As I started the Wasatch 100, with a climb up Bair Canyon, a 4500 foot ascent, I thought how a week earlier I was sitting in the emergency room with symptoms of a heart attack. Strong chest pains. Heavy arms. Yet here I was beginning a 100 mile race. It’s probably best to start back […]
2024 Wasatch 100 Race Report
22-Sep-24Lessons from 1000 Miles of Trail Races
15-Sep-23Over the past 13 years I’ve run 15 ultramarathons (including a self-created ultra in 2020) totaling 1013 miles. Here are some lessons learned. The 100 Miler Is Still the Pinnacle DistanceNo matter how many times I look at other distances – longer ones, like the Cocodona 250; shorter ones, like the 50 miler – none […]
The Bighorn Trail 100 Mile Race
28-Jun-21It started with a photo from the September 2018 issue of Ultrarunning magazine. The photo was from the 2018 Hardrock 100. I saw the insanity and intensity in that photo and said, “I think I want that.” There are people who do ultramarathons to check off a box. That’s not me. I do them to […]
The Drawbacks of Continuous Deployment
16-Jan-21I’m driving 80 MPH through South Dakota – heading to pick up my son from his first semester at college. As I drive I wonder how he’ll remember to grab all his belongings. I wonder if he’ll use a checklist. Will he remember to grab all his charging cords? Will he throw away all his […]
The Office
13-Jan-21My first professional office was at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia. It was small—walk-in-closet sized—but it was on the top floor with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the woods. I didn’t mind spending time there. The view of the ever-changing trees out the window let your mind wander – a necessity for […]
Tri-State Ultramarathon
14-May-20Everything in my head and body said this was dumb. As we drove west during the pandemic I thought, “This feels like a bad idea.” I kept seeing the digital Iowa DOT signs that said, “Save lives. Stay at home.” Yet, here my son and I were, leaving home to stay in a hotel in […]
Pointers for pacers in ultramarathons
13-Jul-19I was running recently with guys from my running group. One of them mentioned he was going to be a pacer for a friend in the Leadville 100 mile race. A pacer is someone who joins an ultrarunner to keep them going and on pace. They usually run with the race participant late in the […]
The dangers of product management
30-Apr-19I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of product management in engineering organizations lately. Three things are driving my thinking. First, I’ve read a number of articles about technology companies going off the rails because of product decisions. There are stories about Facebook’s product organization pushing ahead with projects despite internal security concerns. And […]
5 Rules for DJing
30-Apr-191. Understand your audience. If your audience is a millennial wedding and you don’t play “Paper Planes” by M.I.A. – you’ve lost. Ask people what they like. Get specific. Do they like Drake? Do they know any Migos songs? How about Little Big Town? Make sure you can connect with your audience using music they […]
2017 Superior 100 Mile Trail Race Report
17-Sep-17I had to go back. Last year’s disastrous DNF at mile 50 hit me hard. So in January 2017 I thought I’d let chance be my decider. If I got picked in the lottery it was a sign I should go back and redeem myself. Chance was on my side. Now I had nine months to […]
Newer bridges
22-Jun-17My regular running route takes me under a bridge. It’s a railroad truss bridge over a creek. There’s a paved trail that passes next to the creek and curves under the bridge. The bridge looks like a large, rusty erector set. I’ve run under the bridge more than 1000 times. I’ve walked across it close to 100 times. Stepping […]
I’ll write more later as I get time to reflect. But here’s some quick thoughts from Saturday’s run. Starting at 6 a.m. is nice. Darkness suits me. The vistas from Ely’s Peak are amazing in October. Waves of yellow across miles. Having Enger Tower lit at night is a great beacon to run towards. Very […]
2016 Superior 100 Mile Race Report
19-Sep-16It seemed like the right decision at the time. I spent 3 hours talking myself into it. Changing my mind would be hard. I was at mile 50 or so. The Finland aid station. Always a lively place since it had plenty of parking for support crews and plenty of lighting from a community center […]
‘Should’ rarely leads to behavior change
30-Aug-16As many of us know, behavior change can only be done via baby steps. It’s not done through some grand moment of realization. It’s done by making one small change and keeping at it. I’ve used this idea to fuel plenty of successes in my life. Losing and keeping off 40 pounds. Running 100 mile […]
2014 Superior Trail 100 Mile
