Captain's Blog, Stardate - every day
A couple weeks ago I stared at The Evening Sun website one afternoon, frustrated that it had been over a week since any of my reporters had blogged. “What’s so hard about putting a few cohesive paragraphs of original thought together once in a while?” I asked myself.
“Self,” I said, “you haven’t blogged in almost a year.”
And I was right; I hadn’t. The whole blogging thing is only a few years old on evesun.com, but even I found myself “saving” the good stuff for my weekly column, which I then proceeded not to write, as well.
So at that very moment of epiphany, I decided to employ the rarely used “Lead by example” method of management (I’ve always been a fan of “Do as I say, not as I do,” to great effect) and commit myself to blogging every day. And with the exception of my Fridays off (which are soon, sadly, to end), that’s exactly what I’ve done.
For those of you who don’t frequent Facebook or The Evening Sun website, you’re missing out on my daily doses of infinite wisdom and perhaps more importantly, a tad of insight into what goes on in the ES newsroom (and my head) on a daily basis. So I thought I’d use some print space today to give you a sampling of what you may have missed. If you like, check me out daily at evesun.com ... just click on my little blog face at the bottom of the page.
9/20/10
• Puzzlement of the Day: A new business that didn’t want a reporter to interview them for a story because they wanted to keep things “low key.” There’s a brilliant strategy: Don’t let people know you’re in business! “For Rent” sign going up in six months.
9/21/10
• Had our first (and only) official meeting of the Christmas Parade Committee today at Denny’s. Linda Green’s got that thing running like a well-oiled machine after 16 years – she barely needs our help. Circle your calendars for Nov. 27 (that’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving). It’s bound to be another “Christmas to Remember,” even if the Dairy Princess float doesn’t burst into flames again this year.
9/22/10
• E-mail of the Day: From a New York State Trooper, the subject line of which was “Test.” The body? “DO NOT RESPOND.” Yes Ma’am!
9/23/10
• Did you know that it takes me approximately 25 minutes every other Thursday to download the next two weeks’ batch of comics from four different websites? See all the fascinating little tidbits you’ll learn from reading this blog every day?
9/28/10
• On Tuesday afternoons, Tyler Murphy and I spend most of our time putting together the New Berlin Gazette, our weekly newspaper that serves the Unadilla and Butternut Valleys (although I’d be hard-pressed to find the Butternut Valley without a GPS). If you haven’t seen it, it’s a gem of a community newspaper with the old hometown feel. It’s jam-packed with pictures of kids, good news, a hefty dose of local history (shoutout to Facebook friend Peggy Finnegan!) and the “old lady” columns – who visited who for dinner, who had surgery, who’s getting married, all that gossipy stuff from the little towns. A weekly newspaper is a dying breed, but we’re happy to keep that tradition alive.
9/30/10
• William Albrecht, the new District Executive of the Baden-Powell Council of the Boy Scouts of America, sent me a press release today about the scouts’ upcoming popcorn sale, coinciding with their 100th anniversary. I would have published the press release anyway, of course, but Mr. Albrecht sealed the deal by including samples of the popcorn – including some yummy caramel corn, which I promptly devoured. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am not ashamed to admit here that the press can be bought in Norwich – with food.
10/5/10
• I’m remiss in not mentioning that last week, I turned off the AP satellite rack in the newsroom for the last time. We’re still getting Associated Press stories and photos, of course, but like everything else these days, it’s all done over the Internet now. Pretty soon, they’ll be coming to tear down that Olympic-sized satellite dish off our roof. At least I won’t have to get up there and shovel the darn thing off this winter. Still, though, I was a bit melancholy about shutting down the rack of old receivers last week. I half expected the outdated technology to fight back, ala HAL 9000. “This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it, Dave.”
10/6/10
• So I guess Brian Golden believes in aliens (according to his column today), but thinks they’re too scared to come here. Personally, I think it’s arrogant of us to assume that they’d be interested in us at all. Unless, of course, they wanted to harvest us for food. Because, let’s face it, we’re pretty tasty.
10/11/10
• Frank Speziale covered Coventry’s annual Civil War Commemoration event on Sunday, and we had photos on today’s front page. It’s a neat little event they do every year, honoring someone from the town’s storied past. Can’t say I’ve ever understood the whole Civil War re-enactor thing, but hey, I have a Captain Kirk costume. Who am I to judge?
So there’s just a tiny sample of my daily pithy observations. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them. Stay tuned!
