One-minute news break

Who is Alicia Keys and why was she on my television screen so much last night?

Says here in my Very Large Metropolitan Newspaper that the president is using the war as a political tool. Well, duh. Isn't that basic politics? Say what you will about the president, but he's not going to miss something as basic as that.

In case you haven't noticed, an NBA team in Texas is challenging for the league's best record -- and it's not the Spurs. It's the team that not so long ago was challenging to break the league record for fewest victories in a season.

In the space of 18 months, I've experienced a 113-degree day and an 11-degree night in the same city.

Now, back to live action

I'm nobody. Who are you?
I spent a good portion of yesterday in a quest to figure out who I am, courtesy of my place of employment. I was part of a group taking one of these personality tests. Kind of like Myers-Briggs, except this one puts everybody into one of four categories, and as such, has a tendency to make generalizations. I took the Myers-Briggs about four years ago, and apparently, I haven't changed much. I'm said to be "Inspirational," meaning that I'm a consensus-builder who wants to make sure everybody has fun, but I often lack basic organizational and planning skills. Which is basically true, sort of.

I find these fascinating, not because I lack self-awareness -- I don't -- but because it's interesting to see what other people think of themselves, and how surprised (or not) people are at their results or at your results. Our group didn't have very many surprises. It's a creative bunch that, given their druthers, would just as soon work by themselves but are forced into being a part of a group that really is too large for its own good.

At small newspapers, they complain about not having enough people. Ours has too many. Maybe we could use the personality test to cull the annoying people. Then work would be more fun, and I wouldn't have to worry about my organizational skills.

A thought about journalism
Sitting behind a desk next to a window with a great view of the Dallas skyline, I feel a little silly identifying with a guy who was hacked and beaten to death in a dark alley in Pakistan.

I still remember when the girl who cut my hair in Orlando, making the obligatory haircut-girl small talk, asked me about my occupation. I gave my usual as-simple-as-possible explanation about how I worked at the newspaper, designing pages and editing stories. "Cool," she said. "Did you ever want to be, like, a journalist?"

Uh, hello, I am a f---ing journalist. That's what I wanted to say. But I knew she wouldn't understand.

Journalism is a lot more involved than the simple pursuit of stories. Despite the fact that I am an editor, I still hold a pretty solid contempt for editors. I do, however, concede the need for editors. I guarantee you, gentle reader, wouldn't want to read our unedited dreck. (Kind of like the stuff you're reading right now, actually. See how bad that would be?)

You're going to hear a lot about Daniel Pearl, because he was a journalist, and so are all the people from whom you're going to hear about him. We journalists are probably a lot more interested in Daniel Pearl than you are. And that's OK, and fully justifiable. He's simply a victim of terrorism just like the people in the airplanes and in the World Trade Center and in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, just like the people who die every day in the Middle East. He's not more special -- nor less so -- because he was a journalist just trying to do his job.

But understand this, too: Despite the incredible flaws of today's media, we are the society that we are largely because of journalism. No other country in the history of the world has been allowed to hold its government more accountable to its people than has the United States. Yes, journalists have abused this privilege. But the next time you hear a story about government malfeasance, listen to it. Understand that the fact that you're getting to listen to it doesn't happen everywhere in the world. The ability for you in your easy chair to do something about it (get the f--- out there and VOTE, for Pete's sake!) is a precious right. The ability to know what's going on in other corners of the world is also precious, and not something shared by everybody else in the world.

You wouldn't be able to fix your government or send help to oppressed peoples around the world if you didn't know about it. That's why I and my co-workers are here.

I hope you appreciate it. And I hope you appreciate what Daniel Pearl and the hundreds of other journalists who have been killed in the line of duty were doing for you, too.

The ennui continues
I'm sorry to report that things aren't getting any better for me at the place of employment. Not that you care, and certainly not that you should. They pay me well, I get to spend some time on the best equipment in the business, and I work with a bunch of really good people (and, yeah, a few assholes, too. That's the nature of the news business, or any business, really.)

