently, again following the script to the "gonna miss ya" spiel. Then she said, "Can I have your chair?"

All right... Back to packing.

Packing it in

I'm not sure if there's anything in the world quite as aggravating as packing boxes for a cross-country move.

In my own typical anal-retentive fashion, I have a schedule. The goal is to finish roughly a room a morning before I have to go to work. That way I don't have to do too much with my one open day Thursday. It's a brilliant plan, really.

Except I hate moving. And I hate knowing each day when I wake up, I'm going to be packing these big blue Sterilite boxes I've purchased.

The most amazing thing happens when you try putting everything you own in a box. Through some magical agreement between the physical world and the physically moving world, everything starts taking up more space. While you know you're putting a bunch of things into one smaller, confined area, somehow your entire apartment looks like Sanford and Sons' junkyard.

It's coming along, though, and I'm relatively confident whatever doesn't get packed in time for the big move Friday ought to be flammable enough that I can just burn it where it stands. After all, there's no problem so big a gallon of gasoline and a match can't fix it.

[If, for some reason, my apartment catches fire in the next week, I'm now officially in deep doo-doo.]

Figuring things out

My time's running out at work, but it still never ceases to amuse me.

With our big redesign coming up in Monday's newspaper, we're starting to discover some things just weren't planned out at well as intended.

I won't go into details, but I will ask this: Why don't people think things through a little bit before they jump into them? Where do you learn these valuable skills?

I don't remember ever learning how to problem solve or plan ahead in high school or college. But I really wish they'd teach some folks how to do that sort of thing.

That's all for today. Now I'm off to Chicago for the weekend for my grandma's big 90th birthday.

Exhaustion

I'm young and stupid. I'm getting older, but I'm not getting any less stupid.

Over the weekend I made a ridulously short trip to Ohio to hunt for apartments. In all, I was in Ohio for about 26 hours. And, being the cheap-skate I am who hates to fly, I drove the eight hours each way. Made me feel like I was living in my car.

That led to about three hours' sleep Friday night and another three hours' sleep Saturday night.

This is where I'm stupid. Funny thing about the body; it needs its rest. I sometimes forget about that. I think I don't. I think I can just push my body as far as it'll go.

Sure enough, on my way back to Ohio, the exhaustion and the boredom of I-70 finally caught up with me. I had to pull off at a rest area and take a quick nap.

You've never lived until you've been sleeping in your car, only to wake up to some little girl asking her mom, "Mommy? Does he live in his car?" And to hear her say, "Maybe."

With any luck, I'll have a physical address soon and won't have to live with my car as a possibility.

Take me home from the ballgame

One of the job hazards in a life of sports is the occasional horrible ballgame.

Tonight I witnessed Harrisonburg's 16-0 win at Woodstock in the Valley Baseball League. Harrisonburg had 16 hits. Every player except one scored in the seventh inning.

I've never been a huge fan of covering baseball anyway. Games like these are why. While baseball can remain quite competitive, it's also one of those sports than a two- or three-score differential is absolutely impossible to overcome.

So coaches coach it differently, basically accepting the loss when the game isn't truly half done. They put in lesser-skilled players, and before you know it, it looks even worse than it could have been if both sides kept trying.

I assure you, the only thing worse than watching a 16-0 game is trying to ask questions about a 16-0 game. A close third would be trying to write that same game in an interesting manner.

Sweet talkers

I'm convinced there are only two times people speak kindly of you while you're around.

One is at your funeral, which doesn't do your ego much good.

The other is when you've turned in your notice at your current employer. This is where it starts to feel more and more like a wake, though.

In each case, one by one, people will file past you to offer their well-wishes for the after-life, albeit in the second case it's the "after-here life." They'll offer praise and compliments and fond wishes they'd never dare share if they were actually going to see you every day.

Kind of makes you wonder why people aren't this kind to one another more often.

By far the best compliment I've heard came from one of my guys, who had applied for my job prior to my arrival and was a little bummed when I started that he didn't get the position. He said he's not interested in taking the job now: "Now that I've seen it done right, I don't think I can do it."

On the darker side, it's almost sad to see how desolate the online ad at JournalismJobs.com was. It doesn't mention that writers from our section received Associated Press Sports Editors honorable mention awards the last two years. Naah, top 10 in the whole country isn't that big of a deal. It doesn't mention that we won best sports section in Virginia for our sized paper this year and finished second last year... when we were forced to move up a class and play with all the mid-sized newspapers.

