BURKARD'S BLOG

I searched on the Internet, and found no one keeping a blog about events in Columbus, Georgia. (Well, other than a 15-year-old high school student, and who knows how much he pays attention to the news?) So being the hip web-savvy guy that I am, I decided to start a blog of my own - chronicling happenings in the town I've called home for almost six years, as well as my experiences in it.

But be warned.... I used to have a humor service called LaughLine.com, so my views may be a bit amusing. And the views are my own -- no one has paid me to present theirs. Not yet.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

30 APR 03: THE ANNIVERSARY WALTZ

Tomorrow I mark six years at the TV station where I do freelance work. I started as a full-time news producer. Now - well, for the last eight months I've STILL been a full-time news producer.

There are many things I've come to like about Columbus, six years after moving from metro Atlanta. The traffic jams are far less frequent. My rent never has increased. And I actually can go for a jog from my home, without worrying getting run over by fast cars or stopped by street beggars.

I've now lived long enough in Columbus to have memories of how things USED to be. For instance:

+ In 1997 the block where the RiverCenter stands was a big parking lot for Columbus city employees. Now they've made real progress - with a RiverCenter parking lot that has more than one level.

+ Today Columbus has only one enclosed shopping mall. In 1997 it had - no wait, Columbus Square was already two-thirds empty then.

+ In 1997 Columbus and Auburn had several "Bullitt's" fast-food restaurants. Today you can't even have a pro basketball team with a name like that.

+ In 1997 Columbus had a new indoor soccer team, the Comets. Today it has a new baseball team, the Waves - which might stay about as long, one season.

+ In 1997 WRBL's sports department had three people. Today, as Jack Rodgers left on a trip to Romania, it officially has none for awhile. As we say, progress.

+ In 1997 WTVM showed the family comedy "Step by Step" weeknights at 7:30 p.m. Today it's gone - and missed by absolutely no one.

+ In 1997 local advertisers boycotted WTVM for showing "Ellen." Nowadays no one seems to notice WLTZ showing "Will and Grace."

+ In 1997 WDAK radio had "Imus in the Morning" while WRCG had Scott Miller. Today they're at the exact opposite stations. I won't be surprised if six years from now, they're simulcasting on both of them.

More sixth anniversary reflections are coming soon....

BURKARD'S BLOG

28 APR 03: WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

I went for an evening walk around South Commons last night - and as I returned to the apartment complex, children were playing in the grassy courtyard. Suddenly I heard a mother's voice say, "Get your a** over here." Do they have female drill instructors at Fort Benning's basic training now?

I normally don't do things like this, but I decided the mother was talking to me - so I walked over to where she sat on a porch and said, "OK, I'm here." After all, children aren't addressed in rough language like hers. Well, then again, I don't watch "The Sopranos."

Once I walked over to the woman's porch, she and a couple of other people just stared at me as if I was a weirdo. Perhaps it was because I responded to her call, and none of the children did. [True!]

Finally a man in a neighboring apartment clarified - that woman using the "A" word was not calling me. "Oh, OK," I said and walked into my own apartment. I seriously doubt the woman got the message I was trying to send, about her use of
language around children. Then again, I'm not sure a tough-talking TV judge could get through to her, either.

This week I mark six years in this apartment complex - and I can't help noticing the folks on the opposite side of the courtyard from me never invite me over to their outdoor cookouts. Could it be they're simply shy? They've already invited other friends over? Or could it be that I'm the only non-African-American person in the complex, and they suspect I'm a police informant?

To be fair, I've never invited other people in the complex to my apartment. For one thing, I don't have a grill for outdoor cooking. For another thing, I've inherited so much furniture over the years that the fire code limit on people might be three.

Spring cleaning helps me clear away the piles of things around my apartment. Yesterday I finally put together a six-foot-tall torchiere pole lamp from Penney's, that I bought seven years ago! This lamp is SO OLD it's a forest green color -- and you may remember when that was a popular color for cars.

Are you a reader of this blog? If you are, please e-mail me. It gets lonely doing this by myself.