So what do I have to bitch about?

It's simple. I'm bored. Bored, bored, bored. And that's a dangerous thing for me.

In the past, when I've become bored with my job, I've become contentious and bitchy. I say stupid things that I later regret. I cut my work days to about six hours if I can get away with it. And then, we pack up and move, becuase I need a new challenge of some sort.

I'm not quite to the packing-up-and-leaving part yet. I'm not quite all the way through contentious and bitchy, and I've only said a precious few stupid things so far. I'm holding out hope that the Next Big Challenge is coming down the line, soon.

Right now, my Next Big Challenge is simply trying to justify going to work tomorrow. I suspect that's bad.

We hate luxury SUVs, and here's why
I love my wife. Not just because she's tall, beautiful and the best mother on the planet, but because when she sees something she thinks is stupid, she by God stands up and says so.

I'm relating this story second-hand. I wasn't there. But it's a hell of a story, and it bears re-telling.

We have nothing against pickup trucks, or sport-utility vehicles in general. We understand that some people actually need a pickup truck or an SUV to haul stuff around or go camping or something. We have a minivan, ourselves, just because it makes more sense for us. But if you have actual need for an SUV or a truck, by all means buy one. What we're against in this space is "luxury" SUVs; vehicles that are big just for the sake of being big, vehicles that serve no purpose other than to suck down gas and take up space. Like you're going to take your Cadillac Escalade off-road. And here in Texas, bad weather isn't even really an excuse, considering we get about 5 inches of snow every two years.

Today, The Wife went to the local Large National Chain Hardware Store to pick up some flowers or something. She found herself caught in a slow-moving checkout line, so being the less-than-patient sort that she is, she went to investigate the source of the holdup.

The source of the holdup was a middle-aged man who was buying 70 bags of mulch. The Hardware Store guys started to load the mulch in his vehicle. Middle-Aged Suburban Man stopped them. "Don't put it in the car," he said. "Put it on top of the car."

The "car" in question was a larger-than-life Lincoln Navigator. As anybody with a brain knows, a Lincoln Navigator is just a really pretty rendition of a Ford F-150, slightly re-tuned to ride smoother. It's not a car; it's a truck. I don't care how much money you paid for it, underneath all the leather and stuff, it's a truck.

So, the Hardware Store Guys dutifully began the precarious task of loading 70 bags of much on top of a Lincoln Navigator. This, of course, was too much for The Wife. She looked at the guy and asked him, "Now, why are you putting the stuff on top of the truck when you could put it in the truck? Is that not why you bought a truck?"

"It's my wife's car," Suburban Man grumbled, none too pleased at The Wife's question.

The Wife was still beside herself when she called to relate the story to me. There's more: The Hardware Store Guys made the guy sign a release. I guess it said something along the lines of, "When all this shit falls off the top of your truck and spills all over the highway, we are not responsible for any damage to your $50,000 truck nor any other vehicle, and we are not giving you 70 more bags of mulch." Good for them.

The Wife, still shaking her pretty little head, loaded her flowers and mulch and stuff inside the minivan. Proudly, I might add. I think she spilled a little bit of dirt on purpose.

A girl I knew
On my visit last week to Anytown, I noticed that my first girlfriend's house is for sale. I took a trip back in time, thanks to the wonder of Realtor.com, and took a virtual tour of a house in which I spent many, many hours during the summer of 1979.

The house looks pretty much the same as I remember it, on the inside. A big, old house, lots of original woodwork and light fixtures, really very well-preserved. Somebody had installed vinyl siding since '79. Overall, the house is in pretty good shape, and will be a bargain for somebody at $69,000.

The girl's name was Kim, and we "went steady" from April to October of 1979 -- quite a long time for a couple of 11-year-olds, when you think about it. It's probably a stretch to say she was my first true love, but that summer, all I wanted to do was spend time with her. After we "graduated" from elementary school in 1980, she moved to Wyoming. Her grandmother stayed in the house in Anytown, and a few years later, Kim and the family moved back.

