Shananagins!

Do you see this cute little bugger? That is baby Cash Replogle, ain't he a cute little guy? Wait, he isn't named Cash? Shawn and Melissa went with Nathan? Did they not see the poll? Look over to the right folks 53% of the votes wanted, NEY demanded he be named Cash. Even regular readers have written me and want action:

J.B..... I'm filing an official protest if that baby isn't named
"CASH"!!!!! Put it on Polkamoney...put it on the station website.....put it on
the other station website....I don't care!!!!! That baby is two words!!!!
AWE-SOME!!!! He looks like he's ready to go out and shoot on day one of
his life!!! He looks like Shawn!!!! That's the only problem!!

We must fight this naming, you have spoken and must rise up and take action. We have to find a crappy lawyer who will find some kind of league loophole that will allow us to change his name.

VIVA LA CASH!

Dog Sittng

Last night Shawn and Melissa went to the hospital because baby Cash caught the Orange Blossom Special and wants out. While Shawn was on his way to the hospital and asked if I would watch their dog Titus. I can watch Titus, I'm a viking at dog watching! So I grab Titus and a few items Shawn ask I bring to the hospital to them and head on over to the house.

If you are wondering, Lucy and Titus get along, they act a lot like Chester and Spike from the old Warner Brothers cartoons. Titus is Spike and Lucy is Chester, the second we walk in the door, Lucy is running around Titus and going insane. Titus growls and Lucy backs off. I let them outside, Titus is sniffing around and Lucy runs laps around Titus. It took Lucy about two hours to calm down.

I love watching them play out these rolls, it's good for Titus because he gets interaction with other dogs. For Lucy it wears her out a little bit, she has a lot of energy and this helps her be calmer at nights.

What If

I came home one day and was bored so I started going to my usual websites and then I noticed something new on the address bar, yearbookyourself.com. Then I wasted about an hour and a half of my life. The big thing with the site is you upload a picture and it will add your face to a yearbook picture from a just about any year from 1950 to 2000. The older ones are the best.

Who ever created this idea needs to get a Nobel prize or a least a hug. After I used a few of my photos I got the idea to use people I know. Hmmm who would be a great person to use this tool on. The Wife? no, I give her enough grief. I've got the perfect person.

Wilson! I love the fact I found a picture with deer in the head lights look. I think he needs to let the hair grow and get this look.

In a Funk

As you can tell from the lack of posting, I've been in a creative funk. I've been feeling tired and a little lazy and finally I figured out why. I was coming down with a head cold and of course it went into my ears. If you do not know genetics is not my friend and I inherited my dad's holes in his inner ear. That means every time I get a sinus infection or just a lot of fluid in my head it has a very good chance of going into my ear. When this happens it has the feeling of being drunk, but with out all the fun alcohol or lack of inhibition, which leaves a dizziness and a small case of queasiness. In all honesty being drunk is way better than having this condition.

So I am now home for the day because, well I can't drive. I needed this but at the same time it totally sucks. I can't go any where nor do anything other than lay around the house. Trust me I will try and enjoy that, but there is only so much of that I can do. Hopefully my ears will drain and I can get back to normal.

The Longest Weekend: Part 1

The Father-in-law was honored at this past weekend's Ohio State game so we made a quick weekend drive to Columbus, that sounds like a nice easy weekend... Wrong!

It all started with a text message on Thursday afternoon, The Wife mentions that I could play golf on Friday afternoon, but we would have to leave after I get off work. To make this part of the story short, I could not get into the golf game, but we left that night any ways. When we first moved to North Carolina we would drive to Beckley, West Virginia because that is a nice cheap mid point. That was until I started to get off work at midnights. Instead of getting there around 1 or 2 like we use to, it's now 5AM. I was having problems driving that late, I was swerving all over the road and nodding off every once in a while. Last time I checked that's a bad thing to do while driving through the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia.

Friday we arose around 10AM so we got less than five hours of sleep. I drive till we get breakfast at the greatest breakfast place in West Virginia... Tudor's Biscuit World. If you have not had the wonderful biscuit sandwiches, then you need to drive to the closest store and buy one.

After the deliciousness in our bellies, The Wife drives as I get a quick nap so I can finish the drive. About an hour later I wake up and I see a blurry sign that looks familiar. With the signs for a shopping mall and the hills around it I swore I was in Huntington, WVa. I put my glasses on and ask The Wife where are we. She tells me just past the Huntington Mall. This would not be a bad thing if we were on our way to my parents, but we were going to Columbus and this is very bad. The sound on the GPS was down she missed to turn to head north on I-77, then missed the second option in Hurricane, WVa. I try and clear the fog in my head as The Wife panics because she thinks I am mad, I tell her to keep driving. I did not realize we were right by the interstate so we continue on WV Route 2. We followed Route 2 and the Ohio River for and hour till we hit the only bridge between Huntington and Parkersburg. With the time lost that negated the entire reason for leaving Thursday night.

History Merely Repeats Its Self

When did we flashback to 1973? If you do not know what I mean, then you have not been affected by the gas increase yet. Because of hurricane Ike hitting the Texas Gulf coast gas prices spike up to $4.79 we even heard that in Fayetteville it was over $5. Of course that lead to a rush to buy gas that was under four dollars. The Costco across the street from my station had lines 20 deep. We even hear reports that fights almost broke out.

I didn't think much about it till I was on my way home. My gas light came on and I had about 30 miles left. I start my way to Wake Forest while looking an open gas station. Every time I turned into a station the pumps were closed... out of gas. It wasn't just one or two, I tried 10 stations. I ended up driving 15 miles before I found a pump with gas.

I understand that some of the refineries are in the path of the hurricane and may slow down production, but it only accounts for 1/4 of our gas production. How can that increase the price at the pump that much, I mean a dollar increase or more? Even when Katrina hit gas did not spike this much and that was a devastating storm.

We need to do something about this. I don't care if it's hydrogen or freaking grease from deep fat fryer. I'm tired of the government allowing us to have this issue. Stop the gouging and find a new way to get us away from fossil fuels. I truthfully do not see an end to this problem, the gas and car companies are in bed together and are having a three way with Capital Hill. Didn't we learn anything from the 1973 gas lines? I guess not, in 15 years I will probably writing about this again.

Awesome Shout Out

While I was out on the coast last Friday Raleigh was having a concert that featured the band Arrested Development. If you do not remember who they are this video will help you. For me they epitomize the 90s. They wore a lot of bright colored cloths had a funny beat, what more could you want.