BURKARD'S BLOG

I searched on the Internet, and found no one keeping a blog about events in Columbus, Georgia. (Well, other than a 15-year-old high school student, and who knows how much he pays attention to the news?) So being the hip web-savvy guy that I am, I decided to start a blog of my own - chronicling happenings in the town I've called home for almost six years, as well as my experiences in it.

But be warned.... I used to have a humor service called LaughLine.com, so my views may be a bit amusing. And the views are my own -- no one has paid me to present theirs. Not yet.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

27 APR 03: DON'T YOU LOVE SURPRISES?

A big surprise showed up at my door around 4:30 Friday afternoon - a plumber, to fix my bathroom leaks! Considering it's been about a month since I reminded the landlord of these things, it seemed like a miracle from heaven.

The plumber wrestled with the leaky bathtub, as a crew did about a year-and-a-half ago. He even went around to the other side of the problem, and checked under the kitchen sink. Thankfully, the cockroaches usually hiding there were on their best behavior....

The plumber used some technical language, to say he'd have to come back the next day. He left a few screws and tiny pieces on a shelf in my medicine cabinet for safekeeping. But as I write, he still hasn't replaced the dozen or so items he removed from under the kitchen sink. C'mon - I really did do spring cleaning there.

I spent Friday night with the bathtub still dripping - and only one handle for BOTH sides of the bathroom sink, as the other had broken off. I remembered Atlanta water restrictions, and invoked the "alternate spigot rule."

The plumber returned as promised around 9:00 a.m. Saturday, joined by another man. I'd just awakened then they arrived - so I didn't think to ask if the other guy was called a "plumber's helper."

A second round of work ended with TWO sink handles, but still a drippy bathtub. Apparently the seals have worn out, and the plumber must return Monday to "tear out some tiles." Of all the times to go back to the full-time overnight shift....

The surprises continued at the weekend service in the church I attend. It started when our Pastor offered a "P.S." at the end of his sermon - which in our congregation stands for "Personal Speculation."

The Pastor said he'd been thinking about Jonah - and was starting to conclude he was DEAD when he spent three days and three nights inside the great fish. This didn't sound right to me at all. And sure enough, Jonah 2:1 says he prayed from INSIDE the fish! Unless, maybe, Jonah was a Mormon....

My dilemma at once became: how do you correct a Pastor who's wrong about the Bible? After all, this man's been preaching close to 40 years -- and even worse, he often criticizes people who say Old Testament books like Jonah should be ignored.

The answer to this dilemma came to me, without my even trying. The Pastor walked over after the service to the audio table where I'm stationed, to ask a favor. I shook his hand, said hello - but dared to open the Bible to Jonah 2, saying, "I can't agree with what you said." In case you ever face this challenge, I never thumped my Bible once.

"I stand corrected," the Pastor said after reading over a few verses - then actually had me turn up the microphone at the lectern, so he could announce to everyone chatting in the hall what he'd found. He never named me as the source of the information. If he had, some people would have drafted me to run for Pastor - while others would have told me to get lost, for insulting a "man of God."

Surprise #3 came Saturday night, with Riverfest in full swing near my home at South Commons. I walked over to Kimball's restaurant on Third Avenue for dinner about 9:15 p.m., after a twilight run - and was told they're only open until 8:00! They didn't extend hours during Riverfest? Not even to sell discounted funnel cakes??

Another mini-surprise came as I walked to Kimball's - as a man stood and hollered in a parking lot on Second Avenue. Only later did I realize he was shouting, "PARKING PLACE!" Since it was the Villa Nova package store's lot, I almost walked over to him to say he'd had one too many beers.

The surprises even stretched into this Sunday morning. I went out for breakfast - and came home to find a shattered, blood-strewn tortoise shell in the driveway not far from my back door. The gangs in this neighborhood must have a small budget....

Other brief items I've meant to mention from the past few days:

+ Russ Hollenbeck, the man Doug Kellett loved to call "a-k-a Jerry Garcia," was named the permanent host of WRCG's "Talkline." With his T-shirts and ponytail hair, conservatives might flock to WDAK like never before.

+ The Saturday night WRBL 11:00 p.m. newscast had NO sports section. Regular sports anchor Jack Rodgers was busy
leading C-P-R courses at Riverfest, while Thomas Forester seems to have disappeared. Is he finally getting a hair transplant or something?

