Decembers To Remember

Pretty interesting week in the world of the Reedman so far. Right now, the Christmas season is reminding me of a lot of things. Like that I still need to do all of my shopping. Or that I need to figure out what to get for everyone. But there was another thing I was reminded of.

People are important in life.

For whatever reason, I was reminded of this today while I was doing my “Day in the Life” story on a pastor. That’s right, this morning I got to hang around with a local pastor for a few hours and learn how he prepares for a service a “Day in the life” if you will. Another fun thins is that my picture will likely be on the front page of the paper tomorrow with me doing something (I didn’t know what it was because my new editor took the picture) I think that why I thought of this topic. Kristal and I are getting along well right now. Of course, Kristal offered to take me to breakfast at the American Legion in town this morning, (some good French toast) before I started hanging out with the pastor. I should be grateful, Kristal set this up for me on Thursday when I didn’t have any idea of how I was going to do this. Kristal’s first day as my new boss is tomorrow and tonight I get to interview her and write a short (and I will emphasize SHORT) story on her being appointed. Good times. In all honesty, I think I’m just happy to have someone around and we get along all right. That’s about all it goes to.

The reason I thought of that story was because of a conversation I had with Chief Broken Dish this week online. She’s now living in Maryland and was nice to catch up and see how the former chief was doing. Chief Broken Dish was part of another December memory during finals week a couple years ago. During my junior year of college, we went to Rachel’s Roadhouse for our semesterly dinner. Chief, J-Dye and Sheryl all rode with me and made sure I had a great time by basically making fun of me the whole time and making sure I had a ton of great laughs. The one endearing memory I have from this is stopping at a gas station in Grove City and while I am fueling I hear the three of them laugh really loudly at about the same time. Why? Well, since my windows were all fogged up, J-Dye wrote my name really huge on the one window, Chief wrote my name inside a heart and Sheryl wrote my phone number. Hilarious moments there. And in a strange bit of coincidence, all of them live in Maryland now. I think my unofficial name for them will be “The Maryland Gang.” Let’s see how long it takes for that to be vetoed.

The weather has been great all week and should continue to be that way. But for now, that’s just about everything I can think of. And by the way congratulations again to everyone who graduated this year and can now celebrate sweet, sweet freedom. Enjoy it!

You Can Take Reedy Out Of College, But You Can't Take The College Out Of Reedy

Wow, what a week this has been. As some of you may have heard, this week was the week to put together the Winter Sports preview, a mixture of pagination, tiredness and lots of caffeine. It also included what I like to call an all-nighter. Let’s explain the fun that was Wednesday.

The Ridgway all-nighter

10 a.m. – wake up

11 a.m. – arrive at work

Noon – am told there are problems with ads on one of our sister’s papers tabs. Have to fix it.

1:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. – Paginate eight pages of tab while my co-worker gets yelled at for still doing his stories while I’m trying to paginate. We cut the tab from 12 pages to 8 while I do an awesome job of moving ads to get it to fit.

6 p.m. – I wait for composing to PDF ads while I hear entertaining stories about lots of stuff told by Jeff about Turkey and Gravy soda (apparently a real thing) and lots more great stuff.

6 – 9:30 p.m. – Ridgway boys basketball and losing for the first time this season. Not surprising since it was their first game of the year.

9:30 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. – I think we get everything squared away with the tab.

10:30 p.m. – 1 a.m. – Write a story, upload some pictures do a scorebox and then I think I had to paginate sports as well.

1 a.m. – 3:30 a.m. – This part is pretty much a blur but I do remember learning how to PDF pages with the copy editor there. We’re getting along pretty well right now, which is always good.

3:30 a.m. – 6 a.m. – I was still there and again I don’t know if I was actually doing anything other than light typing for news.

6:30 a.m. – Go home and sleep. By the way I should mention the reason this happened is I had to come in and proof early in the morning. But since our paper’s press is broke, the deadline was moved up and going home and sleeping for 2 hours seemed useless at the time.

Let’s hope the snowy weather holds off for a while. Driving in that stuff is just rough. I’m surprised so many people like it. I’m not particularly fond of it just that much anymore. I can stand the cold to a degree and now I’ve gotten used to the wintery weather and cold, just like I did while at school. The only difference is the sidewalks in Ridgway aren’t icesheets and I have to actually drive.

I guess I really shouldn’t have been surprised to see last week go so tough. Last week just happened to be the last week of classes at the Slippery Rock. I remember what those weeks were like, and they were worse than finals week. They were rough because all the professors seemed to think it was a great idea to make projects due the final week. Doing three to four projects at one with my constant procrastination and it could turn really rough.

So that’s about it, and the semester is coming to an end with the holiday season coming up faster than a friend request on Facebook. Good luck to everyone in finals week and especially to those graduating soon. That’s all for now, it’s back to the grind tomorrow.

That's A Nice Set Of Horns

Over the past week, I got to see a ton of happy people. People that just happened to have dead deer heads in the backs or trunks of their cars. Our paper sponsors a big buck contest and we had over 20 entries come in (Not literally, they stayed outside) and enter the contest while interested onlookers and passer-byers would ooh and ahh at said deer, especially its horns. Now for whatever reason, I had the esteemed duty of taking most of the pictures of the hunters. It made everyone else feel good for the most part, which is a huge key at work.

Lots of people have birthdays at the beginning of December which is really cool. I know quite a few and I wish them all a happy and swell birthday to grow a year older. Since it’s also the end of December it looks like the fall semester is coming to an end pretty soon. I also happen to know a few people that will be graduating soon, and I know they’re all excited. Trust me, I’ve talked to them and they have all told me so.

It must be the Christmas season. Everywhere I look, I see a commerical for jewelry anywhere from the typical family Christmas morning setting where the husband gets the wife some fancy schmancy jewelry or those other commericals. Today, I saw the relationship timeline of kisses, going from first kiss, to wedding kiss, to baby kiss, to middle-aged kiss, to good-bye kiss. (OK, that last one isn't real, but since this is America and one of out every two marriages end in divorce, it really should be.) So now I remember that "Every kiss begins with Kay." (Which I NEVER understood the literal reality of the saying until it just dawned on me today) Also, I guess if you really want to impress your mate, go ahead and go to Jared, because "it could only be Jared." By the way, the stuff that's ignored os the astronomical price of some of these diamonds. The real saying should be "You may not have lifelong love, but you'll sure have lifelong debt." Oh, yes, you all probably have realized that I won't have to worry about that at least this year. And I am more than OK with that.

I probably forgot a few things, but if I did, I’ll add them in at another time. Until next time, don’t get too stressed out and keep the Kleenex in the box.

My Green Chair Broke

OK, I’m going to try and blog again. Let’s see how this one works. Apparently, people are reading it since the last 2 posts have had three comments about them. Let’s do it.

First of all, I had a sad moment. My favorite green chair broke that I’ve had for over three years. So if you’re planning your Christmas lists, guess what now you know what you can get me. I got the chair in May 2003 as it was originally my first college roommate’s at the time, before he generously and without much care, gave it to me as he was in as big a hurry as possible to leave school forever. (He dropped out) The chair had a lot of good memories and lived it three different dorm rooms, home and Ridgway not withstanding the countless hours of time I spent playing video games instead of going out and getting a social life with anyone I associated with.

Work has been going fine as of late, although this week will be busy because we are paginating our winter sports preview. Good times. I’ll be busy with that and will likely have to do most of the pagination.