16-Oct-14My heart wasn’t in this from the start. I signed up for the Superior Trail 100 Mile race in March because I thought I needed to commit to something this year. The only other race I’d planned to do was the Grand Blue Mile associated with the Drake Relays. 2014 Races 1-mile Grand Blue Mile […]
Kid humor
26-Mar-14I always try to joke with my kids (because it’s requirement for fatherhood). But one memory sticks out for me. I run a decent amount and have run marathons – none since having kids – but I’m getting back on the road more and more. One day after running about 13 miles my kids asked […]
Under the bridge
12-Oct-13There used to be a rope attached to the bridge. It’s a truss railroad bridge over a creek. I suspect it was a swimming hole rope since it had a number of knots tied in the lower third. Two years ago I tried to hang myself from that rope. It was a cold morning and […]
Diagnosis vs. Symptoms
01-Feb-13There’s something bubbling up in mental health. It extends beyond mental health. Don’t look at a collection of symptoms as a path towards a diagnosis. See symptoms as something separate. Loss of sleep is just that. Loss of appetite is just that. Don’t bundle them up in to depression. This is all part of being […]
Superior 100 Mile Trail Race – 2012
14-Sep-12“Running all night. Not me.” The bartender knew it before I did. My dad and I were drinking beers at the bar at Lutsen Resort. As he cleaned up the bar area, the bartender asked what brought me up to Lutsen. I was there to run a race – a 50k race (a tad over […]
Runner-Monk, Not Runner-Priest
21-Jun-12People know I’m a runner. They see me all shiny and sweaty at various points around town, sometimes quite far from home. My friends and family know that I sometimes prioritize my running over everything when visiting them or when they visit me. Running keeps me sane. Inevitably runners, new or experienced, want to talk […]
Run it out
25-Apr-11I ran 16 miles to the middle of a cornfield. I stood in the rural intersection and looked in all directions. “Nah, this isn’t it.” I turned to run back home. Back home I walked in my back door and looked around my kitchen. “This isn’t it either.” And I sat down and cried.
Letting go
23-Apr-11Usually running is a liberating activity. But today’s run was not. Stuck in my mind and in my body. But in the last five minutes, it changed. Face to face with a fox in the woods, I paused. He paused. Only separated by about six feet we saw the natural in each other. And I […]
Let’s do more hard, simple things
26-Oct-10Before I left work to run my first 100K last weekend a work colleague wondered how it would compare to work. I answered, “Simpler, I’m sure.” I’m surprised at how accurate my guess was. But in one way I was wrong: it was way harder than anything I’ve done before. After running for 62 miles […]
Wild Duluth 100K Race Report for 2010
19-Oct-10Yes, I finished the race. I did it in 17 hours and 35 minutes which put me in 21st place out of 26 finishers. But Wow! This section of the Superior Hiking Trail (SHT) is tough, even brutal. I ran off course for a mile late at night and probably ended up covering 63 miles […]
Exercises good self discipline
24-Aug-10Usually a 3 or a 4 on scale of 1 to 4 where 1 was the best. That’s consistently what I got in the ‘Exercises good self discipline’ category of all my grade school report cards. While I regularly had everything else rated as a 1 or 2 – you know spelling, math, reading, gets […]
As I mentioned in a tweet, I worked with my son in realtime to pull data from the LEGO website. He wanted to see all the pieces counts for products. So we built this ruby script together to pull the data and parse it with Hpricot. Took about 10 minutes. require ‘rubygems’ require ‘open-uri’ require […]
Test Post From TextMate
19-Oct-06Let’s see how this shows up. Nothing exciting as there hasn’t been any real content around here in almost a year. I’m thinking about returning to the blog – but not sure…
Great Lines From Children’s Books
22-Jan-06We now own over 300 children’s books. I’m sure that sounds like a lot (and it is), but we read between 10 and 15 books a day to our kids. 300 books is only about a month’s rotation worth of books. Lately I’ve realized there are some great lines (both funny and poignant) in these […]
Gorilla myths about humans
14-Dec-05Along the same lines as this story. These myths below have been circulating in the gorilla community for years. It’s time to debunk them. Myth: Humans are bloodthirsty and violent. Fact: Humans are more interested in money and commercial success. While not inherently bloodthirsty or violent, humans will use those tactics to achieve money and […]
Journalism != Literature
07-Dec-05(A friend suggested that I should go back to writing things here after I suggested shutting down the blog. Luckily the following came to my doorstep on Sunday.) I suppose this is all due to a New Yorker who’s first name was Truman. But you decide if this journalism or great literature: Outside Jaipur, young […]
Are churches really more dangerous?