+ The Sunday radio broadcast from Eastern Heights Baptist Church featured a message by a young man as nervous as you'll ever hear. He kept asking things like, "Anybody here ever of a man named Noah?" Then it was Cain and Abel, then Job. For a man telling us to "step out in faith toward God," he sounded like Peter ready to sink in the water.

+ In a "Yahoo Pyramids" game room, someone commented the cards were bad. To which we replied, "Yeah. I haven't spotted a single Iraqi yet."

(Not long after that, one person in the game room wrote he/she was from southwestern Ontario. I couldn't resist replying, "I didn't bring a breathing mask to the computer, so please be careful.")

BURKARD'S BLOG

24 APR 03: SPINNING MY WHEELS

The "Tour de Georgia" bicycle race came to Columbus this afternoon. I wasn't sure whether to watch this or not - since they
haven't changed that French-sounding name.

It's not just the Tour de Georgia, of course. It's the "DODGE Tour de Georgia." Yes, a bicycle race is sponsored by a car
company. So why can't Dodge make cars which get gas mileage as good as a bike?

(Which reminds me: I filled my gas tank at Summit on Victory Drive today - and the price is down to $1.32 a gallon! Be sure to thank the woman behind the counter for these lower prices. The boss finally may be listening to her.)

Today's stage of the Tour de Georgia stretched from Macon to Columbus. My Pastor lives in the Macon area and makes this
circuit all the time, but I'm not sure he'd be in support of this bike race. After all, these athletes are pedaling all those miles -- simply for money. Sin!!!!

The Columbus part of the road course rolled past the main Post Office on Milgen Road, as well as the co-sponsor "Tidwell Cancer Treatment Center" on Warm Springs Road. We suppose this is because of Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong. So why was the finish line at the Civic Center - and not a mile-and-a-half down the road, at Carl Gregory Dodge?

The road course passed within one block of my apartment, but I decided to walk to the RiverCenter to be around more spectators and scenery. On Fifth Street was a crew from Strickland Tree Service, with a big tree chopped into large-sized pieces of the trunk. Now THAT would make things interesting - a surprise obstacle course.

(One of the crew members had a long pole in his hand. I'm not sure what it was really for - but he called it a "spoke catcher.")

The turnout was small around the RiverCenter on Broadway - a couple of dozen spectators, I'd guess. We saw quite a show,
starting with a group of police motorcycles rushing by. This doesn't seem fair to the bicyclists - unless they're like the "rabbit" at a greyhound track.

Then came not one, but TWO long groups of patrol cars - from the city of Columbus and the Georgia State Patrol. We were so impressed by the sight that we didn't realize we'd be helpless if someone picked our pocket.

At last the cyclist came spinning by - and on this day, there was no breakaway leader. The entire pack of bikes passed us in about 20 seconds. It was somewhat like a NASCAR race - only with the pace cars making all the noises.

The team cars followed the bikers, with two or three spare bikes hooked on top. Either they're substitute cycles if something
goes wrong - or I should have stood at the finish line for the post-race giveaway.

An Italian cyclist won today's stage. When you think about it, the Italians ought to win these races all the time - since they're so famous for eating pasta, they're loaded with extra carbs.

One man received the "King of the Mountain" jersey at the finish line - a white shirt with polka dots shaped like peaches. This tour should be thankful Mister Blackwell doesn't live anywhere in Georgia.

One benefit of the Tour de Georgia's stop in Columbus is that Riverfest opened at South Commons Thursday night, one night earlier than usual. This annual street fair promises a "world-class midway." Isn't that phrase an oxymoron -- sort of like a supermarket selling "world-class lard?"

The Tour de Georgia moves on tomorrow, with a stage heading north to Rome. In fact, it will start at Callaway Gardens, not Columbus. Can't these bikers go uphill to Harris County? Wimps....

The Tour de Georgia stop brought back all sorts of memories. One of my first interviews at a Kansas City radio station was with a group of four bikers on a cross-country trip, promoting Indian guru Sri Chinmoy. I kept waiting for the guys to do something weird, like speak in a strange language or pedal with their legs crossed.

