Funny because it is true

I got this here

Lucy cartwheels

Lucy has been to two gymnastics classes. She is liable to bust out a cartwheel at any moment. You always have to be on guard. Aside from the penultimate snap, these pix are awful. They do, however, give you an idea of what is going on. The leotard was just purchased. She slept in it that night.

weigh-in day for week 17

Get your own graph at skinnyr

Today is weigh-in day for week 17. I am at 223 pounds. That's two pounds less than last week and 27 pounds less than my starting weight. I am three pounds away from my short-term goal and 24 pounds away from my long-term goal (which, I suppose, will soon become my next short-term goal). I am averaging a loss of 6.35 pounds per month, which is 3.35 pounds ahead of my goal. My body fat percentage is 30.8 percent. That's down from 31.4 percent last week. My BMI is 32. Normal BMI is below 25, which now seems possible. ... When I started out 17 weeks ago I didn't think I would get this far. Especially using my plan, which was basically nothing. I believed that I could lose weight if I made just small changes to my life. So, I started exercising on a regular basis. I walk for three miles as often as I can (most of the time five days a week). I bought a bike trainer ($95) to make sure I had something to do on horrible weather days. I started talking a yoga class ($40 for seven weeks). I only moderated my eating. I tried to eliminate "seconds" eating between meals and eating after dinner. I have also limited my beer consumption to special occasions. I really didn't think it would work. I was hoping it would and I was hoping that I would be able to show people that it wasn't that hard to do. And, it hasn't been. Sometimes I am proud of my success and other times I feel like there is nothing to be proud of because it was so simple (and because I have so far to go). Controlling one's weight and becoming fit is the easiest, cheapest and most important thing you can do to improve your health. I had to have three doctors lecture me (all but one very nicely) before I got it. If I had listened to the first one eight years ago, I would be a lot further along.

Things only change a little

When I started out at the Malone Telegram back in 1991 it seems like I went to a barn fire just about every week. I always had my camera, a Pentax K1000 with me. Wednesday morning the phone rang at 3 a.m. and just like the old days I was on the road and out to a fire. This time it was a building downtown in the little hamlet of LaRue just west of Marion. I have a digital camera now A Fuji FinePix S700. This was the best image I shot that morning.

More Snow pictures

My Talented Friends

The creator and I worked together at WEAV back in the day ... Way back in the day.

Our traveling friends

Our friend Dirk from Germany was in the United States this winter with his family. Wisely they visited the desert.

Bei unserem Las Vegas Trip machten wir auch einen Tagesausflug ins wunderschöne "Valley of Fire". Wir waren von den in der Sonne glühenden Felsen sehr begeistert. Ach ja - am Lake Mead waren wir dann auch noch.

Translation (with help from Babel Fish)During our Vegas Trip we made a day trip into the beautiful "Valley OF Fire". We were very much inspired by the sun on the glowing rock. Oh - We also went to Lake Mead.

My Talented Kin

Niece Ellen and a short film about travel.

snow cat

Sunny is wondering why we moved him here from North Carolina. Frankly, we are thinking the same thing.

snow photos

step one in snow angel creation.


The car is there for scale. But, it doesn't work. The house is a lot bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.


You can see how the snow drifted around on the roof.

Lucy and Tom

We had so much fun there was a little snow on the lens.

snow photos coming

here is a taste.

Here's the snow

Lots of shoveling and walking to work in my future. Looks like we might end up with about 12 inches. This is what the shrubbery in my front yard looked like at 4:30 a.m.

My antenna topper weather gauge was reading "snow" this morning.

16 weeks of weight loss

I have dropped 25 pounds or 10 percent of my former body weight - somebody do the math for this journalist. I am now 25 pounds from my goal for this year. I think I might make it. ... If I don't fail.

Another long election day

I went outside three times to scrape ice off my car. Each was an act of futility. Much like the rest of the day.

I started at 9 a.m. and got home at about 3 a.m. I got up this morning at about 5:55 a.m. to monitor the weather. The weather sucks and the election was inconclusive. The answer to all of this might indeed be 42. Or, maybe I am a little punchy.

When the president comes to town

When former President Bill Clinton came to town. The editors (That's Local Content Editor Jamie Steven to my left) got to sit in a little room down the hall and make updates on the Web site while the reporters and photographers got to hobnob with the Prez.

Weight loss progress

Get your own graph at skinnyr

I am 15 weeks into my weight loss program and closing in on the 10 percent mark. I started at 250 pounds on Nov. 16. I am seven pounds away from my short-term goal and 28 pounds away from my long-term goal. I am 68 pound away from my impossible goal. Hurray for me.

this seemed like a worthwhile thing to post

Hey you! KC is in Missouri!

