dear diary

as the end of december nears, i open my journal to write my resolutions for the coming year. i've done it for the better part of 15 years or so. this year will be no different.

but unlike the past, the space between my first entry of the year will be astonishingly close to the last. and i have my blogs to thank for it.

a friend passed along some advice to me that to be a good writer, one should write half an hour every day.

i never made it to 30 minutes on a daily basis, but i was fairly faithful, remarking when whole weeks passed between entries.

now months pass between moments -- hours, actually -- putting pen to paper. but for some reason, i keep writing out here in the ether.

i sometimes wonder, though, if keeping an electronic collection of thoughts and observations will have permanence, given the nature of all things cyber and server and silicon, where a crash can lose years of work with nary a byte to show for it.

but i figure a collection of journals can be lost in flood or fire just as easily, along with one's life if one is not careful.

at least this way, i suppose, once i'm gone, there's the chance that there may be a footprint of me out on the information superhighway that others might come across and consider before moving on.

i guess it's a new time in a new world. still, i hope i stay better at being old-fashioned.

on the w.va. christmas caravan

here's kris and me at the alleged 37th annual beckley fil-am christmas party last saturday the 22nd.

we went to beckley to attend the annual big event at the w.va. turnpike authority's sinkhole, a.k.a. the tamarack arts and crafts conference center.

it was a high-falutin' catered affair, with about 300 in attendance, all hyper-planned and timed to the minute -- a far cry from the leisurely potluck supper attended by a handful of young immigrant families in a cinderblock community center back in the early '70s.

this year's bash ran out of the ethnic food about halfway through serving, but the program was on schedule, by gosh. it's going to take another few generations to breed out the filipino culture's chronic tardiness, but that didn't stop this group from trying to make it start right now.

(yeah, good luck with that. on the other hand, we're going to have to work on retaining the having more than enough food thing. you're never supposed to run out of good eats. seriously, if filipinos aren't generous hosts and ravenous eaters, then we're nothing. i'd rather be late, full and happy than punctual and disappointed wondering where all the pancit and lumpia went.)

after a day to rest, we worked christmas eve, headed out to parkersburg for the wise family christmas, back to charleston to put out today's paper, church, then beckley for dinner with mom, dad and joy.

i showed mom our china and flatware patterns online, which she liked, and ate about three desserts. mom's cooking more food for tomorrow. yeah. we've got to be gaining weight.

that should be it for now before kris and mom kill me for not helping with the dinner dishes. i'm suddenly very sleepy.

happy christmas, everyone.

it was like someone had died

on friday, kris, a couple of daily mailers and i were having some beers at sam's downtown after the office christmas party.

about an hour in, we started seeing on the big screen television a crawl saying west virginia university coach rich rodriguez was in talks with the university of michigan for their football head coaching job.

"bullshit," i said. "he just wants more money."

but i knew the state and all the boosters had maxed out on what they could pay -- and i'm sure rodriguez knew it, too. this had to be a courtesy interview, right?

but the rumor persisted all day saturday and all day sunday until i got a call from our managing editor, around 2.

"rodriguez is leaving."

"holy shit."

a few other choice profanities came out when i heard he'd contacted the nation's no. 1 college recruit about his departure before he told his own team.

then i busied myself with typing out a two-paragraph story for the web based on metronews reports before the associated press moved a story. then i saw that our sister paper, the detroit news, moved a much more comprehensive piece with great quotes and ran that instead with an ap blurb and a homepage photo.

i stayed busy for the better part of an hour, so i couldn't feel too much more shocked or saddened as i concerned myself more with getting us the best story possible online.

all the while i felt like i was the one responsible for making funeral arrangements after a loved one had died. i was too busy to grieve.

had to read at mass at 5 and still had to take a shower. then came dinner and early bed since i was scheduled to be wire editor this week.

but at 2:45, my sleep ended early with a strong sense of mourning, and i had to capture what probably a lot of wvu fans were feeling today.

so in about 45 minutes, i wrote the bulk of the column that appeared in today's paper.

the rest was filled with fodder i'd written last weekend, which, oddly, still held true. but this time, i know the disappointment was going to be a lot more permanent.

i feel like my hopes have been abandoned, yet i can't say i'm entirely angry at the man for going.

one has to follow one's ambitions, and on sunday i learned that rodriguez's were more about himself and less about his home being the best in the country.

i think there's a life lesson in all this weekend's drama. it's all about priorities and what is your no. 1.

listening to him at his press conference today was like running into an ex-girlfriend with her new man. and it hurt about as much as a sudden breakup.

he used to be ours. and now he's not.

tied in knots

kris says it's nice that i'm involved with our wedding plans. i wish i could be blithe about the whole deal, but i think we need to hold each other's hands through it all.

besides moms and sisters, i'm kind of embarrassed to say i've also employed the services of the wedding web site, the knot, to provide a guide to our big day.

finally got up their do-it-yourself wedding web page the way i'd like it. (they'd had problems with drop-down menus and site linkages to registries for about a week. looks like they finally fixed them today.) it's nothing fancy, but i think it should give all the information our guests should need.

i like the wedding countdown and the checklist, which kind of give urgency, but also an orderly way through. i hope we can finally get caught up to where we need to be before the month is out.

it's coming together slowly, but surely.

met with the church organist and florist, and got the wedding cake topper this week. we have officially passed the threshold of our budget outlay.

we are now accepting of the fact that we will be hemorrhaging some money for unforeseen little things for the rest of the way.

kinda feels like a boxing match at this point. we'll be bloody, but still standing by the the end.

public enemy

there's a reason i don't attend too many performances for public radio broadcasts these days.

not to put too fine a point on it, it's because of the public.

kris and i attended the taping of pianist bob thompson's "joy to the world" at the cultural center thursday and were treated to a wonderful evening of christmas standards performed with a real jazz swing. their guest vocalist, catherine russell, from new york, was a powerhouse with terrific range.

there's kind of an understood manner in which audiences listen to live performances, especially jazz.

once the melody is established, various players get to solo and improvise on the tune. after the solo, if the audience is so moved, they make their appreciation known with a small round of applause for the musician.

i notice, though, whether it's for special concerts like thursday's or regular gigs, like the tapings for the "mountain stage" music variety show, there's a certain kind of audience member that just grates on my nerves.

they hoot. they holler. they shout their appreciation to the performer.

and it sounds enthusiastic and supportive enough. except for one thing: all the noise seems less about the artist and more about the shouter.

