100th post

Yes, I freely admit that this is fatuous and pointless, but I take it as a favorable sign that I have made it this far, and would like to trumpet it from the rooftops for the benefit of my detractors. So, without gilding the lily, I am pleased to announce that this is my 100th blog post.


In the news today, President Obama is desperately trying to extricate himself from any notion of involvement with A.C.O.R.N., the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a vague political action committee with a rather spotty record. He initially supported them, but now that over thirty of their members have been arrested for crimes (and two of their members were caught on tape helping some woman to get a building for her child prostitution ring, right here in this county no less), he would rather disassociate himself. Smart move. 

 Things are going loads better at work. I've got the obituary routine down: check e-mail frequently, type all submitted obituaries up, bill the mortuaries (or the private parties), arrange all the obits into a single file, submit it to Mrs. B for editing, make the changes she suggests, then resubmit it to the paginator. Usually it's all finished by 12:30 or 1:00. I've been surprised by the level of professional detachment I've managed to muster: it occasionally escapes me, as I'm writing up a family's heartfelt eulogy for their loved one, that I'm writing about a formerly real, living, breathing person. Memorializing them with the printing press just doesn't seem to work at all. After I finish with the obituaries, I just scout around for news stories and work on whatever ideas I come up with, or work on what Ron or Mark assign to me. I haven't committed any major foul-ups since that last one I wrote about (see William Zinsser, eat your heart out). Today I even got to do something that was fun: go over to the archives building and root around among the old newspaper copies for Dusty Files. It's a column that runs every Monday comprised of 50-year-old, 40-year-old, 30-year-old, 20-year-old and 10-year-old headlines from the newspaper. It was wild, poring over the headlines from 1959, 1969, 1979, and so on. Food was so darn cheap in the fifties...I ran across coupons and food sales ads that were unbelievable. New York sirloin, $1.29 a pound. Eleven 15-oz. cans of dog food, one dollar. Four pounds of apples, nineteen cents. What a time to be alive. 

 Nothing else going on, really...except that I'm hard at work on another story, one totally unrelated to this novel I'm working on. From the looks of things it might pan out to be at least a novella. It's a sort of romantic comedy, but I plan to have a dash of adventure thrown in...it wouldn't be fun otherwise. Stay tuned for more updates. 



Oh, one more thing. As befitting a milestone, this landmark blog post contains an unprecedented ingredient: my first-ever retraction. (I don't know if you can print retractions in blogs, but by thunder I'm going to try anyhow.) Those of you who have been keeping track may be under the impression that I live in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, which I have been naming in this post for some time now since my return to the States. I found out this morning (from my geologist father, who can be trusted in such matters) that I was mistaken. The San Gabriel Mountains are situated to the west of Cajon Pass and Interstate 15, and are home to Mount Baldy and Mount San Antonio. My house, located east of Cajon Pass and I-15, halfway between Apple Valley and Lucerne Valley, is actually located in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. My mistake. Okay? Does that clear things up? I had you thinking I lived in Phelan or Wrightwood, didn't I? Suckers.