Beating Joe Klein

Here is a story that encapsulates the decisions and consequences a small town newspaper editor faces.
Most of the hard decisions are not about news. News decisions are easy. The hard decisions have to do with resources.
In January of 2006 we got word that Paul Hackett was coming to Marion to talk to constituents at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Hackett, you probably don’t remember, was the Marine veteran just back from Iraq that was running in the Democratic primary for United State Senator against Sherrod Brown.
Because of resources we rely on the reports from the Associated Press for most of our statewide coverage. Our local reporters and photographers need to concentrate on local news to keep our pages filled with the things the Associated Press cannot cover.
So, when a statewide story comes to town, we have a decision to make.
I really can’t remember all the details of Hackett’s visit. I seem to remember that we heard about it at the last minute and that everybody on staff already had assignments on their schedules.
Normally, what we would do in a case like this, is send a photographer and then pick up something off the wire to run with the picture. None of the writers on our staff would have enough background information and expertise to write anything more than we could tell in picture.
Ideally, what we would have liked to have done was to promote the fact that he was coming. If we had something in the newspaper prior to his visit we could have gotten a crowd out to see him and have something to report - Big crowd for upstart politician.
We decided, reluctantly, to give it a pass and move on.
A few days later I got an anonymous phone call.
“Time magazine is covering events in Marion better than you are,” the caller said.
I visited Time magazine online and found Hackett’s story in Joe Klein’s “In the Arena” column.
I didn’t see that coming.
I never expected to see a national columnist covering something in Marion.
Last Saturday night I was lounging on the couch watching a movie with my wife when my phone rang.
Governor Strickland, the caller said, was going to be at a restaurant in Marion on Sunday at 1 p.m.
Sunday is a day when we have very light staffing. We cover planned events and we respond to breaking news, but we don’t have someone sitting in the bullpen waiting for news to happen.
This was another political race story. Strickland was making a tour in support of Hillary Clinton.
Again this would be a case when a photo and a wire story would be perfect, but I had to decide if I wanted a photographer to start racking up overtime hours during a week when we would have more last-minute political assignments and high school basketball playoffs.
In the end, I decided to attend the event myself with a camera. The Governor is an important person and he doesn't stop in Marion often (he came here when he was running for office, but this was his first visit as Governor).
I went to Perkins at 1 p.m. on Sunday, sat in a room full of loyal Democrats and waited.
The Governor arrived with his entourage and began to circle the tables talking with and charming diners.
You could tell the staff members. They all, even the women, wore dark blue suits and had Hillary Clinton buttons on their lapels.
There was one guy that was obviously with the group but, also obviously, not part of the group.
One of the local Democrats introduced me to him.
“Tom, have you met Joe Klein?”
“You’ve been here before,” I said.
“People keep telling me that,” he replied. “I don’t really remember.”
“Oh, I remember,” I said.
In the next day’s paper we ran a picture of Strickland talking with a couple of local guys about the election. I got a rare photo credit and beat Joe Klein on a story in Marion for the first time in my life.


Tom Graser/The Marion Star

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland talks with Eric Johnson, left of Harpster and his father Robert Johnson of Marion, at Perkins Sunday afternoon. Strickland was in town in support of Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The Ohio primary, which is Tuesday, March 4, is thought by many to be crucial for Clinton to stay in the race.

Based on Lucy's idea

Lucy had an idea for a cartoon using pi. This is the rough draft. I had to do it early in the morning because her plans were way too elaborate for my meager skills. Hopefully, she will be happy with this and we can work to make it just a little better. She is an unyielding task master.

Why the line is so long at the face painting booth

It used to be that little girls got a rainbow painted on their cheeks and boys got a spider. Now, it is the full face mask. Boy's are all getting their entire faces painted like Spiderman and girls - if you are like Lucy - go for the dog look. It takes a lot longer than a rainbow.
I hadn't realized what Lucy had asked for and was a bit surprised when I saw the artist start to apply broad brush strokes of burnt Sienna. Knowing Lucy, she could have asked to be painted like one of her African-American friends at school. It might have sounded OK to the high school girl doing the painting but I wasn't sure how well it would play in the rest of the mall. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the whiskers being applied.
It turns out that she wasn't a dog either. She was a puppy. Which means I was treated to high pitched yips for the rest of the day. Fortunately, the full face mask paint job gets itchy after awhile and she removed it before we went absolutely bonkers what with a new puppy in the house.

breast cancer vs. colon cancer

A Chris Lenney photo.

another lunch note

Lunch note

I have done a series of lunch notes drawn on teabag wrappers. Lucy has not been impressed.

Valentine's Day Shirts

Don't worry, Lucy doesn't read this blog. The one on the left is hand painted with paints Mary gave me for Christmas. The one on the right is a t-shirt transfer I made from a bad design I drew myself.

The colors of cancer

Lavender-General Cancer
Gold-Childhood Cancer
Pink-Breast
Brown-Colon
Kelly Green-Kidney
Orange-Leukemia
Clear-Lung
Lime Green-Lymphoma
Black-Melanoma
Burgundy-Multiple Myeloma
Teal-Ovarian
Purple-Pancreatic Cancer
Blue-Prostate Cancer
Light Yellow-Sarcoma/bone
Peach-Uterine Cancer
Gray-Brain

Girls Rock!

I have to admit it.

still obsessed with Emily Woods

still obsessed with this

It's up for an Academy Award.