One of those cyclists even gave me a small leaflet, with "Four Cycling Songs of Sri Chinmoy." I only recall one of those songs - which started, "Cycling, cycling, cycling," and ended with the singer holding "speed-HIGH!!!!!" for about 16 beats. The only good reason I can imagine for singing this would be to drown out honking cars and trucks behind you on the road.

When I was a boy, I dreamed an event like the Tour de Georgia would develop someday. I had a pretend summer-long circuit set up in my mind -- the "Cycletron" tour across Kansas. I didn't drink diet colas back then, so never thought about having it sponsored by "cyclamates."

(Come to think of it -- did I ever tell anyone about this idea? Is it too late to sue, for stealing an intellectual trademark?)

BLOG UPDATE: The Wal-Mart ALLEGEDLY "Super" Center is in my personal doghouse at the moment. I took a single-use camera there Tuesday, for one-hour film developing. The manager put it in a bag - and now it's disappeared! They should reserve the magic tricks for greeters only.

Apparently my envelope of pictures was taken from a tray on the counter at the one-hour photo stand. I'm not sure who would do this - because I certainly haven't noticed any North Korean secret agents in Columbus and Phenix City, since I declared war on that country. (11 Jan)

(If someone is holding this envelope for ransom - no, I am not dating the good-looking women's basketball coach on a couple of the shots.) (15 Jan)

I called the photo stand this morning to see if someone turned the pictures in - and no one had. But the manager said, "You made me move my pictures off the front counter." Now hold on a minute - I did this? I simply asked for my photos, I didn't steal them.

BURKARD'S BLOG

22 APR 03: WAR AND A LITTLE PEACE

Today is Day 34 of the War! With!! IRAQ!!! The TV station where I work still is using "War" graphics and language.
Our bosses may be the only journalists left on Earth who believe the Iraqi Information Minister's version.

My TV station also has a "station identification" message at the top of the hour that says, "Bless Our Troops." I see this
and wonder - WHO should bless our troops? Any "Being" in particular?

Yesterday afternoon the showers passed, making it a nice day to drive around Columbus. For starters, I made my first visit
to the religious college in town - "Beacon College and Graduate School." Excuse me for asking a silly question, but
shouldn't that make it Beacon University?

Then it was a short "hop" to Target for half-price Easter chocolate. This year, M&M's had something I'd never noticed
before - "speckled egg" chocolate candies. Now THAT'S a creative way to re-label the defects at the factory....

It's not far from Target to Lake Oliver, where I jogged on that part of the Riverwalk for the first time in three months.
But this course is SO unfair. If it's going to be downhill heading south, there has to be a downhill version going back north.

As I headed north on the Riverwalk, I came upon a woman walking her large black dog - well really, letting the dog roam
freely all over the place. It's a good thing I was tired and mostly walking at that point. Asphalt stains are really hard to get
off T-shirts.

The dog decided to probe around me, so I stopped my walking to avoid anything confrontational. "He won't hurt," the
woman assured me - only hours before the 11:00 p.m. news reported on a dog attacking a seven-year-old in Russell County.

The dog was running around on its own, even though the woman held a leash in her hand. "No leash?" I asked. "It has a
leash," she replied. "Yes, but it's not ON a leash," I noted - trying to jokingly smile as best I could as I said that, but
wondering if this woman uses this same sort of logic when it comes to paying her bills.

A sign at the Riverwalk entrance clearly says: "LEASHES REQUIRED IN PUBLIC PARKS." Well, the woman with her
big black dog HAD one - only she didn't use it. It's a bit like what some college students do with their brains....

BURKARD'S BLOG

I searched on the Internet, and found no one keeping a blog about events in Columbus, Georgia. (Well, other than a 15-year-old high school student, and who knows how much he pays attention to the news?) So being the hip web-savvy guy that I am, I decided to start a blog of my own - chronicling happenings in the town I've called home for almost six years, as well as my experiences in it.