By the way, thanksgiving was nice as I got to see the family again and do some other stuff as well. Yippie skippie doo. Mom made me take back my little small tree which is currently out of the box and positioned in my living room with garland and lights in there.

We’re in the baby processes of the next-gen systems with the Nintendo Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360 where gamers that have WAY too much time on their hands, spent days and days in line to spend their life saving on systems that will go down on price. Needless to say, I didn’t go out to get one of those, I have something called a job that prevents that. However, I won’t rule out buying that in the future. And by the way, I’m getting a PS3 if I do because I’m avoiding any mention of the Xbox 360 (Especially HALO 2) and the Nintendo Wii (which is still living off Zelda and Mario).

Winter came back to Ridgway today, especially since it’s December. That makes enough sense. But speaking of things that don’t really make much sense, I read a certain post by my esteemed friend Jen about Rocket coffee. Now as many of you know, I used to work at The Rocket for a while and I guess I really never paid attention to the coffee, because I never drank it. But letting mold grow on the coffee pot? A little odd. And by the way, Jen’s not kidding when she says she turns into a bear when she doesn’t get the coffee. I’ve seen it. It’s not pretty, folks.

I heard everyone had a great time at their Senior Seminar dinners Thursday night. While you were at your etiquette dinners. Guess what I was doing? That’s right.
I sat at an etiquette dinner.
Thursday night, I covered the Ridgway football banquet and ended up sitting with the team boosters. And you know what, it was a good time, even though much like the senior sem dinner I had in the spring, I barely ate anything (OK, I barely ate anything compared to everyone else who cleaned their plates) and couldn’t put my elbows on the table. I must also say the table I was at it not exactly suited for anyone taller than 5’10” because I kept hitting my knee on the top of the table. That was a very fun banquet though, especially with coaches and players trading friendly jabs at each other. We laughed a lot for 3 hours. Now there’s a great way to spend your Thursday night.

Rain And Much More

This will be a lot of miscallany crap because there hasn't been much going on to make a trend start. OK, that almost made sense. Almost. Let's get it started.

This first thing has been a common complaint of mine while I’ve lived here in Ridgway over the past 4 ½ months. (Can you believe it’s been that long?) It precipites here every day. That’s not an exaggeration. It literally rains, snows, sleets or freezing rains here every day. At least it did last week. It’s also been pretty cold here the last couple days. Apparently, it’s supposed to be warmer here this week. It better be. Thanksgiving is Thursday. It will be nice to get home and see the family. For everyone’s information, I’ve been home exactly one time since moving to Ridgway. Yep, there’s the real world for you.

OK, this next thing will anger a few people. I read on some other blog how a lack of interpersonal communication is ruining the world. Well here’s how I see it.

Interpersonal communication is overrated.

Today’s personality of talking through a computer is a sign of the times just like the cell phone, fantasy football and blogging. It allows people to be more free and more comfortable, especially people like myself who has always been described as “quiet.” A few people that have talked to me online know that I can produce the best of myself simply by having enough time to figure out what to say. Through the slinky magic of Facebook, I’ve been able to connect with people and write on Facebook walls. Freakin awesome. So I don’t know what the big deal is with complaining with the lack of interpersonal communication. The world still turns on its axis. It’ll still be overcast tomorrow. I’m still single. Everything has remained the same.

Working with the media, I notice certain trends with people. Like whenever someone sticks a microphone or a camera in front of someone, they automatically with do or say the stupidest thing possible. Now by no means do I want to pile on the current SGA and their situation because trust me, they’re not the first person/group to do something on camera and maybe regret it later on, in fact that probably just reinforces the point that people will do the weirdest and insane things on camera. They’ll crazy dance, chug, do all this stupid stuff and the worst thing is, it’s all on tape. So remember, next time you’re on tape use your left and/or right brain and think about what you’re doing.

“Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
I’ve seen that promo for “Heroes” about 8 times today while watching NASCAR and football on NBC. While typing, I just thought of the parallels between cheerleaders and another social group at school, sorority girls.
Think about it, in high school, cheerleaders were most often the most popular girls and most of them were very pretty. In college, the sorority girls are most of the time, popular (or at least have their particular one seen on apparel) and very pretty. I guess another reason I thought of this was because in HS, I got along with the cheerleaders alright, while in college, I didn’t have a problem with those sorority ladies either and most of them I got along with, or at least knew my name, which I figured was probably a nice accomplishment in my view. There were a few I talked to on varying levels of regularity and knew on a decent basis. So what does that mean getting back to that quote I led the paragraph.
I guess it means if you see a sorority lady in trouble, you should help her out! You might just save the world. Or at least the world that lives in one house.
And that’s the type of thing that my skills in interpersonal communication probably wouldn’t be able to produce. That’s why it’s still overrated.

TV Is Geared For The Ladies

Yep, the title of this blog will definitely enrage the female gender. But in today's TV world (Especially the network world) look at most of the shows on primetime, especially dramas. A lot of them are shows built for women. "How I met your mother" stars Doogie Howser, M.D. masquarading as a straight man in a gay man's body. "Life with Brian" stars somebody from 7th Heaven the ultimate chick show from the television netherworld known as the WB. "Desperate Housewives" is trying to market the show towars college-age and middle-age ladies that are either actual housewives or college girlfriends that get absolutely nothing from their relationship.

But there's one show I see that falls into this category and I'll say this. "Grey's Anatomy" is definitely a chick show. Just look around and notice what people watch. Lots of girls plan appointment viewing around this show while guys would rather football or wrestling. As to why? I have no idea, I never watched the show and I don't really plan to. So fellas, if you're watching these shows, I'm pretty sure you're doing it as a favor to your girlfriend or getting paid. Or you absolutely have NOTHING better to do.

There's only really 3 shows I watch on a semi-regular basis other than sports. "The Simpsons, Family Guy and The Office" Notice there's all comedies and they deal a lot with slapstick humor and things are off-beat or things like that.

I need to find out from the Rocket wire what the latest and greatest chick flicks are. Again, not that I'm gonna probably have any ladies over to the apartment any time soon, but I'm just curious. I find they pretty much know what the 411 is.

All right ladies, don't be too mad at me. Until next time, tell the sky to stop raining on Ridgway.

The Time Warp Part 2

Wow, there has been a lot going on since the last time I thrilled everyone with the dim light that is my life. And I certainly have a lot to talk about, and a lot that I will probably forget about anyway.

I guess you could say this is Part 2 about catching up with the past (but not “sleeping with the past” as the not so popular Elton John would say) One of the biggest unexpected thrills I had was talking to Mike from high schools, someone who I considered one of my best friends from childhood. I’ve known Mike since 1st grade, we were in the same classes throughout school and we talked quite a bit. Well, he messaged me online last week and we talked for a while. Apparently we both had a lot to catch up on. He got married and moved to New York City working in finance, not surprising me since I knew he was going to do something like that, just like he knew I’d be in the media. Craziness. The guy’s gonna be rich someday, no doubt.

Another one of my hobbies is watching shows and things I used to like in the past. Over the past few months I loved seeing the old NBA on NBC intros and music as well as the early 90s NFL on CBS intros with probably the greatest theme in the history of football. Here’s where you all can laugh. Growing up just like many of you, I watched Power Rangers quite a bit. Well, YouTube hasn’t decided to be cool yet and take them down so a lot of full length episodes are still up there to be watched from the pivotal moments of the series. And I’ve watched them over the past few weeks. Back in the second and third seasons, Power Rangers were probably at its apex followed with the surprising success of Power Rangers Zeo with pink ranger Kat (who was definitely an attractive lady, especially for someone who was 12 to 14 at the time and finding out that girls just don’t have cooties anymore, wow how much am I going to get busted on that one.)

