Smudging my digital fingerprints

My digital life is too complicated. I have too many usernames, addresses, accounts, IDs, passwords and profiles.

I started off intentionally trying to keep some parts of my digital life separate. Keeping home away from work. Keeping family away from hobbies. That sort of thing. But I am beginning to wish I was part of a younger generation that doesn't compartmentalize life that way. With all these accounts, it would be much simpler to just let me be me, regardless of which hat I'm wearing.

I am so tempted to just go through and start merging or deleting accounts and just let Google or Facebook be my conduit to the whole digital realm.

But that scares me too.

I thought I simplified my life when I was able to merge calendars and check multiple e-mail accounts on my cell phone. But I got digging around some of my accounts tonight and realized I don't know which one I use for some services anymore. And don't even get me started on things like phone numbers.

I couldn't tell you what my direct line phone number is at work if it wasn't printed on my business card. If my phone ever breaks and I'm left stranded on the side of the road, I wouldn't know who, or how, to call anyone for help. I guess I could call my parents. I remember their phone number. They've had the same one since 1973. That I can remember, but their address, which changed some years ago to make it easier for police and fire department find their house, well I haven't known their address since then. I think I have it in my GPS. If the battery is charged.

GM and Bing saturate the airwaves

Either I watch too much TV or GM and Microsoft are spending some serious money on their new TV campaigns.

In the case of General Motors, about every other commercial break seems to feature GM's "Chapter 1" commercial, putting a positive spin on the company's bankruptcy filing.

As a print/online journalist, I hope they funnel some money to newspapers and their websites too. But the cynic in me wonders how long it will be before some politician throws a hissy fix and complains about how much money the company is spending on advertising now that taxpayers own most of the company after the latest bailout. So I expect the ads to be pulled in short order. But media companies can sure use the money, especially as so many of those local dealers, which aren't selling many cars for either GM and Chrysler and thousands of them are about to get their signage pulled. Many of them may not be around when American car buyers return to the showrooms.

Come to think of it, with FCC control of the airwaves and government ownership of GM, maybe their new commercial actually qualify as a donated airtime PSA.

The other commercial assaulting the airwaves right now is the one for Microsoft's new search engine, Bing.com.

Will Microsoft's new search engine pose a threat to the Google colossus? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, have you Binged yourself?

I did. So far I like it. But maybe that's because on Google, there is a millionaire with the same name as me who shows up first on the search. My work blog profile comes up second. I come up No. 2 on Bing too, but the No. 3 item is also a reference to me. The millionaire dude doesn't show up until No. 5.

I have to like a search engine where I outrang someone on the Forbes 400.

But in the interest of full disclose there is an obvious flaw to Bing. The No. 1 person on the search is a reference to a neurologist named Gary L. Miller. WTF? I searched for Gary L. West.

So keep working on it Microsoft. But I have already found something to like there. But I do have a question, does Matthew Perry get a residual for the use of his "Friends" character's last name? I sawy his recent appearance on Kevin Pollak's Chat Show. Perry seemed like he might be looking for work. At least hire the guy for a frickin' commercial.

And thanks GM and Microsoft for eating up some of those commercial spots that probably would have been filled by Viagra and Cialis ads.

Goodbye P-I

Starting Tuesday, Seattle is a one-newspaper town.



When I heard the announcement today that Tuesday's edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer out be its last print edition, I though maybe I would write a long, philosophical post about it. But I just don't have it in me. But I just can't. It's all too sad. Layoffs, furloughs, pay cuts, papers folking. It's just all so bleak. Every newspaper journalist I know has been touched by this. Even those left with jobs have seen 401(k) plans shot to hell and they are left to wonder if, or when, their livelihood might evaporate too. Journalists can relate to those who have lost jobs in this economy, because we all know someone who has joined the ranks of the unemployed. And we all know the competition for future job openings, at least in the short term, will be fierce.

We are like the former newspaper employees who set type in hot lead or did paste-up work in composing rooms. Their jobs were lost forever to technology.

Now, news staffers know the feeling too.

The P-I name will live on, at least for a while, in cyberspace. But it will have far fewer people doing the journalism that covers the issues important to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

Bloggers, be careful what you wish for

I don't think I've ever read an article in Salem Monthly before this week, but there was a copy of it sitting in the lunch room at work and the cover story caught my attention.

In typical tabloid style, the teaser on the cover was different than the headline of the article. The headline of the piece, by Kevin Hanson, is "Defining media: A question of credibility." I think the cover teaser posed the question of whether bloggers were journalists (I don't have the print copy to check).