"get a load of me!" "see how smart/sophisticated/cool i am?!" "aren't i special?"

i see lots of regular joes there, folks who want to see their favorite musician, catch something new and different or just see a good show.

it's the idiots with the noisome air about them who drive me batty.

they strike me as so many overly eager, pseudo-intellectual, knee-jerk, quasi-liberal elitists there to make the scene, as if it's needed to prove their culturally sensitive bona fides. (i say this as a pseudo-intellectual, quasi-liberal elitist myself -- but a restrained one.)

dumb thing is it only takes one from an audience of hundreds to attune my ear, like the one mosquito against a backdrop of crickets on a summer night.

too bad you can't shoo them away from these gatherings. or swat them with a rolled-up magazine to make them pipe down.

i have today off

kris and i are taking today and tomorrow off to try and corral wedding things and holiday things.

looking out the front door, it seems a glorious day for a jaunt in the cold, crisp of early december.

the back porch thermometer says 23 -- kinda conducive to maintaining movement, wouldn't you say? i just hope we can get some things done.

and for mornings like this, i have three words: fleece lounge pants.

i wore them in the hour before dawn to take out the trash and felt nary a chill.

they're perfect for comfortware after work, that quick trip to the mailbox or driveway and, indeed, lounging around the house during the cool months.

these are from old navy.

it was 30 years ago today

i stepped in front of a speeding station wagon full of kids, wound up in traction for a month, then a body cast for about three more.

my mom had to make her way through the traffic that backed up from the accident that afternoon to find a small crowd surrounding her firstborn lying unconscious on the road.

i was told she asked "is this my son?" over and over as she approached my still form.

i was 13 when the accident occurred. i was an altar boy and on the school safety patrol. (i actually had my orange patrol boy's badge and belt in my windbreaker pocket when i was hit. irony is funny like that.)

i'm 43 now and have watched my siblings bring these amazing little people into the world. i worry and pray for them every day. none of them are over 5.

looking at my nieces and nephews, i get this hare-brained idea that once they start school, i can worry a little less about them.

i was in 8th grade. i hadn't kissed a girl yet, couldn't drive a car, wasn't living on my own in another city -- all things i've gone on to do in the years since -- and i'm fairly certain my mom still worries about her son.

really, she wasn't yet 40 when she had to deal with one of her children suffering an injury that involved paramedics, a hospital and orthopedic surgery.

and i'm still older than my dad was when he spent that first night in my hospital room to make sure i was tended to.

i'm still befuddled every time one of my nieces pukes on me. i can only imagine the stress it placed on my parents having to watch their boy drifting in and out of consciousness for 24 hours.

i think i've since managed to give them many more sleepless nights from things more consequential -- school, job, life choices, to name a few -- but i'm sure they hope i set a benchmark for drama that they'll never have to approach again.

the day after

West Virginia's Pat White, left, and Steve Slaton, right, sit on the bench late in the second half during a 13-9 loss to Pittsburgh in a college football game Saturday, Dec. 1, 2007 in Morgantown, W.Va. (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner)

the day after the dream died its second death, the sun did indeed come up -- it just didn't come out.

the morning dawned gray and cool and damp, like my mood.

i'm on sports media blackout: no espn, no sports illustrated, no sporting news. the wound is too fresh to risk re-opening it with the cuts from analysis and comment.

before the game, i professed detachment and professed caution, as all wizened mountaineer fans use to innoculate themselves from disappointment, but i still feel sick.

ucla did it to usc last year. and so did stanford this year. why couldn't hapless, crippled pitt do it to us?

everything we needed for a second chance went better than we dared to hope.

we were one game away from playing for the national championship and we couldn't do it. one game.

if we have any such aspirations for next year, we're going to have to win 12 all over again. twelve.

who knows when we'll ever get that close? we were 60 minutes away.

(mom likened it to having the last bite of a savory meal on your fork, then watching it fall to the ground.)

every loss hurts. but when you have top-shelf dreams, the fall from the climb hurts a little more.

these days, the stakes go up with each "big game." i guess that's good because i guess that means our expectations are going up.

aspirations to greatness don't come without pain and sacrifice -- consider this part of our growing pain.

coach rich rodriguez hasn't had a loss like this before -- a painful one from some failure he probably feels responsible for.

but if he's a smart man, he should learn from his mistakes. file this one under "building character," how to face up to crushed expectaions.

minus four months and counting

as of yesterday, kris and i are four months away from our wedding.

once we had our "official" engagement, the aug. 10 one where i presented her the ring, we moved fast to lock down a priest, a church, a reception area and a deejay.

bing bing bing -- we were in by september.

we've slowed down considerably since then.

we still need to register for gifts (which kris is opposed to on the grounds that we'll have no place to put new stuff, but which i say makes it easy for guests) (plus, she's dead-set against asking for china and silverware -- strange, and somehow un-american); we need to collect guest addresses; finalize invites (for which i've created three designs); no cake ...

there's just a litany of "the little things" that will surely make preparations so much more tense if we don't knock them out of the way.

we keep saying "ok, this weekend we type those addressses" or "this weekend, we designate the wedding party" and we never do. we've already missed "save the date" card dates.

it's the day before december and it will be march before we know it.

last night, kris was making preparations for her contribution to our paper's annual "neediest cases" social services baked goods and hot dog sale.

we had weeks to prepare, then days to prepare, which turned into hours to prepare, which led to me cutting 100 strands of ribbon to tie her packages of homemade fudge and her to get up at 3 a.m. to cut the fudge she'd set in the fridge to cool because she wound up making it the night before. and that was after spending hours cooking hot dog chili.

i told her, as i was trying to keep count of the ribbons i was cutting, that i hope we don't squander the time we have in advance of the wedding the way we wasted it before this fundraiser.

because if she's going to get as tense and spastic about procrastinating for a simple, unassuming bake sale, i don't think i want to experience the anxiety that could result from putting off until tomorrow the details around a highly personal -- and very public -- ceremony.

neither fat nor sassy

finishing week two of not hitting the gym.

my back is a little more grateful and my knee seems to have benefited from the time off. (still recovering, apparently, from the hard heel strikes on that hilly 6.5 miles around flat top lake in september.)

of course, the back probably also doesn't hurt as much because it's been nearly a week since those two killer 12-hour road trips in 72 hours for thanksgiving. sitting still for all those hours probably didn't do it any good whether it was in heated leather seats or not.

it's easy to see how people can slide off the physical activity. the tiredness and fatigue from work coupled with the desire to just lie down in bed for a 2-hour nap during these cooler days is very tempting.

but i can feel my body rebelling against stasis and i'm getting the itch back to pound the boulevard again. maybe a jog tomorrow to break back in, so i can rest up over the weekend and get back on the routine.

they shoot clotheshorses, don't they?

coaching is a profession, make no mistake.

especially at the most basic levels of sanctioned competition, e.g. high school, they are, ostensibly, teachers, one of the more noble and thankless professions out there.

as such, as many of us who are desk jockeys do, they wear professional attire -- usually a variant on the shirt and tie.

at its highest echelons, you get real fashion plates -- pro basketball coaches, like pat riley, who dresses like someone who wheels and deals in los angeles, new york or miami.

ditto for a swanky operator like rick pitino, former new york knicks, boston celtics and kentucky wildcats coach, now shepherding the university of louisville cardinals.

pitino has produced a terrific family tree -- begetting the architect of defending two-time ncaa men's basketball champs florida, billy donovan, who begat new marshall university hoops guru donnie jones.

now, while passing along a great bloodline in basketball instruction to his progeny, you can see a steady dilution of their fashion sense. there is no sartorial confidence that says "damn -- i look good!" as young jones shows, his suits are still wearing him.

donovan and jones are typical of guys who wear the uniform just because it's expected of them. they may aspire to it for the sake of aping the mannerisms of the master, but i suspect deep down, that kind of self-awareness of appearance isn't in them they way it is with pitino or riley.

former west virginia university coaches gale catlett and john beilein were like that. whatever clean look their getup may have lent them when they walked into the coliseum was gone once they got down to business. there was clearly no comfort in wearing a coat and tie to them.