30-Oct-05This article is a horrible example of journalism. It’s loaded with conclusions and no facts to back it up. It starts off with: Churches have long been considered safe havens from the evil of the outside world. No more. But no where in the article, does it ever state whether there has been a marked […]
Newspaper Marketing
10-Oct-05Two things converged for me this week about newspaper leadership. First, I ran across a very old article about concerns of newspaper executives circa 1996. Next I read Byron Calame’s Public Editor column in the Sunday New York Times about what the Times’ editors know about their readers. The article about newspaper executive concerns has […]
This excerpt from today’s WSJ Evening Wrap is just too funny/sad/odd: They became a smash hit TV series in the U.S. in the 1980s, but their latest TV incarnation is getting a mixed response. With the blessing of Peyo’s [the Smurfs’ creator] family, UNICEF has produced a 25-second advertisement in which the Smurf village is […]
Self Conscious Iowans
08-Oct-05From reading Juice this week, I saw an ad for this Sunday’s Des Moines Register story on the first ever poll of what Americans think of Iowa. This is not a poll of Iowans – it’s a poll of non-Iowans to ask for their opinion of our state. Are we the only state that does […]
DMR – Another Redesign
02-Oct-05Looks like DesMoinesRegister.com has gone through another iteration of redesign. I primarily get my news via RSS these days, so I don’t know when they changed the site. I commented on DesMoinesRegister.com in the past so I’ll offer my thoughts again. For once, I’m impressed by some of what they’ve done. First, the speed with […]
The Smart (Ass) Kids in the Class
02-Oct-05Of course, the Wall Street Journal is considered the newspaper of record for U.S. business. But about once a week they go about picking on the wallets that pay their salaries. I’d guess that most of the WSJ staff is filled with Ivy League graduates who feel they’re a just a bit smarter than their […]
Iowa-Mississippi River-New Orleans
09-Sep-05An article in the Register today has people asking about whether to rebuild New Orleans and how we should do it. I know you’re thinking that you’re tired of all this talk of New Orleans in Iowa. I mean, who cares? Well the folks at Stratfor do. Read this if you want to understand the […]
New Editor at DMR
31-Aug-05Well, it looks like the usual corporate ladder rearranging is happening today as the Des Moines Register hires Carolyn Washburn to be Editor. As I mentioned before, the Register is a management training ground for newspaper editors within Gannett. You may think the Idaho Statesman is a Knight Ridder paper, but up until August of […]
Register Blogs
27-Aug-05As you know, the Des Moines Register’s teenage son, Juice, has been blogging for about four months now. And while the Juice blogs are continually crappy or just plain boring, we all knew at some point the full Register would have to join in the party. This past week the Register has turned on five […]
Marching Onward
24-Aug-05You won’t hear much from me in the next couple of weeks. A march to complete lots of software development by Labor Day is driving all my time away from the blog. The conversation that started this effort went something like this near the end of July. Boss: “How much development effort do you estimate […]
Computerworld mentions a recent comScore study which shows that: Blog visitors are 11% more likely than the average Internet user to have incomes of $75,000 or more and are 30% more likely to live in households headed by someone between the ages of 18 and 34, the study found. During the first quarter, the average […]
What is a named pipe?
15-Aug-05Many people come here searching for what a named pipe is. Since I’ve got some knowledge on this topic (and it’s the blog’s namesake), I thought I’d try to help them out finally. The article below requires some basic Unix knowledge. To start off, a pipe (symbolized by |) is way to transfer data between […]
Anger’s gone – who’s next?