I know pride won't get you too far in life. But I'd like people to know that this isn't just like every other sports editor's job in the country. This job is special and comes with some good, hard-working people. It's also a job that, if the paper and area somehow moved about seven hours west, I'd never be leaving.

Moving on

Finally... An offer I couldn't refuse.

Tonight I heard back from the good folks at the Delaware (Ohio) Gazette, who were kind enough to offer me a job and bring me back to the great state of Ohio. I said yes and will be going in to work Wednesday to put in my two weeks' notice.

The most popular question seems to be "Why?" It is a smaller newspaper. It is an afternoon newspaper, though, which means the layout takes place during the day instead of night. I'm looking forward to working a schedule that more closely matches the rest of the world. I'm looking forward to living closer to my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. I'm looking forward to working with my buddy Jeremy again.

I'm excited about the move. There's a lot to do between now and then. My current job will be a little insane between here and there, and it'll take some effort to get far enough ahead there so I can leave without feeling horrible about what I've left behind.

I'm sure I'll feel more sentimental as time goes by, but at this point I'm merely relieved. I've been here two and a half years, plus that year and a half in Georgia. I'm intrigued to see how the state has changed and to get back into that life.

I'm sure I'll be calling and/or e-mailing a number of the folks I know read this with more details as they become available.

On a mission

The joy in owning new technology really shines through when that new technology stops working.
 
My surround-sound system/DVD player/CD player/stereo/sole source of most of my entertainment decided to die sometime over the weekend. It was only 10 months old, and I swear I have a fly in my apartment that lasted longer. It kicked into an annoying cycle of going back and forth between being in standby and turning on, clicking each time the standby light flashed from red to green.
 
I don't exactly like asking for help, so the mission to fix this thing started with a little work at home. I tried everything I could think of, from various button-combination pushes to plugigng it into other outlets to scanning online to see if I could find a similar problem elsewhere.
 
Finally, out of frustration, I went where no Trinko has gone before... the manual. It told me to go another place no Trinko ever dared to go... the 1-800 help line for Philips.
 
The good folks at the Philips support center made sure my trip there was a long, painful, memorable one. I sat on hold for about half an hour. An operator finally picked up the phone and asked these valuable questions:
 
* Is the unit plugged in?
 
* Have you tried plugging it into a different outlet?
 
* Have you unplugged it long enough to reset it?
 
After hearing the appropriate responses to each of these questions, my new friend offered me his expert diagnosis: "It appears your unit is malfunctioning." Which pretty much explains why I called in the first place.
 
Oddly enough, my new friend's computer was unable to find the nearest repair shop for me to get it fixed while it's still under warranty. In a strange bit of luck, all of his listings popped up locations in Ohio, which is not where I live (now). I went online and found the nearest one ot me, in a place called Luray.
 
Luray... is not the kind of place you'd expect to take your electronics to get them fixed. It has something of a roughneck reputation, full of mountain folks who are still learning the modern ways of the 1940s. In the ranking of nearby towns, it generally falls below Front Redneck... err, excuse me, Front Royal.
 
It was also surprising to find that this little town could be the only place nearby that would service it. Not Winchester. Not Harrisonburg. Not Manassas. Luray. Go figure.
 
So began the car trip to Luray, which is about 35 miles and 35 years away from here. It's a long, winding voyage over a mountain, through the woods, to grandmother's shop we go.
 
The kindly old woman who awaited me there must've taken the same class as the guy at the support center. She asked the same questions he did. Then she plugged it into the wall and heard the constant clicking from flipping back and forth between on and standby. She then declared, "It's not working. It appears your unit is malfunctioning."
 
These are the people I'm trusting to fix my audio system.

Music scenes

Tonight I ducked out to my favorite bar in the area, Sweet Caroline's in Winchester. Generally they have bands that play the Blues, which has a certain intrigue to me that I'll try to explain some day when I haven't come home after multiple beers (albeit 1/3 as many as I consumed last Friday).
 
Instead of the Blues I expected to find, a band called "Fatskeys" played. It's like listening to a radio with the Search button stuck. It just kept changing every couple minutes. I half expected to hear a report from NPR for three minutes.
 
You might think I'm exaggerating, which generally I am. But this time around, no. They went from playing a Billy Joel tune to "Brick House." They jumped from Train to playing the theme for "The Jeffersons." It was musically comical, although I got the feeling I'm the only one in the bar who got the joke. It's also possible the band didn't get the joke, but I'd hate to think that.

