10/31/04
Marriage. It's all beaches and sunshine as far as I'm concerned. I got married earlier this month and am still floating on air. My bride, Helen, was beautiful and had a huge grin plastered on her face during the ceremony, probably to match mine. For the honeymoon we went to Hawaii, where the weather and locale was perfect. Then I spent a week in Corpus Christi with Helen. Corpus is a beach town, but didn't quite compare to Hawaii. Still, two weeks into this marriage thing, it's all been beaches and sunshine. Can't complain.
6/29/04
New pics. The photo tour has been updated.
6/20/04
Tourists, what are you gonna do? Or: How a lost driver mangled my poor car. Working where I do -- one block from the Alamo -- I see plenty of befuddled tourists walking or in their cars or on their Rascal® motorized scooters. But on a recent Saturday night when I was driving home from work, one finally got the better of me. Now certainly this isn't the forum to place blame (it was his fault), but Bysshe, my beloved 1999 Mercury Cougar, was dented up pretty badly. Thankfully, insurance is doing its job and my car is now being repaired. In the meantime, I'm racking up as many miles as I can on the rental car. Road trip anyone?
1/20/04
My epic struggle with the Men in Brown continues. You can read about it in my open letter to UPS.
1/10/04
The goings-on down at the ranch. My apartment complex, Bitterwood, is a lovely one, managed by lovely people. Or at least it was until a couple months ago when one of those national apartment management firms bought the place. We've suddenly turned corporate, with those annoying apartment-complex signs that only end in exclamation points, like "Fall into a great place to live!" and "A new look for our home!" Then, yesterday, the old "Bitterwood" sign went down and up went a bigger, gaudier sign. It reads "Bitterwood Ranch." I am unclear as to who they are trying to fool. "Yes, honey, we did want to buy a couple acres out in the country, but this place has 'ranch' in its name, so it must be the same thing!" Ah, progress.
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12/9/03
I've come up with a new slogan for UPS. I left my glasses in Austin just before Thanksgiving, so Helen kindly shipped them back to me via a certain unnamed package delivery company (whose initials are UPS). Well, somewhere in the 65 miles between Austin and San Antonio, the Men in Brown lost my package. That was two weeks ago now and they're still giving me the run around on the lost package. Basically, we'd have been better off paying one of those homeless folks on Riverside Drive $10 to walk the package down from Austin to San Antonio. UPS: You'd be better off using a hobo.
8/15/03
Single women across the globe shed a tear. That's right, I'm gettin' hitched. The beautiful Helen actually said "yes," despite my yanking her chain a bit by initially presenting her with a mix CD instead of a ring. So that was exciting. We haven't set an exact date yet, but probably about 12-15 months from now. I guess there's some planning involved next?
7/3/03
Thong Man's quirky ride comes to a sad end. The saga of Thong Man had been my favorite local odd-ball story during my time watch on the Metro desk, so I was sad to see it come to such a tragic end. Thong Man, aka Joseph Gottschalk, was found dead at a state park near here. The authorities investigating his death are unsure if it was an accident or a suicide.
I first heard his story over the police scanners a couple months ago as calls came in complaining about a nearly naked man biking around the streets of San Antonio. When our intrepid police reporter checked out calls, he came back with the story of nonconformist Gottschalk. The story was picked up across the country and internationally and basked in a bit of local celebrity, leading parades and getting interviews on all the area TV stations. His, uh, tale added one more unique chapter to Alamo City lore.
6/3/03
Got to be at the helm for the first time last week. And we still put out a paper. Actually, it went pretty well. The Spurs were playing against the Mavericks in the Western Conference finals, so we had a photo from that, while news from the Mideast made for a decent lead story. Those are the two hardest elements to find for Page One -- especially for a Monday paper -- so there rest fell into place pretty easily. I think I like this new gig.
5/23/03
TV alert! Watch for me on ABC Nightly News this weekend. ABC News was
in our newsroom yesterday filming for a segment on those pilfering New York Times
folks. (For those of you who aren't up on the Jayson Blair scandal, a New York Times reporter was caught plagiarizing an article from the humble Express-News.) Cameras were at a meeting I was at, so we'll see if they edit me in just to appeal to that 18-28 female demographic.