I thought the piece was interesting. I have my own take, of course.

Most bloggers are definitely not journalists. They are more like columnists, or more precisely people who write letters to the editor, but also own their own presses. Bloggers, mostly, spout opinions, like those blowhards on cable news stations that don't actually cover the news, they just bitch about, well, seemingly everything.

And there's nothing wrong with spouting opinions.

Bloggers have a point of view and express it, something journalists in the traditional media try very hard not to do in their coverage of stories. Journalists (with the exception of opinion writers and columnist) spend most of their working time reporting other people's opinions rather than sharing their own (and opinion writers actually share the opinions of either their editor board or their publisher, which may not be their personal opinion). The job of the journalist is to cover an issue as objectively as possible, to give both sides of the issue (or as many sides as are practical given time and space constraints). Journalists attempt to be fair and balanced. Bloggers have no such limitation.

But let's be honest here. Not all journalists, or all media, are created equal. Not all have the same level of skill or training or experience. This is largely a function of staff size. Papers with small staffs often do not have the luxury of having specialists or people who can spend an entire day, let alone several days (or weeks or months) working on one story. In my earlier life, as an editor in charge of local news reporting staff's at a couple of different newspapers where I worked, I used to have a saying. That saying was repeated often to let the reporters I supervised to remind them of what was expected of them.

"Two stories a day keeps the editor at bay."

I even made up an 8-by-10 sign that hung on my desk to remind reporters of the slogan even when I wasn't at my desk or speaking the words.

Given the number of reporters we had and the general amount of space we had for local news, we needed an average of two stories a day. The New York Times may boast that it's pages contain "All the news that's fit to print," but many papers print whatever news fits. Sometimes the stories have to be whittled down to fit the space, and sometimes you have to make sure you have enough stories to fit the space that will be available.

When a reporter writes two stories a day, those stories are not going to be in-depth investigative pieces. You do what you can, talk to who you can reach quickly and you write quickly.

At the bigger (and better) of the papers where I used that mantra, having most of the reporters meeting that "quota" meant that we could afford to have a reporter every week concentrating on an in-depth story, and we could have a reporter or two a day focused on the biggest story, or stories, of the day for our front page or local section cover. A story could fall through and we wouldn't have to scramble. It gave us flexibility.

Bigger news organizations have more flexibility. They can hold a story if it isn't good enough. If it doesn't pass muster. More people get a chance to read a story it before it makes it to print. Check for typos. Ask questions if things aren't clear or don't make sense. There is someone to ask/deman someone make one more phone call, get one more source, check one more fact.

That doesn't mean a one-person blog or website can't employ journalistic principals. Heck, there are still a few newspapers in small communities out there that have newsrooms that size, or are not much larger.

In the Salem Monthly/WillametteLive.com article, it uses as example of a blogger who wanted to cover a closed session by a government body as the crux of defining just who, or what, a journalist is in Oregon. It's ironic, even comical. I won't comment on whether Mark Buntner, aka Torrid Joe, of loadedorygun.net is a journalist. He's the reporter mentioned in the article, if you didn't follow the link. But I do know that government agencies like the Lake Oswego City Council cannot and should not define what a journalist is or a legitimate news media outlet is.

Journalism is not the government, nor is it is licensed or sanctioned by the government. Oregon has some great open meetings and public records laws, which allows representatives of the news media to attend most types of executive sessions, however discussions in those meetings are not supposed to be reported. A media representative is there, ostensibly, to make sure the members of the government body doesn't do something they are not supposed to do in one of those meeting, like take a vote or discuss a topic other than what they said they were going to discuss in closed session. But one thing I learned as a journalist working for more than 10 years in California, where the laws are not so favorable to the media or the public, it is possible to report the news without having access to closed-door sessions. It makes the job harder, but not impossible. I wished I could have taken Oregon's laws to California with me, but I worked with some damn fine journalists in California who kept government bodies accountable to the public quite well, in spite of laws that made it damn hard for journalist to get some information or prove laws were broken (or at least bent) by government agencies behind closed doors.

If Buntner/Torrid Joe, or any other blogger wants to behave like a "mainstream" media member -- want to be considered a journalist (or citizen journalist) -- and have the opportunity to attend executive sessions, I have one simple suggestion.