As with most bands from my youth Arrested Development faded out of consciousness. Every once in a while you would hear Tennessee and it has to put a smile on your face. With my families trip to the Smoky's I kept bouncing around the newsroom singing Tennessee, then launch into Mr Wendal.

So with the knowledge of my constant reference to random Arrested Development lyrics, The Serge happened to find the lead singer Speech and asked him to give me a little "shout out." That was awesome, so now I got at least one good thing from covering that stupid storm.

Post Hanna Wrap Up

I have survived my first hurricane/tropical storm and I will say I don't ever want to do another one. We ended up working 15 hours and my body was sore. When the winds started getting about 45MPH you have problems standing up straight, you have to use a lot of energy just to stay standing. Add in there the running around, shooting and general crap I had to do, I was drained.

The strangest moments of the night involved the hotel door we were using, because of the barometric presser and something about the inside temperature of the hotel the door was nearly impossible to open. I actually got my arm caught in the door, and it'd going to leave a big bruise. We finally were told do not use that door and we had to walk around the building. Walking around the building caused the one problem, down power lines. the other photographer out here actually got hit by the down line. Lucky for him, the line was not live. We finally wised up and walked the other way. The problem going around the other side of the hotel was the wind. It was worse and we were stopped in our tracks at least three times.

When we wrapped up at 4AM I need a shower, the blowing wind forced sand to embed in my face, I felt like Zao. I took a shower and the sand fell off of me, yet I still felt dirty. It took a second shower in the morning to start feeling clean. Then the other "fun" moment was everyone calling me. I don't mind a 8AM phone call unless I've been asleep less than 4 hours. The calls kept coming so I finally got up at noon.

I staggered over to the window and to my amazement, it was sunny and tons of people were on the beach, it was like nothing happened. The only way I could tell there was a big storm the previous night were the giant waves the surfers were riding. Of course, I had to do a story on how nice it was and finally we got to leave. I am so glad I am home, and not to make my sister Amy mad, I hope Ike goes south of here, no more hurricanes for me.

WHAT I LEARNED
Drunks love storms and news crews getting pounded by weather.
Wal-Mart rain suits are better than Eddie Bauer rain suits from Target.
People do not understand the concept of cameras need light.
Hotel lobbies make great make shift newsrooms.
Sand can hurt

BY THE NUMBERS
2 hats that are still wet
2 times I had steak
3 shirts I used that day
3 meals in the hotel
4 days at the coast
1 day of actual storm
5 packages shot
15 straight hours of work on storm day
10.5 hours of overtime
20 times I was asked why the station can't see the ocean. (If you want to see the reporter then you can't see the ocean, it's night time... too dark)
134 dollars a night for the room
100 times I wished I picked a different career
700 times I cursed the storm

BEST LINE OF THE NIGHT
Anchor: Is there any power outages? We can't see any lights behind you.

That's because we are standing in front of the ocean, unless Atlantis rises from behind us there won't be any lights.

First Wave

OK, it's starting to pick up and the wind is strong and we are getting a lot of rain. I am already on my second shirt and hat, my shoes are soaked, but holding up... I also love my Gortex socks. We have to do updates all night long so I'm going to be trying out for the new California Raisins after this is over.

So It Begins

OK, if you haven't figured it out yet, I left my adapter for the camera at home so there will be no pictures except when I use my phone. We have finished up the 6 and 7 shows and ate for the last time tonight. I am almost half way through my 12-16 hour day and I am getting tired. Not a good sign, but I might sneak out and get an energy drink later. The biggest thing right now is we only have wind and a little rain. The station wants us to somehow turn a package for 11, but the problem is no one is on the streets, we can't find them and it's dark. You need light for a camera to work, so I'm 90% screwed already. I'm changing into my lovely rain pants and I am heading out into the wind to do... well another crappy story. Hopefully I can do another update later in the night.

What the?

We go out to a shelter that allows animals, it was raining and starting too look bad. We get some good video and interviews and we leave the shelter to see a disturbing sight... sunshine. It had stopped raining and was now bright. Hanna needs to make up its mind, I'm tired of this; is it going to hit Wilmington, or South Carolina crap. Just get here so I can finish my job and go home.

Getting Wierd

I've had a lot of lap top issues and just got it fixed, and since my last post it's getting a little weird. The wind started picking up and the ocean is a little choppy. Then we did the 11pm live shot, lots more wind and bigger waves. I woke up this morning and the ocean is nothing but one giant white surf, the beach is almost under the water. I don't think Hanna will amount to much, but it's still strange to be sitting here waiting for a storm to come and cause damage. Why do we do this? I know people want to know what is going on, but this storm is not suppose to do much to the triangle. This isn't even in our coverage area, how do we do this story and have it matter everyone back home? The only thing I can see is that the station is spending a lot of money for something that they don't have to.

It's So Aweful!!!

The coast is just awful, I mean the sunshine, the warm weather, the hurricane is still over a day away. My job is so hard right now. All kidding aside, why did we come this early? We already did every story you can do before a hurricane so what do we do for the next day and a half? Well, I'm getting pancakes. Then I might go and sit on the beach till we have to start our night shift. So tough, I don't think I can handle all this.

Rock You Like A...

You see the graph to the left, that is hurricane Hannah, and if you can't tell... it's going to hit the Carolina coast. Guess who is going to cover the damn thing... this guy. I am not happy. I was not suppose to MAYBE leave until Thursday, but as usual that plan was thrown out the window and I am now hustling to get a suitcase packed. I'm going to try and do updates while I'm there, barring well, power outages that will not allow me to post.

Facebook

About a month ago I was pressured by a co-worker to join Facebook. If you do not know of this, then allow me to enlighten you. It was started as a way college kids could keep in touch on line, now everyone has access and it has become a way to keep in touch with friends all over the map. I have found some people I had lost contact with so that is good, but I see a lot of downside to Facebook.

I get a lot of random request from people to be friends and I have split them into three categories: People that my other friends know, people I have never met and people I really don't want to be friends with. The last group is the one I am always troubled with. In all honesty Facebook isn't about friends so much, it's more about acquaintances. I've received a few request from people I work with or use to work with, sure I worked with them, but I would not call them friends. What do you do in that situation, I usually click the ignore button. If I don't really want to hang with you at work then why do I want you to know what I put on Facebook. I currently have 65 "friends," most are people I like to stay in contact with, old co workers, people from church and good friends. It almost feels like with some that if you even slightly know the person you need them to be a friend.

Maybe I'm old fashioned and have not fully assimilated to the concept. I do enjoy talking to people and knowing who they are without using email. Who knows, I'll continue to use it and I'll just continue to upset people.

