Four-legged chicken saga continues...

Rob's story is now on CNN!

How did the chicken cross the road?

Rob gets big break and Michelle passes economics test

Big News Today for Michelle and Rob.

Rob wrote a story that was picked up by the Associated Press about a four-legged chicken born in Somerset.

It's even on MSN news today! "Drumsticks aplenty"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14960695/

Rob was overheard as saying, "This is why I'm a reporter," with satisfaction. "Moments like these. This is the second highest moment in my life [after the moment I laid eyes on Michelle]." (implied parenthetical)

In other news, Michelle did pretty well on her economics test. Some of her classmates admitted to going home and crying about economics at night. She herself is definitely suffering some lifestyle adjustment, as she has been at school all the time and eating out of vending machines. They have these cool coffee vending machines too--they give you some Nescafe for 50 cents, delicious! She needs to think of an issue in the news to analyze for her World Culture class. Any ideas?

The Great Pumpkin

Rob went to a harvest festival yesterday, and while everyone else was celebrating the earth's bounty, Rob became sad, because he missed Michelle. This big pumpkin reminded him of her:



Why did the big pumpkin remind Rob of Michelle? The answer is in today's interactive post multiple choice question.

Michelle and the big pumpkin share which of the following in common:
a)they are both orange
b)they are the same shape
c)you can usually find them in the produce section of your local grocery store
d)they weigh approximately the same

Check the comments for the answer.

Here's a picture of a big cabbage:

Book proposal from 'tiny butt'

At the office yesterday we received this faxed book proposal from a maniac who says he knows what strategy would win victory in Iraq , but he'll only write it for a $25,000 advance. He also wants a part time job in our mail room so he can afford to move to Shanksville, pop. 242 and the town nearest he Flight 93 crash site. Here's a copy of the letter:





Any of you rich folk want to help him out? Or maybe someone wants a date. He's got a tiny butt.

At the crash site

I go to the Flight 93 crash site almost once a week, it seems, to cover some sort of memorial event intended to honor the people who died on Sept. 11. Flight 93 is the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 Commission thinks the passengers who were aboard it got word the hijackers were crashing planes into buildings, so they rushed the cockpit and tried to seize the plane back, in the process crashing it into a Pennsylvania field. The commission thinks the plane was probably headed for the Capitol building or the White House. I went to the crash site again yesterday, this time as a member of the public, rather than as a reporter, for the Sept. 11 fifth year anniversary ceremony.
The site is a wide open field surrounded by woods and farmland. The place where the plane actually crashed is marked by a sheet of plywood painted as an American flag. There's a crater in the ground where the plane hit, and the crash area is surrounded by chain link fence. The actual crash site is strictly closed to the public and you'll never get close enough to see the crater very well, unless you are escorted by the county coroner or federal officials. Another reporter tells me it's guarded by armed guards who stay hidden from the public. Ninety-two percent of the passengers' remains have never been recovered. They are guarding the crash site as a cemetery.
On the hill above the crash site is the temporary memorial, which local people erected shortly after the attacks. The first time I saw it was four years ago, and then it was much smaller than it is today. Essentially it's just a fence people have stuck personal mementos on, such as ball caps, t-shirts, homemade cards and thank you notes. Next to it is a cross a local church erected, and two memorial stones a Guatemalan who visited the site donated. There are forty small wooden angels stuck in the ground, one to represent each passenger. Some benches with the passengers' names are also there. All in all it looks kind of haphazardly assembled, but it's natural and its genesis was organic and came from grass roots, I guess you could say. For the most part the site has been untouched and I think that's the best part about it. When you are there, you see what the field looked like in 2001. The government is planning to build a permanent memorial and I worry they will change it too much.
Yesterday there were probably 1,000 people at the site for the fifth year anniversary. They had a big white tent set up to shelter the ceremony. Dignitaries, like senators, a general, the state governor and local elected officials, reporters with credentials, and the families of the Flight 93 passengers were allowed inside. The public was outside and couldn't really see anything, but could hear. They read the names of the victims and clanged two bells for each of them, and all the politicans talked but didn't say anything with substance. I left early to beat the traffic. The president was coming but it was a closed ceremony.
I've been there alone on cold and windy days and it's a lot more affective then than when 1,000 other people are there. But there were people crying yesterday so crowds obviously don't effect everyone the same way. In an editorial I wrote last week I tried to argue that there was value to people visiting the site outside of a personal sense of closure or catharsis. I'm not sure how successful I was. There's a small local media pool that goes out there all the time and quite often, I guess, we act bored or indifferent when we are covering stories. I think it's the only way to be when you have to go there often. The challenge is to save a place of yourself that can feel something about it when you aren't working. Anyway, now that the fifth anniversary is past I probably won't have to go there again for a while. Some readers have told me they are getting tired or reading about it. I guess I can understand that.