If you want to be treated like the news media, then act like the news media. Oregon Revised Statute 192.640 says:

Public notice required; special notice for executive sessions, special or emergency meetings. The governing body of a public body shall provide for and give public notice, reasonably calculated to give actual notice to interested persons including news media which have requested notice, of the time and place for holding regular meetings.

If a blogger/website operator regularly attends a government board's meetings and requests notification of all meetings -- and if the government body complies and includes the blogger(s) on their notification list -- it will be a lot harder later for the government body to say you aren't part of the news media. If you work like the media and are treated like the media, you are the media.

I don't know if Buntner/Torrid Joe did that or not. But if a blogger uses his or her forum to let the public know when government meetings will be held so the people can participate in the public debate too, in council chambers where the actual votes are cast, that's what the media do. If the blogger provides some measure of coverage of issues out of those meetings regularly, that is part of the role journalists play. It's not the sexy part, or the glamorous part, and it is rarely a fun part. Go figure, it's a job. It's work.

Like it or not, along with the First Amendment rights many bloggers so wish to enjoy, there would/will also come some news media responsibilities.

Oh, and one more thing. There may be such a thing as a professional journalist (as in someone who gets paid to report the news), but journalism is not a profession, in the classic definition. It doesn't pay well enough for one thing. But more importantly, journalists are not licensed and journalism does not require a doctoral degree. So for those bloggers that aspire to be considered journalists, you can become one. But if you just want to spout off about your passion for your pet or your personal politics or your shitty day, go for it. People may find that stuff more interesting anyway.

Hell, I'd much rather be a professional blogger -- that is unless blogging becomes a profession. I don't want to have to take a test and get a license.

They say we only hurt the ones we love

I guess I should be thankful I am not currently working in the mainstream media.

The news has been grim all year, and there is no sign of it ending anytime soon. Like so many industries, people are losing jobs and workplaces are being retooled in order to remain profitable or return to profitability.

Last week, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was put up for sale with employees being told if it is not sold the paper may convert to online-only publication, or stop publishing altogether. This week my former employer, Gannett, announced that all non-union employees at their publication will be required to take a week off without pay in the first quarter of this year. This after enduring another round of layoffs at papers last quarter

I am so sad for my friends facing the hardships of losing jobs, losing pay. I am also trying to come to grips with realizing that I may never work in a mainstream newspaper newsroom again, due to jobs being lost and newspapers turning to a workforce shorter on experience that will cost less.

I love newspapers. I love the thrill of covering the news and providing information to the masses. I am a news junky. I love to know what's going on in my community, my former communities, my state, my country and to a lesser extent the world.

But I have a confession.

I do not subscribe to a newspaper. Not anymore.

I am a little ashamed to admit that on a public blog, but it's true.

There is no one single reason I don't subscribe. Perhaps not even a big reason. But the reasons add up to the point where it was easy to cancel my subscription to the local paper last year.

First off, I get my news from multiple sources throughout the day. I have a morning news program as I get ready for work. I listen to a news/talk radio station as I am shaving and showering and on my drive to work. I read a wire service at work, monitoring developments not only for the niche publication I work for, but also for other stories that are of interest to me. I also get bombarded with news releases from various government agencies, companies and organizations at work all day long. I visit multiple websites that feature or have news content on them. We also get a variety of general news and industry publications at work.

That's a lot of news. Too much really.

But I like the instantaneous nature of media today. I like watching events live on TV or online if they are important to me, personally or professionally. I like being able to choose from multiple sources of information when news breaks, like you can online.

It's not the same as stumbling across that story in a newspaper or magazine that catches your eye with its headline, or photographs, graphics or illustrations. It's fun to read stories that I surprise myself in finding I was interested in the topic. I like leaving though the pages to see what treasures are there.

But those treasures seemed to be becoming fewer and farther between. Mostly I found myself reading my local paper or the Oregonian and seeing a headline, or a story, and saying to myself, "I already knew about that. That's old news." It was easy to turn the page and I was left feeling empty. Disappointed.

I also try to be a responsible person and recycle my newspaper. But living in an apartment, I don't have curbside recycling. So gathering up the papers to be recycled was a pain. I still have a box of papers here that I need to take to the recycling drop-off site (along with several phone books, which I have no use for whatsoever, except at work, where they serve as a base for my computer monitor to bring it to eye level). Yep, there's still a box of newspapers to recycle, and like I said, I canceled my subscription last year, in June, judging by the papers at the top of the stack.

The subscription price just wasn't worth it. I don't want or need coupons. Canceling made sense to me. One less bill in the mail. One less payment to made.

