2008, we hardly knew ya

I have been so busy dealing with weather adventures, holiday issues, family stuff and work that I really haven't realized that the New Year was almost here.

I used to say the New Year's was my favorite holiday. It's a date with so much optimism. It was a nice counterbalance to the pessimist in me. For many years, Christmas tended to be a disappointment. It think i expected too much of myself and those around me.

That changed somewhere along the way. I think that happened when I quit concentrating on myself and the things I wanted and started thinking about concentrated on my daughter and making the holiday good for her in some way.

Maybe that's what they mean about the spirit of the season being about giving rather than receiving.

So, maybe now that Christmas is better, great even, I have less need for a hope for a better year to come along because the one ending was ending on something of a sour note.

In the long run, maybe that puts less pressure on the new year, when the old one ends well. And all, in all, 2008 turned out to be OK, thanks to family and friends. That is if you don't take the economy and my bank account into consideration. But 2009 promises to be a big one too. It's the year my daughter graduates from high school.

There was too much good stuff to let it all stay in Vegas

I was out of town last week, off playing hooky last week. I was in Las Vegas for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.

Before I get too far removed from the experience, I wanted to share a few of those experiences here.

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I didn't take a computer along, but I did post some updates via cell phone of my activities at the National Finals on my personal Twitter page. I was disappointed to find out that those updates stopped posting to my Facebook page at midweek.

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The rodeo action was, as always, the highlight of the week for me. This was the 50th anniversary performance. My parents have had tickets through a tour group for probably about 20 years now. The tickets are for the last 5 performances each year. I think the first time I went with them to the rodeo was in 1991 (I'd have to find where I've got previous years' programs stashed to confirm the date). I have been lucky to either go with them or meet them in Las Vegas nearly every year since 1994. I always try to see something or do something new every time I'm in Vegas, because there is so much to see and do there, and so many places I still haven't been. This year's trip was fill of firsts. We stayed at a new hotel this year, the South Point Hotel Casino.
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I watched a screening Tuesday, Dec. 9, of a new documentary at the South Point's movie theater about the life of two of rodeo's stars of the 1980s -- bull rider Lane Frost and the bull Red Rock. The documentary, "The Challenge of Champions: The Story of Lane Frost and Red Rock", was recently released on DVD and it was shown in a special big-screen screening. It featured interviews with fellow cowboys and Frost's traveling partners Tuff Hedeman and Cody Lambert. Also featured prominently were Frost's parents, Clyde and Elsie Frost, and stock contractor John Growney of Growney Brothers Rodeo Company, who owned Red Rock.

The highlight of the screening was that John Growney and Clyde and Elsie Frosts answered questions and told stories about Frost and Red Rock after the screening. Well, to be honest, Elsie Frost and Growney did most of the talking as Clyde was the quite type. I don't think he said a word to the audience over the microphone. But as I was filing past the Frosts after the Q&A session, both Elsie and Clyde took time to shake hands and talk to those who greeted them and express their appreciation for people still being interested in their late son's story. It was an honor to shake Clyde and Elsie's hands and thank them for sharing their story with those of us in the audience and with the documentary film maker, David Wittkower.

The movie also features the song Red Rock by the Smokin' Armadillos, which I definitely need to add to my iPod.

Red Rock - Smokin Armadillos

Later in the week a ran into Growney in the elevator as I was going down to the casino from my room. I told him I appreciated the presentation he and the Frosts made after the movie screening. He was very polite and friendly, showing off his trademark smile.

You've got to love rodeo people, they are extremely friendly and approachable.

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Speaking of approachable rodeo folks, I spotted the aforementioned Tuff Hedemen near one of the bar's in the South Point casino on Saturday night, Dec. 13. A couple of female fans were getting their picture taken with the retired bull riding champ.

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Butch Knowles (right) behind the bucking chutes at the Pendleton Round-Up in 2005.

The group of farmers, ranchers and others I went to the rodeo with from Eastern Oregon were joined by another name, and face, familiar to rodeo fans on our return fright home from Las Vegas to Portland Sunday, Dec. 14. ESPN rodeo commentator Butch Knowles, a former NFR average winner in the saddle bronc riding, flew home with us and spent time talking with many of the folks in our tour group. Of course, some in our group knew Knowles before he his NFR days or his TV days. And some know him now as a rancher co-founder of Hermiston's Farm-City Pro Rodeo. One of the popular topics of conversation with Knowles appeared to he his nephew, Trevor Knowles, who finished fourth in the world standings in steer wresting, won or tied for first in the last four of 10 go-rounds at the NFR.

The reason I know at least part of what Knowles talked about to folks was because my dad, brother Dean and I say behind him (and talked with him a bit ourselves) on the flight to Portland. That is, we talked when we weren't sleeping. I don't know how much rest Knowles got in his 10-day broadcasting trip to Vegas, but I know I ended up pulling an all-nighter before our flight.