(personally, i've always felt if you don't feel comfortable in a suit, just wear the school colors. the dark lord of college basketball, bobby knight, always looked neat and collegiate in his school colors, whether it was in red at indiana or black at his new home in texas tech.)

and then you have this -- former wvu star, ex-university of cincinnati and kansas state coach, and now the new mentor for the mountaineers, bob huggins.

huggs broke out the three-piece on his wvu coaching debut last night against the university of arkansas-monticello boll weevils, which he and his wards won, 81-53.

wow! this man will take my alma mater to places its never been before, possibly outdoing the departed beilein's amazing sweet sixteen performance of 2006.

but this is something that outdoes the original huggy bear, one antonio fargas, he of the comic relief on '70s cop show "starsky and hutch," for slick and snazzy threads.

this is indeed the new look of things at wvu. fight the power, coach huggs.

at the end of the aisle at the target store

toward the middle of a department, you'll see them under the sign marked "clearance."

i got a two great sets of henckel knives there, like 75 percent off each time. late last fall i bought a two-person tent for $6. lexan flatware for 4, $2. today, it was a giant serving tray for kris, $6.

it's almost become a ritual every time i set foot in the place. once i get what i need to get, if i have a moment, i'll troll sporting goods or men's casual clothing or housewares. you get great stuff, cheap!

i should be ashamed of this, but i'm not. i can blame my mom for instilling savvy shopping into us. (from dad, i got odd impulse buys.)

um. i think that's it. maybe i'll write about some football now.

a night at the opera

ok, more like the symphony.

thanks to my buddy brad, kris and i got to watch the w.va. symphony orchestra saturday night for a triple bill of leonard bernstein, ralph vaughn williams and rimsky-korsakov.

the show was splendiferous. the orchestra seemed nimble, proficient and spirited. the gangbuster opening of "symphonic dances from west side story" was both familiar and revelatory.

(however, conductor grant cooper -- along with the rest of the audience, i'm sure -- seemed peeved at its conclusion after some oaf's cell phone went off with the music's last, delicate strains still floating in the air.)

as for the rest of the program, while i'd at least heard of rimsky-korsakov's "scheherazade" (lithe and muscular, with a virtuoso performance from violinist amelia chan), this was my first listen to williams' "serenade to music," which was airily, pleasantly enchanting.

it was a treat to watch our city's professional orchestra perform in such a lovely venue as the clay center. it made me appreciate single performances in the way that single game tickets make wvu football games more special than if one has a season pass. you want to soak up everything.

as we drove into town on our way to the auditorium, kris and i agreed that this really isn't too bad a place, charleston. we've got a lively, if precious, little arts scene, a symphony orchestra, a minor league ball team, three universities, three tv stations and two daily papers.

for what it is, it's a reasonable facsimile of a big city without being a big city. perhaps, with some work and dedication, we can love it into all it can be.

a snapshot for posterity

"It was what it was. The queen of any country can be beautiful or ugly. She's still the queen. She was the queen. She was the best. Everybody wanted to go to the Orange Bowl."
-- Former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, who took the Sooners to nine Orange Bowls, winning six of them

this was from an excerpt of recollections about the miami orange bowl by ivan maisel on espn.com, as it hosts its last ball game today. edwin pope, the longtime miami herald columnst, listed his top 10 moments in the bowl, (one of which, super bowl iii, happened in 1969, while dad was completing his fellowship at miami mount sinai hospital and i was a wee lad just turned five).

besides my brother, who is an alumnus, i don't know too many university of miami fans. i was quite enamored of them before they became the evil empire -- the small school that shocked the nebraskas and notre dames.

and the poor dolphins, they probably lived their best years in that stadium.

wvu didn't have too much luck there -- or in morgantown, for that matter, as we had a 3-16 overall record against the canes. (two of those wins were in miami, oddly enough, in 1973 with bobby bowden and '97 with don nehlen.)

i'm just posting as a kind of milestone, that i was around when the grand old lady breathed her last.

my tombstone will say ...

he complained a lot. loved west virginia university sports. he liked food. his cat was named otto.

seriously, that's all i'm writing about here. and tonight, i'm writing about the meal that will go down on the list of things that killed me.

i mean, it was great, but in the artery-clogging way of cheese, mayo, ground beef and two kinds of fried potatoes.

i speak, of course, of the riverside anchor here in charley west, home of the beef and cheddar squeak (in essence, a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mayonnaise between two halves of a pizza crust) and mr. bill's chips, these amazing homemade potato chips with some mayo-mustard dipping sauce that makes cold beers slide down real easy.

kris and i -- and the rest of the dm newsroom -- had had a hard end to a hard week of strong papers. we were ready for a drink after we got all our editions out.

first, however, like guilt-motivated gym rats, we both did our oblations at the ywca. i got in a brisk 4-mile jog, met kris, hit the road and made ourselves at home. we were famished and ready for some cold suds.

it was a blur of shoving and pouring food and liquid down our gullets for the better part of an hour. but it was great.

then, at the kanawha city bp station, i got an ice cream drumstick and kris got some twizzlers. i'm blogging instead of sleeping because i can't lie down or i'll hurl.

after fighting to get strong stories, good design and the air cleared with our m.e., (not to mention a closer than we'd like, school-night football game) i'd say we had a night of gluttony coming. maybe now i'll get to sleep without the nytol.

diner deux

i'm noticing a trend here in town that's becoming, in a word, unappetizing.

while i can appreciate the convenience and predictability of chain restaurants with their faux knick-knack wackiness hanging on the walls and ceilings, i tend to like the regional flavors of locally owned establishments.

cooks who open restaurants to showcase their culinary creations likely did so because they had something they wanted to share with the world, whether it's pizza, wings or a really good sandwich. the individual flavor of these people's tastes give me no small amount of joy.

charleston's got enough unique eateries that kris, my friends and i could go out on a fairly regular basis if we could afford to and not have the exact same meal for weeks, if not months. we're pretty lucky that way.

the secret pleasure is finding a place that is "yours" -- a joint you found before it became popular or an unassuming hole in the wall that delivers simple but fabulously unique food that makes your tastebuds sing.

