I could do that

I feel that I am always jumping on the caboose of bandwagons. I am not even sure what a bandwagon is.

Just a couple of years

In a first grade class at a local elementary today for work and the kids were playing a game of Heads Up Seven Up, and one of the three kids standing at the front of the class, the only boy, tooted a little.
The girl to his left glanced at him, and his smirk confirmed where the noise had come from. A small wave of giggles went through the classroom, including from the perpetrator, me and the teacher, but then the kids were quickly onto the game.
After leaving the school, I thought about the incident and how much difference a few years can make. Fart in front of class in the first grade, get some giggles. Do the same thing in seventh grade and be known as the "Fartster" until graduation.

Bloggette

I believe that people who are allergic to things like chocolate, milk or cats, things that are in everyday life or really enjoyable, should be considered disabled or sick.
I don't mean this in a insulting way (please, no one with allergies write me hate comments). It is just really sad to me.
I think we should have races, telethons and little buckets at the supermarket checkout to cure allergies. I would wear the ribbon, or at least drop my change in the bucket.

I'm Famous

So almost everyday my name is published in the newspaper. But today, I feel really famous, and my name wasn't even used.

Two of my photos were used on a posting for mentalfloss.com, the web site for the Mental Floss Magazine, which I just love. There tag line is "Where knowledge junkies get their fix."

They requested photos for people's neighborhood "pants" (you'll have to read the posting), basically quirky things where you live.

Well those who know me, know that is what I love to photograph. So I was all over this. I didn't even need take any new pictures (which was OK because most my local quirky things happen to be covered in several feet of snow). One of my favorites, the flamingos, I will have to blog about later.

Imagine my thrill when both of my photos were used on the posting. Seriously, it made my day.

On one they got my last name wrong and on other I forgot to sign my name, and I didn't even care.

Here is the link to see my and a bunch of other fun photos:

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/11530#comments

My happiness over this seems to be further proof that this is what I should be doing. I just wish I knew how.

Just telling them what they want to hear

So my friend's blog, complaining about the news coverage of Heath Ledger's death overriding thousands of Palestinians coming into Egypt after blowing up a border wall, reminded me of my PS on my last post reminding me to write about the media.

First, I will say that yes, I work in the media and no its not perfect. However by no means does it completely deserve the bad reputation it gets.

People are always complaining about how the Britneys, Lindsays and Parises or the rape, murders and perverts get too much coverage. Essentially blaming the media, whether it is CNN or your hometown newspaper, of sensationalizing crap.

But really it is the consumers of media, basically everyone with a TV, Internet connection or newspaper subscription, who are to blame.

News is a business, so media outlets publish what sells, whether it is the conflict in Darfur or Britney shaving her head.

Yes, people should care more about world affairs, or even what is going on at their city council, but the media can't force them. People should eat healthier too, but if McDonald's quit selling fries and hamburger they would go out of business.

So if you really want real news to be on the front page instead of being buried under the newest starlet's arrest, then put your money, or mouse, where its really important.

Honestly, where do you click first?

Just to let you know I was shocked by Heath Ledgers death -- read all about it, and I don't know that much about the recent Congo peace deal. But at least I realize that there are more important things going on in this world, and don't expect to be spoon fed the important issues. So to Shad: it is not the editor who should be embarrassed but the people.

Complicated snow

Apparently blogging only sounds like a good idea to me when I should be doing something else, for example work that I earn a paycheck for.


I have heard that people have been fired for doing stuff like this, or worse yet, that anything you do on the clock belongs to your employer. I better be careful and not accidentally write anything brilliant.


So really I don't have time to write about anything interesting. It was just that looking at my past blogs makes me miss green grass. As those who know me know I am not the biggest fan of winter anyway, but right now is the worst.


All the once beautiful snowflakes that floated down like magic angel dandruff to cover the earth, making everything look new and white, are now large crusty cold piles in various shades of dirty grey that seem to be constant reminders of all that is wrong with the world and my life.

I REALLY need some friggin' sunshine.