But be warned.... I used to have a humor service called LaughLine.com, so my views may be a bit amusing. And the views are my own -- no one has paid me to present theirs. Not yet.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

20 APR 03: LA BOMB-A

Many people are marking Easter Sunday today - but I have a question for them. Why doesn't some TV channel mark the day by showing the forgotten Dustin Hoffman movie "Ishtar?" That IS where the word Easter came from....

Speaking of (ahem) bombs: as I took a late-afternoon walk this weekend along Front Avenue, I saw a car filled with prom-goers. Only instead of a limousine, they rode in a LONG red finned convertible that looked like it was from 1960. Before "the bomb" meant something good, that car was a bomb.

As some of you may know, the church denomination I attend does NOT keep Easter. My Pastor suggested over the weekend people who wear "Easter bonnets" are guilty of pride, when they should show godly humility. I may never buy Blue Bonnet margarine again.

(We're SO STRICT about this in my congregation that we're even against winter storms -- those "Nor'Easters.")

I met some women over the weekend, though, who might have benefited from bonnets. They were in line ahead of me at a
Taco Bell - and one of a grandmotherly age had a FULL moustache! It was so obvious that Wayne Bennett would have asked her to shave it off.

No, I did NOT say anything to these two women with moustaches. I only looked long enough to confirm what I thought I saw - but stopped short of suggesting they get jobs on the Riverfest midway next weekend.

17 APR 03: A TIME OF THANKSGIVING

Thank you, Pizza Hut, for sending a flyer with 18 different coupons to my mailbox Wednesday. But after noticing all 18 coupons have an expiration date of March 31 - thank you at least for keeping the Postal Service afloat. [True!]

Thank you, Shoney's, for your helpful motel discount bulletins just inside the front door of your restaurant. But when your Phenix City, Alabama restaurant has bulletins for Kentucky, a one-day drive and two states away - well, who's trying to work himself through school filling those racks?

Thank you, Bludau's, for a lovely and elegant Wednesday night dinner with church friends. And since you're a French restaurant, special thanks for appealing to local patriots by putting New York strip steak on your menu....

(Given Bludau's prices, the last thing I expected to find on this fine French menu was "freedom fries.")

Thank you, Mrs. M, (full name available on request) for revealing a new phrase to me at that Bludau's dinner. You're truly a Southern native -- to call squash, broccoli, artichokes, and similar things "Yankee vegetables."

Thank you, Al Fleming, for your Wednesday TV commentary taking WRBL and WTVM to task for their failures in local news coverage. But considering your station WLTZ doesn't even have a news department - why don't you criticize them even more?

(By the way, why didn't Al Fleming complain a bit more about WRBL when he did commentaries there? He was upset about the New Year's baby born to an unwed mother, but besides that....)

Thank you, WRBL, for reporting the eagle's cage will not be outside Auburn University's football stadium next fall. But how could you call it "Beard-Eaves Stadium" when the video clearly had a "Jordan-Hare Stadium" sign on it - and how did the news anchors who have lived in this area for years never even notice it?

Thank you, Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation, for your $75,000 grant to Girls Inc. of Phenix City-Russell County to build a new athletic complex. But considering the project will have softball fields, a soccer field and a walking trail, but NO field for U.S.-style football [True/WTVM] - what sort of message are you really sending?

(And when your giant-sized check at a news conference spells Russell County with only one L - shouldn't you be donating money to education programs instead?)

Thank you, Columbus historic preservationists, for the fund-raisers you've done to renovate the Fifth Avenue home of blues legend Ma Rainey. But when I drove by that house Wednesday, paint was peeling badly from the front wall - so how much money did the singers at those benefit concerts REALLY get?

Are you a reader of this blog? If you are, please e-mail me. It gets lonely doing this by myself.

BURKARD'S BLOG

I searched on the Internet, and found no one keeping a blog about events in Columbus, Georgia. (Well, other than a 15-year-old high school student, and who knows how much he pays attention to the news?) So being the hip web-savvy guy that I am, I decided to start a blog of my own - chronicling happenings in the town I've called home for almost six years, as well as my experiences in it.