03-Aug-05Des Moines Register Editor Paul Anger is leaving to be Editor at the Detroit Free Press. Here’s a link to the story. This is great. Anger has really done nothing for the paper in terms of news coverage and quality. Sure he can brag about Kauffman’s Pulitzer nomination, but that’s an anomaly. Overall, the paper […]
More information please
03-Aug-05I mentioned last week about Vilsack creating the Heartland PAC and it’s prototype website. Now a reporter at the Mason City Globe Gazette is writing about the Heartland PAC’s fund raising activities so far (thanks to State 29 for the original link). But the reporter isn’t helping readers to make decisions for themselves, they are […]
More Local News
02-Aug-05Back in March, the 3 largest newspaper chains agreed to buy a majority share in Topix.net. Think of Topix.net as a cross between Google News and Google Local – they offer news from a variety of sources that is aggregated by geography. (Yes, they also do this same sort of thing by topic – e.g. […]
What’s your governor up to
27-Jul-05As mentioned yesterday on Polictical Wire, it looks like Vilsack is about to launch a new web site for his Heartland PAC. It turns out the site is currently owned by BJ Thornberry, who is the Executive Director of the Democratic Governors Association. It’ll be interesting to watch as Vilsack tries to make a national […]
Stuart Smalley Iowans
27-Jul-05Thanks to State 29 for pointing out this editorial in the Daily Iowan about perceptions of Iowans. Unfortunately, this drivel is all too common in Iowa. Often in Des Moines, the political discussion turns to questions of what will make Des Moines a “real city”. A new arena? A new hockey team? How about an […]
Sometimes you get too popular
18-Jul-05Slashdot is now covering a topic that was first reported by Nature about 3 weeks ago. Ethanol is not without its own environmental problems. This new scrutiny of Ethanol comes from its own increased popularity as a fuel. Nonetheless, Ethanol is not doomed. Ethanol is about shifting to problems you can manage. Any shift to […]
Bidding war for Maytag
18-Jul-05State 29 mentions a common financial reporting mistake made by many newspapers. (And one that I’ve written about before). The last link to the Chicago Tribune story is basically a regurgitation of Whirlpool’s own press release. One indicator of this faux pas is the fact that both stories report to come from “Benton Harbor, Mich.”, […]
Political reporter stars
16-Jul-05I was watching Iowa Press last night which had Mike Glover and David Yepsen chatting with Gov. Vilsack and I realized the show was more about the reporters making a name for themselves than Vilsack. After watching Yepsen ask 3 times about independent oversight for the DHS, I thought he was putting on a nice […]
Good chocolate – bad chocolate
15-Jul-05While we were in Chicago this past weekend we visited a new chocolate shop called “Ethel’s Chocolate Lounge”. We went there with friends to pick up some dessert to bring back to their apartment. The shop is Starbucks combined with a candy store, except more expensive – 12 chocolates cost us $14. They have bon-bons […]
Suggestions for Nollen Plaza
14-Jul-05Rox Laird, a Register editorial writer, has a short piece about what to do with Nollen Plaza in downtown Des Moines. I’ve spent plenty of time eating lunch in Nollen Plaza during all seasons and I’ve never seen the “lunchtime crowds” he mentions. If you count homeless people, there are maybe a total of 20 […]
Blog for the Register
14-Jul-05This is kind of humorous. Juice (the crappy-Des-Moines-version of Chicago’s Red Eye newspaper) is looking for guest bloggers. Before you go sign up, here’s my advice: Ask them what their daily readership is at DMJuice.com Ask to retain rights to all your material Go setup a Blogger account and do it yourself
Who really benefits from terror attacks
14-Jul-05This is sad. The APTA (a Washington D.C. trade association for transportation) is calling for an increase in spending on transit security (read Big Brother) from current levels of $100M to $2B. I’m glad they at least waited until the trains were running again in London before calling for more money. This puts the APTA […]
Real-time photo journalism
07-Jul-05From a post on Boing Boing, I came across and interesting phenomena relating to the bomb blasts in London today: real-time photo journalism. The combination of public photo sites with tagging photos has created a real-time set of images from London relating to the bomb blasts. Flickr has a number of tags which show photos […]
Outgoing Des Moines City Manager
02-Jul-05The Register has a great excerpt from an interview with outgoing Des Moines city manager Eric Anderson. It’s a must-read for residents of the city. (Couldn’t the Register have posted the full transcript of the interview online? They’ll never learn that bandwidth is cheaper than paper.) Since the Register was an avid supporter of the […]
New Law Day
30-Jun-05As many already know, tomorrow (July 1) is the day many new Iowa state laws go into effect. I’m sure most are aware that the speed limit on rural interstates will go up to 70 MPH. But take a look at the list of passed laws for 2005. Here are few that stand out to […]
Let’s not panic
30-Jun-05The Register notes this morning about the decling population in the city of Des Moines. Let’s remember that this is part of a trend in the U.S. of people moving out of cities to surrounding areas (especially in the midwest and western U.S. where there is ample land around cities for development). This puts Des […]
Middle-age worry-warts
28-Jun-05I love demographic trends and this one is an interesting one. While pundits across the board tried to figure out the origins of a more conservative public for the past 30 years, I haven’t seen any real compelling reasons yet. But in the most recent newsletter from market research company New Strategist, they argue that […]
New Found Newspaper Love
27-Jun-05So we’ve started getting the Sunday New York Times to compliment our existing subscription to the Sunday Des Moines Register. But for the last two weeks my wife has walked out to the driveway (where the Times lands) to get the paper and left the Register sitting outside on the front step. Every Sunday, the […]
There oughta be a law.