PS It seems like whenever I pull up a blank post, my mind follows suit and goes completely blank of all the ideas that only moments before where frantically bouncing around in my brain.
So this is a note to remember to write about the media and the public next time.

Tick tock

I shouldn't even be writing this blog because I don't have time, so I will make it about how I don't have time to write my blog.
I was reading all these other blogs thinking how do people have time for this, but in answer to my own question I guess if I wasn't reading other people's blogs I would have time to write my own.
Things I should be doing other that writing this:
*picking up my house
*taking a shower
*figuring out my mother's birthday present
*sleeping so I don't hit the snooze button more than three times in the morning

I wish cloning technology would hurry up. I would so send her to work tomorrow.

Things I would have my clone do:
*grocery shop for healthy food
*cook the healthy food
*exercise (not even sure if this would work)
*change my oil
*recycle
*clean the house
*go to work for me about 60 percent of the time
*write my blog

By the looks of this list, my clone, who doesn't even exist yet, is already a better person than me. I don't need that kind of competition.


PS the name of this post is an onomatopoeia

Catching up

As usual, Shad has inspired me (sarcasm does not always come out well in the written word). I have now also decided to bring my blog out of hiatus. Last reported in August, hard to remember all that has happened since then. That's kind of sad because kind of the point of the blog was to preserve my memories.

Well let's see if we can hit on the major points: I started my new beat as the education reporter for my local newspaper. Never really wanted to talk about work much on this blog, because I am there for eight hours a day and that is enough. But for the sake of prosperity I will. The job is kind of an emotional roller coaster. One minute I am loving it with the new, fun stories I get to cover, and the next not so much, but that usually has to do with the business of being employed (Let's just say its a bad idea to complain about your employer on a public web site). Job has kept me very busy. In fact, work is really starting to interfere with my personal life.

On September 5, Katie turned 13 years old.

They grow up so fast. She got a new 'Hissy Kitty' toy to play with.

On Sept. 9, Michele turned, um...another year older. We had a small informal gathering the night before at Village Inn with her gang. She has her gang, I have mine. Sometimes they overlap. I gave her pork rinds and Pepsi. Hey, she asked for it - in a round-about way.

On Sept. 15, Texie, Owen and I, went to Ricki's 30th birthday party. She went all out with a roasted pig and even live bands. I've always known the girl knew how to party.

Jon, being the bad influence that he is, somehow convinced us to go to Las Vegas. So after

getting home from work on a Friday night, we threw some things in a bag and hit the road. Hey, its hard to say no to a free room and ride.

Half the fun of going to Sin City is all the people. And as usual it did not disappoint. We went to Freemont street and saw the lady with the really big sign. It read: "Jesus Christ shall Destroy Sinners with Cruel Wrath and Fierce anger."

I actually talked to her, so did several other people, she had very strong opinions. You would have to with such a large sign. There was some yelling, but most just saw her as another Vegas attraction. I love freedom of speech. I wonder where she goes on vacation.

We saw this guy on the way to Freemont Street. He told me his name was Rodeo. He was wearing two different boots. His only opinion is that he wanted me to buy him a beer, even though he had one sitting next to him. I wonder where he goes on vacation.

We were in Vegas for less than 48 hours, but road trips are always good for the soul.

I believe I have mentioned, if only slightly, all the major adventures in September. With the TV writers on strike, maybe I can catch up on October and November before December starts.

Nathaniel Manor

When searching for a house, features such as square footage, number of bathrooms and vaulted ceilings can be what some are looking for. But I have learned it is the features you can't buy that end up being the most important.

When I was looking for our first house, I knew I wanted a good backyard. First, it had to be fenced for our dog, Katie. After years of not being let off her leash, during apartment living, I just wanted her to be able to chase a tennis ball with reckless abandon.

It had to have a sprinkler system, because I wanted to be able to have my own green grass in between my toes, and we do not have the attention spans to remember to move a sprinkler around.

When we were looking at houses, I would immediately head for the backdoor to see the yard, because I knew it would make or break the deal for me. The house we ended up in is really small, but it has a big backyard that butts up against the trees of the city park.