But be warned.... I used to have a humor service called LaughLine.com, so my views may be a bit amusing. And the views are my own -- no one has paid me to present theirs. Not yet.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

17 APR 03: A TIME OF THANKSGIVING

Thank you, Pizza Hut, for sending a flyer with 18 different coupons to my mailbox Wednesday. But after noticing all 18 coupons have an expiration date of March 31 - thank you at least for keeping the Postal Service afloat. [True!]

Thank you, Shoney's, for your helpful motel discount bulletins just inside the front door of your restaurant. But when your Phenix City, Alabama restaurant has bulletins for Kentucky, a one-day drive and two states away - well, who's trying to work himself through school filling those racks?

Thank you, Bludau's, for a lovely and elegant Wednesday night dinner with church friends. And since you're a French restaurant, special thanks for appealing to local patriots by putting New York strip steak on your menu....

(Given Bludau's prices, the last thing I expected to find on this fine French menu was "freedom fries.")

Thank you, Mrs. M, (full name available on request) for revealing a new phrase to me at that Bludau's dinner. You're truly a Southern native -- to call squash, broccoli, artichokes, and similar things "Yankee vegetables."

Thank you, Al Fleming, for your Wednesday TV commentary taking WRBL and WTVM to task for their failures in local news coverage. But considering your station WLTZ doesn't even have a news department - why don't you criticize them even more?

(By the way, why didn't Al Fleming complain a bit more about WRBL when he did commentaries there? He was upset about the New Year's baby born to an unwed mother, but besides that....)

Thank you, WRBL, for reporting the eagle's cage will not be outside Auburn University's football stadium next fall. But how could you call it "Beard-Eaves Stadium" when the video clearly had a "Jordan-Hare Stadium" sign on it - and how did the news anchors who have lived in this area for years never even notice it?

Thank you, Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation, for your $75,000 grant to Girls Inc. of Phenix City-Russell County to build a new athletic complex. But considering the project will have softball fields, a soccer field and a walking trail, but NO field for U.S.-style football [True/WTVM] - what sort of message are you really sending?

(And when your giant-sized check at a news conference spells Russell County with only one L - shouldn't you be donating money to education programs instead?)

Thank you, Columbus historic preservationists, for the fund-raisers you've done to renovate the Fifth Avenue home of blues legend Ma Rainey. But when I drove by that house Wednesday, paint was peeling badly from the front wall - so how much money did the singers at those benefit concerts REALLY get?

Are you a reader of this blog? If you are, please e-mail me. It gets lonely doing this by myself.

16 APR 03: FOND FAREWELLS

This day feels a bit strange to me. My spring cleaning ended yesterday. My church congregation doesn't begin the Days of
Unleavened Bread until tonight, after taking communion last night. So when I went running this morning, I ran south on the Riverwalk - AWAY from all the bagel and doughnut shops.

It's a tradition in the church I attend to put all leaven out of your house for the Days of Unleavened Bread, which are mentioned in the Bible. I finished this year in record time - a day and five hours early! It's wonderful to discover that vacuum cleaner cord stretches so far into the oven.

I finished cleaning so early I took the last bag of trash not only out of my apartment complex, but out of state! I left it in Idle Hour Park in Phenix City - where I might actually find it when the spring season is over.

(The thrill of leaving my trash in another state is hard to explain. It's the closest I'll ever come to leaving a puppy dog along the side of a desert highway.)

I'm still pondering another departure I arranged Monday - one I stumbled into, really. I bought a homeless man a bus ticket to California to see his ailing mother. He had better not missed that bus - because if I see him on a street corner again, I'll ask for at least a 50-percent cut of his profits.

"HOMELESS, HUNGRY AND SICK" read the sign the man held up on the sidewalk on Brown Avenue, near a Piggly Wiggly store. I could have bought him food for his hunger - but I'm probably the only person in Columbus who still remembers the five-year-old Rainbow/PUSH boycott of those stores.

I decided to pull into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot and talk to the man, since I hadn't encountered any beggars all winter. This is a switch - because usually they come to me like I'm wearing a bit word "SUCKER" on all my T-shirts.

I'm now prepared for encounters with beggars - by carrying a card from the local Task Force on the Homeless listing resources. Yet this man knew the names of every shelter in Columbus, and had explanations for why he wasn't at any of them. Either he's really a bad guy, or the staff felt insulted by all his education.

