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  • Can We Go to the Shopping Center?

    Four kids and a babysitter walk into a shopping center.

    That’s not the start of a joke, but rather a scene that tells you it’s 2009 and not 1994.

    I saw the group the other day while in a drive-thru line at Taco Bell. The shopping center is a few miles south of my parents’ house–which has another shopping center about a mile to the north.

    The kids looked like they were all in elementary school, maybe one of them in middle school. The chaperon was clearly leading the way on their midday, summer-vacation sojourn.

    I couldn’t help but to think back to my elementary school days. It was then that a shopping center sprang up out of a former strawberry farm, bringing exciting things like a McDonald’s so close to our house. It wasn’t long before me and my three siblings were planning Saturday trips for pawing through the Salvation Army store or scoring a meal at the long-defunct–but tasty–Tippy’s Tacos.

    All we needed was permission to go. Today, there are probably few parents who would let their four kids walk or ride their bikes to a place so full of strangers; a trip that would have them gone for several hours. We didn’t even have cell phones to keep track of us.

    And yet, our parents let us go. During summer vacation, we could go all the time. I’ll never forget learning the lesson of thinking about your mode of transportation before making a purchase I picked up when I acquired a giant red plastic bat from the Salvation Army. It’s the kind that usually comes with a big plastic ball and is designed for 5-year-olds just learning how to swing. But at only 25 cents, how I could I pass it up? So I made the entire bike ride back home balancing the big red bat over my handlebars, glad that I hadn’t followed my instinct to buy two of them.

    There was the time I went on my rollerblades, only to have a pretty awful spill in the gravel just in front of our neighborhood. Not even halfway to the shopping center, I decided to go ahead with the trip to McDonald’s. Fortunately they had a nice bathroom where I could examine my injuries and pick the gravel out of my arm before scarfing down a Big Mac.

    On the last day of school in 6th grade, a group of my friends from the neighborhood thought it would be fun to go hang out at Chuck E. Cheese. That’s the day we learned they don’t let unaccompanied minors hang out at Chuck E. Cheese. A lame policy if you ask me.

    My little brother, Pat, and his friend, also Pat, had their bikes stolen at the shopping center once. But out of hundreds of combined trips, that’s the only negative thing that ever happened.

    You might think this is a different time, and in a way it is. I think we are more aware of what is around us, but that doesn’t mean those same potentially dangerous elements weren’t in our society 15 years ago. What is here is a level of caution that doesn’t let kids be more than 10 feet from their parents. While that may be “safer,” there are certain lessons you can learn and experiences you can only have when your dad says you and your brother can go to the shopping center.

    July 28, 2009 family McDonald's nostalgia Taco Bell Uncategorized

  • Somebody Tell CJHANNAS Who Kanye West is

    There are two trends in music videos that seem to be becoming more and more prevalent, and which really need to be addressed.

    The first is the growing use of Hollywood-style opening credits to start the video. On every channel that plays videos, the same standard information is shown at the beginning. It tells you who will appear, the name of the song and the album. That’s all we need to know.

    Adding to the over-the-top nature of the credits is the fact that everyone mentioned is a HUGE star. Watch the first 15 seconds of this video. It introduces Kanye West, Ne-Yo and Keri Hilson. I didn’t know Keri Hilson before seeing this, but even someone as hip as myself knows exactly who the other two are.

    The other recent perpetrator of the trend is Jamie Foxx. His video features cameos from Forest Whitaker, Samuel L. Jackson and Ron Howard. That group has won a combined 4 Oscars, and grabbed numerous other nominations. They have been responsible for some of the biggest movies in the past 15 years. If you’re in a position to be watching cable television in the United States, you don’t need a special introduction.

    The other trend involves a specific shot in the videos. For some reason it has become a requirement to have the star floating above a bed. A main culprit is the Hilson/Kanye/Ne-Yo video I mentioned before. If you watch past the 15 seconds, you’ll see quite a bit of Hilson in mid-air above the bed. Maybe she’s just aspiring to be Beyonce, who achieves more of a floating–rather than falling–effect in her video for ‘Sweet Dreams.’.