a trend that friends and i are starting to notice, however, are local joints that have become aware that they are "destination eateries," restaurants where people go for their hip cache.

it isn't so much the owners as their workers treating customers as if eating there is a privilege that they should be grateful for.

bad service, no service -- hey, it's what makes us "quirky" and "cutting edge." it's like, dude, this place is about the food -- if you don't like how you get it, you just don't get it.

if it isn't a sin to quote a nora ephron movie, i think the phrase tom hanks used in "you've got mail" describes a place "full of its own virtue." that, friends, is hubris. and it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of customers.

i heard a great interview on "fresh air" with actor steve carrell, where he speaks of waiting tables while he was waiting for his big break.

he said he would knock himself out to be the best waiter he could be, because he believed when his customers went into a restaurant, they were choosing to spend their money for a good dining experience.

he didn't feel right, in essence, making the customer waste money they may have saved up or budgeted in by serving meals with attitude.

now i'm not looking for fawning servants to wait on my every move. and i certainly don't condone demanding, obnoxious or abusive patrons.

but if something's late or it's going to be a long wait, just let me know. i can understand if you explain. most of us have jobs where unexpected or unavoidable things happen.

just don't treat us like we're stupid. being hungry makes a person irritable enough; but being embarrassed or ticked off by lousy service is more than any customer should stomach.

because i could be watched

i'm posting to stay current.

my colleague mike's wvu sports blog requires a name and e-mail address to make a comment. it didn't occur to me, though, that typing my address in the optional website field would link my name to this page as well as my comments.

so anyone who wants to know what kind of moron thinks the thoughts he thinks when he says something about mike's posts can actually get an idea of what kind of moron i am.

ergo, it might be in my best interest to have said something current here when i say things on his blog. kind of like making sure the house is clean in case unexpected company drops in. (or wearing clean underwear in case i'm in an accident.)

this is a tail wagging the dog thing, isn't it?

otto's a girl

in yet another case of the failure of the internet to triumph over practical and professional experience, the vet informs us on little otto's first check-up that she's a girl. and not expecting kittens. he thinks.

kris went online to check for visual clues as to the sex of our feline acquisition. i didn't even bother to look or compare. what's an image from the internet that doesn't involve a pecker or a sack going to tell me about this critter's gender?

if the untrained observer's eye leads to a question that begins "do you think this look like ..." i believe i'll leave the answer to someone who gets paid to know.

and i hope this will be the last cat entry for a while.

cat person

i'm not planning on turning into one, or changing the theme of this schnauzer-inspired blog to all things feline or even ottoman, but i must say otto the cat is one strange mammal.

coming in a half-hour before trick-or-treating was to start, i didn't get a chance to change before dinner and i was pretty much stuck looking all ozzie and harriet in khakis, a white oxford, sweater vest and penny loafers for the duration.

i walked to and from the front door checking for kids and i was vaguely aware of the heavy sound my feet were making with shoes on the hardwood floor. apparently, otto was, too.

as the end of the trick-or-treat hours waned, i started sorting laundry. the basket was between my legs as i folded the clean clothes on the couch.

i began to notice otto moving cautiously in my direction. he was staring intently at my left foot as he moved.

i stretched my leg toward him and slowly slipped off the shoe so he could take a closer look.

he crept close enough to the loafer to sniff it. instead, he raised his little paw, tapped the side of the big toe and backed away, never taking his gaze off the shoe, but apparently satisfied with his investigation.

then he did the same thing with my right shoe.

i posited that perhaps he had been at the receiving end of a mean, weejun-wearing oaf's abuse. or maybe he was trying to discern what was in his owner's "clunky feet" that possessed me to leave him every morning. maybe the shoes looked like a hidebound animal that lived at the end of my legs.

whatever it was, i suspect this isn't the end of his feline gumshoeing.

as long as it doesn't involve a sharp attack on my bare or stockinged feet, i think i'll find it a source of amusing fascination.

diner

i attended the wedding of a good friend this weekend in st. clairsville, ohio.

this sort of ohio suburb to wheeling, w.va., looks like the movie version of small town, u.s.a.

pretty homes line the streets. the downtown has a healthy heartbeat, with restaurants, banks and small businesses.

five miles east, beyond the city limits, past the wal-mart strip mall that sprouted along interstate 70, right next to bridgeport high bulldogs' tiny football field on u.s. route 40 (the old national highway) is sonny boy's restaurant.

the lady at the front desk of our hotel recommended the place after i told her i wanted to eat breakfast at a local establishment rather than the cracker barrel or eat-n-park at the strip mall. she said i could get eggs and sausage for $2.99.

good enough.

kris and i walked in and the place was bustling. the counter was full. there were fresh-baked pies in a display case. sirloin steak dinner with home fries and salad was $4.99. cash only; no checks and no credit cards -- the hand-printed sign on the register said so.

folks wore west virginia university, ohio state, and pittsburgh steelers sweatshirts. anne murray's greatest hits played on the jukebox. then johnny cash. i heard a fellow at the table next to me telling his dining companion that he found what was wrong with the guy's carburetor and that he had it in his truck.

this was a diner.

the coffee was maxwell house, brewed full-strength. i had a western omelet with tomatoes. kris had two sunnyside up eggs, sausage links and hash browns. we split a short stack of pancakes. it was just what we needed.

she and i were in awe of the place -- and we mourned the loss of the closest thing we had to a diner, the southern kitchen out in kanawha city.

we had one of our first "moments" there, heading out after an evening at murad's with tony. we drank coffee into the wee hours of the morning.

it was the last place i remember that played real muzak in the background. the placemats encouraged you "enjoy life. go out to eat." -- and to give your business to the advertisers printed on it.

delsie mae hersman, the lady who owned and ran it to national acclaim, died over the summer and bequeathed it to her niece out in texas.

being out of west by God, she probably didn't appreciate what her aunt's establishment had come to mean to the night owls of charleston and aficionados of good fried chicken everywhere.

but she sure knew the scent of money, even way out in the lone star state.

out in a prime piece of real estate a little over a mile away from the interstate, she smelled enough of it to refuse offers from any local investors to keep the eatery going.

nope. two weeks ago, likely holding out for some prime national franchise joint's dinero, she killed charleston's only diner.

with our luck, it will probably turn into another hellish slots parlor "cafe."

i have no idea what kind of sentiment delsie mae's niece holds close to her heart.

but it's apparent that she doesn't hold much for the sentiments of thousands of her aunt's patrons, judging from the ones she crushed in her stampede for the almighty dollar.

otto it is

so when offered the option, kris and kitty decided "otto" was the way to go. (kris shot this today, her second straight day of devotional lunch breaks with the new mammal.)

kit kat club

if the engagement ring didn't signal my world was changing, maybe this does ... i am now the proud co-owner of a cat. (may boogie, schnapps and hogan have mercy on my soul.)

after meeting jacque's new kitty, inky, on thursday, the thought entered my mind that maybe getting a cat wouldn't be so bad.

i was taking a jog out on the boulevard friday when i figured, eh, a cat and a dog. maybe it's time i got back on the pet bandwagon.

that evening, when we arrived at kris' folks' place in parkersburg, i knew i was doomed by the thought. as her mom opened the front door and waved, a little tabby kitten hopped up on the porch. kris gasped.