The fact of the matter is, I don't really miss it. I pick up a paper now and again out of the rack. But both the Oregonian and Statesman Journal charge 75 cents for weekday papers now. Not a huge sum to be sure, but it seems a waste when I pay it and find only "old" news and then have to recycle the paper too.

I want to be a newspaper reader. I want to have the option of working at a newspaper again. But the fact of the matter is that newspaper companies are gutting their newspaper to remain profitable. They know they are losing readers, and advertisers to online, but still must maintain complex, slow production methods necessary to producing a print product (where the money still is for now) and can't fully focus on a web product and making that profitable.

My own industry and publication are certainly not immune to the economic effects or the trends spreading through the mainstream press like cancer. Our day of reckoning may be coming too, and perhaps it will be closer than we may know.

I realize I am one of the people holding a gun to the head of my own industry. Because my reading habits have changed, because I demand more information faster like so many in my generation and most people in the generations behind mind, there are new fewer people covering news in depth and with experience to do so in as objective a manner as is humanly possible (or probable). Oh, sure there are more bloggers sharing their own experiences and expertise in ways the traditional media never did. In many cases its more interesting, more focused and even more in-depth. But it's rarely balanced. Maybe the balance comes from reading so many perspectives, not getting multiple perspectives in one place. I do miss having a place to turn where people have compiled the news and event in one place that are deemed the most important for a community to know. Maybe that's the price we pay for having quick access to the news.

I do love the news. I love newspapers. I'm not sure if my first love abandoned me or I abandoned it. I dream of reconciling, but our differences may be irreconcilable. It's killing me. And killing newspapers too.

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.

Is my work following me home or is my home following me to work?

The lines in my online life are getting blurred. I started a Facebook page for work, in order to create a page for my employer, and ended up finding a lot of friends. So I have a mixture of work colleagues and personal friends in my contacts.

I started a Twitter account, also for work, and tied it to my Facebook account, so my Twitter updates seem to amuse some of my friends because they update people on stories about farm animals and crop reports.

I like more tidiness in my life. More separation between my work life and personal life.

The irony is, once upon a time I used to tell people that what I do is who I am. I hope that's no longer the case. I hope that who I am is more complex and distinct that my merely stating my chosen vocation.

Sometimes work helps the personal life. Sometimes my personal interests inform my professional life. But I'm not sure how comfortable I am in having the lines of my online digital pursuits at home and work overlapping so much. Maybe it's just a sign of the new media environment, but it gets a little creepy.

In search of the profound through beer and blogs

I feel the need to write something extremely profound. To exhibit wisdom through well-chosen words. To engage people in dialogue that chances minds and alters beliefs.

What I really need to achieve these goals is a ghost writer. Or maybe beer.

Hopefully Google/Blogger don't implement a Blog Goggles system like they have with their Gmail Mail Goggles. Stringing words together is enough of a challenge after drinking or late at night, don't ask me to do math!

Online social life is booked solid

Holy cow, I haven't posted here in ages, and to make my online live just a little crazier, I've added LinkedIn and Facebook account. How will I ever keep up?

I held out as long as I could. I avoided LinkedIn and Facebook (and before that MySpace) well past the point where they were hip. But too many people I know are on those services. And I'm glad I've signed up, because at least it makes it possible to see (even if it's only in photos) a lot of friends I don't get to see often enough, especially some friends from my days in Southern California. Life just moves on, and I don't get to see the people who have been, and remain, important as often as I would like -- as often as I should.

So, it's been nice getting back in touch with some friends and former colleagues. But, I'm not sure I can handle the pressure to provide updates, upload photos, send do-hickeys and whatchamacallits to people.

If I had as many active social contacts in my offline world as I do in the cyber realm, I'd never be home.

Reliving the gory, glory days

This upcoming weekend, the Fourth of July weekend, is one I've been looking forward to for a long time. Now, for some unexplained reason, I find myself having mixed emotions about it.

I've been looking forward to it for months now because there is a reunion in my old hometown and I'm hoping to see a lot of old friends from school, many of whom I probably haven't seen in 20 years or more.

Our school was quite small, so we can't really have traditional high school reunions, where a particular class gathers at those various milestone years -- 5, 10, 20, 25 years, etc. If we did that for my class, there would only be 17 of us there, and spouses perhaps, and that's if everyone showed up, and if I'm rightly remembering the number of people in my class. Obviously, everyone would not show up. So, every so often a school/community reunion is scheduled where everyone from any year, or who has ever just lived in the community can show up. So, that might improve the odds that more than 17 people will be there, but it also means that people far younger, or older, than I and whom I don't even know will be there. It's not just classmates, or even immediate year schoolmates.

