"No way! No WAY! NO WAY!"

As cellphones shrink in size and parents distribute them at younger ages, this is the predictable result: my two-month-old niece yammering away a perfectly good afternoon. Get a job!

The big chill

Holly and I booked our vacation today, an Alaskan cruise in early June. The day after Smith's wedding in Maryland, we're flying from Baltimore to Seattle in the morning and in the afternoon setting sail for a week. Glaciers, whales, mint schnapps... we're excited.

Odds and ends:

• See Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth. You're welcome.
• Looking forward to a Super Bowl in which I have a rooting interest. (The Colts are the second-closest NFL team to this pro-sports-less burg, and my job is across the river in Indiana.)
• Mojo's and Moxie's first birthday is Tuesday. They still have only two gears - neutral and fifth. They're on their last bag of kitten chow before they graduate to the grown-up stuff, which makes me a little sad.
• I am slowly and unsurely returning to running shape. But the gym's new treadmills have individual TV screens, so the sky's the limit!
  

He's back

There you go, Aaron Sorkin.

Ol' boy finally found his rhythm tonight on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It was crisp, effortlessly funny without long and clunky diatribes, and left several minor but genuine cliffhangers that made Holly and I pleasantly frustrated when the credits rolled.

Steven Weber ("Jack Rudolph") continues to surprise as a natural fit in the "likable jerk" role, and I'm still thrilled that the presence of Dawn from the British "The Office" -- not Dawn from "Tony Orlando and" -- has translated so well to Sorkin's model.

Best episode yet.

Time for classic photos

Regal ol' Moxie, in smaller, haughtier days.

The aforementioned Eagles helmet

What a weird face. Although I like how the angle makes me look like I'm tall enough to hit my head on the rafters.

And who's that candy cane with thicker hair than me?

Being sick = no longer cool

I'm sick. I have a moderate, persistent cold that seems to have strengthened in one symptom or another each day since Friday. Today I woke up and knew I'd be too sneezy and nasty for my co-workers to tolerate. I had things to do that I couldn't really cancel, even after cancelling some other things, and I'd prefer to save my sick days to bolster my scant vacation time, so I worked from home after briefly stopping in to grab my Rolodex, etc.

When I was a kid, having a cold often meant a wonderful holiday from school.

When I was in college, I didn't need any excuse at all to skip class, so being sick was an annoying impediment to my scattershot social calendar.

When I was one of several editors at a newspaper, my duties arose and were completed each day of work -- the nature of the job -- so I could call in sick and know that someone else could handle it, since nothing could have been planned ahead or started already. Being sick returned to coolness. (What a clunky paragraph. But cut me some slack, I'm sick.)

Now, as a reporter, I often have to make my own work instead of picking apart someone else's, and many of my tasks can't be pawned off on my colleagues. Can't skip work, so being sick sucks.

If a blogger taps out a post and knows no one cares to hear it, does he make a sound? Indeed, and that sound, coming from his mouth, is: "Thpbpbpbpb!"

Eagles on Saturday. I'll be wearing my helmet.

Ohhhh seven

It's been months since any substantial update from this space. Not a whole lot to report. Chugging along at the newspaper while Holly does the same at school. Mojo and Moxie are a lot of fun, still with a lot of kittenish energy at the age of 11 months. Had a New Year's party last night that was by far the most people ever in our apartment at one time -- about 30 at its peak, I think; previous record was maybe nine.

A few things coming up this year:

• My sister Paige, brother-in-law Brian and baby niece Lea are moving to the western tip of Virginia in February. It looks to be about a five-hour car trip from here, half the length of a trip home to PA, so I'm looking forward to some nice weekends there.
• Weddings, weddings, weddings. We're signed up for five already, four of them requiring plane flights, in four states between March and September.
• Holly takes a crucial test/series of tests sometime in late spring, for which she'll be hunkered down in study mode for six weeks or so.
  
• Anticipating only two and a half more years in Louisville, we're probably not looking to buy a house anymore, but we'll be looking elsewhere downtown and in the Highlands neighborhood a few miles to the east to see if we can get a better bargain on rent.
• I've managed to pack on 20 pounds (to 185) since the marathon eight months ago, and while I am not planning to run it again this year, my goal is to get into 5K/10K shape and join a basketball league or something similar at the YMCA.
• Professionally, I'm applying this year to an exchange program in my newspaper chain. Each month, a reporter is chosen to be dropped into another city to write enterprise stories and experience a new beat. I think I'd enjoy that. Otherwise, I'll just be doing lots of digging and trying piss everyone off in a municipal election year. I expect this year to tell me a lot about for how long I'd like to be a reporter and what specialty I'd like to pursue.
• I have high hopes for my Philadelphia Phillies, and I'll be maintaining Chyan Utlard on a regular basis for family, friends and even fans I don't know.