Happy Belated Birthdays

I'd just like to say Happy Birthday to all y'all with recent birthdays--Mom, Nick, and Kevin. And anyone else whose birthday it is. Congratulations!

Waterfalls

Michelle wouldn't let Rob ride over in a barrel, like he wanted to, but their visit yesterday to Cucumber Falls in Ohiopyle State Park was still a pleasure. This photo maybe makes it look a little higher that it is, but it's an impressive cascade.


Other visits to waterfall that Rob and Michelle have made this year include Niagara Falls and Taughannock Falls in the Finger Lakes region of New York. That's where they saw the crazy base jumpers.

Syracuse University

Rob says that I haven't been making enough blog entries lately. That's because while Rob has been interviewing one-armed monarchs in Somerset, I've been spending all my time reading about economics or statistics, and some short stories in Spanish. I got a check plus on my first economics paper, and I think I passed the quiz, due to some funny, but generous grading on the instructor's behalf. I'm going to get some free lunch now at the career office. (Using the term "free" loosely--I've paid quite a lot of money for it.) I have a lot of respect for all y'all--Nick, Micheleen, Heather, Merefish--in graduate school, it's kinda hard!

The King of Somerset only has one arm

Somerset became an autocracy Wednesday when the people crowned this man king. Here, in this photo, he addresses his subjects for the first time at the Farmers' and Threshermen's Jubilee. Following his speech, Rob caught the first interview. Long live the king!

The Bates Motel

Michelle found a quaint little hotel for her and Rob to stay in on their first night in Adirondack Park. Straight out of an Alfred Hitchock film, they were the only guests in the dark, old building. Rob barely slept, he was waiting for someone to break into the room and brutally murder them. Here's a description of the terrifying place:

Zeiser's Restaurant & Hotel
Route 30, Speculator, NY 12164
Phone: 518-548-7021
Description: This "friendly little hotel", located in the heart of the village, is listed in America's Wonderful Little Hotels & Inns. Zeiser's has 5 rooms with a restaurant on premise, Restaurant hours 11:30am-8:00pm.

Banquets/weddings, Credit cards accepted. Open year round.

Friendly little hotel! False advertising! The soft spoken old lady manning the front desk had a homicidal gleam in her one good eye, anyone could see it.

Here's an old grainy picture of it:






Additional internet research revealed this sordid history of death and betrayal:

Sturges House- In 1858 Dave Sturges built his Inn on Newton’s Corners. He had planned on this ever since he lived with a man named Clark Satterlee, who he worked for. Acting as a guide for the guests at Clark’s Hostelry, he dreamed of having an inn of his own.

He then found a job at the Burnham’s Mills until he had enough money to buy lumber to build his inn. In 1858 Dave married Matilda Holmes and started to build his inn. Matilda and Dave happily ran the inn until Matilda passed away on December 11, 1868. After Dave’s tragedy, he had to search for a new partner. His sister in law, Mahala Fountain quickly stepped in her place. They ran it together from then on the building was located near the sight of the current Speculator Post Office and HSBC bank. The Annex of this building, Zeiser's, still stands today.

Who wants to bet that Dave and Mahala plotted to murder Matilda so they could be together and run the hotel, but that Matilda's ghost now haunts the place, and in fact the seemingly kind old lady who was manning the counter is actually the ghost of Matilda?

(Interesting aside: This joint was in the town of Speculator, which Michelle incorrectly pronounced in no less than two dozen ways. Just a few examples would be Spectacular, Spectator, Spectacle, Expaculator, Spinculcated, and Flabberdegook.)

Fortunately, Rob and Michelle's next night in the park was much better, probably because they camped. Isn't everything always better in the woods? They got a campsite right on Indian Lake, complete with private beach. The rain even let up for several hours in the late afternoon so they could comfortably enjoy their site. Rob used this time to drink a sampler pack of the local microbrew, Saranac. He decided he likes the pale ale.

Snowy Mountain

Michelle and Rob summitted Snowy Mountain in the Adirondacks, NY state, this weekend. The 3,904-foot mountain, as this photo found on the internet would seem to indicate, is named for being snowy. Though there was no snow on this ascent, the fog that surrounded the peak and hid any scenic views from the pair of mountaineers certainly was very white. For Rob, this was his first mountain ascent of the year. Being September, this is a clear indication that Rob needs to make a major change in his life.