I already know at least one of my classmates, and the guy who was my best friend from second grade through college, won't be there. He has a family event to attend for the holiday weekend.

Maybe part of the reason I'm having mixed feelings is because I'm skipping out on a family event myself to attend this school/community reunion. But this is only the second school reunion like this I've heard about since I graduated. The only other one I knew about occurred when I was living in California and the time off just wasn't in the cards, or something. I don't really remember when it was or why I didn't go, but I didn't.

I am excited to see at least one person who I know is expected to attend. One of my old running buddies who now lives in Germany is bringing his wife and kids home to visit his family and they scheduled their visit to coincide with the reunion.

The friend in question was a few years ahead of me in school, and had a bit of a wild boy reputation. Why he ever let me hang out with him, I'll never know. But we had a good time pursuing, if never quite capturing the elusive females of the species on warm summer days and nights in a beat up Chevy Vega, or whatever vehicle I could manage to borrow from my folks.

In fact I even served as best man at his first wedding, a casual backyard affair. I had no clue what a best man was supposed to do, and in hindsight I was a lousy one, but I stood up with my friend and witnesses the momentous occasion, all the while fawning over his then-new bride's younger sister.

My ol' buddy and I got reacquainted not so long ago over the Internet. In fact he was the one who told me about the reunion. Obviously he's got better connections around the old homestead than I do. Given the time difference, we often catch up with each other just as he is starting his work day and I'm thinking I should head off to bed.

Getting a chance to get caught up should be worth the trip. And who knows, maybe there will be some still single, or single again, women there too. And I can get absolutely nowhere again with the girls-turned-women of my old hometown.

Sometimes I get quite nostalgic for home, that home of my youth, and the people I spent it with. But I don't miss the boy I was, perpetually shy and terrified of members of the opposite sex. The boy who was unsure of himself and his place in the world. That boy is, for the most part, gone. But his ghosts haunts the present day from time to time, like when I'm confronted with a new situation, or meeting new people in a purely social context. It's those times I wish I had my old running buddy or my old best friend to lead the way with their outgoing, seemingly unflappable natures. Their confidence, bordering on arrogance, was something I've never perfected, except sometimes in the working world. Sometimes, when I know I need to take a leap, not like the one at the swimming hole along the Umatilla River of my teens, I need someone to leap first to show me the water is deep enough. And sometimes I need someone to give me a little nudge to leave the relative security of solid ground to step out into thin air and feel the rush.

The land of the free giveaway and the home of the stupid

It's one of those stories that makes you either fear for survival of the species, because people are too stupid to live, or make you fear for your own survival because people will take any opportunity to rip you off.

Someone posted a couple of ads on Craigslist in Southern Oregon saying a homeowner had to leave quickly and his belongings were free for the taking. And given the power of Craigslist, word got out and people showed up and started carting stuff off. (See the story from Associated Press here.) Even when the owner got tipped off to the ripoff and returned home to confront some of the people on his property, they hauled his stuff off anyway.

According to a report in the Medford Mail Tribune, he is starting to get some of his stuff back.

Check out some of the comments being posted to the news article too. I get a particular kick out of the ones justifying people who showed up to take stuff because they believed the ad.

Maybe our schools, churches and families have stopped teaching the lesson about being wary about offers that appear to be too good to be true because they probably are.

Oh, sure maybe someone somewhere is giving stuff away, but don't you think if someone intended to do that they would be there, or someone would be to hand out the booty? Someone that could prove they had title to the property or authority to give it away?

I guess we can only hope the people who would outright steal so blatantly or be so willing to believe such nonsense are also the same bright folks who steal copper wires from live electrical transformers. Perhaps that problem will take care of itself over time.

And if not, I'm going to start crafting my Craigslist ad for Willamette Valley oceanfront property for a bargain price. Why drive all the way to Astoria or Newport or Lincoln City when you can see the ocean from your own private deck, close to I-5.

We accept PayPal, direct electronic transfers or cash.

Some touch-and-goes are touchier than others

I saw this video earlier today (first posted on a site called LiveLeak.com) and it made me glad I wasn't on this plane. But it did remind me of a hairy takeoff several years ago from Ontario International Airport.