    I’m pretty sure there was a third one I made a mental note about this morning–I frequently rock VH1 while I’m reading the newspaper. But now I can’t remotely remember. So keep an eye out for people illuminating the themes in their songs by floating above a bed. And since they weren’t responsible enough to include a disclaimer, don’t try that at home. Unless you’re tired. Then it’s probably appropriate to make some sort of move towards a bed.

    July 24, 2009 music Uncategorized

  • Honoring an American Icon

    If you noticed anyone at work today who was a little down, maybe even shedding a few unexplained tears, they lost a very special part of their lives.

    As this obituary in the Washington Post says, Gidget, the Taco Bell dog, has died.

    Even if you’re not a Taco Bell fan, there’s still a chance Gidget meant a lot to your life. Fans of the Reese Witherspoon epic “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde” will remember Gidget as Elle Woods’ diminutive partner in lawyering.

    It’s not often an animal gets an obituary in a national newspaper. Even rarer may be a public comment from an international company following the death of an animal. Upon Gidget’s death, Taco Bell issued a statement saying “Our deepest sympathies go out to her owners and fans.”

    My love for Taco Bell really took shape during the height of the “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” era. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

    Next time I’m making a run for the border, I’ll be sure to pour out a little Wild Cherry Pepsi for my lost homey. Actually, that stuff is tasty. Maybe I’ll just eat an extra cheesy gordita crunch for Gidget.

    July 23, 2009 animals Taco Bell Uncategorized

  • I Hereby Declare

    Random thought of the morning–I wonder what my life would be like if I was hired for the job I applied for two years ago as a proclamation writer for the state of Hawaii.

    July 22, 2009 Uncategorized writing

  • Party Like It’s 1999

    What have you done for the past 10 years? I don’t mean cumulatively, but rather some action you have done at least once a year since 1999.

    Eating doesn’t count. Nor does breathing or buying socks. Well, if you have some sort of ritual wherein you buy a new pair of socks each March 27, I’ll count that.

    For me, it has been selling shoes. Each year since from 1999 to 2008 I sold at least one pair of shoes to another individual while working at a retail store. That string looks incredibly long now that I write it, but I assure you it feels even longer.

    But 2009 should be the end of the road. I stopped working at my last retail gig back in July 2007, but ended up working one day last year in sort of a freelance capacity. Due to my incredible skill–not to mention charm–I couldn’t help but make the most of that one day and make a sale.

    We’re a long way from August of ’99, when as a kid about to enter his junior year of high school I signed on to peddle athletic and rugged footwear at an awesome store called Galyan’s. Those of you familiar with Dick’s Sporting Goods will know sort of what the store looked like (Dick’s bought Galyan’s in 2004). But Galyan’s was a much higher-quality store and gave me what ended up being a pretty easy way to extort a lot of money from a lot of people in the Northern Virginia area. I mean, um, to help lots of people by identifying their needs and matching one of our products to fit their budget as well. Yeah.

    Then in 2005 it was off to New Balance where the real fun began. And by fun I mean utilizing my master’s degree by selling shoes and finding ways to pass boredom-filled hours in Tysons Corner Center. You’ll have to consult the archives for the real flavor of this time in my life. Stories about or related to my time there definitely dominate the 2006-07 portion of my writing. From a purely content perspective, I should still be working there.

    But I digress.

    It was upon leaving that job for a TV producing gig in Florida that the following year (2008 for those of you scoring at home) was declared to be “totally SHOE-FREE.” At least, that was according to a Christmas card from one of my friends:

    Unfortunately, while visiting my brother in Raleigh, N.C., I got pressed into helping out at a wonderful little store called Raleigh Running Outfitters. It was there that 2008 lost its “SHOE-FREE” status, never to be regained again.

    In 2009, I have remained strong. While I have worn many shoes, I have not tried to measure anyone’s feet, lace up their shoes or even offer much footwear-related advice. It’s tough not being intimitely involved in the feet of complete strangers. Or maybe it’s glorious, hard to say really.

    Here’s to lasting a few more months without a nametag around my neck or a shoebox in my hand, and finding something more productive to do for the next 10 years.