Randy was the beggar's name - and he openly admitted he's a convicted felon. Why don't I wait to meet these people until Tuesday, when I can watch Crimestoppers reports first?

Randy explained he'd been barred from the Valley Rescue Mission for misdeeds of some sort, and didn't have the money to spend a fifth night at the Salvation Army. I should have offered to pay for his next night right there - but I totally forgot about the good-looking woman named Ysivette I met there awhile back on a news story.

With all of Randy's options seemingly closed, I started wondering if I should take him in personally. For some reason, the shelters around town never mention this alternative - for YOU to house them, and help them meet their budgets....

As I offered possible options out loud, Randy suddenly offered a solution: "I'm trying to get a bus ticket to see my sick mother in California." What a golden opportunity! Instead of telling a homeless beggar to get lost and leave town, I personally could do it FOR him.

So I let Randy get into the car and we drove to the downtown bus station. He explained during the trip he'd come to Columbus to work with his relatives, and they scammed him. "I guess I should know better than to work with my family," he said. This didn't sound right to me - until later, when I remembered how many times my brother asked me to work with him while I was on vacation.

Randy's ailing mom lives in Redding, California, which he said was "just north of Sacramento." To which I replied to his surprise: "JUST north? About 180 miles." [True!] Why this didn't set off alarm bells about the accuracy of the rest of his story, I have no idea....

So how much does a bus ride cost from Columbus to Redding, to send a homeless man out of town? I wound up paying 166
dollars! I somehow thought Greyhound was still the "68 or less" bus line - but of course, that was before the warfare in Iraq drove up fuel prices.

Randy left his "homeless, hungry and sick" sign beyond a trash can outside the bus station. I never did find out what his sickness was. He seemed to walk well enough - so maybe he was like other beggars, it was pathological lying.

The alarm bells about beggars didn't go off until after I drove away. I wound up returning to the bus station on my way home from another errand. The good news: I used a credit card to charge Randy's bus ride - so any refund would go back to my credit card. The bad news: if my entire credit card number was on the receipt, Randy's probably eaten at four-star restaurants the last couple of nights.

Oh yes, before I forget - goodbye, Kansas coach Roy Williams. Have fun at North Carolina. It's too bad they wouldn't rename the field house "Allen-Williams," after you got the Athletic Director fired.

(P.S., Coach Williams - did the folks at North Carolina forget to tell you you're now in the same conference with Duke's Mike Krzyzweski? You'll get to lose to him a lot more often.)

8 APR 03: ORANGE YOU UPSET

It's a conspiracy, I tell you. Orange-colored cleaners are all the rage in stores. Orange traffic cones are put up at road construction sites. And now those cheatin' refs have robbed my beloved Kansas Jayhawks, by giving the men's basketball title to a bunch of guys in ORANGE shirts!

(It's only fitting, you know - since orange is the color worn by so many prison inmates....)

It was a night of sulking at my workplace, after Kansas missed a three-point shot at the siren and lost to Syracuse. I wore a K.U. cap to work to show my support - but wound up symbolizing the final score by plopping an orange on top of it at my computer.

(I peeled open that orange during the night, but I simply couldn't bring myself to eat any of it. I'm like the Iraqi Information Minister right now -- still in the denial stage.)

I don't call the Syracuse teams the Orange-MEN, by the way. That's SO sexist. They were the Orange Persons for awhile -- but now I borrow from the Trix commercials. They're simply the "Orange Orange."

Did you see "gentleman" Coach Roy Williams' post-game interview with CBS's Bonnie Bernstein? He uttered a normally-bleeped expletive, when asked about the open job at North Carolina. Maybe Williams should learn a lesson from Atlantic Coast Conference coaches - and have the assistants answer the questions on radio and TV.

To make things worse, Coach Williams pandered to Bonnie Bernstein when she asked a follow-up question about North Carolina. He said, "Somebody in the truck is telling you in your ear to ask that question...." Can't he tell Bonnie Bernstein apart from Jill Arrington?