"stripey."

and that's all she wrote. the kitty was a dead ringer for the cat she loved as a child. and i was not about to be the man who'd deprive her the chance at recapturing a joyful memory.

so now we have a cat.

toward the end of the drive back to charleston, the little mammal started loudly meowing like s/he wanted to be let out of the carrier. (yeah, its sex is indeterminate at the moment.)

kris told him/her/it that s/he squawked like our paper's managing editor. as we were thinking of names for the feline, i said, "how about 'bobkelly' -- one word."

kris thought it was funny until we went to work today. then she said that we couldn't call the cat that. must've been a bad day.

so over dinner, i suggested "diesel," since the monkey purrs constantly like a contented engine. kris thought it sounded badass and liked it.

i googled diesel's first name since i thought s/he deserved two names and found it to be "rudolf."

"rudolf diesel the cat."

"diesel" might sound a little over the top, too in your face.

so in the history of automobiles, i see now that the four-stroke engine, the most efficient early internal combustion design, was invented by nicolaus otto.

"nicolaus otto." that could be a good name, too.

i'll run that one by kristina later.

"otto the cat."

kinda humble. not as clankety and noisy. we'll see. stay tuned.

cutting off my nose

... to spite my face.

i've a horrible feeling i'll become the actual grump in grumpnet because of all the posts in which all i'm going to do is complain.

and i've a worse feeling the blogs are going to be about customer service.

last night i picked up a pizza pie at mama rosa's out on the west side. great pizzas and good deals. but last night? abysmal service.

how bad?

well, after waiting 10 minutes and watching the cashier/server/order taker girl futz around with the mouse on the register with the phone on her ear as she took occasional glances at me at the takeout window, some fellow finally came in from the front of the restaurant, searched for my order and finally handed me the pizza. i gave him 20 bucks for a $13 order.

10 minutes later i'm still waiting for change as he stands around said girl still stuck on the register. i was already late to meet my buddy jacque at her new apartamente from the first 10 minute wait and decided another five minutes of that wasn't worth $7 in change.

so i bolted. and left a $7 tip for incompetence.

i didn't even make it worth the nick in the wallet by yelling something in from the window, like, "seven bucks isn't worth this wait, buddy" and then peeling out from the drive-through.

they probably just shrugged and wondered "what got into him?" and then, "i'll split the tip with you."

anyhow, it was nice seeing jacque for the first time in forever and meeting her new kitty, ink. very pretty. plus got to watch the start of what turned out to be yet another upset in this crazy football season as rutgers kneecapped the same south florida bulls that kneecapped us. paybacks are hell.

my lil' punkin

my buddy tom hindman shot this of my sweet babboo, kristina, on a story about a former putnam county commissioner and the enormous pumpkin patch he and his wife had grown.

i'm posting it for my former colleague, carrie, who escaped the previously imminent collapse of the charleston daily mail to head first to the charleston, s.c., post and courier, then florida today.

she is having to live without a conventional autumn for the third year in a row and misses the changing of the seasons. i'm waiting for a good orangey-red leaf from my maple tree to hit the ground so i can send it to her.

kris here looks rather fetching in my green linen shirt. she seems to like stealing my clothes. she did, though, buy the pumpkin for me to place on my front porch. then she added a pot of marigolds for accent. very nice.

anyway, while this was shot in late summer -- 21 september -- the leaves here are now are starting their turn. of course, the nice, cool days we experienced once fall began have given way to another hellish heat wave of humidity that i hear won't end until at least tuesday. damn global warming.

hope you like the shot, carrie. happy autumn.

thank you, renee, whoever you are

aside from a hail mary from me on her behalf, somewhere out in customer service land, a little gold star goes out to renee in the unnamed industry that i don't want to get her in trouble for.

i had to cancel out on a costly reservation i knew i was half an hour past the deadline for, but thought i'd try anyway.

renee, after seeing that i'd made the arrangements online only 40 minutes previous to my call, cut me some slack and canceled me out.

"i'm only doing this because there aren't any managers here," she said. you could hear the hesitant empathy in her voice.

"if they'd answered ..."

she paused.

"they're really strict about the deadline."

a conspiratorial second or two passes. i think i imagined clacking keystrokes.

"okay, you're all clear."

"really? you're awesome! thank you so much!"

even over the phone, i know the satisfied smile of a person who bailed out someone in need by bending the rules.

if i could, i would have crawled into the line to hug her.

as it is, a fleeting feeling of satisfaction, a prayer and a few lines from a stranger in cyberspace will be her anonymous recognition.

thanks, renee.

bad hope

West Virginia quarterback Pat White, right, is helped to his feet by a trainer after getting hurt during the team's 21-13 loss to South Florida during a college football game Friday night Sept. 28, 2007, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

as a good catholic boy, i am a firm believer in hope.

the hope for eternal salvation. the hope for redemption. the hope for conversion.

as a fan of west virginia university football, however, i am also convinced of the existence of bad hope.

this is the kind of hope that exists when your team is down by 8 points with less than two minutes left in a game and you still believe that a miracle yet exists that somehow amid the swirling morass of faulty planning and just piss-poor luck, your team will reverse its fortunes and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

i witnessed this tonight as wvu's national title hopes went down in a sea of south florida linebackers setting up camp in the mountaineer backfield for four quarters.

having watched mass ejections of key players except for the chief offender (on the other side, natch), last second punt blocks and botched handoffs on the opponent's 1-yard line returned for game-winning touchdowns, i am used to disappointments.

but, in real life, i've found that there haven't been too many disappointments i've experienced where there wasn't at least the kernel of a lesson to be learned to apply to a future predicament.

i surely hope wvu's wonder boy coach rich rodriguez learned one this evening: pride goeth before the fall. (in our our case, five days after fall.)

in the first game of the season, when the mountaineers' running attack was stymied by mid-american conference opponent western michigan in the first half, coach rod came out in the second half passing to crack open our opening-day opponent and an eventual lashing by land and air.

he said it himself, that he was stubbornly sticking to his rushing game plan despite its evident lack of success. but he saw the light at the half and pulled out what had been a close game.

this game, against south florida's bulls, with the national title on the line, he didn't see it after 15 minutes of play.

and we paid the price.

it took the injury to his starting quarterback late in the first half to make rodriguez alter his game plan from ground to air -- and, barring the errors of inexperience, it might have paid off.

but it was too little, too late.

we ran out of clock before the bulls ran out of momentum and we went down, not in flames, but in the suffocating smoke of defeat -- the kind of slow death long-suffering mountaineer fans know too well.