24-Jun-05Erin Crawford writes today about her surprise in not being able to buy multiple boxes of cold medicine. I dug up an old Register article reporting that Iowans are limited to purchasing however many milligrams or tablets of some substance a day and . . . well, I can’t even pronounce pseudoephedrine, and I have […]
Justin Roberts’ zooTunes Concert
21-Jun-05Kyle Munson, the Des Moines Register’s music critic, has his review of the Justin Robert’s concert on Sunday at the Blank Park Zoo online. My observations from the concert are: They need to setup the stage in a place where there is more shade. 5 p.m. during the summer sun is not the optimum time […]
More on solutions to malpractice reform
21-Jun-05I’ve written about this in the past, but now the WSJ has a great artcile about real results in reducing medical malpractice insurance premiums – stop injuring patients. From the article: Anesthesiologists pay less for malpractice insurance today, in constant dollars, than they did 20 years ago. That’s mainly because some anesthesiologists chose a path […]
Putting yourself out of business
14-Jun-05I read at least one quote a week like this one from the July 2005 issue of Software Development:”Finding precise and repeatable ways to make design decisions is the Holy Grail or software development productivity…. It takes years of skill to make these decisions and there is no way to automate them.We recently hired an architect to draw up some designs for some changes and additions to our home.
Crawford on Iowans and swearing
27-May-05Erin Crawford has nice article on people offended by reality-TV contestant Tana’s swearing.Fucking Iowans!
Speaking of paying for news…
27-May-05While I was writing about my increased spending on news content, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal thinks prices of U.S. newspapers should be higher:In fact, Mr. Kann said he thinks publishers in general have underpriced their products.”No one in this room thinks twice about spending $2 buying a bad cup of coffee walking through an airport,” he said, adding that “we’re probably all too cautious about raising subscription prices.”I agree, but with one caveat. If newspapers raise the price of subscriptions (or eliminate free online news), they need to listen to readers more.
My Media Diet
25-May-05They are:• Christian Science Monitor• The Sunday Des Moines Register• The Wall Street Journal• Salon• The New York Times – SundayOn a daily basis, I also read washingtonpost.com and DesMoinesRegister.com…. The content coming from the above list is deeper, more well researched, and better written that most of the free content out there.
Is it 2.1 or 1.1? Maytag going private.
19-May-05The Register is reporting on the sale of Maytag with headline and copy stating the deal is worth $2.1 billion (In fact the headline says “sold to … for $2.1 billion”). Yet, the WSJ puts the deal at $1.1 billion (sorry, subscription required). I’d go with the WSJ on this one. It’s hard to think […]
Need some “Juice”
17-May-05What are they thinking? The folks running DesMoinesRegister.com put a top level navigation in for the continuously lame juice publication. See below with the link highlighted by the red oval. First off, it doesn’t fit with the top level categories they have in the navigation bar. “Hmm, I’m looking for some sports scores [under the […]
Editors don’t want criticism
16-May-05This interview with Daniel Okrent, outgoing public editor of the New York Times (otherwise known as “ombudsman”), struck me as interesting. Especially the last quote in the article where Okrent talks about reactions to his departure: Well, Phil Taubman, the Washington bureau chief, invited me back this March and said it was time for the […]
Garage-Sale Blogging
15-May-05We had our garage sale yesterday and unloaded everything that we really wanted to get rid of. Insulation left over from finishing the basement – gone, old carpet from the basement – gone, kitchen cart – gone, bookcase – gone, kids slide – gone. I noticed a few differences from our last sale, which was […]
In Borsellino’s Own Words
13-May-05As mentioned yesterday, here is Rob Borsellino’s own words about testifying in D.C. And he got to experience some normal Washington excitement with the threat of a plane in restricted airspace. Then he was asked: Why Iowa? I told him it’s a great place to raise kids, it’s easy to park and it’s very welcoming. […]
Mr. Borsellino Goes To Washington
12-May-05Rob Borsellino, one of the better writers for the Des Moines Register, went to Washington to testify about having ALS (known as Lou Gehrig’s disease). This Register column talks a little about the Senate hearing where he pitched his book to Senators and made other jokes. Hopefully, Rob will write his own wry piece about […]
If you have 5 extra minutes today, read this article about a performance art piece ending today in downtown Washington, DC. Then reflect: Is it art? Do you have “enough”?