To be a "fair and balanced" journalist, I had a short clip of the Kansas-Syracuse final in the works for the 6:00 a.m. news - but I had to drop it for time, because of a live George W. Bush-Tony Blair news conference. Sometimes I regret dropping news stories. This was NOT one of those times....

Let's see - what else has happened while I've been busy rooting for the Jayhawks and continuing spring cleaning?

+ Cascade Hills Baptist Church had a weekend sermon on "EGO - Edge God Out." Only the graphics on the screen misspelled "Edge" as "Egde!" This may show what they think of a worldly education.

+ WRCG Radio fired talk show host Doug Graham, before his planned resignation date. The bosses must think he's so conservative that he'll bring in Fort Benning tanks for a final sendoff.

(Doug Graham reportedly called my TV station, WTVM, to see if there are any openings for news anchors. After the negative things he said last fall about Cheryl Morgan and her husband, he'd do well to get a job filling the vending machines.)

+ The South Georgia Waves' opening home baseball game at Golden Park was rained out for the second night in a row. If it keeps raining like it has lately, that nickname actually might be fitting.

2 APR 03: BUSY SEASON

Apologies for not updating this blog in awhile -- and things may be hit-and-miss for the next couple of weeks. At work, we've been busy covering the warfare. At home, I've been busy with spring cleaning. And thankfully, I have NOT become confused - and hurled trash bags across property lines at anybody.

I've been keeping an overnight "war blog" at the TV station where I work - putting in new details on Operation Iraqi Freedom as they happen. Tonight we can report there are now TWO U.S. media casualties in 12 days: Connie Chung and Peter Arnett.

What WAS Peter Arnett thinking when he agreed to be interviewed by Iraqi television? Fox News Channel may have the motto, "We report, you decide" - but in Iraq it's more like: "We distort, it's already decided."

(If Peter Arnett wanted to make comments against the warfare, there's a much more appropriate place for that - The New
York Times.)

Be thankful my overnight tape editor isn't a journalist in Iraq. Early Monday, he offered the theory that Israelis are racists
and "all Jews basically look alike." What makes this comment more amazing was that he's NOT African-American, and does NOT belong to Operation PUSH.

I upset this tape editor a few nights ago when he commented upon seeing a rap star that he's "still in the ghetto." I called
such a comment borderline racism - and I was taken to task for taking his remarks too seriously. Did I miss something, or did the movie "Bringing Down the House" change all the rules?

Given what happened before, I took a different approach to the tape editor's comments about Israelis and Jews. I suggested I don't buy into "conspiracy theories," and said some people see things differently. I stopped short of saying about 95 percent of them did....

As for the cleaning: I have a few minutes to blog because I finally finished cleaning the computer room. It took about a week-and-a-half because there were so many papers, so much dust - and so much e-mail spam that kept building.

It's great to have all the scattered papers from the floor of this computer room arranged at last. My next job is the living room - and moving half of the papers I left in there back in here.

(I have a theory that this is genetic. A few years ago at my brother's house, he had so many papers scattered on HIS office
floor that I felt I'd somehow sent wrong messages to him.)

While we're here for a break before cleaning resumes, let's get caught up on some local topics:

+ Fellini's on First restaurant downtown wants to serve beer and wine. Columbus State University, which has property nearby, is opposed - while the nearby First Presbyterian Church has no position on it. These restaurant owners should be thankful they're not next to a Baptist church.

+ The Save-A-Lot grocery store in Phenix City closed, after about two years in business with the lowest prices in the area.
I'm saddened by this - but at least co-workers won't mock me anymore for bringing "Bubba Cola" to work.

(A staff member told me Save-A-Lot plans to open three new stores in Columbus in the next year. I sure hope so - because I may have to surrender to the Wal-Mart behemoth.)

+ Newscasters around the area kept pronouncing the country under fire in a true Southern accent - "eye-rack." I thought that's where you picked your glasses, after the vision exam.

+ Good old KANSAS made the NCAA men's Final Four for the second year in a row - and I'm thinking the Jayhawks actually could win the whole thing. They have the advantage of experience. They beat Texas during the regular season. And Roy Williams is patriotic enough to keep all his players out of the FRENCH Quarter.