It is Relay For Life time! Actually we have been meeting since October but now it is getting serious. I went to a big training session in Columbus over the weekend and am now primed to start raising money for the American Cancer Society.

You can help me out by visiting my Relay For Life page



My lofty goal is to make a difference in my daughter's life. I know I do that every day by being the goofiest dad on the block. But, I want to do it in a good way too. Lucy will grow up facing a battery of tests beginning as a young adult because of her father's history. My hope is that if she ever needs treatment, the treatment would not be as extreme as mine. My hope is that the screening will be easier. My hope is that we will not be talking about treatment in hope of a cure, but just about cures. The only way to do that is with money.
I have chosen to go along with the American Cancer Society because they provide more money for cancer research than anyone else besides the government. And, it is their advocacy work with the government that helps keep that money flowing.
Please forgive me for bugging you about this. If you give to an American Cancer Society event in your community, that's great - keep doing it. If you want to donate money through me, that's great too. If you already have your charitable dollars planned for something else, that's not a problem. We need money to beat cancer but I will settle for awareness.
Most of you that read this page are my friends. I can't prevent you from getting cancer - unless I talked you into a colonoscopy (colon cancer can be prevented) - But, maybe I can prevent your children from getting cancer. That is something I want to be a part of.

How Asheville plays in Cleveland

From the Monday Plain Dealer.
Click on the pix to see it in its glorious largeness.

weekend excuses

I didn't do much with Lucy this weekend for various selfish reasons. To make myself feel better I took a picture of the story board of the first act of the Emily Woods movie. We are still sporadically working on the script for the next project. I have to get it finished soon before Lucy makes it too elaborate.

watch your back

Ralph in 08

Finally a candidate I can get behind!

sketchy results

I know these spring scales are wildly inaccurate and sometimes when you move on the scale you can alter the weight a pound or two, but I have been pretty consistent with this one. I stand in the same place at about the same time every day. I expect this to go up tomorrow. Still I will celebrate this milestone today! It marks a 20 pound loss in a 11 weeks.

hilarious

funny to click here

My Talented Kin

Not sure why it took me so long to find and post this.

obsessed

Get your own graph at skinnyr

I have become obsessed with this quest to lose weight. Not so much that I am doing much about it. I mean, I am exercising - I walk from 45 to 50 minutes in the morning and I ride a bike trainer for 30 to 60 minutes at night, but I have not altered my diet all that much. I try not to get seconds and I try not to eat between meals, but I do both on occasion. I only have beer every once in a while. I haven't had any now for more than a week and it was more than a week the time before that. I guess I have a couple of bottles of beer every two weeks. I weight myself every morning and take a picture of it. That's the most consistent thing I do. So far it has been working. I started on Nov. 16 at 150 pounds. Today I as at 234.

weigh-in

If you click on this photo you can see that I am on the light side of 235 pounds. Ten weeks ago I was on the heavy side of 250. Whoo HOO!

Emily Woods Part 1.2 (music added to bike scenes)

I added some music to the bike riding scenes. It was suggested by the Schvetz family in Colorado. I had intended to do that with the original but I ran out of time. Finding the right music and sound effects takes the most amount of time when it comes to putting the final product together.

Christmas video

I don't know why it takes me so long to get Christmas videos posted. Perhaps it is because Santa did not bring me a new camcorder...

My Geography needs help

Falling Slowly

Mary and I watched "Once" Friday night. I really liked it.

AMAZING!!!

Sandy Wall driving the Craven Community College's float in the New Bern High School victory parade. "Good times," Sandy reports. New Bern had won the North Carolina State Football Championship.

weight chart

Get your own graph at skinnyr

Windmills in and around Chateaugay, New York

Visitors from Chateaugay

Ron and Sandy enjoyed "Second Christmas."

Our little model

We asked Lucy to pose with some of the new clothing she received as gifts for "Second Christmas." I think there as been a little too much "America's Next Top Model" on in the house.

Bad day at the office

glumbert - Bad Day at the Office

Christmas keeps coming

Mary's parents are in town with a pile of Christmas gifts. Lucy has talked us into letting her open one gift a night. The big night is supposed to be Friday. Who knows if there will be anything left under the tree. So far she has 4 new Junie B. Jones books and the sweatshirt seen above. Her grandparents also brought home a globe circa 1940 from an antique shop yesterday. It has one of those time dials on the north pole so you can tell what time it is anywhere in the world. "What time is it in Germany? What time is it in Iowa? What time is it in Australia?"
"You know Lucy," I said. "It's always bedtime somewhere." She didn't get it.

This is one of those horrible, cheesy TV reports that they put on the end of the news with the "colorful" feature reporter, but because it is about the best hotdog stand in the world Pivins (pee vans) in Huntingdon, Quebec, I am posting it here.

Potter Epiphany

I always wondered what this song was about. At first I thought it was just Martin telling a story from a woman's point of view. Then I thought it was someone talking to God. Now I realize it was really about Ron and Harry!

Breaking in the new sled

The new sled is fast!

New Year Celebration

Lucy celebrates with Rabbit Ro (above) and with mom (below).