That particular adventure was on a Southwest Airlines flight. I was traveling with three coworkers up to Sacramento to help our sister paper in Marysville cover a flood. We were like the relief workers, after they had all been working days around the clock.

One of the people in our little quartet hated to fly. As the son of a pilot, I was trying to convince him that flying was no big deal. The weather, however, made our takeoff a very big, nearly very bad, deal.

I had never felt a plane turn sideways as soon at the wheels lost contact with the ground, but I did that evening. I'm glad I don't have video of that little adventure to see just how much like this German landing it really was.

The only other time I got nervous on a flight a couple of years ago this month coming into Portland International Airport.

I wrote something about that landing a couple of years ago in another venue, but here's how I described that little adventure.

Portland... was in the midst of a squall. The wind was obviously kicking up pretty good, because that MD-80 was tossed around.... We were bucking and bouncing and slipping and banging all the way through the final approach. The passengers seemed to handle it pretty well, but you know the turbulence is bad when you are sitting in the back of the plane and you can see the front of the cabin bouncing and gyrating around.

After we reached the terminal, when everyone was in the rush to hurry up and wait in the aisle, I asked one of the flight attendants one of those stupid "Here's your
sign" sort of questions.

Me: So, is it windy here?

Blonde flight attendant: Yea, there's quite a storm out there. It's been like that all day.

Me: I thought that landing seemed a little rougher than normal.

Flight attendant: Yea, it thought I was going to get sick there for a minute.

It does not bode well when your flight attendant admits queasiness on landing.

On both occasions, I had far less harrowing travels than the folks who were coming into Hamburg on Saturday. Here's one account of what happened. Good thing the pilot on the Airbus didn't lose his cool, or his lunch.

Making a splash in the Oregon desert

Is this a sign of another Eastern Oregon Internet celebrity?

Hey, towns like Hermiston, Ore., don't warrant much of a mention from the likes of the Oregonian, unless it relates to the chemical weapons being incinerated near there. But who cares about the Oregonian, this puppy's (or Bulldog) has apparently been feature on ESPN baby! Come to think of it, Dick Vitale would fit right in in Hermiston.

I actually learned about the video from watching KATU Channel 2, which had an angle on the basketball video that differs from the YouTube video that's garnered tens of thousands of views. I'm not sure where that video came from, but the one on YouTube is the "original" one getting popular via the Web.

How come my Hermiston-related video hasn't gone viral yet? I guess I shouldn't have edited out the slam dunk of a watermelon.

Voters strip mayor of gavel for posing in panties

The mayor of the tiny town of Arlington, Ore., got dooced this week by her constituents. See the full story from the East Oregonian.

Some people just have no sense of humor. Come on, just how many mayors would anyone want to see in their underwear on a fire truck?

There are mayors embroiled in even bigger scandals than this one. Like the mayor of Detroit, Mich. And remember Marion Barry?

Well, I guess there are two lessons to learn from now-ousted Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist's scandal.

One lesson related to the Detroit mayoral scandal too and that is that political (sexual or skin) scandal has now ventured into cyberspace and the wireless world.

The other thing of note in this age of voter apathy is that sometimes your vote really does count, as Kontur-Gronquist was recalled by the slimmest of margins, 142-139. And she got her constituents involved, as nearly every single registered voter in the town cast a ballot. How many mayors can boast that sort of turnout or interest?

My friend, the artist

I added a new blog to my list of links. It's called Black and Khaki. The blog belongs to a friend, Mark Crummett, from the ol' college days.

Mark and I worked together at the college newspaper at Oregon State, the Daily Barometer. That was back in the days when my journalistic pursuits involved cameras and lenses. I was fortunate to be a staff photographer when Mark was the photo editor there. But it got a little weird when I succeeded Mark as photo editor and he worked for me for a while.

In a very real way, I have to give Mark credit for my interest in electronic media. Mark was a veteran Internet user, probably even before there was such a thing as the Internet, or we knew it by that name. Mark had a computer at home and a modem that he could do all sorts of cool things with, like using e-mail, communicating with people on a service called CompuServe and using things like listserves. Back then (in the Dark Age days of the late 1980s), I didn't even have my own computer.

So perhaps it is appropriate that we are linked again via electronic means. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Mark in many years, but he has managed to stay in touch. I always look forward to seeing in my mailbox the creative Christmas cards he and Lisa come up. And now, his creativity will be on display in an art show by the Raleigh (N.C.) Fine Arts Society.

Congratulations Mark! I wish you great success with the exhibit!