There are some interesting perks to my current job. Free meals, free admission to high school sporting events and getting to go to high school football games are just a few of them. Well, Friday I ended up at the Area Transportation Authority taking pictures for Jonathan’s day in the life story. It was a pretty good time overall. The ATA has a pretty new building that was built just about six years ago. When we got there we were met by a nice redhead named Christy (Not sure on that spelling) who showed us around the place and showed us what she does during a typical day. After that we went to the transport area where we saw the people that are in charge of the routes and talk to the drivers over the intercom. They have a cool computer system where they can see where the bus is, where it’s going and whether the route is on time. The technology is pretty amazing and the people there were certainly interested in having us there. The director of the place was taking a pic of me taking a pic of Q-Tip for the paper. Good times there.

By the way, instant messenger is great, especially for catching up with people as well. That has certainly happened the past couple of weeks. OK, have a good time, talk to all of you soon. The new media class is ranting! IT’S GREAT!

Stuck In A Time Warp

Hey it’s Wednesday, hump day. Halloween has come and finally passed and it looked like everyone had a fun time especially those at school. Not that I actually was at school but while I was facebooking and looking at “news feed” you can’t help but noticing all of the photo albums named “Halloween” and “Look at how few clothes I can wear and still have it called a Halloween costume.” Nobody dressed up at work. Although I did get complemented by the publisher (a female) on my green shirt I wore. The editor thinks the color (anywhere between booger and hunter green should be used as background for our web site redesign.

Browsing through the Halloween costumes, I didn’t really see anything that new, but there was one new one, the classic “Marilyn Monroe” costume. That was definitely a good one. Now I’m personally a little biased on this one because Monroe and I actually chatted on Halloween night on the phone for a couple minutes, a really happy moment for me. When you’re away from school and haven’t talked to some of your friends for 5 months, it’s nice to talk them again an re-connect. That definitely allowed me to release some endorphins.

Oh by the way, Jonathan, my co-worker, said I was “emotionally inaccessible,” last night. Yeah, take that for what you want to.

Moving on, the last couple days, a couple of the assignments that I worked on included taking a picture of the cast of a play in Ridgway and debates in Johnsonburg. I felt like I was in a time warp right back to spring 2002 in the hallowed and dank halls of Elderton HS and the class sizes of 45. The Ridgway kids in drama were energetic and a couple of the girls were excited to see the paper guy. Here’s a funny moment from the Burg experience. At the end of the debates, I got fed for free and sat with all of the teachers. I finally got the experience of eating “in the teacher’s lounge” separated from the rest of the students. I’m sure the kids had a good time not having to sleep through their normal classes. I know I would have. Oh by the way, the drama kids specially got out of class to have their pictures taken. Teachers weren’t happy. I don’t care.

I’ve gotten asked a couple times when I might be visiting the Rock again. And honestly, I don’t really know. Weekends are usually a time where I do have to do something so we’ll have to see when I get a complete and full weekend to have fun. We’ll see what happens. Surprisingly, or maybe not, not many have come up to visit the crib during my 4 months of living here. I’m usually pretty welcome to seeing people come up whenever they have a chance.

OK everyone, that’s all for now. There’s one final note, I want to wish my online smiley buddy a happy birthday today, hope it’s a good one!

There's A Lack Of Originality

Wow, it has been a while since I last posted in the blog. I know my loyal fans in New-Media Journalism are just dying to get the latest dish on what is going on in my life.

There’s been a lot lately. I’ve covered my fair share of HS football and last Saturday I even got to cover a midget football game. That’s where I started noticing a disturbing trend; There really isn’t much originality around where I live. The cheerleading have been notorious for stealing cheers including the P-U-M-P, pump it up! Chant, (which gets used a lot by girls teams trying to get themselves ‘pumped up for the game’) and the victory cheer. The bands have been notorious for playing the same songs too. “On Wisconsin” is a popular one. My high school’s band plays about the same three songs throughout the game. Now that I’m writing this, it sounded much funnier like 3 days ago.

It won’t stop precipitating in Ridgway. Friday night it rained on my way up to Otto-Eldred the WHOLE time. Saturday, it precipitated the whole day with 40 mph winds. This morning on my way to church, It was snowing like crazy, covering the ground in town during the morning. An hour and a half, the snow was gone and it was a tad warmer. But not much.

The Steelers just lost to the Raiders. Season over. Good teams do not lose to bad teams let alone have their quarterback throw four interceptions while a certain fantasy football team owner picked him to be his starting quarterback. Oh well. I know I’ll probably read an insightful column on this on the Pittsburgh Sport Stop, where I can go read fair, balanced coverage with the only problem being spelling people’s names wrong. (Evgeni Malkin!?) That’s of course included with the MCT campus photo approved by Kevin McClatchy which automatically means it sucks.

The Slippery Rock football season is just about over and I only got a slight amount of delight in seeing Slippery Rock defeat my sister’s Edinboro Fighting Skirts, I mean Scots. They play IUP next week and I’ll be honest. I REALLY hope SRU beats IUP. (AKA West Philadelphia) Although I must say IUP has given me one of the top moments of my college life back in Nov. 2002. With the infamous IUP fight, Indiana beat SRU in overtime, runs toward this big rock in the east end zone and then EVERYONE heads out there. And I mean everyone. Players, coaches, people that lived on my floor, all those guys. And then the IUP cheerleaders head down there. Oh, how I would have loved to be in THAT press conference. Still not a fan.

Halloween is on Tuesday. Last week I had the task of photographing kids going around trick-or-treating through the various Ridgway businesses. Some decent costumes but again nothing that original. Halloween has changed for me over the years. I’m pretty sure I stopping dressing up when I was 12 and haven’t really cared for it much since then. At college, I saw my buddies use this time to get schwasted. In 2002, the Bard Hall crew took a mass group trip to Sheetz and the next year I got invited to a Halloween party at my photo editor’s house which I never made it to because I couldn’t find the house. This was not a big deal because I found out the party was lame anyways. It’s always interesting to see how the females dress for Halloween. I’ve noticed quite a few times throughout the last few Halloweens girls like to dress in um, skimpy outfits. For the guys, it’s not so bad. That’s why Halloween is not a bad holiday. Not at all. I went and bought candy in case any poor saps decided to visit me. That’s probably not gonna happen.

Wow, that was a really long post. Stay warm, I’ll talk to you later.

Just Plain Odd

Yes I know it’s late. But fortunately for me, I don’t have to get up in the morning for class unlike the rest of yins, so HAHA! Yep, as always not much has been going on as of late. That’s pretty much the story of the Reedman’s life, it’s dryer than a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, has about as much fun as sitting through a meeting and generally has females going nowhere near it.

So after I praised Missouri’s undefeated start, they promptly went out and lost to unranked Texas A&M. Good job fellas. I’ll definitely get crap for that one.