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As if five nights of rodeo action weren't enough, I also watched some of the action at the World Series of Team Roping, which was held at the South Point's Equestrian and Events Center. There were literally hundreds of roping teams at the South Point for the event.

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One of the other highlights of the week for me was getting to see some up-and-coming country musicians on the Academy of Country Music stage at the Cox Pavillion prior to the rodeo. In the lineup were The Carter Twins, Whitney Duncan, Randy Houser, Zac Brown Band and Jack Ingram.

Ingram was definitely the best known, and most popular with the female fans, but I count myself as a new fan of the Zac Brown Band, who definitely put on the best 45-minute show. Houser also had a strong performance. To be honest, I didn't stick around for much of the Carter Twins' performance. And I didn't catch all of Duncan's show, but she seems like she's still trying to find her voice and her sound.

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I'm sure there's more, but I need to finish this post and call it a night.

Media professionals lose while their companies win in a bad economy

The more you study the more you know,
The more you know the more you forget.
The more you forget, the less you know,
so why study?

The more I learn about business and Wall Street and investing, the less I seem to understand. I was listening to a radio talk show this evening on which an economist from the University of Oregon said we are not only in a recession, we are in an economic depression.

You see businesses all over laying people off and some business closing. More people are out of work. This week, more than 1,700 people are losing their jobs from one newspaper company -- Gannett. The layoffs are not done there and the final tally is not yet known. But it will get higher.

To a casual observer, it might make sense because fewer people are out there spending money on stuff, including advertising and newspaper subscriptions. And everyone has probably seen headlines on newspapers or websites of how much advertising has been pulled out of newspapers and other traditional media and was being directed to websites, even before the economic collapse became daily front page news. So it would be easy to assume that publicly owned newspaper companies, like Gannett, are losing money. Right?

Well, they aren't. These companies are still making money, and lots of it. They just aren't making as high of profit margins as they used to make. In order to maintain the margins that Wall Street seems to expect in an economy where real estate advertising and classified advertising have dwindled, costs are being slashed. The biggest costs in the newspaper business are newsprint and people. So, you see the physical sizes of pages getting smaller, the number of pages in papers getting fewer and the number of people on the payroll being slashed in order to maintain profits.

In the interest of full disclosure, I used to work for a Gannett paper in California for 5 years. I left to move back to Oregon to accept a job that allows me to be closer to family. Like many former and current Gannett employees and media observers, I've been following the carnage over on the Gannett Blog.

When I left Gannett, the company's stock was valued at about $74 per share and the company paid a dividend of 27 cents per share. The last five dividends issued by the company were 40 cents per share, but the stock price has fallen through the floor, down to $6.32 a share on Nov. 21.

But what's happened this week? The news has been bleak for newspaper professionals, particularly at Gannett, which is leaving some empty positions unfilled permanently, buying out some workers and laying off others, meaning readers will get less of something, or a lot of things. It doesn't seem to bode well for the short-, or long-term quality of information media. But Gannett's stock price, for the time being at least, is rising for now. Up more than $2.50 a share since Nov. 21 to $8.87.

That's not enough to do much for my 401(k) account, or for the escalating numbers of people out of work. I can't imagine it will do much for readers either.

Many are blaming the Internet for causing the demise of the traditional media. It may be the insatiable demand of Wall Street that a company like Gannett maintains double-digit profit margins (well in excess of 20 percent for lots of newspaper properties) even when the wider corporate world seems to get by with 7 percent margins.

You need to read behind the business headlines. Less profit is not losing money.

I feel bad for the people who are losing job. I even feel bad for the people who are in the position of having to dismiss employees. But the more I understand about all this stuff, the less I seem to know. Because I still don't understand why Gannett's stock has fallen so low, or why a company like Google's could get so high ($279.43 per share even after it's dropped).

But after seeing what happened with mortgages and the credit market and banks, I don't feel so bad. Even the people who get paid to understand financial stuff don't seem to know what the hell they are doing.

All I do know is that a lot of friends and former colleagues are wondering if they will have jobs for long, or if they will have any money left in their retirement funds when all the dust settles. They are wondering what they will do if they can't do what they've known and put their passion into their entire adult lives. It would all be comic if it weren't so tragic.

Nothing says the holidays like sharing a communicable disease

In addition to enjoying great food and wonderful time with family over the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend, I came home with a cold.

I knew I would probably get one. Spending parts of four days with a sick family member made it unlikely I would escape in perfect health. And as long as the bug is out of my system by next Monday, it's all good.

I have a trip to take next week. Vegas baby!

But for now, I'm curled up under an afghan and wishing my sinuses would clear.