5/22/03
It's been a while since I've had time for an update. Sit a spell. It's been a busy month for me, with out-of-state trips every weekend. One was for my cousin's wedding, funerals for my grandmother and grandfather and a trip to New Mexico for a graduation. And I was in S.A. long enough to get a promotion. I'm now the assistant news editor, which means being in charge of Page One.
3/15/03
Sure is nice to hear from old friends, like the two I heard from out of the blue this week. Hopefully it'll start a trend.
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2/1/03
Ah, that smell that's in the air tells me it's rodeo time in the Alamo City. Seriously though, it's a big deal here, the second largest rodeo in Texas. They have some neat events to kick off the show, including a free breakfast where 50,000 people get up before dawn and wait hours in line for an egg taco. People are just plain weird about free food.
1/31/03
Finally got some pictures back from the New York trip. The first -- a fine one of Helen with the Wall Street bull -- has gone up here.
10/25/02
A bribery scandal. The opening of a new basketball arena. The entire City Council being called before a grand jury. A second, separate grand jury investigation hitting local school boards. And wave after wave of rain. It's been a local news bonanza here in San Antonio. Now what we are we going to do for an encore? The nice thing about the news business is there will be something new next week. And no matter how thinly stretched we are already, we'll get the story. Have you hugged a journalist lately?
10/9/02
A City Hall bribery scandal. It's exciting to cover, but our city councilmembers need higher aspirations. They allegedly sold their votes for $2,500 a piece. What's worse, they could have held out for much much more than that — the man accused of buying the votes had $25,000 to spend. There are two morals to this story, kids: (1) Don't accept bribes and (2) Make sure the bribe is for more than your bail will be.
9/11/02
Got through 9-11 without a hitch. Wasn't too worried about terrorists, just reporters. We had folks at events all over the city and no major problems to report. Still, it was my first big news day at the helm of the metro desk, and more than a little fun.
9/1/02
"I'm older today than I was yesterday," and other birthday thoughts. It sounds trite, I know, but this year I feel it. My new responsibilities at work can be a lot fun, but they're also giving me gray hairs by the dozen. I just started hitting my stride on the metro desk late last week, so hopefully I'll soon be able to start improving the product. My goals including fewer meeting-driven stories and coming up with a system to have Metro cover centerpieces ready on a daily basis.
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8/16/02
Breathing: One of life's underrated pleasures. I don't know if it was the germy NY crowds or my immune system just getting confused going from New York pollution back to Texas pollen, but I am all stuffed up. Hopefully I'll be better by Monday, my first official shift as interim day metro editor.
8/13/02
New York trip a success; Big Apple declared sweet. Just got back from four days in New York that included a play, a Yankees game and a taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Had an awesome time, but my feet are still feeling it.
7/21/02
Sonic. Motto: If it's food, we'll fry it. They also have recently introduced the pancake-on-a-stick. Man, is it any wonder the place is so great?
6/29/02
Two weeks with the boss. A very busy two weeks, with me pulling in plenty of overtime (I had 56 hours on my timecard one of those weeks). But it was actually pretty fun. Being the big boss (the managing editor) she knows the secret to good management: food. And lots of it. Lasagna one night, cheesecake another. And candy to fill in the gaps.
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6/2/02
No "Simpsons" tonight. What is it about Homer that makes him a perfect Everyman sort of character? Maybe it's the effort he puts into being lazy, maybe it's slow but constant love he has for his kids. Or maybe it's just his love of doughnuts.
5/17/02
Paid $25 for a coffee mug. And it was money well spent. A local journalism group was having a silent auction to raise money, and one of the items up for bid was a San Antonio Light coffee mug. This particular mug had the Light's big headline from the Gulf War emblazoned on it: WAR. And since I've spent so much of my time listening to a co-worker regale me with stories of the now-defunct paper, I figure I'm a Light veteran, so I deserve my commemorative mug.
5/5/02
My Web site gets an update. I've reworked the design to get a lot more pictures in, updated the content and added a "Recent events" category to keep you, loyal reader, up to speed.
4/20/02
Off to San Angelo. Helen and I drove to San Angelo to see my mom. Helen got to see the Indian pictographs at Paint Rock for the first time. Thousands of paintings hundreds of years old and most of them serve as a solar calendar, marking important days of the season.
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