    July 20, 2009 shoes Uncategorized

  • Moving on Up, to the Blogspot

    I’ve been slacking in the blogging department, and I blame MySpace. As people seem to be fleeing the site like it’s on fire with some kind of virus-spreading flames, I have felt my motivation to blog there become virtually non-existent.

    So here I am in a slightly more accessible place that I’m pretty sure also offers me better tools to play with. It may take me a while to utilize them, but at least here I am.

    I started moving over some of the MySpace blog “archives,” and you’ll see more and more of them pop up as time goes on. I believe the posts go back to 2005, but maybe just to 2006. We’ll find out.

    Enjoy.

    July 18, 2009 Uncategorized

  • Will the Real Chwilbur(n) Please Stand Up?

    If anyone knows Cheryl Wilburn, let her know I’m getting her emails. Thanks.

    Shortly before the 2008 presidential election I began getting emails from the Obama campaign. At first I didn’t think it was too odd, since I was in favor of the Senator’s candidacy. But when I looked more closely, they were actually trying to send emails to Cheryl Wilburn. I can only assume her email is something like chwilburn@yahoo.com, just one letter different from my own.

    I hope she hasn’t missed out on any of the events that have followed. Today the mailing list, which has now turned into “USA Service,” touted the president’s initiative to increase community service around the U.S. The new organization is also apparently on a first-name basis with recipients now, saying only “Dear Cheryl” and leaving off the last name. Nice to know they’re cozy like that.

    According to the email, they are “grateful for the work you’ve done since the National Day of Service in January.” Make that the work Cheryl has apparently done since January. I hope her service isn’t dependent on getting pep talks and adulation in her inbox.

    On a completely different note, it must suck to be a dentist. I went today and got the expected “you need to floss more.” Seriously, who actually flosses the correct amount?

    That’s why it would be terrible to be a dentist. All day, every day, you’re seeing people who flat out ignore the instructions you give them when you meet one or two times a year. You think to yourself how simple a task flossing is, how little time it takes and how it is clearly good for each and every patient.

    And yet nobody listens. I bet dentists have a higher number of kids than the national average, if only so they have someone under their roof they can MAKE floss as often as they feel is necessary. I’d also bet children of dentists are extremely unlikely to be dentists themselves, opting to work at ice cream shops and chocolatiers in disproportionate numbers.

    On my way home from the dentist I stopped to get gas. At the pump next to me…a MetroAccess bus. They’re coming to get me.

    April 22, 2009 metro Uncategorized

  • A Nemesis Returns

    It’s never a good thing when a nemesis you thought you had made peace with returns, and nearly kills you.

    Back in my grad school days at the University of Maryland, I was dispatched to do a story on cuts in the MetroAccess program in the Washington, D.C. area. MetroAccess provides rides to the disabled who cannot use the bus/rail options provided by the area transit authority.

    It should have been an easy story–interview a few users who would be inconvenienced by the cuts, a metro spokesperson defending the cuts, and get some video of the MetroAccess cars and buses. Before doing the story, and even that morning on my way to the interviews, I saw the vehicles everywhere.

    As soon as I was looking for a few to get on tape for the story, they mysteriously disappeared from the streets. I spent a solid half an hour walking around downtown D.C. waiting for one of them to go by. Never happened. So I went to locations where they could be picking people up or dropping them off, such as complexes with multiple doctors offices that served the elderly/disabled. Again, nothing.

    The professor serving as our assignment editor calls to tell me she has found the main MetroAccess compound in Maryland. The way she’s talking about it, it seems like she has contacted them and they are allowing me to come and get video. So I go there, get out my camera and start shooting. After about 15 minutes, a vanload of very official-looking people show up and come right towards me. They want to know who I am and what the bejeesus I am doing there.

    I explain the phone call, after which I am asked to go inside and talk to their security people. They say they have no record of the call, and nobody remembers talking to the professor. After a short time of explaining my harmless intentions, they ask for my card and ask me to leave. I comply.

    The second I got out of their parking lot I called the professor to ask why I was in yet another position to be detained while shooting a story. She says basically not to worry about it…and the story ends up being really lame anyway.