Over the four years we have lived here, some of my favorite things I didn't know about when we made the offer to buy the house.

Besides having no neighbors behind us, being next to the city park has a lot of perks. On many summer days we can hear chants of "faster, faster, faster" from kids on the merry-go-round. We are also near the amphitheatre, which allows us to hear all the free concerts we want from our backyard. We have heard the faint sounds of jazz, rock and even the band America.

The park also has a stream that leads to a duck pond. During the spring we have had mama ducks lead their babies right through our back yard, and I have actually fed ducks off my front porch.

To the north of our backyard, their is a pasture with horses. While they spend most their days head down to the ground eating grass, we have seen them frolic, gallop and other horsey things -- sometimes they are downright majestic. But our favorite thing about this pasture is Fernando.

This is the name we have given the brown and white bull (with full horns still attached), who hangs out with the horses. Fernando looks as fierce as if he came straight from a bull fight in Spain, but the few times I have attempted to make contact over the fence, he snorts and runs away like a scared puppy. I have no idea Fernando's real name or the reason that someone would own a bull, but I think I like it that way.

One of the best features of my house comes only once a year on the Fourth of July. We don't have to worry about getting a good parking space and finding a spot for our blanket, because from our backyard we can see the city's fireworks each year.

Although this site advocates going, seeing and doing, sometimes you don't have to go far from home to do it.

The forest smells like Pine-Sol

We went camping last weekend, and nothing really happened -- this is a good thing.

In past camping trips, we've had flat tires (yes, plural on the same trip), got flooded out of our camp site (again, same trip) and lost car keys. So to have a camping trip where the most drama came from the fact that Erin's niece had the chickenpox, and her brother was watching her kids, was a nice change of pace.

<---the view from our campsite

While we did hike, fish, sleep in tents, sing campfire songs and, in general, breathe in a lot of fresh air, a lot of our camping experience revolves around food. Not sure what this says about us as campers, but I don't think we would do it if it wasn't for the S'mores, hobo dinners and roasting hot dogs over the fire.

The days leading up to our trip, I was excited to leave the trappings of modern life. As much as I love T.V., cell phones and the Internet, it was going to be nice to not have them for a couple days. However it only took a day for me to miss one of them.

At the beginning of me and Erin's jaunt through the woods, we found a pond with the weirdest little salamander type creatures, with feather like things on their heads. Later with the help of the guys we caught ourselves a few of them.

Here is the weirdest thing, they looked like axolotls, which are rare in the wild. In fact the only reason I know about axolotls is because they are rare and weird looking. The point is, it was driving me nuts and my fingers were itching for a keyboard to start my Internet search.

(When I got home I found out that they were baby tiger salamanders, which look a lot like axolotls.)

The salamanders and a few itty-bitty frogs where the only things we caught, proving that having license for something does not help. Even with all my fishing gear, and some of Ryan's, I was not able to even get a nibble while fishing. But a lot of the fun is just sitting out by the water, so I'm OK with that.

Ryan did catch a fish, but I was not there to witness it. My theory is that he bought it off another fisherman, to make me jealous, or to help keep my hopes up. I was starting to believe there were no fish.

<--- Erin is "impressed" with Ryan's catch

On the second night Jolynda and Matt joined us, which was great. I know we don't really rough it, but their air mattress turns into a couch-- so we are a little more rough than them.

At night there were more stars than darkness, and it was so quiet my ears had to make up for it by buzzing. The guys gathered firewood, and in general got to feel manly-- Erin and I could feel the rise in testosterone. Erin didn't have to put honey on my toes to protect herself from bears -- the most wild creatures we saw were the chipmunks and squirrels all over camp. Ryan did melt his shoes -- drying them by the fire -- but this was not a big surprise.

Overall it was a perfect trip. The only thing I regret is the fact that we couldn't have stayed just a little longer.

On a side note: for two days in the woods we take a lot, I mean a lot of stuff. If I went to vegas for a weekend I would only take one backpack, but spend three to four times as much money. But when I go camping I take 10 times more stuff.

It's not camping without the dogs, even if we barely had room for them.