I didn't keep up with Kim much in high school. We talked a little bit right after she moved back, and I got the idea things didn't go very well out west. She had changed quite a bit; me, not so much. We were very much running in different circles by then. She dropped out midway through our junior year. I didn't see her again until 1989, when for some reason, I got an urge to see her. I called the old number I remembered, and she was there. She invited me to drop by the old house, where she still lived with her mom.

At first glance, I remember being struck by how much the same everything was. Her mom still drove the same Chevy Malibu station wagon they'd bought new in '79, and it still looked new. The house was almost exactly as I remembered it. I went upstairs with Kim and we caught up with each other a little bit.

I remember the conversation being interrupted by a phone call. A connection of Kim's, I gathered. Don't know what they were connecting on, and I didn't ask. Kim seemed mildly embarrassed. I told her not to be, that everything was cool. She seemed comforted by that, sort of.

I gave her my number and told her to call me sometime. She never did. I didn't expect her to.

I thought about her not at all for nearly 13 years, until I saw that For Sale sign in her yard. I wondered what became of her, and her mom, and her grandma. Like so many other things I see when I go to Anytown, it made me both a bit wistful for the past and so incredibly grateful I found my way out.

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be ...
It seemed only fitting that I was driving into an Ozarks sunset when I received word that Waylon Jennings had died.

Country music was a big, big part of my early years. My dad, man, he was into that country music, especially "The Outlaws" -- Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson. It was the noise that I woke up to every morning, and it was the songs I heard throughout the day, usually in my dad's way off-key hybrid West Texas-Midwestern drawl.

I was listening to KTTS -- the station I grew up with -- as I was coming back to Texas from Anytown after wrapping up Phase One of the Freelance Gig. In another life, I would have heard about Waylon Jennings' death on KTTS. It seemed right that that's where I heard about it in this life. Kind of a cosmic connection, if you will.

Hed goes here
Just me and the kids today. The Wife is off on another foray into Dog World. No ribbons to be won; this is merely an educational exercise. This exercise takes her and the Champion Dog down to the middle of the state. Gives me and the kids the chance to enjoy what is turning out to be a hell of a nice day in February.

Heading to Anytown tomorrow for several days of serious techno-geeking. We're about ready to unveil that web site you've been hearing so much about. You might soon notice some minor changes to this one, too. We'll keep you posted.

Wow, this is cool
Here's the first post from the new computer. It's a monster: 128 MB of RAM, 1.6 GHz Pentium 4, 40 GB hard drive. 17-inch monitor. Windows XP is a little weird; I can't log on to my computer now without thinking of that damn Madonna song. But I'm sure I'll get over that.

As noted in a previous post, I'm not really a technogeek. Despite the fact that for years I've been known at work as an advanced computer user, I didn't actually own a home computer until 1999. This computer is the first one I've actually purchased. The previous two were hand-me-downs, one only slightly less a dinosaur than the other. The first one had a 486 processor and eight, count 'em, 8 MB of RAM. The one I just took apart was a six-year-old box with 32 MB of RAM and a good ol' Pentium I. It's headed to the computer graveyard, too.

Got a long day ahead tomorrow; another trip to the doctor to get the latest on the Young Daughter's dread disease. Nothing of any grand urgency; she is still, as previously reported, perfectly healthy and happy and developing at a normal pace. It's more of an informational visit, with a geneticist, and it's expected to take three hours. That'll make the kid happy.

Then, Friday night brings the long-awaited annual event here in White Plastic Suburbia: The Daddy-Daughter dance. This is where the Old Daughter and I get dressed up and go to the local community center and hang out with other dads and little girls. It is every bit as cute as it sounds, and every guy there is absolutely as self-conscious as you would expect about actually dancing. But the girls enjoy it, and it's wildly popular. In a neighboring White Plastic Suburb, they had to break it up into three separate events by age group in order to have enough room. My White Plastic Suburb just went to two.