What Are They Thinking

For some strange reason there are three people at the station that are former employees of WNWO in Toledo, Ohio (I am in this group). So when I was informed that WNWO might be pulled off of Buckeye Cable I laughed. From what I have read and was informed, WNWO wants to be paid to be on Buckeye Cable.


If you would run a cable station and had enough people wanting you, then you can ask the cable providers to pay you for their service. I believe ESPN generally garners around $3 per household. Then you have local stations, they are required by the FCC to be shown by the local cable companies... for free. You may be thinking that the locals are getting shafted, no not really. You see they get paid in ratings. When you fill out a ratings book or have one of those boxes that records what you watch, they get those numbers. Most people in Toledo have cable and do not go "off air" for their local stations.


So I find this situation hilarious, a station may refuse to allow the local cable system with 115,000 homes to show their programming. Never mind the news is dreadful, people will not be able to watch any NBC programming unless they unplug their cable and hook up some rabbit ears or their digital converter. I can see how they think they will get more money out of this, but if Buckeye Cable calls their bluff (and I think they will) then they will loose all those viewers and then loss all those ratings and lose money. WNWO is hoping people in Toledo will get mad enough that they will call Buckeye Cable and force them to relent and they will have to pay WNWO and they will actually be profitable for once.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, will the FCC force Buckeye Cable to pay and then we have a mad dash of other stations trying the samething or will Buckeye Cable just start showing the Detroit NBC station.

Greatest Season

With the unbearable heat of summer almost over we begin my favorite season... football season. I love me some football, and The Wife said something the other day that made me want to ravage her on the spot. "How much do you think it would cost of the football plan?" When we moved, we got a deal with Embarq to get Dish Network free for a year. The only problem is that we got a very basic plan that was OK, but did not have a lot of sports options. We found out we can upgrade to the Top 250 plan and holy crap is there a lot of sports and awesome channels! So for a little more money I now can watch every Bowling Green game that will be televised, The Wife and I also can watch all the Ohio State games. We do not have the ESPN plus, but I don't need it this year.

The one thing we do not have is the NFL package, and that's where Shawn and Melissa come in. You see they have Direct TV and Shawn recently will be moved off Sundays. So after they have baby Cash, The Wife can watch Cash and Shawn and I can watch football. All I have to say is my ass is going to hurt from all the football I will be watching. I might have to get a home nurse to roll me over so I don't get bed sores... FOOTBALL!!!!! WHOOOOOO!!

Lucy

Since we moved into the new house, we have neglected Lucy a little. It's little things like not taking her to the dog park or giving her walks. So last week Lucy started to act up. It started last week when she was left alone for 11 hours. She made a huge mess that included a bunch of those flavored packets you pour into water, so we now have a rug that ruined. The next day, she got a hold of a weight ball and poured all the sand out and it covered the bedroom. A few days later she destroyed a couple of books in the bed room. We could tell Lucy knew that she was in trouble, yet we couldn't punish her because it was our fault.

Friday we started to take Lucy out on walks, I walked her almost three miles and lets just say, she never moved from the couch till Mikki came home. This morning Lucy was wound up and Mikki had a headache so with a bad leg I had to take her on a walk. I had to take her, she was going crazy and this was they only way I could get it all out of her.

After the walk she is now laying on the living room floor. So the lesson of this story is, walk Lucy or she will destroy everything in the house.

Ouch Town, Population Me

Now that the Olympics are over, I should have more time and energy to write again, yet before I get to anything interesting I have to do a softball post. I know, my last post was a softball post, but I did something totally out of character for me... I injured myself.

OK, I know that is in character for me, but I wanted it to sound interesting. I was having a decent night at the plate. I went 2 for 3 with 1 RBI and 1 run. It didn't help much because we got crushed by a team that should not be playing in our D level. They were crushing the ball and everyone could field. Why are they playing us, they were too good. We are a bunch of crappy players that just want to play and hope that we don't get embarrassed. We were down to our last three outs and I got an up the middle single. The next batter hit a weak dribbler towards third and as I was about to hit second I felt my thigh/quad muscle pull and I screamed and went tumbling over second base.

You know it was bad when the other team asks "Dude, are you OK?" I try to walk it off and "rub dirt on it," but I pulled myself out of the game and I was near tears. I would rank this in the top ten most painful moments. It's right behind my knee popping which led to surgery, my tendon in my thumb and the X-ray tech popping the tendon back into place, slipping on an ice pack and falling down a flight of stairs ripping all the skin off my toe and breaking my foot playing basketball.

Why do I try and play sports, it always ends up the same way, me on the ground holding some body part. Yet I know I will try to play in our "playoff game" in two weeks and possible play in the fall. I better bump up my medical holdings next year.

Softball

We have completed eight games and we have only two games left (three more if we win the last one and continue into the playoffs). So far I have been improving, but I still... now do I say this... I suck. I'm batting 5 for 14 so my average is about .357. If I was in the majors I'd be an All-Star, but it's not, so in a low end softball league I'm sucking pretty bad.

Fielding is just as bad if not worse. In the beginning I could do nothing right at third base. Now, I only make maybe two or three mistakes a game. My biggest problem now is over throwing bases, or freaking out in my head and not throwing at all.

Luckily for the most part we are in a low competitive league and we for the most part have fun. Even with my bad play we are 3-5 and that's an improvement over the spring season when the team went 1-9.

Calling it!

It's over, I'm calling it and we have a winner. Shawn and Melissa will call their child Cash. Cash took an early lead and never looked back, the only question was would he get a majority. Within the last few weeks it would only take four votes to any other person to throw the race into chaos. Well, it got a little closer, but has has a 51% majority and the race is over. Nathan (13) almost lost second place to J Dog (11), it's pretty bad when the joke name almost beats you out. That's how bad the name Nathan is. Coming up in last was my favorite option Englebert (3), it took him nearly three weeks to get his first vote.

Behind The Spoof

About a month ago the minister came up to me and had an idea for a video. At the time it sounded great, until it was time to do the thing. As a lot of things, time and resources became major issues and it started to make me regret telling the church I knew how to shoot and edit video.

After all the arguing and gnashing of teeth, three videos emerged and I think they are pretty good. There are a lot of issues for a editing and shooting aspect, but considering some of the stuff I've seen our church and others use, this is near Academy Awards-esque for them.

The video concept is simple it's a spoof on Behind the Music and the Jonas Brothers that ties in the story of Jonah. I wrote out a rough script the night before we shot the video and luckily the three characters are really good at ad libing and taking my outline and going crazy with it.

So far the reactions I have heard have been positive, but most are from people I know or people who know the guys in the videos. I enjoy these videos and to be honest, I am glad this project is over.