Wired News releases analysis of sources
10-May-05There was lots of coverage of the NYT announcement yesterday of a report containing suggestions to improve credibility. But this story from Wired News is much more interesting, since it contains a detailed analysis of problems with sources. These types of anaylses need to happen more often. And the news media shouldn’t wait until a […]
Design Constraints
06-May-05I’ve spent the better part this week trying to hammer out an architecture for a new application I’m developing. Most of my time was wasted in a problem space too large for solutions. I had a list of all the functions, a list of all the data, and profile of all the users and the […]
Chatting with the Register
05-May-05Despite State 29’s warning, I talked to Erin Crawford from the Register yesterday about the Iowa blogging community. (In the interest of full disclosure, I used to work at the Register). It was a good conversation in which she asked me a number of questions: How did I get started blogging? Did I feel the […]
Harsh Language
05-May-05The Washington Post yesterday had a well written column titled When Columnists Cry ‘Jihad’. In it, John McCandlish Phillips explains that he’s seen a lot of inflammatory language from columnists lately used against evangelicals and conservative Catholics. The article is subtle in its explanation of the problem and critiques the language used – not the […]
Municipal Phone Networks
05-May-05Usually State 29 does better research than this. But for some reason he seems to think that HF 861 (previously HSB 182) is about preventing Clark McLeod from getting taxpayer money. He refers to a letter from a Mediacom representative about Clark McCleod siphoning taxpayer dollars. I’m not sure someone from Mediacom is a reliable […]
Computer Security at Its Best
03-May-05I’m surprised I don’t blog more about technical items since that’s what my day job is. Perhaps my blog is to escape from all things technical. Anyway, I came across this dialog box the other day on one of my machines and had to laugh. It’s a great example of poor computer security and bad […]
Obligatory Social Security Post
29-Apr-05Since Social Security is the hot-blog-topic-of-the-day, I figure I would finally put my thoughts down on this one. And then never discuss Social Security again here on this blog. Social Security is a tax This means you can’t expect to track the same way you track deposits in your 401k. As with all taxes, they […]
State 29 has some generally good points about property taxes today. But this story is a little outrageous: This past weekend I spoke with an old friend who has lived in the suburban San Francisco region for about 8 years. When he bought his brand-new, middle-class house in 1997, it cost $250,000 – an amount […]
Government Competition
26-Apr-05Two recent pieces of legislation highlight a shady thing corporations do to ensure monopoly. First, Iowa HF 861, a bill to make it harder for cities and municipalities to build telecommunications networks is eligible for debate on the Iowa House floor. While the last thing we need is every city to build their own telecommunications […]
Drake Relays Parade
23-Apr-05I decided to take my son to see the Drake Relays Parade this year. I never went to the parade while attending Drake due to it happening downtown Des Moines and being rather early in the morning for a college student. But my son and I needed to get out and he enjoys parades; the […]
Funny-Sad Border Crossing Story
21-Apr-05I’m not usually a fan of MLP as they call in on Kuro5hin, but this is a great story about a woman crossing the border between the U.S. and Canada to speak at a Cannabis conference.