Anchorman

I've probably seen the commercial for "Anchorman" a hundred times now. Today I finally went to see the movie.
 
Whenever I go to a movie involving a former Saturday Night Live cast member, there's a big worry to consider: Did you see all the funny moments in the movie during the commercials? Can you piece together the clips in the commercial and end up with the movie?
 
Much to my satisfaction, Anchorman doesn't do that. Actually, those cutesy little clips you see in the commercials all seem to appear in the first 30 seconds of the movie. Then there's a whole movie after that.
 
It might not be the funniest movie ever written. It probably doesn't have as many gut-wrenching moments as its earlier Will Ferrell vehicle, "Old School," did. But it was certainly entertaining.
 
What I've noticed since I watched the movie is it's funnier the more I think back to it. There are so many good lines in it, so many good sight gags. You just don't notice them until you have time to think about it or how ridiulous they were.
 
I mean, how often do you see the TV anchors from half a dozen stations, including the PBS and Spanish-language stations, get into a bizarre street brawl? How often do you see someone throw a typewriter at someone else? How often do you hear a man talk to his dog for a while, answering every bark, then have him stop to say, "You know I don't speak Spanish"?
 
Another side-splitting scene is when the four main characters sit in an office, talking about what love is before breaking into "Afternoon Delight." If only I had a dollar for every time my cohorts and I broke into song... But ours would probably be "Swing Low, Sweet Charriot."
 
Incidentally, the absolute best character in this movie is the weather man, who claims at the beginning of the movie he might be retarded and then spends the rest of the movie proving it, right down to the point where he declares his love for a lamp.
 
Sure, this movie isn't Gone With the Wind. But it is amusing, a good way to spend a couple hours and chuckle about everything you saw.  Life needs more simple pleasures.

Waiting

I've never liked waiting. Waiting rooms at the doctor's office... Waiting for Christmas... Waiting tables... It's just not my cup of tea.
 
So this week has been extremely frustrating to me. I know something pertinent to my life is going to happen. I'm pretty sure what my response will be and what will logically follow afterwards. But I can't start knocking over those dominoes until the first thing happens.
 
Here I've sat, all week, waiting for the go-ahead to knock over a few dominoes that I believe will make for a happier life.
 
It's almost funny, now that I think about it. Most people think I'm a very patient man. In truth, I'm quite impatient, especially when it comes to things I want to have happen.
 
Still I wait. Hopefully I won't have to wait much longer.

Fairly Odd Parents

Timmy's dad knocks on the door. He yells out, "I'm respecting your privacy by knocking, but I'm showing my authority as a parent by coming in anyway." Then he busts a door down with something resmembling an old ACME battering ram.

Who said there's nothing good on TV during the day? The "Fairly OddParents" on Nickelodeon are the Looney Tunes of our era. It's a wonderful mix of sight gags, quick-witted dialogue and biting story lines.

The show centers around Timmy, a 10-year-old with well-meaning parents who are fairly busy and self-absorbed too. So he picks up a pair of fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda, to help grease the wheels of his childhood. Unfortunately, they tend to mess things up as often as not.

It leads to some pretty humorous stuff. You have Timmy chasing an e-mail through the Internet. You have Cosmo and Wanda on a "Dating Game" show to see if they should stay together when they confuse whether their anniversary is the "Styrofoam Anniversary" or "Fake Fighting Anniversary." You have the two godparents pretending to be human parents when Timmy brings a real dinosaur to school and his parents need to meet with the teacher. [Best sight gag here... Cosmo gets addicted to coffee after just one cup. Take that, Folgers.]

A recent story by the Associated Press on the CNN Web site says the show is the second-highest rated show among children ages 2 to 11. Yet 40 percent of its viewership is older than that. If you ever check it out, you'll know why.

Incidentally, I can finally put a number on just how long it takes me to be cool. I am cool five months after the Associated Press is cool, given they knew about it in February and I'm just discovering the show recently.

In concert

Just got back from seeing the infamous Dave Matthews Band concert at Nissan Pavillion. For those who were desperately worried I'd end up going alone, Tommy from our Sports department came along with me. We had fun.

I've never been to a real concert before. I've been to music festivals and bar shows, but I've never been to a big-stage production like this. What first caught my eye was all that caught my eye. There were so many beautiful young women there who were in my age range. It was as if I'd died and gone to Athens (Ohio).