Not a lot of extra news from the Rocket wire since it was fall break and everyone was out getting schwasted. Sometimes I just don’t know why I spend that extra $15 a month to have instant alerts delivered to my phone signified by Billy Joel lyrics. Sometimes the messages don’t even make sense, either, something along the lines of “I can tell you all the latest and greatest chick flicks,” and “I like moo cow milk, it’s good, great, not bland but grand!” My personal favorite though is “Thank you for calling the Rocket wire. Our trained staff of experienced phone experts and bottlerocket technicians are glad to take your call. Please wait 37 minutes and in the meantime, leave your address and we will gladly mail you our print edition which you will receive in 6-8 weeks.” Gotta love the Rocket wire. By the way, it’s not an actual wire.

Speaking of the USPS failing me once again, I ordered Season 2 of “The Office” on DVD and it hasn’t arrived yet after a week and half of patiently waiting and twiddling my thumbs. I have especially grown fond of this show because it reminds me so much of my current office setting and also my former office setting. The one character that reminds me of me is Jim. (NOBODY LAUGH AT THAT) Jim is an easy-going guy who has a massive crush on Pam, the receptionist. He makes the mistake of telling his boss, Michael about said crush and who goes and tells everyone about it, leading the whole office to know within seconds of this. Eventually, Jim transfers to another branch after professing his love. Moral of the story: Do not tell people who you like if you work in an office. Everyone will find out about it. By the way, just because I feel so suddenly compelled, the guy who I will refer to as DZ reminds me of Toby because he’s responsible and reports to corporate.

In a minor miracle, I cleaned my desk at work today. To most people, this feat would not be a big deal. But considering I cleaned my desk almost as often as I went to Economics class on a Friday, this merits it being a big deal. Why did I do it? Who knows, even I like to know where things are every once in a while.

So that’s all for tonight. Have fun in class and stay out of the rain.

Brisk Weather

Lots has been going on the last couple weeks in Ridgway, not something I can always say. First of all, the weather has taken a drastic turn for the worse. It’s cold, cold, cold. I was all bundled up in my winter gear Saturday as I made my sojourn to Port Allegany watching Ridgway football. It snowed on the way up in a town called Mount Jewett. It actually dusted the ground and I wondered whether it was October or December. By the way, this beats the record for earliest snow in a winter season edging Halloween. By the way, the latest was late April 2005.

It’s brisk in my apartment right now, so I’ve had to deal with that right now. Lots of interesting things going on. I had garlic bread for dinner and it was alright, but a little too greasy kind of like eating Pizza Hut pizza during high school. Steelers won today blowing out the KC Chiefs. Right now, I’m watching the pile of suck known as the Oakland Raiders. Thankfully, the Steelers play Oakland in a couple weeks.

The last couple days, there have been a couple people complaining about high school teams running up the score. This is freakin ridiculous, especially with the circumstances involved. One of the situations involved Ridgway’s opponent coach complaining he didn’t sub with a 14-point lead. The other one complained in print that his team was having the score run up in the third quarter. Listen everyone. People in HS sports already complain enough about each other anyways. From parents, to media , to some coaches complaining about mundane topics, this is getting ridiculous. They already have the mercy rule in place, what more do people want? Either suck it up or tell your team to get better, don’t whine when you lose. People have to play the game for 48 minutes and when coaches tell players to play a complete game, they should do that regardless of the score, unless it’s an extreme circumstance.

The fantasy team had a tough week this week, but I still may pull out a win but I’m not too confident. The other guy has 13 points to make up with Chicago’s defense and kicker.

Everybody was freaking out about Friday the 13th being last week. I don’t really get, in fact I kind of embrace having the 13 just trying to defy whatever this is. I read two separate news articles dealing with Friday the 13th and how people are afraid of them. Very interesting.

OK, that’s about it. Talk to you next time. SRU has a fall break because the students need a break. Way to put that in AFTER I graduate.

Stupid Bugs, Even Less Sleep & Facebook Fun

So last night, I’m out covering a soccer game on a pretty warm night. I’m down on the field taking some quality photographs when I notice bugs are flying around me the entire time I’m down there. I was only down there for the first half and really didn’t think about much after that.
Until this morning.

I stumbled to the shower like I usually do and notice there an itch around my hips. And my hands. And my head.

Yep, I have bug bites everywhere that seem to be swelling up every hour on the hour. Just what I wanted to do today, go and see big red and white marks all over. That’s just fantastic. Maybe next time I need to buy some bug spray or something.
The last two day I’ve gotten about five hours of sleep per night, so now naps are becoming a fast friend. You know, there’s a long lost song by Elton John called “Too Low for Zero” that talks about insomniacs and people like that. And who wouldn’t with lyrics like these:

"I'm too low for zero
I'm on a losing streak
I got myself in a bad patch lately
I can't seem to get much sleep
I'm too low for zero
I wind up counting sheep
Nothing seems to make much sense
It's all just Greek to me"

"Cutting out cups of coffee
Switching off the late night news
Putting the cat out two hours early
It isn't any use
I'm too low for zero
Insomnia attacks
Watching flies with my eyes till sunrise
It's daylight when I hit the sack"

As some of you may know, my buddy from home and dare I say, co-host of the Monday Hangover Radio Show (Which you can hear by clicking on the Monday Hangover link to your right) has created a new Facebook group entitled “Greg Reedy for Facebook Homecoming King.” First of all, I would have to say that this was his idea, not mine so for the moderate to epic success we’ve had in the day and a half of the group, I’ve got to give him the props. The idea basically came about when he said, “I’m nominating you for Facebook Homecoming King.” I say “OK” and it’s all set up. A lot of my friends are in, but you don’t even have to be my Facebook Friend to join it. You just have to be on Facebook. I even have my own campaign manager who made some gnarly flyers such as the ones below:






I also don’t know if this is a real competition or not, but the funny part about it, is that as many of you can probably guess, I was nowhere near being on the homecoming court in high school or college so the concept of this does make me laugh a lot. I seem to be getting a lot of encouragement from the ladies, which is always great. (Gotta love the ladies!, and yes I know someone will talk to me about it later on since that topic seems to be a good one for people to tlak about) One of the copy editors from the Rocket wire wished me good luck with it and even called me Dr. Greg, either because I magically became a doctor overnight or because I give such a good advice. (a la Dr. Phil) Either way, it was really sweet.

I also heard from the Rocket wire that if I talk about the New-Media Journalism class, this thing gets read in your class. Now it depends on whether I want to massage my deflated ego or just plain write any more tonight. But I must say Missouri had a very good season this season, even ranked in the AP Top 25! I learned a long time ago to never, ever, ever criticize anything about the University of Missouri. It’s just common knowledge. And through perusing the New-Media Journalism’s current class blog (A fine read, by the way) someone decided to lead his review with lyrics from Billy Joel. (Or as he would like to call them “quotes”, apparently the music industry doesn’t call words to a song lyrics anymore.) Billy Joel is one of my favorite musicians and I have his favorite hits album, I and II. I’d thought I would end this gregarious post with some lyrics that 99 percent of the typical college students can identify with. ENJOY!

"So you stand on the corner in your new English clothes
And you look so polished from your hair down to your toes
But still your fingers gonna pick your nose, after all"

"But Captain Jack will get you high tonight
And take you to your special island
Captain Jack will get you by tonight
Just a little push 'n' you'll be smilin'
Oh yeah, yeah"

Somebody's Been Drinking The Kool-Aid

There’s a lot to talk about since the last post. Now the reason for the title is because I’ve sensed that a lot of people at the alma mater have been “drinking the Kool-Aid.” Now for those who don’t know, “Drinking the Kool-Aid” is a term used to describe a person who buys into a person or group’s ideas, ideals or plans for the future. Basically, they’re all optimists.