(Jeff Genung fully acknowledges that this was a cheap way to get out of writing a wholly-original column this week, much like those cheesy “very special” sitcom episodes that wrap some lame setup around a bunch of rerun clips, but hey.)
“Self,” I said, “you haven’t blogged in almost a year.”
And I was right; I hadn’t. The whole blogging thing is only a few years old on evesun.com, but even I found myself “saving” the good stuff for my weekly column, which I then proceeded not to write, as well.
So at that very moment of epiphany, I decided to employ the rarely used “Lead by example” method of management (I’ve always been a fan of “Do as I say, not as I do,” to great effect) and commit myself to blogging every day. And with the exception of my Fridays off (which are soon, sadly, to end), that’s exactly what I’ve done.
For those of you who don’t frequent Facebook or The Evening Sun website, you’re missing out on my daily doses of infinite wisdom and perhaps more importantly, a tad of insight into what goes on in the ES newsroom (and my head) on a daily basis. So I thought I’d use some print space today to give you a sampling of what you may have missed. If you like, check me out daily at evesun.com ... just click on my little blog face at the bottom of the page.
9/20/10
• Puzzlement of the Day: A new business that didn’t want a reporter to interview them for a story because they wanted to keep things “low key.” There’s a brilliant strategy: Don’t let people know you’re in business! “For Rent” sign going up in six months.
9/21/10
• Had our first (and only) official meeting of the Christmas Parade Committee today at Denny’s. Linda Green’s got that thing running like a well-oiled machine after 16 years – she barely needs our help. Circle your calendars for Nov. 27 (that’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving). It’s bound to be another “Christmas to Remember,” even if the Dairy Princess float doesn’t burst into flames again this year.
9/22/10
• E-mail of the Day: From a New York State Trooper, the subject line of which was “Test.” The body? “DO NOT RESPOND.” Yes Ma’am!
9/23/10
• Did you know that it takes me approximately 25 minutes every other Thursday to download the next two weeks’ batch of comics from four different websites? See all the fascinating little tidbits you’ll learn from reading this blog every day?
9/28/10
• On Tuesday afternoons, Tyler Murphy and I spend most of our time putting together the New Berlin Gazette, our weekly newspaper that serves the Unadilla and Butternut Valleys (although I’d be hard-pressed to find the Butternut Valley without a GPS). If you haven’t seen it, it’s a gem of a community newspaper with the old hometown feel. It’s jam-packed with pictures of kids, good news, a hefty dose of local history (shoutout to Facebook friend Peggy Finnegan!) and the “old lady” columns – who visited who for dinner, who had surgery, who’s getting married, all that gossipy stuff from the little towns. A weekly newspaper is a dying breed, but we’re happy to keep that tradition alive.
9/30/10
• William Albrecht, the new District Executive of the Baden-Powell Council of the Boy Scouts of America, sent me a press release today about the scouts’ upcoming popcorn sale, coinciding with their 100th anniversary. I would have published the press release anyway, of course, but Mr. Albrecht sealed the deal by including samples of the popcorn – including some yummy caramel corn, which I promptly devoured. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am not ashamed to admit here that the press can be bought in Norwich – with food.
10/5/10
• I’m remiss in not mentioning that last week, I turned off the AP satellite rack in the newsroom for the last time. We’re still getting Associated Press stories and photos, of course, but like everything else these days, it’s all done over the Internet now. Pretty soon, they’ll be coming to tear down that Olympic-sized satellite dish off our roof. At least I won’t have to get up there and shovel the darn thing off this winter. Still, though, I was a bit melancholy about shutting down the rack of old receivers last week. I half expected the outdated technology to fight back, ala HAL 9000. “This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it, Dave.”
10/6/10
• So I guess Brian Golden believes in aliens (according to his column today), but thinks they’re too scared to come here. Personally, I think it’s arrogant of us to assume that they’d be interested in us at all. Unless, of course, they wanted to harvest us for food. Because, let’s face it, we’re pretty tasty.
10/11/10
• Frank Speziale covered Coventry’s annual Civil War Commemoration event on Sunday, and we had photos on today’s front page. It’s a neat little event they do every year, honoring someone from the town’s storied past. Can’t say I’ve ever understood the whole Civil War re-enactor thing, but hey, I have a Captain Kirk costume. Who am I to judge?
So there’s just a tiny sample of my daily pithy observations. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them. Stay tuned!
(Jeff Genung fully acknowledges that this was a cheap way to get out of writing a wholly-original column this week, much like those cheesy “very special” sitcom episodes that wrap some lame setup around a bunch of rerun clips, but hey.)
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