On Line Games

I'm not a huge gamer, but at times when work is slow, I like to go on line and find an easy game to play to make the time go faster. Last week I found a new game called Now Boarding, you run an airline and you have to get people to and from their destinations. You may be thinking this is the stupidest game you have ever hear, but don't knock it till you tried it. All I know is that I can't stop playing the stupid game.

Then things got serious with the game, Shawn saw me playing it and thought it was stupid till he started playing. Now he is addicted and we have somehow turned it into a competition. I was in the lead through out the week with a score around 230,000. I was happy with the score, I played it a little bit over the weekend, nothing great, I thought that was a tough score to beat. I get a text message with a score in the 256,000 range. I go into attack mode and this morning I threw down a 275,000. Of course I sent that to Shawn and this is the response: I've now got my day off planned. He is going to try and beat me.

It's getting out of hand, yet I am not going to stop. I'm beating this will last the rest of this week and then we will move onto another game.

He's Back!

Thanks to the greatest co-workers EVER;

Gilbert is ALIVE!!!!!!!!

From what I have gathered Shawn read the post about how Gilbert met his maker and screamed, Gilbert is dead. A hoard of people came over and read the sad post and took action. A collection was made and these generous souls bought a new Gilbert. Hoozah co-workers, hoozah!

Now I have to work on the gnomadic gnome page with all the new updates.

Drive Home

OK, I wanted to do a wrap post on Monday, but because it took forever to get home, I'll wait till Tuesday. You see, when we left Tennessee it was around 5ish and we thought we'd get home around 10:30. Some how 10:30 ended up being midnight, I still can't figure it out. We made two longish stops, but nothing longer than a half hour. For some strange reason I felt like I was driving in place the entire trip. I never felt like I was getting any closer to Greensboro, once I got to Greensboro Durham could not get any closer. I'm probably the only person to get excited about getting to Durham.

I can't figure out what happened with the drive back. I have never had a drive that long take so much out of me. When I was in Toledo it was 5 hours from there to Ironton and I would do it after working overnights and it never felt like the drive on Sunday.

Way Above Par

On Thursday a bunch of us went golfing and to be honest the only thing that saved my game that day was the rain that forced us to stop during the 9th hole. The only word to describe my game was asstastic. I could not get the ball to go straight or more than 100 yards. I was so happy it rained.

Since we did not get to play all 18 we were given a rain check for Saturday, and I hoped things would be better. The only problem this time is the wound given to me by Gilbert in his death throws. My left ring finger is split open with a half inch gash. Any time I hit the ball wrong I felt it, and when I say felt it I mean near blinding pain. So at least I figured out what I was doing wrong and tried to correct it and not cause any more pain. By the 4th hole I started to get a little bit of a grove and could actually hit the ball. When playing with The Dad there is one rule... you don't out drive The Dad. I out drove him four times. He was not having a good day, he was playing with his younger brother and I think that sibling rivalry thing was getting to him and he was trying too hard. So you have his little brother sort of out playing him then you had me out driving him at times. Lets just say I think he was glad when we finished our 9 holes today.

Except for the pain, and the lose of about 18 balls over the two days (I did find 8 so I'm only down 10) it was a average day, but we were out and about and getting some exercise, that has to count for something.

Morning the Loss

I knew it might be a bad idea to take him tubing down a creek in the mountains, but I thought what could go wrong. Well, everything went wrong and he is lost in the river and will no longer see the light of day. Gilbert is no more!

Because of the rain yesterday the water was very rough and high and it was very hard for me to hold Gilbert, a camera and the tube, so when I flipped over, I could not get my balance with my hands full. I stumbled a few times before going head first into the water and Gilbert hit a rock and I felt his legs rip off then his head. I knew I only had a torso in my hand so I let go. It put a damper on any fun I could have, I lost a favorite item in my life. I know he's not a person, but he had meaning, and website. I'll probably buy a new one, but he will never be that Gilbert that drunken LSU fans loved to have pictures taken with or the one who almost fell into the riverwalk in San Antonio.

I will miss you, maybe someone will find your head and get freaked out. That would be a great end to a wonderful friend.

That's a lot of Pancakes

I love breakfast food, it's the one thing you can eat anytime of day. Can you eat pork chops at 8:00am? Well probably, but it does not sound right. Yet, pancakes at 8:00AM, noon or even 8:00pm sound awesome so I am all for pancakes. When we drove into Pigeon Forge I noticed a pancake place, then another, then another then another. I think within a mile of our hotel there are 12 pancake places! and according to google there are 590 in the area! Holy crap man, is there that much need for pancakes? after 500 did the next 90 go, you know I don't think the pancake market is fully tapped here and we need more house of pancakes!

I know there are a lot of tourist here, but to have 12 that close to our hotel is just insane, then you have to think about all the hotels that have breakfast, we get free breakfast at ours. I love the cakes of pan, but for goodness sakes, when you have more pancake restaurants than mountains, you have a problem.

Wow, pancakes sound really good right now.

Eating Out on Vacation

One of my biggest rules while traveling is that we do not eat somewhere we can eat back home. That means no chains, like Olive Garden, TGIFridays, or any other such place. I know those places are familiar, but you are in a different place and you have to get some local flavor and who knows, you might get a funny story out of it or find something new you like.

While The Wife and I were shopping we get a call that we are going to eat at 7:30 at Ryan's. For me this goes against everything I want for food while vacationing... It's a buffet and they are all over Ohio and North Carolina. There is so many places that we can go, I mean there are 21 pancake places within a mile of the hotel (Oh there WILL be a post about that). I start building up the snarky comments that will be flying during dinner. Then I start to wonder who was the culprit. We start heading that way and we call my sister Christi and ask if we are going to the right Ryan's and WHO PICKED IT! I get my answer and I immediately put away all my comments and remarks... it was The Mom. The one person I can not make comments too, any of the siblings sure, but not The Mom. I sucked one up for the team.

Sickening Fun

So I started feeling better by the middle of the day and after dinner the family decided to go for a little thrill ride excitement. We wanted to try the Skyscrapper. If you can't tell from the picture, you are strapped into your seat that is only attached to a bar and some protective screening, it then swings you into the air and you go round and round. About halfway through it stops at the very top, you sit there for a second or five and then start going backwards.

To be honest it was a lot of fun. The first ride I went with my niece and we laughed the entire time. She thought it was funny when I let out; Shit! Sorry Morgan! A couple of other family members rode the ride and all thought the same thing, that is was a lot of fun. I though, got a little too brave, and wanted to go for a second time. This time I went with my sister Amy (her second as well), it all started out fun till we hit the backwards part. I guess that large ice cream wanted out. I did not throw up, but my stomach was not sitting well. I kept count the revolutions and praying the end was soon.