I think at my alma mater there are definitely some people that are drinking the Kool-Aid. For instance, I think there are people out there who think they will transform the campus into a thriving weekend excitement party town. Um, no. That’s not happening anytime soon. Look, I don’t think my alma mater is going to shed the rep it has of being a “suitcase campus” any time soon. There’s just not enough to do to keep everybody happy other than get schwasted and then get a disorderly house because you got schwasted.

Here’s another thing. Apparently, there are efforts to inject some school spirit into the campus with various “spirit groups.” While that’s a noble idea that is something that just can’t be manufactured, it has to be real or else everyone will see through your little mirage.

A lot of the same issues that were still prevalent when I left are still there. I heard through the Rocket wire that there were threats and now another debate with religion, two things that I personally had to deal with while at school. (Well, not the threats, but the issue behind the threats) I also heard through the Facebook wire that things are still about the same as they always were. Amazing. The bitter mood must be because of the Mondays.

In more pleasant news, I got my member information from AAA today including my card and all that other stuff that goes along with it. That’s right I went ahead and joined AAA, a fact that will thrill my Dad. It’ll be cool.

My paper is sponsoring the “Big Buck Contest” a contest to see who can kill the biggest deer. We had our first entrant today as someone brought into a buck that they shot with a bow. Now I need to know how to measure racks and points and all those other things that go along with. The guy brought the deer in the back of the truck, already gutted, so if you didn’t eat before reading this, be glad. I personally don’t mind seeing dead deer at all, especially since my Dad had me gut a rabbit when I was 6 years old.

It has been raining constantly around town the last few days, postponing various soccer and other outdoor games. I was not sad at all about this. Also, as many of you may have noticed, I went on a Facebook wall posting binge this weekend. Some of you reading this may have had me post on your wall. You may have been excited. You may have groaned. You may have even deleted it. (I hope not) I was definitely in a happy/cabin fever mood last Thursday and Friday. Good times.

The fantasy football team went to 3-1 with yet another win while the fantasy baseball team lost in the finals to finish second.

Homecoming, Laffy Taffy & Sanity Questions

As this week has gone on and the Homecoming season gets into full swing, it made me think about what Homecoming is like both at the high school and college level. At the high school level, I think there is a bit more interest among the students since, especially at small high schools, everybody knows each other and there’s a lot more personal interest that way. At the collegiate level, it is not at that big a scale. Usually around my alma mater, what would happen is the candidate would be named, their small group of fans and supporters would chalk the sidewalks and then the king and queen would be named. The funny thing at the collegiate level is that there is actually a bit more opportunity for people to get on the court. I heard once that each organization can nominate someone for a king and queen. There are definitely some organizations that need to get on this in a big way.

The unique thing about my high school homecoming is that it was held in the dead of winter (Usually around December) before a basketball game because my high school did not have a football team. (Thank you Elderton, way to freakin go!) So at least there was no concerns about being rained on outside during homecoming.

OK, on a completely different topic, I think I saw Laffy Taffy gum the other day. After doing a search, I found it out. It’s an actual taffy. Laffy Taffy is made by Nestle and even came out with its own sub-brand called Laffy Taffy Flavor Flippers! But of course, the only reason I even heard of Laffy Taffy is because of the wonderful song of the same name that came out about a year ago. Certain people like to do dances to it and who wouldn’t. The production values are just so incredibly high. But at least the song was catchy enough for me to get it on iTunes.

As some of you know may know, I am a big fan of breakfast foods. Especially these few: Cereal, French toast, pancakes, sausage and Eggo Waffles. The reason I mention that is lately I’ve been eating breakfast foods at pretty much any time of the day except the traditional time for breakfast. For instance, yesterday I had French toast at 2 p.m. Last night, I had Eggo waffles and sausage after getting home from work. My one co-worker is incredibly disturbed by this habit. My family probably is too, considering I would have cereal late at night, and don’t forget about all those fun Eat’n Park trips where it seems like the ONLY thing I would ever order would be something off the breakfast menu. (And considering that often, my order would get duplicated by whoever was there must have meant that the food was good or I knew what I was doing, I’ll go with the first one.)

Last year, my one dear and close friend had asked me to write a “fairy tale” or short story for her. I came up with this and had my friends questioning whether I was all there. After reading this, you will probably do the same. This is actually already on the blog, but since I know many of you won’t take the time to search the archives, I have put the link for you to enjoy and wonder about my well-being.

http://srurocksolid.blogspot.com/2005/07/story-time.html

Cool beans

I just realized this. In a momentous occasion, today is the 2nd anniversary of the creation of the blog! (First post: Sept. 24, 2004) So congratulations to me for remembering it 20 minutes before midnight. And what did I do to celebrate this momentous occasion? Watch the Steelers take a crap in the fourth quarter by losing to the Bengals 28-20. Seriously, fellas. Are you trying to be the #6 seed again? I bet the Pittsburgh media is in hysterics right now over their beloved Steelers losing a game. Trust me, they always are and they will always continue to be this way. Stinkin media types.

Since it's late I'll have to stop. But tomorrow there will be another post, probably about the quirks of homecoming. It is that season. Good night, and happy 2nd birthday blog!

Someone Brought The Charm Today

When I woke up today at noon (not because I’m a bum, because I’m working the proverbial afternoon shift this week) I felt not so hot. It felt like I was getting the flu from Slippery Rock. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one in the club as I saw two of my online friends had the same thing. That didn’t make me feel any better. So after stumbling around in a haze for a while, I finally go down to get my haircut after 10 weeks of letting it grow. My mother is finally relieved.

I go down there, wait for a couple minutes and then I am welcome. At first the lady didn’t realize who it was, but then she realized it quickly. “Oh, you’re the paper boy!” We talked a little bit about the paper but no less than about three minutes in I must have been laughing about something in my boyish way and she said “Oh, you’re cute.” I kind of laughed about it. Then she starts cutting my hair. She must have been impressed or something. Then I hear:

“Oh, honey, you really do have beautiful hair. It really is. Most guys don’t let it grow that long because it curls, but it really doesn’t look bad at all.”

By the way, calling people honey, such as me, must be a Ridgway thing because it does happen a lot. Now that you’re all shaking your heads, let me remind you that my hairdresser is 39, about to expect her second child at Christmas and unwilling to take time off for said child. Ahh, the things you learn while getting your hair cut.

I think what happened is I sacrificed 20 percent of my health to actually be a socialite for one day. When I left, the lady said “You have a really good day!” And I said “You too.” Like I usually do to EVERYONE.

Since it’s super late, I just thought of another story involving hair places. Back when I was in 10th grade in high school, I just decided out of the blue that I was going to dye my hair blonde. (Blonde hair is great!) So I went in there, had it done, and had a nice conversation with the lady, a younger engaged woman named Shannon. So I got home and I think like a day later, I overhear my mom being asked by someone, “Did those two know each other?” We didn’t. Then the other lady goes, “Well, those two were getting awfully chatty.” This was when I was 16. Continue shaking your heads and get your jaws off the floor. I wasn’t sick that day by the way.