we seem to have traded in self-destruction (turnovers, pointless penalties) with self-delusion -- the refusal to accept that one's grand scheme is not the ultimate weapon until it is too late.

funny thing is that i almost bought into it -- that coach rod's space theories really would work regardless of circumstance. the problem was that we couldn't pull off the perfect execution necessary in the face of a determined, unforgivingly speedy foe.

at least we know what we need to accomplish if we are ever to claim the mythical crown of national football champion.

thus, i employ the mantra that all adherents to bad hope invariably proclaim after what should be soul-shattering setbacks: wait 'til next year.

the weather was perfect

it couldn't have been 70 degrees when the race started around 7:40. the humidity was low and the sky had a few clouds.

saw my sister, brother-in-law and nephew in a jogging stroller at the start of the race. this was their first 5k. they finished in under 40 minutes.

also saw my buddy becky's husband, ben. this was also his first race. he made it in a few seconds past 40 minutes, which was better than his predicted time of 45. he was jazzed. i think he's also hooked.

i think we're both going to do the pumpkin run through kanawha state forest in october. maybe pamy and lem could do that, too.

i'm just happy everyone enjoyed themselves.

i beat a little girl

or at least i thought i did.

but she beat me by about 0.9 seconds to finish 29:32.3 at this year's charleston distance run 5k.

i kicked it up a bit rounding the curve at laidley field because i didn't want to finish behind the lady in pink who was chugging along because ... she was a lady in pink?

i was rewarded for my hubris with the discovery that i was building up a head of steam in an apparent effort to finish ahead of a blond child who couldn't have come up past my shoulder.

i heard the cheers for this little girl about the same time i saw the time on the finish clock read 29 minutes and change. i kept up the kick just because i wanted to finish in under half an hour.

i just hope no one noticed me straining to cross the line as fast as i could.

i checked the race site for my time, but it hadn't yet been posted. i did see the past two races i'd run and saw that it has dropped steadily since 2003.

in 2003, my first race and probably the apex of my fitness, i did it in 26:20.00 with an 8:30 pace. in 2006, i finished in 28:15.10 at 9:06. i finished this year with 29:33.2, according to the sunday paper.

this miserable weather and late hours at work kept me off the road for all intents and purposes for the better part of a month, so maybe i could have been in better shape.

i actually approached this thing as just the first day of getting back to the road and a return to the routine.

so i hope the break we enjoyed late last week signals the end of this oppressive summer and that i follow through with my resolution not to kill myself over advance features pages that lack anything resembling a graphic hook.

i can't keep making myself pay physically for not having what i need to do an assignment well. i work to live, not the other way around.

i'm looking forward to getting back in the race.

outside voices

we ran a story in the paper today from the kansas city star. it was an epic piece about the mountain state's travails and the hopes that ride on its widely heralded football team.

the story was pure schmaltz, but like so much chicken fat, was easy to consume and gave great pleasure.

particularly during the college athletics calendar, i like trolling around the national news wires to see what other people say about my school, its sports teams and my state.

i thought i was the only person who did this, but apparently our managing editor does so too -- perhaps more intently, since he's always on the lookout for fodder to fill our paper that will draw readers.

our sports editor seems to take it as a personal affront that we would want to print sports-related stories that didn't originate from his reporting staff. as much as i love and admire him, i'm not so sure he appreciates the dynamic behind this thinking.

this isn't a case of something the Lord said about prophets not being welcome in their native land; it's kind of the opposite.

i accept what i read from our sports staff as good fact, wise observation and reasoned conjecture.

perhaps more pathetically, it's more like wanting to know what other people think of us. do they think we're overrated? do they think we're in a soft league? hell, do they like us?

from l.a. to d.c., i make my rounds looking for love, with the usual stops at espn, sports illustrated and the sporting news.

then come the concentric circles, scouting reports from, say, kalamazoo or detroit, to see what kind of respect (if any) we're being accorded. sometimes it's sweet (see the star); sometimes it's sour (see the sporting news).

yet i honestly don't know what looking in other people's mirrors can bring that i can't see on my own.

maybe it's the scientist in me, seeking as many viewpoints on my subject as possible before making my own conclusions.

it could be as simple as "do these pants make me look fat?" where i'm fishing for compliments.

or call it the rural inferiority complex seeking validation from our supposed betters in the big city.

i don't know if we'll ever outgrow it.

after all, l.a. will always be l.a., with all its glitz and prosperity for now and always.

and all the national championships in the world won't bring job one to a state mired in decline.

but maybe that's the point. maybe we want that thing to hang our hat on, the thing we can point at as our shining moment.

it could as simple as us wanting to feel good about ourselves.

brought to you by

i heard something i couldn't believe i was hearing on my favorite radio webcast from kfog in san francisco. (click the links to listen live. it's absolutely amazing stuff.)

it was mid-morning dj annalise extolling the virtues of her new lexus. it sounds like she must have gotten a great deal from her local lexus dealer in exchange for the on-air endorsement. (hell, it would amazing if she got the dang thing for free!)

i was disappointed a little to hear it, being the anti-capitalist hypocrite that i am, but as i started to write this, i suddenly remembered the plugs good ol' paul harvey gave (and still gives) for products during his commentary.

there was never anything untoward about it -- you figure the advertiser was paying top dollar for an on-air endorsement from him vs. a straight-up commercial. and it sure gave the impression of quality hearing it from such a trusted source.

maybe what bugged me was that a rock station -- and such a progressive commercial station at that -- lent its personality to a such a high-end means of transportation. maybe it's because i still cling to the quaint notion of rock music being the way your average joe fights the man -- and his fat luxury cars.

that having been said, i'm willing to bet that as well-regarded a radio personality as she is, annalise, like the rest of us working schlubs, sees sweet rides all over the place that we wish we could tool around in, but can't afford. well, here was her chance.

Lord knows, if such a deal existed for lifestyles columnists, i'm not so sure i'd say no.

which provides the convenient segueway ...

because i don't want to be the columnist who writes about the same thing two times in a row, let alone two times in a year, i'm writing this in the blog.

(weddings, family, personal experiences provide such great fodder for columns, don't they?)

kris and i are checking off the to-do list to get ready for the wedding next year. last friday we went to sign a contract for our reception space.

(the fact of any reception at all posed a dilemma for my fiancee. as she mulled the cost, kris figured it would be about the same as a good chunk of what could be, say, a dining room addition to my humble home.)

anyhow, as we discussed the contract with the booking lady, we were trying to determine if we could get around their catering clause about outside food -- in this case, a roasted pig that a family friend would prepare for us, filipino style.

i mentioned that, as a family friend, my uncle mario might try to offer it as a gift to us. this led us to wonder who else we could invite who could pay for -- or sponsor -- other costs of our reception.

things quickly got out of hand, as evidenced by:

"the wise-maramba nuptials, presented by carper, bee & deitzler" (kris used to cover county commission, of which attorney kent carper is a member.)