It took another hour and a half before my stomach started to settle down. Would I go on the skyscrapper again? Yes, two times within an hour? Not if I had recently left a buffet restaurant.

This is Not How I Wanted to Start My Vacation

With the last few weeks being, well, pretty crappy I was looking forward to a vacation. Luckily, one was right around the corner. The Parents are celebrating their 50th anniversary in the Smokey Mountains. I love the mountains and this is a great way to caste off the sucktitude that I have been dealing with.

All things started well. until oh, the drive out here, I am suffering from a cold. This sucks, but I hope it will go away soon. I've started taking every kind of remedy out there, I'm one step away from looking for leeches... I am in Tennessee, there has to be a place that sells them. I just hope it doesn't ruin this trip. After the golf outing I may try and sleep it off. Must get well, must get well.

Wackiness

I've had a long week and at times it I thought the pain would never stop. The only thing to get my mind out of this crappy sucktitude youtube, more importantly Sifl & Olly. If you are too you and do not remember the show it was two sock puppets that had their own talk show. If it sounds strange, it was, but it does not come near to the brilliance of the show. If you could look into my brain, it would probably look a lot like Sifl and Olly. Most people will not like the show and that probably why it was on for only two seasons. My favorite segments were a word with Chester. Chester was a friend of Sifl and Olly, who would appear to have had one two many acid trips. His comments never really made sense, but it was funny.

The above video is, well about ninjas... need I say more?!?! The below video is all about the wackiness that is Chester.

Cash Flow

After the last baby name post there was a flurry of activity, but for the last few days no votes. If I do not get to 50 within a week I am calling the race. With 45 votes already in Cash has the clear lead with 24 votes (53%) a majority but two votes. Nathan at 10 votes (22%) is struggling to break away from the force field of J Dog's mighty 9 votes (20%). Then you have Englebert who got one pity vote and another from myself (4%). I don't know why, but I thought it would be a race between Nathan and Englebert not J Dog.

Since Cash is hanging on to the majority, if Nathan and J Dog force the percentage under 50% I may have to do a run off. There has to be a majority here. This will be the only way I believe Nathan can win. I am calling it the Clinton strategy. This could be it folks get the votes in or the race is over and we have a new baby name.

NEW STUFF: OK, the poll hit the 50 mark so the new mark will be 60 by the time I get back from vacation August 4th.

Tired of Dead People

In the news business, you get to cover a lot of fun stuff like people being killed, AWESOME! For the most part, the deaths we cover are generally spaced out, but lately I have had to cover 4 high profile murders and it is starting to take a toll. I am tried of it, it's not fun and you have to be serious. Day in and day out we have covered these local deaths with very little breaks. Being on nightside it is magnified, because 11pm producer wants something new. I don't blame her, it's just we have a limited number of night side crews and with the luck of the draw I'm covering one of the deaths.

You joke around about it, you try not to think about it, yet it is still there. Today I covered a vigil almost three hours away from the station. All the people there did not even know the girl, she didn't even live there. The only connection was she was found there. After four weeks of death I need a long break from it. Luckily, I have a vacation coming soon and hopefully after all the death stories will have passed

Take Me Out to the ER

I like sports, but generally I'm not very good at them. I want to be good, but years of laziness has caused any sense of skill to diminish.

So what do I do? I agree to play softball... in the dead of summer... in North Carolina. Luckily the team is full of either early thirty somethings and older 20 year olds so we are in the same injury range. I was just looking to get some exercise and some friendly interaction.

I did not HORible, but pretty close. My first at bat, I swung and missed the first two pitches (You only get three total in an at bat). I made contact in the last pitch, but it was reminiscent of Willy Mays Hayes at bat in Major League. I kind of half swung and got it near the hands. I squeal led internally and started to run. I got my first base hit. It almost ended in the same way, only I was picked off when the short stop made the catch and I was half way between first and second.

My second at bat was fair, but I hit it straight to the third baseman and I had no chance of getting to first. We lost 13-7 but I had fun, or I went delirious from heat... either one could be true.

Handy Man

We have been in the house for three weeks now and things are slowly getting back to normal, yet there is still a lot of work to be done. I've started taking up a few projects to make the house a little better.

The first project was changing a door lock. Mind you, I have very little experience at fixing things so I'm doing a lot of this for the first time. For some reason there is a door in the bonus room that we could not lock because we didn't have a key. We searched the house and never found a working key so I had to replace the locks. Truthfully, it was pretty easy. A lot of the parts already in the door worked so I just needed to change the lock part. After 15 minutes we had a working lock and now we don't have to worry about people being able to walk in. I'll be honest I was quite happy with myself.

The next on the list were shelves, and I mean a lot of shelves. So far I have put two more shelves in the storage area, a cabinet and shelf for The Wife's area, and four more shelves in the office. I have done shelves in the past, but it generally ended up slanty or with extra holes in the wall. Since I now own the walls and shelves I thought I might want them to be done right. I got the leveler out and even measured at least twice. I did have a couple of problems. Once shelf bracket does not want to stay in place, it keeps fall out. I got it to stay, but I don't think it's 100% secure, but it will do for now.

Hopefully by next week The Wife and I can get the boxes out of the office so we can start to hang pictures. That's when the house will feel like its done.

Come On!

Last night Boston Stevie and I were sitting in a live truck waiting for a press conference when he got the idea to look at the competitors websites. We did find any new info on our story, but we did find this story. If you don't want to go to the link, the quick version is this old woman took an insurance on her grandson worth $100,000. Come to find out she has done this in the past to her other husbands and now they are looking into see if she killed them for money. Boston Stevie saw that she has a connection to Ohio and immediately thought that she had to be from Ironton.

Back in June he did a blog post on a rock from the Ohio River and the man who dug up the rock just happened to be from my home town. I wrote a response about how every time something news worthy comes out of my home town. He thinks this is funny and did a search using only these three words: Ohio, Woman and Insurance. The first item on the list was from the Herald Dispatch with this title Ironton native with 5 dead spouses 'obsessed with cash.' CRAP! Why did she have to be from Ironton? Boston Steve went into hysterics and I started down a shame spiral... yet again. How can this continue to happen, you never hear about Van Wert, Loveland, or somewhere like Versailles it's always Ironton. Why not national coverage on our Memorial Day parade? Ironton needs an overhaul and has to stop getting all this bad press. I'm probably blowing it out or proportion because I'm from there, but twice withing a month is way too much bad press.