Afterwards, I went down to the golf course to cover golf and I was lucky enough to find a quarter in the parking lot! I had dinner at Sheetz, came back and did pages and got done at 12:20 a.m. After I got home, I added tons of fun pics to my Facebook photos. (But then again, you already knew that by now)

Oh, and one last thing. I had my hair slightly gelled. That’s no big deal at all because I’ve done that a few times now. However, when I do it I use Suave hair gel which kicks the living crap of something called pomade (or I as like to say Ponce) cream each and every day and twice on Sunday.

The Weekend That Was

This weekend was quite interesting indeed. It started off Saturday with JS and myself going out to Slippery Rock to watch my alma mater, the good old Slimy Pebble, take on the Mansfield middle-of-nowheres, I mean Mounties. Slippery Rock plastered Mansfield, 46-0, just like I plaster story ideas against a wall and then use the dripping that fall to the floor for pancake batter. Afterwards, it was good times seeing everyone again for chats, punch and food and flashing our high beams at the car in front of us multiple times. Definitely good times.

I got back to Ridgway in the early afternoon, watched football, wrote my story, downloaded some pictures and was a bum for the rest of the night. Except when I went to BiLo down the street and watched as the poor high school girl that was running the cash register absolutely screw up the lady’s order in front making it seem like the groceries cost $8,200. She then had to figure out how much change the lady gave. She owed $5.02 and originally gave the girl $20. Of course, I knew how much change she needed to give out right away and after a little while I whispered to her, “It’s $14.98.” So she was obviously shaken by the incident and I tried to reassure that it was OK and she would be fine. In other words, I got to play Dr. Phil yet again. I’m getting quite good at doing that.

I’ve been reading the New Media Class’s blog and they were really interesting. I found it funny that Jared had to read Glamour for his web critique. Everybody had interesting stuff. This brings me to the point of people trying to keep SRU from turning into one giant parking lot. If a facebook group has been created urging the students to keep SRU “Green” then I just know it’s a big deal. Even the group “Keep it green” which got created on Facebook and I saw for my own eyes because I was cordially invited as a member by someone I’ve never met will more than likely put their presence in the Rocket. Just watch. SRU is definitely full of um, outdoors enthusiasts, so saving the trees, the grass, and the leaves off the trees are their main priorities. I personally think there’s enough parking as it is (unless you were unfortunate enough to live in Rock Apartments and find freshman taking your spots) so making the university one giant parking lot just makes the university look like one boring corporate existence.

But overall, a good weekend back at the Rock. But now I’m back in Ridgway till the next time I decide to travel. Hope everything is going well.

The great afternoon shift

Today I worked from 3 p.m. to about 11:45 p.m. with about a 1 1/2 hour break mixed in there. I got lucky because I was originally supposed to be cover a soccer game but when I got to the stadium no one was there so I think it got rescheduled for some other time. I was so proud that I got the layout of sports done before midnight so I could get home and right this for all the people that read this on even a semi-regular basis.

I've always loved the afternoon shift. My first acquaintance with it was in the summer of 2004 when I worked at a factory in Butler making Gelsoles for Dr. Scholl's. I worked from 3:30 to midnight and it was a good time, semi-lousy money and not much of a life in between. However, I've noticed that I get to sleep as long as I want to, I'm much happier and more productive. The good news is that I get to do it again. Way to go, me.

As you may have noticed, I have changed the colors of the blog for something different. Just like how the networks that broadcasts the NFL like to change their graphics packages. (Watch for it this weekend) I thought the look of the blog was getting kind of stale and outdated but I liked the overall template so I somehow managed to change the colors after 2 1/2 hours of work and browsing through the colors in Photoshop. The green, white and black is for Slippery Rock (and my high school, Elderton where I graduated in a class of 45.) The maroon and white are the colors of Ridgway High School, the school where I cover football.

Mansfield is playing Slippery Rock this Saturday. And you know what, I will probably be there in person to watch Mansfield get crushed. (I never say definitely in case things come up that screw up my schedule) See, my co-worker, Jonathan, he graduated from Mansfield (in 3 1/2 years no less, freakin smart kid) and I had brought up the idea to go watch our alma maters play each other in tackle football. So yep, I'll see the Rock football team and probably freeze in the process. It's cold there. That Rocket editor had a seizure when he heard. Something about how he was buying me and Jonathan pancakes at Eat'n Park just because he's such a nice guy! Way to be, Cap'n Hemp! HAHA Just kidding, Scoops is a good guy. But I'm pretty sure he still had that seizure.

I might get to sleep now

Busy is about the only word that can describe the last few days for me. Well that and not sleeping either.

Last Friday I watched the good old Elkers lose to the Brockway Rovers 12-0. On a side note, I once knew a girl from Brockway and I definitely thought about that. We actually met at Regional Chorus in 2002 (Yes, I was in the chorus in high school and FYI I was a Bass I) and then she came to SRU for a while before eventually disappearing and not reappearing on Facebook. But enough about that.

The Rovers aren’t just all fun and games. They had their own student cheering section that wouldn’t shut up throughout the entire game with the usual chants of “It’s all over” and that “Goodbye” song you might have heard of. Here was my beef though. Little middle school kids that don’t understand to walk around people like me, bump into you and then not even realize they did it. (Which mean they didn’t even say sorry or my bad or look at you with those acne-riddled faces. My editor today said middle schoolers are all ugly. I’d have to agree.)

After sleeping for 4 hours, I got to go watch soccer for 4 more hours as it was the Elk Co. Soccer Tournament. I apparently got sunburned in the face. So after sleeping for a full night, I got to do nothing on Sunday as my folks brought up a computer desk they got at a yard sale. Not too shabby indeed.

Monday started at 5:30 a.m. after 5 hours of sleep with finishing sports pages, covering a commissioners meeting and yet another soccer game, a thriller as the Elkers beat their crosstown rival 5-4, scoring with 30 seconds left. Johnsonburg was down 4-1 with 18 minutes to go and tied it at 4 before Ridgway scored to win it. The fans were crazy, which brings me to my next point.

The overindulgent high school sports fan/parent. Go to a football game and listen to the parents that don’t like an officials call on the road especially if it’s their kid.
“COME ON STRIPES, CALL IT BOTH WAYS!”
There’s more too. At halftime, I’m standing where the players enter the field and some random guy is there giving his slightly loud words of encouragement and hitting them on the shoulder pads as they go out. Every freakin player. The fans are the most insane people out there and the players are actually the most calm and laid-back about the sports. The coachers are sane too for the most part.

I also like the folks that are living their dreams of being the coach without actually having to take on the responsibilities of being a coach. I was at a soccer game today and a guy is there screaming at all the players to “MOVE IT!, “GET IT OUT!” “HUSTLE! And give word of friendly encouragement such as “YOU GOTTA GET THERE QUICKER THAN THAT!” Ahh, how glad I am that I didn’t play high school sports. I’ve seen this for a long time and anybody that’s covered a high school football game in particular will absolutely know who and what I am talking about.

I actually did enjoy myself somewhat. I got to have some really cool online chats and one of them was even with a female. It was a smilin’ good time just like it always is! I also learn the latest and greatest news from Slippery Rock and also the latest and greatest from high school football.

My fantasy football team lost in week 1. I’m looking for a comeback in week 2 against the Los Angeles G’Dubyas. We can do it if we put our minds to it.
Some of the cheers the Elker cheerleaders do are actually catchy. I can sit at work and all of a sudden “GO! PUMP IT UP, PUMP IT UP! LET’S GO! BA-DUM-BA-DUM! GO! LET’S HEAR IT! RIDGWAY IS THE BEST! How sad is that.