State 29 Sending Readers to the Register
21-Apr-05State 29 is not interested in offering comments to a reporter from the Des Moines Register. But State 29 is interested in sending readers over to the Register every chance possible. Here’s the number links to Register stories from State 29’s blog each month: January – 35 links February – 41 links March – 50 […]
Funny local stories
15-Apr-05Check here and here for some great humor reading today. But these are actual news stories. First, a convenience store clerk shoots himself when adjusting his gun. And then, near Cedar Falls, we have a woman who gets rashes and headaches from EM fields, so she lives in metal trailer inside a metal barn. Reality […]
While the Register notes that Dallas County ranked number 10 in population growth from mid-2003 to mid-2004 the actual numbers are less staggering: Dallas County’s population rose from 46,519 in July 2003 to 49,591 in July 2004, according to census estimates. That’s an increase of more than 3,000 new residents in just a year. That’s […]
I told you it was coming: dmJuice.com
14-Apr-05Well the Des Moines Register entered the online-blog-youth-market with a new, currently online only, publication today. As I mentioned before, Juice, is geared toward the already consolidating free weekly reader market. We’ll see if the MSM can be successful at being alternative. So far the layout and design is just as crappy as DesMoinesRegister.com. Don’t […]
Slippery slopers are stupid
12-Apr-05State 29 says: Once cities get hooked on providing services, they’ll be pressured to offer more and more newer technologies. First it was cable TV, but now it’s broadband internet. Then it will be WiFi and digital movie downloads. Maybe somebody will think broadband over power lines (BPL) should be given another try. It’s endless. […]
More Wal-Mart Troubles
12-Apr-05Wal-Mart seems to have met some problems in West Des Moines. Seems like the neighborhood doesn’t want a 24-7 store around – and Wal-Mart worked so hard to come up with reasonable building designs. Wal-Mart will claim they are a victim of becoming too big and successful. Exactly. It happened to Microsoft, IBM, and AT&T. […]
Using DesMoinesRegister.com
11-Apr-05My free 6-week subscription to the daily Register expired last week. So I have to resort to using DesMoinesRegister.com or reading the paper at the coffee shop (or catching snippets from State 29, with usually-good commentary). Nonetheless, using DesMoinesRegister.com pains me. Let me explain. WTF? What is this ad? Why is this woman’s face staring […]
Thoughts on the “Schiavo Memo”
08-Apr-05Since this topic made the top of memeorandum today, I’ll add my two cents worth with two points I haven’t seen elsewhere. Many people have been critical of Mike Allen of the Washington Post for claiming the memo was distributed to Republicans. People have said that no Republican saw the memo. But Tom Harkin, said […]
Bub-bye “Point Blank”!
07-Apr-05Looks like Des Moines will be down to just one alternative newspaper (for now). Business Publications Corp sold Cityview to the majority owners of Point Blank. And those new owners said they are closing up Point Blank and attempting to merge staffs. The last Point Blank is on the stands right now. Since the Register […]
2 Years Later: Photos From Iraq
07-Apr-05While speculation and bias run rampant through both blogs and MSM when reporting about Iraq, I prefer to get information from people close to the ground. This is a great set of photos from various photographers visiting Iraq 2 years after the invasion. It requires Flash and has audio commentary from the photographers, worth listening […]
Yesterday, State 29 referred to a Washington Times survey of senators concluding that none of the 55 Republican senators wrote a controvesial memo to mix politics in the Terri Schiavo case. Now it turns out that an aide to Sen. Martinez admitted to writing the memo. The last interesting point about State 29’s post is […]
Role Reversal
05-Apr-05Normally, blogs follow the mainstream media, commenting on stories like a remora picking up scraps from the sharks. But today Erin Crawford reports on the conspiracy theory developed mostly on blogs about how former Whitehouse reporter Jeff Gannon is actually missing newspaper boy Johnny Gosch. This is great switch, blogs create news and the Register […]
Pulitzers
05-Apr-05It’s always a fun time of year to see the Pulitzers announced. With the exception of The Wall Street Journal, the list of newspaper winners doesn’t contain any papers I read regularly, but the Des Moines Register made sure to point out that Clark Kauffman was a finalist – nothing like tooting your own horn […]
You know what this means?
04-Apr-05The Register has a listing today for a Reporter/Editor “serving young readers.” This means (like many other newspapers in the U.S.), the Register is going to release some sort of young reader publication. I would expect to see this publication out sometime early summer. We’ll see how it does against City View and Point Blank.
Weekly Register Round Up
01-Apr-05My daily posting on the Register have dwindled (mainly from a 10 day vacation where I didn’t see a single copy of the paper). So I thought I would try more a weekly round-up. Over-Reported Story Terri Schiavo – while this was a fun soap opera and makes for lively opinion pages, it’s hardly newsworthy. […]
What’s the date today?
