food net

i like burgers and i like pizza and i like playing on the internet.

i really like it when some combination of the two can occur.

i just took a survey with wendy's hamburgers using the receipt from my semi-ritual end-of-the-week cheeseburger on the way home from work.

taking it entitled me to a free single cheeseburger* (* bacon & cheese extra charge.) i have 14 days to redeem the coupon. i'll find some way, i'm sure.

the burger, btw, was worth eating a light dinner for at the office. it was a double combo with milk, which is what i always seem to drink from wendy's when i eat at home. weird. the fries were awful, as usual, but it was still everything i could have wanted in an illicit burger meal.

lately, i've become a big fan of domino's pizza's online ordering site.

using it allows me to order specials and create pizzas with no fuss. by using my credit card, they're already paid for when they get to the house. plus i have time to figure a tip.

but the best part is the pizza tracker that shows in real-time who has taken my order, who is making my pizza, who is checking my order and who is delivering my pizza -- all in a step-by-step bar graph. it's crazy.

of course, all of this would be moot if the pizza tasted like it used to, which was like something you'd eat if you were absolutely desperate for a pizza-like food to be delivered to your residence.

with the change of its recipe, from garlicky, buttery crust to yummy sauce and cheese, i have more incentive to order conveniently from the shop just down the hill than from, say, the papa john's across the bridge or driving to the delicious, but drug-addicted sloth-like drive-thru of the mama rosa's on the west side.

it's not better than those guys, but domino's is at least in the running when considering fast-food pizzas.

sick again

the first time i told my publisher that i thought i'd picked up my son's cold, she told me that when her children were little, she was getting sick every ten days.

i laughed, but she didn't seem to think it was an exaggeration.

well, here i am, up after sleeping away most of today after a night with a low-grade fever. my chest is a little congested and until i took a long, hot shower this afternoon, i couldn't breathe through my nose.

it's been maybe a month since my last bout of illness. and kris seems to be picking up where i left off.

i blame the boy.

my friend steven liked to refer to small children as "little germ factories." (this before he ever got married and had kids.)

i laughed and knew it was true, but wow, in real time, it's like a 12-round boxing match.

you battle and fight and scrap. you get to rest. then you have to do it all over again.

i also blame parents who knowingly take their sick kids to daycare.

kris says she came to pick up the boy and watched him standing outside some other child's crib as they took turns pulling a pacifier out of their own mouth and putting it into the others'.

she watched him do this six times.

now he has pink eye and an ear infection. (his third one in about six months. one more makes him a candidate for ear tubes. don't like the sound of that.)

this will pass. all the scurrying and getting run ragged i'm chalking up to the joy of parenthood. best roller coaster i've ever been on.

the angry guy

live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit
through the bond of peace

eph 4:1-3

i haven't practiced humility nor gentleness nor patience nor forbearance at work in probably years.

when there's an alert notice on when my head explodes at the office, then i know i have lost what poise i ever possessed in my job.

when i was in grade school, the only male teacher we ever had blew his cool when our seventh grade class was unruly.

"would you shut the hell up?!" he cried.

well, we did, out of shock and amazement at his profanity. (it was a catholic school, after all.)

problem was, in subsequent use, it lost its impact. there was no menace or surprise in its utterance.

i'm still fairly cheerful at work. but my fuse is a mere fraction of what it was.

what i thought were rare, effective displays of temper are now weekly occurrences, what with the grousing and frustration with increased demands on a smaller staff.

i can't be like that anymore.

anyone who knew me in my previous incarnation has moved on; the side the new hires see now is perky, but short-tempered middle manager.

that's not me; this has to stop.

fed up

i’ve been an apologist for the present coaching staff since west virginia university head football coach bill stewart first assembled it.

after losing to a syracuse team we've owned for the past eight years, the excuses end today.

offensive coordinator jeff mullen seems to draw up fantastical plays with all kinds of bells and whistles -- which is wonderful when you're playing against conventional, college-boy defensive strategies.

problem is, he doesn't seem to have an answer for straight-up, pro-style smashmouth defense. and if he does, he doesn't seem to know when to call it.

after witnessing the deer-in-the-headlights playcalling in the face of a defense that was wasn’t having any of our tinker toy gadgetry, i think it’s time to get someone in the coordinator’s position who knows how to manage a ballgame in real time.

mullen needs to be shown the door.