All right, I’m done rambling. Just remember to not get too high on yourself because you’re just a stone’s throw from hurtin.

Blogging is fun

So I see that there’s a link to my blog on the New Media class’s Web site. Very cool. I’m semi-famous. No more, no less. I’ll be interested in what you guys and gals are up to this year.

I thought it was interesting that the first year after you graduate from high school/college/whatever, I think about what is going on school. It’s probably normal, perhaps I’m going through a withdrawal syndrome. OR NOT.

In all honesty, I don’t miss school that much at all. There were many aspects of school that I didn’t care for, including dorm life, dealing with those classes I didn’t care for (Intro to Chemistry, anyone) or just the other things associated with it. Oh ya, I definitely didn’t miss move-in day or the angry phone calls, either. Do miss the people at school, which is definitely normal. Transitioning into the professional world does take some time and adjustments not only with the job aspect but with the life aspect too. There’s always growing pains with anything new in life. But I’m making it through pretty good.

On a completely unrelated topic, tonight is the start of the NFL season. I had enough gall to pick Miami in the Ridgway paper today. And amazingly, no angry phone calls about that. And with the start of the NFL season, that means it’s time for the start of fantasy football. My team, “The Ridgway Rockets” along with the other 11 teams in our league had our draft Monday night. It was a good time. I got Larry Johnson with the #2 pick and I think I got a good team. We’l see. Most of my draft picks from last season didn’t survive because they all turned out to suck (Jamal Lewis, Michael Clayton, Andre Johnson, anyone?) or got injured. (Deuce McAllister) And yet my team was still third. A lot of people are cringing at that right now, but hey, what can I say when there’s prizes at the end? Root for Chris Chambers and Heath Miller tonight.
I have to cover a boys soccer match tonight and maybe a boys golf match today, except I fount out it’s in Kane, so we’ll see what happens.

I ate Eggo waffles today, certainly a change from “Heart Attack on a Plate” that gets served at Boozel all the time. I also found about this new program called Skype. With this program, if you have a microphone either installed in computer or a separate microphone like I have, you can audibly talk to each other through your computer at no cost like you’re talking on the phone. That was interesting.
SRU football is traveling to Millersville Saturday. Let me tell you, that is a long trip, it’s about five hours.

All right, that’s all for now. Have a good one. And always obey your syllabus, even if you do it at the last minute.

The urban legend of the blog and New-Media Journalism

So yesterday I got news off the Rocket wire that this incredible species of the Internet called a blog was viewed my many in Dr. Zeltner’s New-Media Journalism class. I was pretty surprised to hear that. Considering I really only started the blog in Sept. 2004 to let some of my relatives know what I was up to, I never thought this thing would be so epic or so interesting. But back to the story about New-Media Journalism. When the news came down, I really was surprised again, but also kind of weirded out considering that there are quite a few people in that class that know who I am. So now they know about my feeling about summer and my birthday and all that great crap.

It’s also been weird because I keep getting brought up not only at school but also at home too. My mom told me that they went to Eat’n Park in Grove City to move my sister back to Edinboro (By the way, the Rocket EIC, or as I like to call him, Sir-Calls-A-Lot, likes to go to Eat’n Park. It makes him smile.) and their waitress had been someone who went to SRU. So my mom divulges that I had just graduated from there AND that used to be at the editor. Apparently, this waitress knew who I was. Just thought I’d share.

So, just in case the powers that be decide to look at it again, let me just tell you how New-Media Journalism is like. I had this class with the one and only Dr. Zeltner back in fall 2004 and it was a good time. I got to review a professional wrestling website and it was a sweet website, too, dealing with Mexican wrestlers with masks. I also worked on a group project involving SRU TV legend Ryan Muldowney and Rachel S., a nice lady who had black hair. Rachel and I sat besides each other in class and it was cool, we got along all right. Now at this point, I unequivocally (5-star word) realize that divulging this information will lead to rampant running through the rumor mills and gossip trains and about 10 phone calls from people I know.

Our project dealt with interviewing Dejan of the basketball team and the coach of the team at the time. All in all, I think that turned out pretty well. Of course, Dr. Z got a couple shots in at me, one time saying “Did you really have to run that wrestling headshot so big? I would have run it smaller but I think it was all right.” But again, it was a good time. I got a B, which was pretty normal throughout most of my collegiate experience, considering I viewed studying as looking at the book 15 minutes before the test.

So I never realized how much the blog has grown its own urban legends ever since I started it. I think it’s kind of interesting because a lot of people that I know are absolutely scared to death about what I might write about them, even though most of the time the blog content was just unproductive and silly. At this blog, we keep our game tight like Kobe on game night. I did have this blog for a long time before anyone found about it. I guess I just never got around to telling anyone about it, and besides, I’m not the guys that will point his thumbs at himself and say “ME ME, ME!” I’m well aware others have done great things too and should deserve some attention.

The person who initially discovered this great masterpiece was someone who I will affectionately refer to as C-Mac. C-Mac is originally from Kane, which is only about 20 miles from where I live now. The paper there is called The Kane Republican and it’s actually part of our three-newspaper group owned by the same parent company. I’ve never actually been to Kane, but I’m sure it’s a fun time. C-Mac sat by me in Copy Editing. He said he enjoyed it everyday and wished he could do it again.

Now, to completely go off topic. For all you facebookers out there, you are now in a great and tremendous uproar because Facebook has now changed their settings so everybody knows what everybody is doing. For many of us, it has given even more reason to go on Facebook during classes like, oh, I don’t know, Copy Editing, and look at everybody as they update their profile, add new pictures and basically give their entire life histories away. I think they should make a new option called “Girls/Boys I’d like to date.” You could even have it on different levels depending on how much you like them all the way from “Wouldn’t touch if you paid me” all the way up to “Come on Over, there’s no one here.” Yep, that’s facebook. It’s a stalker’s paradise.

Just a final thought, I know that it will be Thursday once again soon. HAHAHA. Thursday is now just another day to me instead of the day I want to go stick my head in a vice because of the ineptitude of Macintosh. And has everyone wondered what will happen in the year 2525? If man is still alive? If women can survive? Just a thought. Now I’m off to pages and cover some soccer and golf tomorrow. Have a good time.

Um, do I know you?

This has been a busy week this week. The fall sports preview is coming up in a couple weeks and I have been working hard to get my end of the stories done. It's crazy. But to reason the title, today I saw a bunch of people that I actually knew, all in the same day. I ran into the circulation manager at Sheetz while I was getting some dinner (that will make some people laugh) Then I ran into the girls soccer coach I had just interviewed two hours earlier at BiLo. Crazy day. I did three interviews for the fall sports preview today.

Yesterday was a day that reminded me of the first week of school last year. Our copy editor/paginator had gotten a new computer installed yesterday. Except without the great and standard features of Photoshop and News Edit Pro. The paper came out only slightly late though because of that. I have to be at work at 7 am tomorrow. Yay for me. I think this reaffirmed my theory that Macintoshes are bad, bad, bad. I got a disk from the football coach the other day and the disk wouldn't work. And since there is NO PCs in there, I was cooked like fish in an oven.

So that's it. I'm going to try and get some sleep tonight. Keyword: try.