    Fast forward to last week. I was crossing a street in D.C. with the light. There was a left turn lane that also had a green light, with the drivers expected to not plow over people utilizing the crosswalk. The driver of a MetroAccess bus pulls into the intersection, not even remotely seeing me. Good thing I was paying attention and could run a few steps to get out of his way. It was only then he made eye contact and sped away. Good thing I’m nimble; that would be a terrible way for my life to end.

    April 21, 2009 metro Uncategorized

  • Forced Sportsmanship

    Ahh, March Madness. It’s a wonderful time of year when we can focus on college athletes competing at the highest level, and can enjoy their spirited fans as well.

    There’s nothing like a college crowd to come up with clever ways to get under an opponent’s skin. Even simple stuff like yelling the guy’s name every time he touches the ball can add great enjoyment for fans at any game. Having never been that athlete, I can’t say for sure how it affects them.

    I am pretty sure, however, that it doesn’t scar them for life and is within the spirit of the game. A Wisconsin school district thinks even those simple taunts–including “airball,” “over-rated” and “what’s the score?”–are too much for kids to take. Those extremely hurtful attacks are now banned.

    Good thing the administrators are protecting those kids. I wonder what sort of things are said in the hallways of those schools. “Hello sir, how did you enjoy today’s math test?” “My your sweater and jeans combination is simply strapping today!” “Sir I respectfully disagree with your assessment that Britney Spears is an upstanding citizen!”

    Give me a break. This is the latest in over-reactions to benign actions of fans that don’t bother players two seconds after they are said.

    It brings to mind a string of incidents at Susquehanna basketball games when I covered our men’s basketball team. A few of our fans yelled out a guy’s name whenever he got the ball, or when they committed a turnover said “Hey, we worked on that in practice!” I bet the players were just fine after those incredibly hurtful taunts.

    But our athletic director had campus security go sit with the five or six guys and eventually they were asked to leave. Here’s an editorial I wrote back in Dec. 2004.

    The best part of that article was the day after it was published. We had a home game, and I was seated just behind the sports information director who was keeping score of the game. He had the paper on the desk as well, open to my editorial. During halftime, the athletic director came over to the SID. She picked up the paper and looked at it like it was completely made up and out of nowhere.

    Even better, I was still sitting three feet away. We had spoken on the phone during my time as the sports editor, but I’m fairly certain we had never spoken in person. So as she questioned my premise, I was able to hear all of her comments with complete anonymity. After she left, the SID turned around and I commended him on his ability to keep a straight face knowing exactly what was going on. Good times.

    March 13, 2009 basketball Susquehanna Uncategorized

  • To Count, or Not to Count

    I subscribe to Newsweek, a fantastic publication full of interesting articles regarding the news of the week. It also features a name with two Ws and a K. Those are all good things.

    But there is one thing about the magazine that absolutely perplexes me and makes me feel slightly dumber each week for not being able to figure it out–the page numbers.

    Each page that has an article has a page number. They are on the lower left for left-side pages and the lower right for right-side pages. Full-page photos/graphics as well as ad pages do not have a number.

    But the problem comes in how the pages are counted. The full-page photos that go with stories are counted in the page numbers, even though they don’t feature the number themselves. The page before might be 40, meaning the page after the photo would be 42. Makes perfect sense.

    When it comes to the ad pages, things get squirrelly. (On a side note, the Myspace blog box has flagged “squirrelly” as a spelling error. I assure you, it is not). Some of the ad pages are counted like the full-page photos–they are counted in the page numbers but don’t have one on their page. Again, I’m perfectly fine with that system.

    But then there are some ad pages that are skipped in the numbering. This system becomes especially troubling with the first pages of the magazine. Opening the cover this week, you find an ad that spreads across the entirety of the first two pages (the back of the cover and the first right-hand page). If you count the pages until the first one that has a number, you have to leave out the first page of that ad.

    How can we operate under a system that counts half of an ad as a page but not the other?! It’s insanity. If you’re going to count ad pages as pages, fine. Count them all. If not, don’t count any of them. My head is on the verge of headache for no logical reason, and such a situation should not exist in a civilized world.

    March 11, 2009 nerdness Uncategorized
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