"the gregory t. harvey dds first kiss" father john sez: "by the power vested in me by the diocese of wheeling-charleston -- and brought to you by the whiter teeth and fresher breath from a visit to dr. greg harvey (he caters to cowards) -- i now declare you man and wife. you may kiss the bride." (i've known greg since junior high.)

"the cake cutting ceremony -- sweetness by dutchess bakery" as underwriter of the reception, though, carper, bee & deitzler get dibs on having their logo emblazoned on the cake rather than the traditional bride and groom figurines.

"the first dance: steppin' out with west virginia radio corporation" owner of adult contemporary, oldies and sports talk stations gets the party moving -- complete with wvu sports scores.

and finally ...

"love lexus of st. albans presents the honeymoon getaway" just because it would be nice to leave town in a sweet lexus convertible coupe. (plus they probably saved my job.)

how's that for coming full circle?

by the way, this entire blog entry comes courtesy of a new link i got from lola's pizza. as i've said before, it's got the most imaginative menu of pizzas and salads i've had the pleasure to experience. great wine list to pair with, too. i've got 'em on speed dial: 304.343.lola. a fresh, intimate dining experience.

(and, no, i don't get a free pizza for writing that.)

the privilege of higher education

kris showed me a story from the los angeles times about swanky college dorms.

wow. now, more than ever, this is going to show where i cross over to the other side of the generation gap.

when did higher education become synonymous with resort living? seriously, check out the slide show that goes with the story. i don't think i'm going to be spending my honeymoon in places so well-appointed.

i understand the competition for students is fierce and that every edge counts to snag that prospect's tuition dollar.

but my understanding of the purpose of college was to provide a universal education and to prepare its graduates for life in the real world.

this just seems to be another extension of high school, where mommy and daddy's money will serve to set you apart from classmates you can't outshine with brains, talent or skill.

and exactly what kind of aspirations is four years of cushy living supposed to instill in a maturing adult? a desire to seek comfort and convenience above all?

i am all for raising expectations and helping young people seek a better life. but what this seems to confuse is the acquisition of things with improving one's station.

yes, you can get great toys when rise up in tax bracket. (and i'll be the first to tell you that luxuries both great and small are gratifying and sweet.)

but isn't our culture already saturated enough in the worship of mammon without having to turn what should be the most carefree time in adult life into a twentysomething version of keeping up with the jones'?

there already exists a divide between those who can pursue higher education and those who can't.

and within the college ranks, prejudices exist between supporters of state and private schools as well as between greeks and non-greeks.

do we need to subdivide within dormitory living as well?

the roots of the word "college" are from the latin words meaning "to gather." but as schools rush headlong for the student dollar, "college" may even more so become just another word for "separate."

maybe ignorance is bliss

the big "duh" moment came this morning while trolling myspace.

i thought to myself, i haven't had any notices that my buddy jacque had updated her blog. wonder why she hasn't written?

then it occurred to me -- ah, she's got that new site -- right here on blogger.com.

and sho' nuff, there she was. she calls it "and then out loud, i said ..." which is perfect. this girl, somehow, some way, by some gift from God, can speak her mind in a way that is frank and funny without being insulting.

if anyone can claim to "tell it like it is," it is her. no color, except those times she tells what color she's using.

anyway, her latest entry tells of the interesting stats she racks up using her blog's site meter -- who, where, when, how often. it was fascinating.

of course, then i wanted some stats of my own. on the myspace, there's little feature showing you how many views your blog gets, which is kind of gratifying and reassuring to let you know that people are at least clicking on it.

(of course, if you're just writing to share or throw your thoughts out, why should you care if anyone's looking? i mean, it's not like you're getting paid per view. i'm suspicious of the part of me that likes personal journal writing, then wants everyone to peek at it.)

so after some clicking and copying and pasting, i can get a record of the kind of traffic this blog generates. why does it worry me that this could become very depressing if i find i'm shouting into a void?

this could, however, answer the whole tree falling in the woods thing. so does this make the answer "yes?"

outside looking in

kris and i just had dinner with our friends, jeff and sara, who wanted to congratulate us on our engagement. we knew jeff from when he was daily mail assistant city editor; sara is married to jeff.

dinner conversation mostly centered on kris and me -- the story of how i popped the question, how i presented her with the ring, remembering how long we'd been dating, wedding plans, etc.

one of the things i noticed as we related tales and just talked in general was how genuinely happy they seemed for us. that seems to be the general sentiment we get from those who've known us both.

now kris and i, we know why we're with each other, in that intangible way that you just know. all the same, though, sitting and talking sweet talk, we wonder aloud why we like each other, how we get along so well.

for some reason, you want a laundry list, an objective, concrete compilation of reasons and attributes to explain why the relationship works.

we never actually get around to compiling such a thing, partly out of changes in the conversation's dynamic or topic and maybe partly out of desire not to vivisect a good thing.

oddly, you do get a list from your friends when they express their happiness for you -- how they could all see why it made perfectly good sense that it would work and why it was meant to be.

somewhere, in their assessment of either knowing your personalities or watching you as a couple, they can enumerate the things that make the relationship tick, why it made sense to them.

i should start making note of what others saw in us that made them believe it would lead to a real, life commitment.

but judging from what we've heard from friends and family so far, the reasons they've observed from the outside seem to be more astute and objective than anything we've come up with from within.

seriously -- i don't think we've ever gotten past "cute," "smart" and "good kisser."

check out the links

just a briefy here. i've only got a handful of links to go to, but they're to the blogs of friends with interests in politics, photography and parenting.

one, disgruntled housewife, is the first blog i ever saw that had it all together -- journal, commentary, funny links, pix -- and the one i remember best from about 10 years ago. she's still going strong. even has advertising now.

at the time i first went there, i only knew these as "personal homepages" -- a daunting name for someone trying to create content. (me.) web log seems so much more manageable. and so i'm here.

the other two links are just personal -- my other blog and a portfolio of my newspaper design work. easy. biographical, kind of.

click away when you're really bored.

my precious

this is ostensibly the genesis of a column about the amazing powers of the engagement ring. but today, three days after the fact, i'll keep it simple: i gave my girl kris an engagement ring.

i actually proposed to her on the first of july at a sunday afternoon picnic. it was just her and me at danner meadow park out in fort hill. i was on my back, my head in her lap, staring up into the clouds, talking marriage in general when she asked when i was finally going to propose. i answered, "why not now?" and then asked her to marry me.