The allure of Maryland

Here's something I've yet to get. Apparently as journalism students we're supposed to move to Maryland for our first job because that is where the best opportunities are. And now many of my friends are following that same advice. Not that that's weird, but considering Maryland is about the size of a thumbtack makes it fascinating. The real reason this came up is because my former boss who I affectionately referred to as Chief Broken Dish will be moving soon to Maryland. I got an E-mail from CBD the other day saying her boyfriend had got a teaching job in Germantown, Md. and will be moving there soon. CBD will be moving there in a month or two after she gets a job and informs her employer she will be leaving. It's a little sad but at the same time I understand it happens. It definitely was surprising. But why do they all move to Maryland? Um, you do know there are 48 other states in the USA.

Quick time

I'm part of a new blog called the Monday Hangover. Gary and myself talk quite a bit about football Check it out if you want to laugh or shake your head in disgust.

Nice facts about my birthday

Your Birthdate: January 4

You have an extraordinary character - moral, responsible, and disciplined. Your sincerely and honesty shine through in almost every situation. Driven and focused, you rarely let your emotions get the better of you. You're level headed and rational. People count on your to look at things objectively. Your strength: Your unwavering loyalty and ethics Your weakness: Your rock solid stubbornness Your power color: Navy blue Your power symbol: Shield Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

I'm back again and this is why I hate summer

I'm finally actually writing in this thing once again. I think I will be writing in here once again whenever I get urges or bored. But other than that, let's get it started.

Well, actually a lot has changed since the last time I wrote or talky-blogged in here. I don't live in Kittanning anymore, a joyous and incredible feat. I now live in Ridgway, about 2 hours north of here. It's a good time, I have my own apartment above a Subway (the sub place) and lots of space. It's a busy time and it's very hot right now.

Some of you may be wondering why I put that fancy schmancy logo up there. Well, it's my logo for my fantasy football team that I will be competing with Jay and a cast of various other characters. The league is on ESPN and yes rumor has it there are "fees" to join this league. That's right, there's a money prize at the end of the road to keep things nice and competitive instead of owners tanking at the end of the season. I will be updating on how the team is doing later on.

I will also be contributing to the "Monday Hangover" a weekly recap on the NFL season. It will be glorious.

But, back to my original point. Yesterday and today, it hit me like a ton of bricks why I'm not a fun of summer and really never have been. First of all, there is no sports going on right now, which makes viewing just impossible even with 7,000 channels. I recently bought season 7 of the Simpsons and season 5 should be coming up soon. So since there's nothing going on right now, I turn to other things.

Next, it's bloody hot here today. Which makes it bloody hot in the apartment. Which makes me sweat. And drink a lot of pop. Very nice.

July is ending soon and tomorrow it will be August. Again not exactly my favorite month of the year. August has traditionally meant me having to pack up my crap for school or go back to school in the first place. That's not the case this year and I am thrilled. I will be even more thrilled when fall sports start. My alma mater, SRU has to play Mansfield on Sept. 16. Mansfield just happened to be Jonathan's alma mater, (He's my colleague on the Record). We might be going, schedule permitting.

So that's it. It's still hot.

my logo for fantasy sports

Audio blogging is freakin sweet

Again a long interval

I didn't realize it was this long between blogs. This month has been flying by so far and March is just a short couple of days away.

Right now, it seems like SRU is catching a cold all at the same time. There's been about four people right now that have colds or worse. I am currently trying to stay away from them.

The job hunting has begun and um, I'm still looking. Not too much there to explain. Crazier things have happened before.

Applications were released for next year's editorial board so now I'm gonna have to hear what position everybody wants to have next year. That's always grand. The weather stinks up here today. Snowy and in the 20s. That's nothing new. I hate Tuesdays, too many quizzes. Wednesdays aren't that great either.

Well, that's about it for now. Until next time, stay warm and don't miss your wisdom teeth.

This will be a long one

Lots and lots of stuff to talk about which will definitely be a change from the norm. So anyways, the big news from campus this week is that the administration is cutting eight sports team from the fray after this semester is over. There are fairly big varsity sports and an issue that has everybody assoicated with it in a bad mood. Especially the swimmming teams and water polo teams that got cut. Rumor has it there will be a rally on Monday in the Quad. That's incredibly fantastic and I'm looking forward to some really good photos and hopefully a couple of fights.

Today has been a pretty crazy day. It started off swell enough, with me being late to my Interactive Multimedia class by 5 minutes. Then I went to Giant Eagle and the post office to mail some stuff that I had sold off ebay and amazon. That's right, I had some old and useless textbooks around the room and I decided I wanted rid of them in the absolute worst way possible way. At first I was not thinking I was going to sell any of the three books I had put up there. Wrong. So far, I've sold 2. My health book sold for $36, and I just got rid of my old Broadcasting book for $4. (It was an old edition. The rest of those textbooks at home are definitely going to put up there pretty soon.

Then after that, I went to Rhoads to unpack the groceries I had purchased and some random nice girl in a pink shirt offered to carry my pop up there. That was nice. Who knows how that happened. I am in high demand as always to do promotional stuff. The TV station wants me to be there in the worst way to help out as the director. (The director is the most important job, how I got it is besides me.) Also, associated with the TV thing is the fact that we're having a big town hall meeting about the sports thing. Should be great. Then during the 20 minutes I'm down in the Rhoads parking lot, I get a parking ticket. Just my luck.

Mike calls me up right as I am getting in the car to go from the post office and says that Dr. P gave a big long lecture about how he libeled the president because one of the wrestlers said the president lied to his face, saying it wasn't about Title IX. Well, when I heard this, I disagreed with the matter and I think some of the other ones did as well. President Smith called Mike and said he thought there wasn't any problem with it. That made me feel a lot better.

Well, I told you it would be long. The Super Bowl is this weekend, just in case you forgot. Oh, and Jerome Bettis is from Detroit. That doesn't get discussed enough either haha.

Oh, by the way, somebody put a Seahawk flag on top of the water tower. There are some Steelers haters here, trust me.

OK, I'm still here

Wow, it really has been a long time since I've written in here. I'll try and cover what's been going on here. First off, I just got through the first week of classes and Rocket. I never was a fan of the first week because it's so overwhelming at times with seeing 6 entire class schedules at once. Everybody at the Rocket is learning about In Design and sometime it can be quite painful especially when yours truly who has never touched the program in his life, has tu figure out what he is doing. The first issue did come out on time and everything went OK, as far as no major problems.

I have 16 credits this semester which means I'll less time for a lot of stuff, but at least I know it's the final semester. I've also been up here at school for about 2 weeks already which prompted my roommate to question my sanity. Chase is doing good as well. Rocket people ask about him all the time. I find that quite odd.

Nothing new really to think of. I have to go to Wal-Mart and shell out money for food and supplies for meteorology. Everybody is having a swell time with the Macs. I called Dr. P the "Mac Mommy" last night. Apparently I was condecending. I got a new writer named Amy for the opinion pages. She's really been good so far.

I'll try and blog in here more than once a month. No guarantees though. Some of my fans have asked for me to update.

Oh, I should mention that my birthday was a couple weeks ago. I really had a good time. Sheryl called me at 10 am to wish me well. She also woke me up, and realized it afterwards. But I wasn't mad. Many of the friends on Facebook wished me a happy bday as well. My Fantasy Hockey team fell into second place this week. That's sad.

OK, I'm really done this time. Until next time, I'll try to be like Radio Shack. If you've got a question, I'll have an answer.