Catching up . . .

Fresh back from the road.

evilnicola and I put 1,000 miles on Nataliia's new Saturn VUE and made our way through about a half-dozen colleges in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We also made stops at Gettysburg and the Philadephia Zoo. I love road trips.

She liked the College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State). I liked it because it's very self-contained.

Need to do some schoolwork today.

Got to see my sister, who has a gorgeous new house in Douglassville. Watched hockey with my brother-in-law and nephews. Also watched/listened to the Red Sox. Yee-ha.

Oddly enough, we also got to stop and see one of Niki's friends, whose house burned to the ground Saturday. Very odd that we happened to be in the area, but it was good to see the folks involved.

Niki has started crocheting slippers for me. Very cool.

We listened to a lot of music on the trip, especially Dropkick Murphy's, the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack, something called Evanescence, Garth Brooks and other tidbits. I got to listen to the New York sports radio stations, which was good. Read some good newspapers, too.

Liam

Doonsebury

Crossposted from newsroom

I cannot remember the last time I raced to the comic section to follow a story line.

Gary Trudeau has always had a strong impact with me, but this week's strips, about B.D. being injured in Iraq, are extremely powerful. I find myself wondering what's going to happen next.

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/

Personally, I think he should be on the Editorial Page, but I love his stuff.

Oddly enough, another of my favorite strips is also doing something on an injured soldier back from Iraq.

Check out Get Fuzzy at http://www.getfuzzy.com/

If you don't get the cruller joke from Wednesday's strip, just ask.

Liam

Newspaper "scandals"

I am curious about something.

As some of you know, I was a newspaper reporter for 11 years before becoming a teacher, I have worked part-time at papers on and off since then, and I am a total Web newspaper geek.

I wonder what some of you think about the reporting scandals at the New York Times and USA Today. When you have professional interests, sometime you overreact.

I recently read Jayson Blair's book, and most of the time, I had to explain to people who he was.