Grin and Bear It

Today is one of the two days out of the year that I do not enjoy... I had to go to the dentist. This is sort of one of necessary evils in life. I know I don't have to go, because I didn't go for six years and the only issue was one small cavity. Yet I'm getting older and I don't want to end up like The Wife's brothers... toothless. This cleaning did not hurt as much as my first one a year and a half ago, but still, I have sensitive gums and all the poking and prodding hurt like hell. That's when I realized that most of the dental tools have not changed since the middle ages.

Oh sure you have the X-ray and some fancy computer, but look at the tray of picks and sharp pointy objects they use. How can they not have some kind of laser, nanobots or something to clean your teeth? Are we not in the 21st century? If you make tools for the medical field you need to come up with something that was not used during the Spanish Inquisition.

I'm glad I no longer have to do that awful tasting fluoride mouth piece thing. If you do not remember or do not know, back when I was a youngster way back in the early 80s, they had a mouth piece and they would fill it with this.... ooze and put it in your mouth. It was full of fluoride and suppose to help keep cavities away. It tasted awful, and they tried masking the taste with crappy flavors. The first was grape and I hated grape, but they thought all kids love grape. So I had this nasty substance in my mouth that had a hint of grape. I wanted to throw up every time I saw that stuff. As far as I can tell that's the only improvements in the dental field in the last 50 years.

Maybe the next time I visit they will have created something less painful, who am I kidding it'll still hurt.

Cashing In

It's been nearly two weeks since my last baby name update and somehow I am still getting people to vote. I will admit the number of votes has slowed down to a trickle, but there has been a total of 34 votes so far. Baby Cash has taken a majority lead with 18 votes (52%), then you basically have a battle for second place. Nathan has 8 (23%), but J Dog is right there with 7 (20%) and bring up the rear is Englebert with 1 vote (2%). Finally someone voted for Englebert, I mean what a great name for a baby; you can call it Bert or Eng or Engle... the options are countless but I guess it's not cool.

When I started this there was talk about Melissa's family possible coming in and swamping the vote to make Nathan/Nathaniel the clear winner. Well, I guess not, I guess everyone is coming around to the awesomeness of Cash.

I'll keep this thing going till I can go a week without getting a vote.

Cleaned Up

So many of you are probably wondering if the gnomes made the trip to the new house. All I have to say is YEAH! Most even got a little touch up in the paint department. The oldest one, second from the left he was so faded that he was nearly white. Wilson the Gypsy Moth catcher need some extensive work as well, but everyone else was just a touch up. Gilbert got a little dinged up on the San Antonio trip so he's back in form. I also have received a new "welcome" gnome that is added to the group. I don't know what the neighbors think of them, but no news is good news I guess.

Head Shot

I was about to do a post on the gnomes at the new house, instead I shall embarrass my nephew. This is Devon, for some reason he wanted to dye his hair blue for the second straight summer. Only one problem with this idea, not enough bleach, he was warned and wanted to proceed; the above picture is what happened. Of course he is 12 and everything is a big deal and is very upset about his hair even though he is over 10 hours away from anyone he knows. The Wife and I tried to make things better, but that didn't work so I went for the next fun option torture. He hates having his picture taken and he really didn't want those pictures taken. While all this is going on he dared me to put it on the blog... something you should realize, don't dare me to do something stupid, I generally will do it. Sorry Devon, I though you needed at least one more reason for therapy later in life.

Moving In

OK enough of the bad stuff at work, how about something good like,

WE FREAKING MOVED INTO OUR HOUSE!

I tell you what, buying a house is one of the scariest things and yet one of the happiest moments in my life. We are now in debt more than ever, you don't realize it till you see the mortgage papers and that number that has six digits. Then I have to be in charge of making sure everything works. I no longer can call a super and have him fix it... I am now Snider! Then there is the one good thing. It's my freaking house! I don't have to deal with attached neighbors, because we don't have any. We don''t have to worry about being kicked out because the owners got an itch and want us out. As long as we make our mortgage payments we are golden!

We signed on Friday and I started moving boxes that day, the only problem for me was, it was FREAKING 96 DEGREES that day. Since we only had one dolly and not enough room in my car for a lot of boxes with the dolly, I had to lug out boxes from Fried Chicken Drive to the car by hand. I could usually get three big boxes and two medium boxes and five small ones in one trip so that meant I had to make six to seven trips by hand. After five round trips to the new house I had to sit for a while, then lay down and pass out for 20 minutes while Lucy tried to figure out what was going on with this new place. Saturday went a lot smoother, well except for UHaul giving me the wrong truck, We had about 20 people helping us and we got everything in the house before 11:30.

The biggest thing I have found about buying a house is all the things we need. We have faux hardwood floors so the floors hurt our feet if we go barefoot for more than 20 minutes. We had to buy a couple of floor rugs to solve that. We needed more shelves, temporary blinds, curtains in the bedroom (don't want to give the neighborhood a show). Then we have the outdoor stuff, I bought a lawnmower and a weed eaters. I could have bought one off craigslist, but I'm not mechanically inclined so I have no idea if someone is trying to sell me a lemon so I just bought a new one. Even though I have spent more money this week than I have ever spent, we only put the lawn mower on a credit card.

Even after a week we still have boxes everywhere, but the house is starting to look nice. The Wife did a good job in the living room and bedroom and I'm slowly getting things organized in the office. I feel like I'm now forced to be a grown up, I own land and I guess I have to be responsible and stuff. Who am I kidding, I'm a dork and always will be one

Pregnant Military People Might Want to Stay Away from North Carolina

For the second time within a year I'm covering a pregnant military person being killed. The first was Maria Lauderbach the Marine that was allegedly killed by Cesar Laurean in his house near Camp Lejune. Now I'm covering the death of Megan Touma in Fayetteville, NC near Fort Braggs. Both murders were creepy and oddly enough have a lot of similarities:

• Both were pregnant


• Both were from Ohio (Lauderbach Dayton area and Touma Cincinnati area)


• Both were having affairs with married men (Touma may not have know that)


• Both murders were grizzly in nature (one was burned and barried in the back yard the other was found rotting in a hotel room)


• Both murders happened in North Carolina


• Both outside predominate military bases


• Both had gone missing and no one reported anything


• Both families contacted the military wondering where their children were

Then there are the strange outside events like the fact that The Serg and I have covered each event and were forced to stay over night.

This latest murder has me a little creeped out, after the murder a note was sent to the Fayetteville Observer by someone claiming to be the killer and he in fact has killed in other states and is taking on the call sign of the Zodiac Killer, there was a symbol of the Zodiac Killer supposedly in the hotel room. For the most part police think it is not a serial killer, but a well crafted rouse to pull them away from the real killer.