There certainly is not a lot of room for bordeom in my little life. And I certainly wouldn't have it any other way.

Two-yard gain brings up second-and-8
The redesign has advanced, ever so slightly. You're still not seeing the images. Someday soon, you will. For now, you get the explainer on the far right. (For our regular readers, that's what Web developers call "static" content. It doesn't change. It won't change, at least not on a regular basis. I'll probably edit it every once in a while. Don't waste your time reading it at every visit.)

Speaking of Web development, the Freelance Gig will move from consulting and setup to real-live Web development after this week. Maybe that means you'll see images on this site. Maybe that means this site will have a new address. Maybe I'll be so damn busy I won't have time for this site. (Wouldn't that be remarkable?) An awful lot of maybes; nothing's real definite, except that a Very Large Computer Company based in Texas has lots and lots and lots of my money. If the hardware sucks, you'll read about it here. I'll be sure to register with a search engine at that point so everybody will know. Until then, optimism reigns.

(Hold on for jarring transition from My Static Life to the sports world): Let the record show that I was not one of the bleating minions counting on a Rams blowout in the Super Bowl. I thought they would win, but I didn't expect a typical 45-21 Super Blah. It backs up what I've said about the Rams all year: Their offense can be stopped, if you just pound on their receivers, like, an awful lot. It's pretty simple, but so many teams were scared of pounding on the Rams receivers because usually, that only works right up to the point where the Rams receivers go all 4.3 on you and fade into the end-zone ether. The simple philosophy was summed up by Patriots corner Ty Law: "I've never seen anybody win a hundred-yard dash with somebody standing in front of them." The Rams' offensive line did its job admirably, but it didn't matter if Kurt Warner had all the time in the world to throw, because he had nobody to throw it to. And I was a little saddened by the fact that I'll remember Madden and Summerall from this game: Summerall being wrong, a lot, about what was happening on the field and Madden berating Bill Belichick for not running out the clock right up to the point where Adam Vinatieri kicked the game-winner.

And normally, I don't notice the Super Bowl commercials, no matter how loud the hype. Nor do I watch the halftime show. The one time I did, I had a thought: "Wow. Somebody approved this." But, three observations:

Cadillac has finally figured out that its customer base is, like, almost dead. The average age of a new Cadillac buyer is 69. The marketing folks catch a clue: Cadillac cues up the Zeppelin, finds a '59 Eldo, and voila, a star is born. Not crazy about the CTS; it's kind of a funny-looking car. But it's a hell of a lot better swing than the Cimarron and the Catera were. That said, anybody think Cadillac is a little late getting serious about the entry-level luxury market? Gotta figure that all the young, newly rich dot-com folks have already bought their Mercedes C-Classes and BMW 3-series and, maybe, a Lincoln LS or two. Anybody who hasn't bought one by now, chances are, is too late. Those stock options don't buy too many Cadillacs anymore.

I'm a big fan of Budweiser. I'm a big fan of the Clydesdales. Always have been. And, man, was I a big fan of the Clydesdales-in-NY commercial. That was a hell of a creative idea. I buy Budweiser anyway, so it didn't influence me much. But I feel a little bit better about buying it.

I'm a little old for Britney Spears. I admit that. She's not aiming at my demographic. Not with her music, anyway. Let's just say: You can't help but notice. (And, for the record, I am not a pig: I did not turn to NBC during the halftime show for Fear Factor. Not once. Not even for a peek. And I don't even like U2.)

Web development, Anytown-style
If you're thrown by the redesign-in-progress, we apologize. We're doing battle with three children and a 133-MHz, 32-MB-of-RAM dinosaur that's older than all three of the children. We're upgrading the equipment soon; the children, I just have to be patient with.

Stay tuned; it'll all be aligned properly soon.