I felt like a kid in a candy store. And darn, don't I have a sweet tooth these days?

Anyway, the concert overall was fun. Most of the music seemed to be from older releases, which pleased the crowd but disappointed me a bit, since I really love the "Busted Stuff" album. Perhaps it's the disappointed, frustrated tone from an obvious lacking in a social life on that album that resonates with me.

They brought the house down with the encores tonight. I'm sorry for all the people who decided to leave when they walked off the stage... they missed the best part.

Romance filled the air as they belted out "Crush," with its lovey-dovey lyrics such as "Lying under this spell you cast on me" and "I mean to tell you all the things I've been thinking deep inside My friend With each moment I love you more."

The dueling fiddles at the end of this song was the highlight of the whole night. The band's violinist, Boyd Tinsley, is absolutely incredible. It was an atmosphere just built for love, and 5,000 couples seemed to be making out by the end of the song.

"Ants Marching" quickly popped up, sending these couples back into a foot-tapping craze instead of tapping other things for other reasons. Thus ended a potential population boom for D.C., but it left me desperately anxious to see the band again some day.

It really was a wonderful end to a wonderful week's vacation. Now it's back to the working world, with a good chance of shaking up my own snowglobe in the very near future.

Water, water everywhere...

Among my group of friends, a fondness for bodies of water borders on cliche. Nautical themes dominated all through college, what with a friend's bar in the house called "The Sandbar" or the constant playing of Jimmy Buffett wherever you went.

It may be cliche, but it's still true.

There's nothing in the world to set your mind at ease like a body of water. [Well, adding some barley and hoppes to that water can help, but only in the short term.] The sound of waves crashing... the mesmerizing patterns in the water... the stiff breeze felt when traveling by boat... the reflection of a hot sun off a cool lake...

It's a feeling some people understand, and some people don't. I'm half convinced the world's divided into two groups -- those who love the water and those who don't.

It's such a conflicting image, really. Water is so cool and soothing and harmless in some settings, yet it can be this incredibly powerful, destructive force. It can be a means of getting from one place to another, or it can be something that traps you. It can somehow reflect almost any mood you imagine, be it the quiet, serene waters of a babbling brook or the relentless, furious crashing of an angry sea.

Whenever I get on a boat, I like to sit near the front. The less you see of the boat in front of you, the better. As you gaze ahead of you, you lose yourself. For just a moment, you forget you're propelled by a Johnson outboard. You feel like you're simply strolling across the water on your own.

If there's anything better in life, I haven't found it yet.

Mean Girls

I've developed one tradition since I moved away from Ohio. Each year during
my summer trip back, I take my three oldest nieces out for lunch and a
movie. It's a chance for them to hang out with their uncle and a chance for
me to get reacquainted with them a little bit.

These visits get more and more interesting each year. They're all entering
their teen years now, and it's a genuinely intriguing experience to watch
them interact with each other, with me and with the world.

As I watched today, I recalled recently watching the movie "Mean Girls,"
based on a fairly important sociological study of teen interaction and
written by one of my favorite comedic writers, Saturday Night Live's Tina
Fey. Ahh... Tina Fey. But that's a rant for another day.

When I watched that movie in a crowd heavily populated by high school and
junior high girls, I thought about how overblown these criticisms must
really be. After all, why would girls be so judgmental of each other and so
harsh on themselves? What would be the benefit?

After spending a day with three young ladies stepping into this, though, I
have no doubts. I listened to one niece talk about how two girls in her
class had the same swimsuit on at some type of swimming mixer and how much
better the one looked than the other. I heard another talk about the
importance of being liked by people older than she was. In another case,
there was discussion about how helpful it is to know all the latest music
trends, lest you be left out.

It was really an eye-opener for me, seeing these generally level-headed
girls devolve into what's probably common practice in a young girl's life.
I just hope they can make it through junior high and high school without
ever losing their individuality.

And, for that matter, I hope they never outgrow letting their uncle take
them out on the town.

Spidey-sense

The most excited I've been coming out of a movie in the past 10 years was
walking out of Spider-Man a couple years back. I came out of there feeling
like I could shoot webs out of my wrists.

The most emotionally drained I've been coming out of a movie in the past 10
years was walking out of Spider-Man 2 today. I came out of there feeling
like being a superhero might be even harder than being a sports editor at a
small-town newspaper.

