Tired, wired and uninspired
Stuff has just been shaking all around me. I have neither the time nor the inclination to go into it in great depth. So, following some great advice I received when I was a young sportswriter -- "If you have nothing to say, at least keep it short" -- here, in short form, is what's going on in my head:

My hometown has been battered by tornadoes. Small towns surrounding Anytown have been shredded. I keep hearing residents of Pierce City, Mo., saying they might just abandon the place entirely. The little town of 1,400 is stuck in a no-town's land between U.S. 60 and Interstate 44. Neither major highway goes through the city, so there's not much reason to be there unless you had lived there all your life. In recent years, residents had tried to build the place into an antique haven, capitalizing on the town's historic buildings and rustic feel. Not a building in Pierce City was left untouched by Sunday night's storm. As a result, the town might join a long list of Ozarks ghost towns, wiped off the map by tornado, flood or simple lack of interest. Worse news: More storms are expected to arrive overnight tonight.

I can tell Ozarkers where the warm, moist air that's triggering those storms is coming from: Right outside my house. Florida summer has arrived about a month early. Florida humidity has its own character, especially at night, where you can practically smell the mildew growing.

Among my activities on Sunday: I got to spend a few minutes behind the wheel of a new Corvette. I somehow received an invitation to a General Motors marketing gimmick on Sunday, which allowed people to test drive the car of their choice in a large parking lot. The car of my choice, of course, was a bright yellow 2003 'Vette Z06 with a 6-speed transmission. It was tightly controlled, of course; you had to test drive some other car first, then stand in line and wait half an hour to drive the 'Vette between a bunch of cones. Drivers were timed, with the fastest time of the day receiving a stereo system. Sunday's time to beat was 13.0 seconds. I did it in 16.5; no guts, no glory. Most drivers ahead of me in line were hitting high 15s. Clearly, I didn't want to rush anything. The car is everything I thought it would be; even in a very limited experience, the car basically did whatever you told it to do. Too bad there's no place to install a child safety seat.

Update from Burnout Central: Now that the war's over, we're back to a much more calm pace at work. This is a good thing. The downside: I find myself still oddly uninspired. A couple of projects sit ignored on my hard drive. The paper isn't generating its own interesting stories, preferring instead to sit back and wait for news. I'm still trying to generate some mental traction.

Off to seek some inspiration. Or at least to earn to earn another day's pay.