Then the military is keeping REALLY quite about this one. It's not like we normally get a lot of info out of the military to begin with, but it's even worse. They actually called a press conference to say they can't say anything. The reason I used "person of interest" earlier is that no one is allowed to use the guys name even though every media outlet has it. I think the Laurean/Lauderbach case got to the military and they would rather say nothing and hope that everything will go away.

Fayetteville police are stuck in the middle here, they have to deal with the military so they can't give the media any information on tape, but also they don't want to have what happened in Onslow county and have to do a presser every 3 hours. Instead the investigator will give out "some" info but has to stay tight lipped a little. He's got a tough job, dealing with hundreds of us media members calling or camping out waiting for any piece of information we can get and trying to get answers to a murder.

While covering these stories it gets a little nutty for us. We get so close to it and we have to joke around to keep out sanity, I Won't go into them, because people will chastise me for being insinative, all I will say we are going to burn in hell for some of the jokes we are saying. I'm just hoping that another murder like this will not happen and if it does that it is far away from North Carolina or has zero Triangle connections.

A Pup Named Lucy Lu

OK I took some flack from people thinking I called my dog stupid. I don't think she is stupid and this week I am finding out how smart she is. She has figured out the concept of "catching." We bought a blue squeaky ball and she loves that think. I decided to throw it in the air and next thing I know she caught it! Out of the next 10 times she caught it three which is not too bad, she's a pup and overly excited and forgets to either open her mouth or just close it.

I picked up a treat and wanted to test her catching ability, well come to find out she is just going to wait for the treat to land... after it bounces off her head. So she is making the mental discussion to wait for the treat to land, why do the extra work and try and get it in the air when she can get it off the floor.

Enough on tricks, I think is knows something is up with the move. She has been freaking out ever since the boxes moved into the living room. She wants to know what's in the boxes and must get everything out of them. She's just been off the wall as well, we can't wear her out. She's been up at three AM and then again at five, she just wants to play.

What's In a Baby Name Update

I was going to wait till Thursday for a follow up post, but I am shocked at the number of voters I have had so far. You have to remember, according to Google Analytics I average 23-30 hits a day and so far within less than a week I have had 23 votes! First of all Cash took a big lead and is holding everyone at bay with 13 votes. Second place is Nathan with 6, but that's 6 has mostly been votes from the last three days. Then there is the strange shocker of the list... J Dog. Who is voting J Dog... seriously guys, that's the joke name, I know Boston Stevie voted J Dog to be neutral, but I don't by it, he's trying to pull a Pat Buchanan here and mess everything up.

Since I posted the poll I found out that you can not rig the vote by voting every day, one computer IP one vote. Now if you were to log onto every computer you have access too like, 6 edit bays, then you have 6 votes. I'm not saying Shawn is doing this, but who knows, I can't track that kind of thing. My personal goal for this vote is 100. If we get it there, then I think that should be binding and the laws of the land will back me and we will name Shawn and Melissa's baby whatever wins.

Making Things Better

This was kind of a rough week and Friday was the epitome of that. I was dealing with incompetence and people who's news judgement were, well, not very clear nor good and it was driving me crazy. Oh did I also mention I had to deal with President Bush and I did not find that information out till 3:30 and his "drive by" was at 4:30. I'm not going into the annoyance of the day, all I will say is I got everything done that needed to be done. Was it pretty? No, but it got done.

Shawn could see that everything was taking a toll so he, Mellisa and I went to the Wake Forest Carolina Ale House to have a few adult beverages and some food. I went all out bad with the food, a chili Cheddar cheese burger with fries and they had $2 Killians. After a few drinks (not Mellisa, nobody want baby Cash drunk yet) and some good conversation I went home feeling better.

Yet I knew I was still not where I needed to be. Even though a lot of the house is packed, I had one cigar out for just an occasion. I'm not a smoker, but every once in a while I do enjoy a good cigar. So I when out back and lit my Monticello White and relaxed. It was a perfect night, it was in the low 70s, the crickets were chirping and every once in a while a lighting bug would dance on by. I also put Lucy on the lead and gave her a little late night snack she was so calm I actually let her off the lead and she stayed in the backyard, normally when that happens I have to chase her down.

For an hour I sat out there and just relaxed. That's what was needed and I feel so much better, normally I would be bruiting over Friday till probably Tuesday, but now I am done with it.

Boxed In

We are a week away from moving into our very own house and I can't wait. The new reason is not the fact that we will own this house (well, that's one reason), but I am tired of looking at boxes. Every room I enter there is a box; the kitchen has boxes, the bedroom has boxes, the living room and I am currently typing with a box next too me. They cause me to trip over them and then I can't find things because... it's in a box.

The awful thing is I know we are going to need to go out and buy more boxes. All the crap we have won't make it. I can't stand it, I have to go get more boxes! I'm at my wits end and when this is all over I'm going to stack all the boxes up on the street, make a small jump and go all 70s cop move on those boxes (4:50 into the clip)!

What's In a Name

Friends of the monkey Shawn and Melissa are pregnant and due in October and as we near the birth there has been one small question... what to name their son to be. The current name that has been batted around I believe is Nathaniel, but that name is not the most popular choice. Yes, it is a solid name with many options for him through out his life, but the name of choice within the newsroom is Cash.

As you can tell Shawn is a fan of Mr Johnny Cash, I personally think that's a kick ass name. Early on in life he's not going to get it, but later on that name rocks! He could be anything from musician, power broker or even Ohio State Quarterback. Hell, I'm thinking about changing my name to Cash. Yet Melissa's mother is not happy with the name Cash, so that has forced the name to the underground where I am and I shall get a grass root effort going to name the youngster Cash.

You maybe in the mother camp and say that name is way too over the top, who are these people rock stars or something? Well consider this, Shawn is a conservative and with a current agreement the child's initials could be NPR also know as National Public Radio. Well, once this was mentioned that set Shawn off and has given more leverage to Cash. On the same hand though, Cash would end up being CPR. The choices are there, an organization that is funded by the government or a method of saving lives.

To help out I have created a poll over to the left there that will run from now till October 1st and I think the readers should decide the name, of course two options were too few so I added my name, well because I rock and my usual sarcastic baby name Englebert. Rock the vote people, the choice is yours.

Tim Russert

Very few times you can walk into a newsroom and find every person gathered around a couple of televisions, the last time I can remember was 9 11. The reasoning why is we are so jaded it takes an event for us to get pulled away from doing our jobs and today we had one of those events, Tim Russert died from a heart attack. He is not a big dog like Tom Brokaw, but he is near the top in recognized news people. When ever NBC has something political he was always there. I believe most people in America knew who he was. They may not have watched Meet the Press or any other news, yet I guess most would say, "Oh yeah that guy."