These movies continue to reach into my own hopes and fears and pull
something out. A heavy theme in the new one, aside from a lot of amazing
action sequences, is the inability to be what you want to be due to your
own perceived limitations of life.

The beauty of this movie, on the "analyzing it way too deep" end, is an
implied message at the end. If you let the right people into your life,
they'll continue to love you no matter what you have to do.

I still came out of the movie thinking I could sling webs from my wrist. I
didn't make the same "fssshhht" noises I did the last time I saw a
Spider-Man movie, as I was with my dad and didn't want to visit the local
loonie bin.

And as for the other Spidey ability, climing walls? I have a hunch I might
have that by the end of my week in Ohio. I'm quickly reminded that, as much
as I like seeing all the people, there's something to be said for returning
to your own bed each night and not having to pull clothing out of a dufflebag.

Big kids

The visit back home really hit full force today, as I had a chance to see
three branches of the expansive family tree.

Each one left me thinking the same thing... there are reasons I'd like to
return to living and working in Ohio some day.

I don't know what's more touching:

* My niece Katie practically smothered me at church this morning when her
family came into mass. She barely gave me enough room to my side to breath.

* I met my newest niece, Alexis, at her mom and dad's house. There's
nothing like holding a newborn child in the world. I can't even begin to
imagine what it's like when the child's actually yours. She woke up while I
was holding her, looked up at me and sort of gave this look like, "Yeah,
you're OK, even if I don't know you." Of course, at less than a week old.
I'm probably just a huge octagon too, although she won't learn that word
for seven or eight years.

* Her big sister, Shelby, treated me like a jungle gym for most of the
visit when I wasn't holding her little sister. Shelby's sort of married
into the family (not officially yet, but for all practical purposes she
is), but it's really nice in my family that we accept "steps" so well. She
accepts me too, to the tune of about 20 minutes worth of bucking bronco
rides, which involves me on the floor on all fours, bouncing my back up and
down while she tries to stay on. It's great fun for everyone except my back.

* I taught my niece Cassie how to throw a spiral with a football. I don't
know why she wanted to know, but it's one of the few things athletically I
can share with the world, so I was game. We played for a long time.

A lot of times when I come home, I'm overcome by the sheer numbers of
people involved in my rather large family. Today was nice, since it was
broken down by branches of the family tree. These are the more tender
moments, the ones that make you realize family is a very, very good thing
to have.

Stupid hijacking

Twice in the last month, my web browser has been "hijacked."

For those of you lucky enough to never have this happen, a hijacking is when your home page changes or favorites are added without your permission. This happens when you end up on a Web site with absolutely no ethics whatsoever. Then, before you know it, you have shortcuts for Golden Casino and other such nonsense all over your computer.

The one I hit yesterday was particularly frustrating. It changed my home page, and every time I reboot the computer, it resets back to what it wants the home page to be. That's really irritating in this case, since the page wants you to install a bunch of software and won't take no for an answer.

I still haven't fixed it, although I did have the sense to create a shortcut to my home page of choice (http://news.google.com) and put it where my regular Internet Explorer button was.

I just have to wonder what kind of marketing strategy this is for Web sites. The closest comparison I can think of is watching TV. You turn on the TV and flip it to your favorite show. Then someone else in the room changes the channel with another remote to a different show. You flip back. They change it again.

At what point are you just going to say, "Well, that's what they want me to watch, so I'll watch it"?

Or are you going to get beligerant, go over there and smack the other person around?

So if anyone knows who came up with this method of forcing us onto certain Web sites, warn them. I'm looking for them, and I'm bringing my circuitboard knuckles.

My blog knows me too well

One of the interesting things about having a blog on blogspot.com is it tries to put ads on top of your blog that match up with content inside the journal.

I'd like to think of this as a journey through my mind -- through what's important, what's frustrating, what's fascinating.

Yet the ads I just noticed on the page include "How to get your ex back: Get a powerful plan for bringing your ex back into your life" and "Find a girlfirend: Millions of profiles and photos free! Meet single women in your area now," as well as related searches for "boyfriend" and "concert listings."

I haven't had a girlfriend in more than a year. I find it hard to believe some computer logic decided these must be the most important things in my life.

Of course, it's the first batch of guidance I've gotten from anything in a while saying what my focuses ought to be... aside from some unsolicited e-mails about lowering my mortgage rate and lengthening something else.

Worldwide Weird Web

It never ceases to amaze me the bizarre stuff you can find online, if you only look...