01-Apr-05I was worried when two local bloggers found themselves in agreement (or at least not mad) with Rehka Basu’s column from today. Then I realized what day it is today.
State 29 has nice investigation into the background of one of the people profiled in a recent Quad-City Times article. With the exception of his mean-spirited last paragraph, the rest of his investigation via NewsBank shows some interesting links between sources in two different stories. If I could only figure out what newspaper State 29 […]
Must be Erin Crawford day!
09-Mar-05While the IowaLife section is often severly lacking in original Register content, today we got flooded with three articles by Erin Crawford. (Here, here and here). I’m not sure she’s the best to write about dining with kids (she did write a while back, “listening to a livid 2-year old howl at her first shot” […]
Must be slow news day
08-Mar-05Only 10 pages in the A section and coverage of soap star arrest.
where have you been?
07-Mar-05bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now… Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / […]
It’s amazing. For the first time in quite some time DesMoinesRegister.com has 2 stories that do not appear on the front page of section A of the print product. Congrats to the online people for making the website fresher than the print product.
Some notes from last week
07-Mar-05Maybe someone is listening cause there was a nice front page story about the use of ethanol in the Indy cars.
Physical Paper
01-Mar-05The Ombudsman at the Washington Post has an good article about the future of newspapers (something dear to my heart). But there is one point where he misses the mark. He says: Some of this is because newspapers are bulky things that a lot of people don’t have time for and because, increasingly, people glance […]
Where’s the beef?
01-Mar-05I thought maybe the Register was paying homage to TV sweeps month with the thin paper yesterday – but today’s is just as thin.
Register Reader
01-Mar-05The ability to combine blog and print mainstream media (like newspaper) serves as springboard for both types of media.
What makes a good blog?
21-Feb-05Writing. I read blogs of certain people on a regular basis – without taking in their RSS feed. Blogs like, the achenblog on adventures of Solo Dad and all the Preshrunk entries make me come back for more.
washingtonpost.com-Redesign
15-Feb-05washingtonpost.com has put up its redesign today. I like the cleanness of the design and the page breathes a lot more with more white space. The side bar of navigation links has been replaced by drop-down menus on the top navigation. While I despise drop-down menus, I honestly can say that I never used the […]
More On ‘The Gates’
12-Feb-05The writing in this article is almost as good as the artwork behind the gates. Now one no longer ambles through the park, but rather saunters below the flapping nylon. Paths have become like processionals, boulevards decked out as if with flags for a holiday. Everyone is suddenly a dignitary on parade. The writing made […]
So Exciting – ‘The Gates’ Opens
12-Feb-05Christo’s ‘The Gates’opens today. Oh, I long to be in NYC today. Perhaps by some miracle, the grandparents will take our kids and we can visit NYC for a day.
Google Maps – Amazing
08-Feb-05Newspapers have recently been focusing on a “we are local” campaign. They are focusing on their strengths of knowing and reporting on local information since national and international news is easy to find from sources like CNN and national networks. **But** Google Maps is about to give them a run for their money. This service […]
Malpractice reform details
01-Feb-05NPR did a wonderful piece this morning on the complexities of malpractice reform and some more creative solutions. The gist is that it’s not as simple as capping damage awards in lawsuits. This is fixing a symptom of the larger problem, medical errors. After 10 years of the House passing legislation to cap awards each […]
The newspaper industry, ever valiant in its fight against declining subs numbers, is always trying to pitch “young reader” publications. They should take a quick lesson from George Lakeoff and try to frame the issue differently. The name alone, “young reader product,” positions the newspaper as “old” and the target market as “young.” Young is […]
I know – it’s over 15 years old
29-Jan-05The Obey Giant stuff has been around forever – but I just stumbled on to it and love it.
Fidgeting Fights Obesity
27-Jan-05Fidgeting Fights Obesity, Researchers Say (washingtonpost.com) Finally I can justify chewing on my fingers for the last 10 years. I think I’ll stop running because of this.
Am I too late for this
26-Jan-05Looking at some of the Bloggies nominees, I realize that Blogging is quickly becoming big business.
Media vs. media
14-Jan-05Should Dan Rather take the fall for all the media’s failings – or do radio and print media really look down on television news.
I don’t know about this
13-Jan-05While the rest of the world is blogging and I’m reading them all – maybe it’s time to write something.