On occasion I have been to big events where there are national crews there and most of the time I could careless. I never got a chance to be in the same location as Mr Russert, but I would have tried to find out where he was and walk over to see. For someone like me who doesn't get awe struck by celebrities that's pretty big for me. As a journalist I respected his political skills and ability to get answers out of his interviews. As Tom Brokaw said at the end of his special coverage, NBC news will never be the same. I agree, I am sorry that we will no long have a man like Russert, we may never see someone as his ilk again.

What's That Smell

If you have not heard there is a raging forest fire near the coast line in North Carolina. For the most part, I knew about it, but... it's over on the coast, no big deal. Well, until I did a story in Rocky Mount, NC yesterday (one hour eastish of Raleigh). As The Serg and I sat down to eat dinner at Pizza Hut we were asked by the hostess was there a fire near by causing all the smoke. The Serg said it was from the forest fire, because of the slightly cooler front (I'm sorry you can't have a cold front when it's 90) and are now blowing inland.

This made me think a little, how close are we to the fire? Come to find out the fire is less than a two hour drive away. HOLY CRAP! THAT'S RIGHT ON US! Also if we don't get any rain this fire could last for months. I'm now getting a little worried, we are closing on a house and forest fires could be coming. Then on my way to work it looked like early morning fog and it's 3pm! It's smells like Raleigh is having a huge ass barbecue.

The closest I ever came to a forest fire prior to this was when I was a sophomore in high school and there was a fire in Wayne National Forest and while heading to a band competition and we saw smoke and we found out the fire was two ridges over. It never threatened Ironton so it was cool to see, but harmless. Now, I'm worried yet I have a feeling I'm just panicing because we are so close to buying this house. All will be fine... and if it does get close I've already thought out my evacuation plan... Save the dog, the computer, photos... what am I forgetting... Oh yeah and The Wife.

Sharp As a Bowling Ball

I love my dog and she is still young and learning. She has mastered the art of "going" outside, she has sit pretty much down, she can lay and she understands shake. Yet other things she does not quite get like walking on a leash (work in progress) and fetch. But the big trick I've been working on to no avail is something pretty simple, catch a treat when I throw it. Usually she sits there like in the picture and the treat bounces off her nose. After it lands on the floor she goes over and eats it.

The wife gave me the suggestion of "throw it higher." Maybe she doesn't realize that she can catch it, if it's higher it might register in her brain to open her mouth. I loft a treat into the air, it reaches the apex, descends and all I hear is DONK!!! That was the sound of a hard treat meeting her forehead, I laughed and then was worried Lucy was hurt. No she wasn't hurt, she started looking around for the treat. Either my dog is slow or she is too smart, she doesn't have to catch the treat, just pick it off the ground. I'm hoping for too smart.

Wait, Did I Miss a Couple of Months

Due to the fact that The Wife likes to sleep in sub-Arctic temperatures, I have a hard time figuring out what it feels like outside. Well I open the door and was punched in the face and gut by mother nature. Today the Triangle hit a new record high of 100 degrees. Holy mother of crap is that warm, and a month or so too early. I was almost OK with it getting that hot in late July and August, but in early June this is unacceptable. I shouldn't have to feel like taking a shower when I go to get into the car. Then everything in the car is a billion degrees and causing third degree burns on my hands and ass. Something needs to be done, stupid Al Gore and his global warming. Why can't we make him stop it or something!

It's a Done Deal

Today I was forced into helping with a "it's hurricane season" special when I get a call from the mortgage company, I was worried till I heard the words, "what time of day do you want to close." Those were the greatest and scariest words in the world. We are now home owners. We got the house and we sign the papers on the 27th! We have a lot to do over the next few weeks, no more free time for me. I'm either going to be packing or working. Crap we have a lot of stuff.

More Videos

I know I've posted a lot of videos lately and I don't want to turn this into a video posting blog, but I can't pass up the above and below videos. People have too much time on their hands and this is proof and most of the stuff like this on Youtube is crap, yet these are quality items.

The above video takes a simple concept, bleeping out a word that is not a curse word to make it sound dirty. A lot of these clips are not funny, but who ever made this did a great job. The song works with the bleeping and makes you believe the song is not about counting.

I found this one on Deadspin.com and if you like hockey then this equals funny. They take the knob hockey board game as the actual players in the NHL. The writing is simple and great. I love the "In the crease, out of the crease." As the goalie is going ballistic.

Wierd Day

So last night I'm still dripping from the rain storm that we had when I hear an interesting comment float through the newsroom... Ted Kennedy is going to Duke University Hospital on Monday. Then 20 minutes later we find out he is already at Duke. I thought nothing of it till I remembered today at 3:00pm that we happen to have Boston Stevie on nightside. Why is that important, well he has 30 years of connection to Boston and knows all the Kennedy minions so of course he's going to be sent out to the hospital.

My fate was sealed, we get to Duke and Boston Stevie can't go 5 feet without running into an old colleague from Boston. It was like he was the mayor of Newsland or something. It was cool to see him around these guys to get a feel for how it was in Boston. Yet, it wasn't cool enough to stop me from sweating my ass of, it's in the 90s and I'm on asphalt. I downed all my water and then the awesomest of all awesomed happened. Firehouse Subs came over and gave all the media free subs and some tea. So of course that made the crappy day a little better. I now love Firehouse Subs, go eat there so I can get more free subs, wait... is that payola now? CRAP!

The bizarre moment f the night happened while we were still trying to pump the hospital for some form of information (on camera) and the PR slag actually made this comment; "It's not in my job description so I'm not going to do it." What do you mean not in your job description! Your job is to deal with us and give us statements, so you might want to rethink things there skippy, or get one of the 12 other PR slags out here and say, "The Kennedy family wishes to not release any information today." That's all, is that so hard... hell give me 50 bucks and I be the offical sound... throw us a bone man!

Cutting the Cable

Since we are buying a house and generally TV sucks in the summer, we are getting rid of the cable. I'm not just taking about the box I'm talkin' the whole sha-bang. For the next three months we are going to save about $80 a month, but we did get Netflix so that takes our savings down to $60 for a total of $180. When you look at it that way, that's a car payment for The Wife. Yet cable gives so much and asks for so little, so now I will have to do things in the morning instead of sitting there and watching TV. I guess I'll walk Lucy more, blog more and get things done around the house. Who knows, maybe I will never go back to cable again, who am I kidding I have to watch Lost next season. Well, I could go satellite?