For instance, yawning animals in the wild.
http://www.animalyawns.com/GapingMaws.htm

Or a random compliment generator.
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/%7Egeoffo/humour/flattery.html

Or living a day in the life of a McDonald's employee. [This one makes me feel better about my life.]
http://www.conceptlab.com/simulator/

Or the museum of burnt food.
http://www.contortionhomepage.com/

Or how about a whole site devoted to shoelace knots, and one man's attempt to create a new one?
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/index.htm

I'm truly convinced you can really find anything on the Internet.

All I want is a passenger

Why do people assume there must be strings attached when you offer them something?

A couple months ago, I bought a pair of tickets to a Dave Matthews Band concert at Nissan Pavillion on July 11. I assumed when I bought them back in February that I'd either have a girlfriend or a friend who could go along with me.

At one point, I did have a buddy who was going to go with me, but his circumstances wiped out that possibility. Now I've been desperately bugging everyone nearby I know well enough to think they'd enjoy going along, getting a whole not of no's.

Here's the level of desperation I reached: I even contacted my ex-girlfriend. Anyone familiar with that situation knows how much I didn't want to do that. She responded by saying she was seeing someone else and didn't think it was a good idea to get back together.

When one includes the term "as my friend" in the request, isn't that clear enough? For a number of reasons, my intent wasn't getting back together. It was taking someone with me who I knew would enjoy the show and could probably make it. It was not bringing someone back into my life who forced me to make too many tough decisions.

So anyway... if anyone knows someone in the D.C. area who would want to go to this show, let me know. All I want is a passenger, not necessarily a life partner.

Dishes

I've done everything I can with these things.

I'll show them how dishes get washed. I've done it dozens of times.

They just won't learn, though. I keep putting them by the sink, even opening up the detergeant. And they won't wash themselves.

I don't know why I procrastinate doing these silly things. I know I've spent more time thinking about not doing them than it would've taken to just wash them.

The next place I live will definitely have a dishwasher.

The comfort of silence

There's a certain comfort you can only have with friends you've had for
ages. The silence test seems to prove that.

In so many situations, silence can only be awkward. It means you have no
audible response to whatever you'd just heard. It means you have nothing
more in common with the person on the other end of the conversation. It
means you're choking on a chicken bone and unable to talk.

When you're chatting with an old friend, though, that's not an issue.
Nothing to say for a minute or two? No big deal. The conversation will pick
back up when one of you thinks of something.

I'm getting the opportunity to spend a few days hanging out with old
friends, and I'm really enjoying that part of it. Friends like this are
really hard to find and harder to keep. After one of these sudden bursts of
silence, I realized how cool it was I didn't feel the urge to fill the void
with something silly or inconsequential.

It'd be great to have this kind of comfort everywhere you go. Some day,
maybe. Some day.

Late Night TV

The beauty of working late and staying up later finally came to me.

Believe it or not, they actually start playing music on MTV and VH1 starting around 3 a.m.

Andy Griffith Show

One of the more endearing things about living in Woodstock is it seems to be lost in time. If you looked at the signs on the businesses on Main Street, you might think you were living in the 1950s or 60s as easily as the 21st century. A quick look at the old-school movie theater proves it. But nothing does the trick better than the Central Barber Shop, complete with an old bottle-cap Pepsi logo over the words on the outdoors sign.

Louis works as the barber in the shop. There are two barber's chairs in there, yet I've never seen anyone other than Louis working in two years. He always seems to be wearing the same type of shirt, a short-sleeved white button-down shirt. On the radio plays Woodstock's "Retro Radio" station, which really only broadcasts for about 10 miles in any direction, live and in living black and white from across the street in a storefront. There's a lot of big-band stuff, Frank Sinatra and the occasional Counting Crows song always playing in the background, just to be hip with the kids.

Timeless old men sit around waiting for their turn to get what's left of their locks shortened. In the interim, they'll discuss what's coming into town or what's leaving. Today they were discussing what might happen with the site of the old Ford dealership in town, which recently moved closer to the interstate from its somewhat downtown locale. One heard it would turn into a junkyard. Another heard it was being used to store classic cars.

Louis knows how I like my hair cut -- short -- and he knows we can chat about outdoors activities or sports. We both love to fish, but neither of us get to do it enough. [For Louis, that means once a week. For me, it means a few times a summer.]