(she first had to ask "are you serious?")

so, for the better part of a month, i made three secret trips to the jewelry store, one a week, i think, beginning the week after i proposed. all the while, we remained silent about our engagement because i said people would want to see a ring if we announced it. (meanwhile, from her perspective, my apparent lack of action on the jewelry front made kris figure my proposal was dying on the vine.)

i decided the annual family trip to the beach would be the best time to announce and present the ring that had been burning a hole in my pocket since the last week of july. of course, it took until the last hours of the last day we were all there that i finally found the opening i needed.

she wept, my sisters, sister-in-law and mom wept -- and i got to eat five cheeseburgers in the ensuing 24 hours. (an all-time record that likely may never be broken, given kris' fanatical desire to control my diet. health reasons and all that.)

anyhow, that's the mostly non-appended story of the ring thus far. after spending the after-dinner hour last night mulling guest list and to-do's, i'm only now beginning to grasp the enormity of the machine this little piece of jewelry has set into motion. i just hope it doesn't crush us in the process.

ten years later

(or more like 11 or 12) i think i first coined the term "grumpnet" on a rainy walk with my brother's dogs, schnapps and hogan.

as pet owners are wont to do, i spoke to mine, invariably coining nicknames on the fly. one nickname i had for schnapps was "grump," because of his grumpy old man face (he was a miniature schnauzer with a great, bushy beard), as well as his demeanor, especially when newcomer hogan came along.

long story short, a handful of "grump" variations cropped up in our many walks. grump. grumpus. and this one. (not long after i got online.)

i actually owned the domain name for about four years, but didn't have a site. i believe i was what they called a "cyber-squatter." i wasn't being greedy; i just didn't have the know-how or the compunction to learn how to create a web site.

now it's been done for me.

luckily, some site called "grumpnet.org" came into being while i still owned the rights to grumpnet.com. after at least a two-year expiration, the name is mine again -- along with an honest-to-God web site.

i've got a blog on myspace already. this one may become sort of the development league before things move onto the other one. (or it may supercede it; who knows?) until it does, this will be the single a league to the myspace aaa league that might lead to publication in the daily mail.

let's see how this works. hope its fun.

ed traisman -- r.i.p.

ed traisman died last week. i'd never heard of him until today, but if it weren't for him, i suspect i wouldn't be the indulged eldest son of a cardiologist that i am now.

ed traisman worked for kraft foods and is credited as the inventor of cheez whiz. (he was also instrumental in developing the modern mcdonald's french fry, which should qualify him for sainthood.)

my dad kept himself going through medical school on a steady diet of cheez whiz on white bread and cigarettes. i could only imagine if dad had to actually leave his room to scrounge up a snack, he might have missed out on a valuable hour or two of study that could have cost him a grade in his exams.

he would have never graduated med school, never left the philippines and never become the only heart specialist in beckley. and i'd be some overprivileged rice farmer's son doing nothing in the philippine boondocks instead of living the life of an overprivileged wannabe journalist doing nothing in west virginia.

so thank you, edwin traisman, from the bottom of my heart (and its somewhat damaged arteries).

layla joyce born 1 june 2007

memorial day

no one in my immediate family has served in the armed forces. my brother-in-law did a two-year hitch at fort sill in oklahoma to pay back the loan that got him through med school. and my uncle was a guerrilla fighter during world war ii. he was killing japanese soldiers about the same age i was worrying about whether or not i'd get my driver's license.

i once asked him about his experience, but all i got was a far-off look and no answer. i can't imagine what was going through his teenaged head trying to drive out an enemy who could do unspeakable things to you if you failed and he didn't kill you outright.

my buddy jake wrote a couple of nice pieces in today's daily mail. today's play story was about west virginians who died in iraq and afghanistan. another memorial day story was about a cmh honoree from beckley who may have been denied burial at arlington national cemetery because he was black. some good work there.

this is probably very sentimental of me to say and i hope he'll forgive me for saying it, but i'd like to call these tributes to his dad, who was a vietnam war vet who died very suddenly just before christmas 2005. the couple of times jake has written about his family in the paper, you can feel the closeness and admiration he had for his dad. it breaks my heart to see how he and his family miss him so.

i guess it would be ok on a day to honor our war dead that we remember all those whose memories we want to keep alive -- friends and family taken after long struggle or with shocking suddenness.

after dinner friday in south charleston, i remarked to kris that every time i saw the ramada inn there, i'd remember my friend jody jividen. he was sports editor at the daily mail and knew i was a wvu fan. he had tickets to see don nehlen speak there and called me on my day off to attend with him. it was nothing spectacular, but i always appreciated his thoughtfulness. jody died while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in the summer of 2002.

i mused to kris as i drove that i think so long as we speak of the memories of our departed, they're not totally gone.she agreed.

awards

creating prize-winning pages. we love them, but what's the point? the only people who care are our peers. of course, this puts us one step above our fellow wordsmiths in advertising who don't even get the chance to have the public know who created a great spot. unless you read the trades, chances are, the public will never know. which is probably whey they're paid so much better than newspaper people.

p.r. wonks, on the other hand are seen every day -- and well-paid. that's probably one of the few professions where one is compensated for brains -- or at least the ability to obfuscate -- and hotness. (see the white house deputy spokeswoman.) if only there were an award for unjust compensation.

buggered

i really don't like killing things. bugs, for example, because, while i know cows, pigs, chickens and fish died for my meals, i didn't have to drive pistons into their skulls, slit their throats or cut off their heads.

however, common household vermin -- mice, wasps, even flies -- are caught and released when possible. which is dumb, because i'm setting little pools of poison in my kitchen and den to kill ants en masse and keep them from getting into the food i'm preparing or trying to eat.

but one on one, if i see some stupid ant trapped on the slick sides of my bathtub before i turn on the water, i'll fish it out and set in the trash can so it won't drown -- and, presumably, so i can kill it some other time, possibly with the pesticide in my kitchen.

maybe that's the rationale behind my irrationality. purposefully snuffing an individual animal requires the thought and desire to end its existence, as if there were a relationship, even if was just for the moment.

but killing lots of them for a purpose -- say, protecting a resource like food -- cuts that link. they're no longer single, living entities, but a collective threat that has to be eliminated. oddly, this also sounds like the difference between murder and war.

mosquitoes, on the other hand, i will crush without thinking twice. they suck.

disney world day 1.5

just saying uncle p's all fun and games until he actually has to discipline somebody. then he'll just wait you out until you puke from crying.

no. 1 twin ava, exuberant and vociferous, took the running and screaming past the bounds that had already been drawn out for her numerous times by her mom and auntie joy this evening. unfortunately for her, it was on uncle p's watch and he had to drop the hammer.

the announced punishment was to go back to the hotel room. so back we went. kicking. screaming. hitting.

so i sat in the room with her while she cried and cried and cried and swallowed her puke and cried some more until my sister came by to pick her up. wow. that kid has some pipes.

other than that, the kids were golden. well, as golden as kids at walt disney world could be. it seems like every child here between ages 3 and, say, 9, believes the magic kingdom is his/her personal domain -- and the adults are either serfs or unjust guards keeping them captive in their own castles. it's cute and obnoxious at the same time, with the ratios depending on how much indulgence you feel like granting at the moment.