after 23 years, poof, she's gone

been meaning to write this ever since my now former supervisor announced she was leaving for a new job last month. (wow. i was still a callow college student when she started working.)

while i'm pretty much over the shock, sadness and anxiety -- mostly since she's now gone -- it seems my reaction and that of the newsroom veterans she left behind was something not unlike that to the death of a loved one.

when kris called to tell me becky was leaving for a gig with the state, it felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. i was so depressed by the news i had to lie down. i slept the daytime sleep of one trying to escape reality.

to say she was a vital cog in the machine is an understatement.

not only was she a good manager responsible for many behind-the-scenes administrative tasks, after more than 20 years at the paper, she was a vital newsgathering source.

she was savvy to the movers and shakers in town, knew the interconnectedness of personalities and issues and, most importantly, knew what was important to her editors. her news judgment was invaluable.

i'm fairly certain everyone in the place would have figured her to be the last person to quit.

she was part of the institutional memory of the place. and for me, personally, my last link to my beginnings at the paper.

she was always kind to me and seemed genuinely interested in my doings. we both enjoyed musical theater and 1970s television.

even though she was a year younger than me, she still seemed like a protective big sister/cheerleader, which i always appreciated.

at the same time, we served as each other's sounding boards at various points in our lives and careers. she even tried to serve as matchmaker, but i was too dense to know what she was doing.

that said, i could always count on her for relationship advice all the way up to my eventual marriage. she really became quite a good friend.

so i was fairly mournful when i heard the news that she would no longer be a part of my day-to-day life.

truth be told, it was akin to having someone break up with me.

really. i was afraid the weeks between her announcement and her actual departure would be akin to a date i had in college, wherein the girl i was seeing broke up with me before we attended an awards banquet for our service fraternity.

i had to sit there with her knowing the whole time that our romantic relationship was over and that we would not be with each other "that way" again. it was a long, lingering death.

fortunately, newspapers being what they are, we had to keep moving to meet a daily deadline. there was no time for grief while there were pages that needed to be filled and sent to press.

and there were only a few minutes to mull over our impending loss and the sense of how screwed we were once we would have to assume the many unknown duties she was responsible for.

i drew some solace from something she said every time someone we deemed irreplaceable left: we always manage to go on.

and so we have these past two days.

it feels like she's gone on vacation and we're just filling in for her.

by the time we feel ownership of the position, we'll be reconciled with the fact that she's not coming back.

while i'll be the goofy uncle to her mother hen's care of the copydesk, we'll still miss her.

night shift

it's nearly 2 a.m. and i'm writing because i hardly get the chance to anymore.

the boy is dosed on tylenol and teething tablets as some powerfully painful choppers must be coming in.

the wife is dreaming nyquil dreams after a few days of some cold that caught up with her.

after blowing about two hours on facebook, i've emptied the dishwasher and filled it again with the past day's cookery and baby feedery.

(we're running it nearly every other day, what with the boy eating solid food with utensils and tiny containers for the food his mama makes. he still drinks lots of milk, though. and his appetite seems to be growing.)

he's got two lower baby teeth now. and he seems to have made a breakthrough on his first word.

not "mama."

not "papa."

"kitty."

xxx

that's 10/10/10 in roman. (and also the explanation for "30" signifying the end of stories in newspapers.)

this is the end of one of those one-of-a-kind days you get on the calendar with neat significances.

so i was pleasantly surprised to see on my nighttime jog not one, but two wedding receptions.

the first, at the summit conference center, on quarrier street downtown seemed to be breaking up.

a traditional crowd, by the looks of it. dark suits, black dresses, guests or bridesmaids in a pastel yellow.

i yelled at the party in the parking lot as i ran: "did someone get married?"

the girls looked surprised and suspicious.

a disembodied male voice came over a van. "yeah!"

"congratulations!" i replied.

"thanks!"

the other was a group in front of the sound factory, a local rock club. the joyous crowd delightfully tattooed, elegantly rocking and splendiferous in black, leather and, on at least one fellow, chains.

i caught these guys on my cool down along kanawha boulevard.

there were some hoots at the man in shorts.

"hi, girls," i said as i made my way around them on the sidewalk.

one of the crowd came out to invite me in. i high-fived her and told her to knock back a couple for me.

she seemed cool with that and we parted ways. seems their reception was just beginning.

hope everyone has a good time and a great life.