Inside this shop, nothing has changed in ages. It's all frozen in time, from a 20-year-old calendar he keeps on the wall because he likes the picture to the barely functioning woodburner in the middle of the shop to keep it warm in the winter. If it weren't for the table full of current magazines and today's Northern Virginia Daily and Washington Post, this could be a scene out of any year. There's even a display of "the newest improvement in hair care available today... Unbreakable combs!"

Something about the place just seems neat to me. It's sort of like the Andy Griffith Show... except Louis the Barber isn't nearly as creepy as Floyd the Barber.

Friends like these, who needs enemas?

For about the last week, I've been kicking into nasty coughing fits and feeling bad in a number of physical ways. Many of these I choose not to be graphic about on here but, suffice it to say, they're not pleasant.

After a particularly symphonic coughing fit, one of my cohorts in the office starting diagnosing. She mentioned an article we'd had in our newspaper about a mysterious strand of meningitis spreading in a D.C. suburb (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53394-2004Jun18.html).

She started reading through the symptoms. Our design editor started drawing great big imaginary checkmarks in the air as she went through them.

* Severe headaches? Check.
* A stiff neck? Check.
* Drowsiness? Check.
* Confusion? Check.
* Nausea? Check.
* Vomiting? Check.

Then she read the cause: Direct contact with bodily fluids.

"Nope, that can't be it then."

There's nothing like supportive coworkers. And these are nothing like supportive coworkers. heh.

Faking It

No, the TV show, you sicko.

I don't know exactly why, but the TV show "Faking It" on TLC (http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/fakingit/fakingit.html) is absolutely fascinating to me. Perhaps it's some deep psychological urge to be someone else. It could be that I like the challenge of trying to fit into uncomfortable situations. Maybe it's how they keep finding hotties and putting them in skimpy clothing.

The episode I caught tonight irritated me, though. "Simple Life to Social Life" brought a Nebraska farmer into the New York socialite scene. She had to pretend she was one of those "It" girls, learning the tricks of the trade. I think she was set up to fail, as her "mentor" seemed destined to get her. This guy was just mean-spirited, looking down his nose at her the whole time. His technique of breaking her seemed to be taking away any sense of confidence she had.

Anyway, the bigger thing that came to me while observing all this was that these socialites were really the ones faking it. There didn't seem to be a single bit of honesty there. Makes me wonder who would ever want to be a part of that world.

Change the world

Speaking of the Spring House Tavern, I noticed something that amused me when I had dinner there Wednesday night.

A few weeks ago I'd written a column about the enthusiasm for the expansion Valley League Baseball team, the Woodstock River Bandits (www.woodstockriverbandits.org). I lead into it with the obvious enthusiasm about the team, albeit somewhat ignorant enthusiasm about the wooden-bat collegiate league team.

The example for that could be found on the wall of the Spring House, where they'd hung a jersey, cap and glove on the wall -- alongside an aluminum bat -- about two weeks before the season opened.

Two weeks into the season, the bat hanging alongside the jersey, cap and glove is wooden.

Who said we can't change the world in Sports?

Invisibility

Ooh, goody. The first post. As if my Saturday column in the newspaper isn't self-sufficing enough...

One of the things I love most about journalism is the ability to blend into the background and observe. You don't have to stand out or dramatically shape the events of the world. You merely have to react to them.

In a way, it gives you a sense of invisibility that is comforting.

I found that invisibility a bit frustrating Friday night. After covering a Valley Baseball League game in the evening, I filed my story and, for the first time in who knows how long, didn't have to return to the office on a Friday night. With a rare Friday night without worrying about newspaper deadlines, I headed to one of the local watering holes in Woodstock, the Spring House.

As it turns out, that must be where the college kids on the baseball team hang out after games too. So do the coaches and a number of people at the local high school. As I walked in and saw so many faces I recognized, I thought I'd have a fantastic time.

That's when the invisibility kicked in again. I don't know why, but I always end up choosing a seat in a corner with a good vantage point of the whole room. And I always end up sitting there by myself, just observing the world around me -- not participating in it.

I did speak briefly with a masseuse in the bar that night, as well as a couple other people who I recognized. But I find it difficult to open up conversations without playing 50 questions.

Oddly enough, that's how you get over shyness when you get into journalism, knowing you have to ask questions and they're likely to answer them. But it just seems a little awkward in social situations, since most people are simply asked to volunteer stories in this setting.

I'm a "asking questions guy" in a "telling stories" world. Go figure.