25 reasons why I love John Phillip

I'm a list-maker.  

In what has become a series, here are the 25 reasons why I love my husband as we approach two and a half decades of commitment which will be celebrated in style on April 2.

1. I love how you always ask me the speed limit when we're driving somewhere and how you then brag about never getting a ticket.
2. I love that when I walk in the door at the end of a long day, you instinctively know if I've had a challenging day and STILL kiss me hello and ask me about it. Even when the answer might be long-winded and boring.
3. I love that you let me have two Christmas trees this past year.  I might go for three eight months from now.  You've been warned.
4. I loved looking for houses with you and I love the one that we (I) picked...even though it doesn't have a big deck and a finished basement.
5. I love it when I come home in the winter and the fireplace is already lit.  Even on a Tuesday.
6. I love how you made my brother Pat's 50th birthday special that made him feel special.
7. I love that you insist on hanging pictures of our kids in various stages of growth in a prominent place so everyone knows that our family is very important.
8. I love how you put up with my live-on-the-edge mentality.  Plans?  Who needs plans?
9. I love taking pictures of you in funny places (in front of signs proclaiming the locations of Tightwad, Missouri and Peculiar, Missouri).  Yes, you are a tightwad and peculiar.
10. I love going to Sonic with you and getting a giant cherry limeade with our hot dogs.
11. I love that you're becoming quite the handyman with your new tools.
12. I love how irritated you get when I call my veggies-in-pots-on-the-deck a "farm."  Get over it.  I'm a farmer's daughter.  Anything I grow is a farm.
13. I love how you insist we see fireworks on the 4th of July.
14. I love that you seem not to mind that I'm "husky."  And that you support me when I try to lose weight.
15. I love that you know every single dog on our weekend walking route and that you've adopted Curly- the-Great-Pyrenees.  Bonus Love.  I know you know Curly is not enough for me because I want our own dog.  (Tick tock tick, the clock is ticking for us to get another mutt...)
16. I love that you wrote down all the days we should OFFICIALLY fly the American flag on the calendar so we don't forget.
17. I love how you wear your political emotions on your sleeve and that incredibly, you're more liberal-leaning than I am.
18. I love how you put up with my mad sports obsessions...like the Chiefs, Sporting Kansas City and the Royals and enjoy tailgating almost as much as I do.
19. I love that you buy lottery tickets for me to scratch off and are disappointed when we don't win.
20. I love how you groaned about going to South Dakota last year when the floods disrupted our regular routes but did it anyway, even when it added hours and hours to the trip.
21. I love how worried you were when Carly got hurt in the bike crash and how you called every hospital trying to find her.
22. I love how you've figured out how to take pictures of any jackpots you win at the casino.  And text them to me so I can be jealous that I'm not winning too.
23. I love how you take Charlie golfing and gloat when you beat him.  Enjoy it now.
24. I love how there can be a million men in a room and that I only have eyes for you.
25. I love how you've tried and tried to guess what your anniversary present would be...and how you may have figured it out but won't let me know for sure.  And I'm not telling until I'm ready.

It's okay if you call me a 'douche-nugget' (or worse)

This blog about a book had me chuckling.  I don't work in HR but I'm always amazed at the employee-employer relationship...and how quickly it can go south.

"Apparatus! I said apparatus..."

Have you heard about the morning anchor who supposedly dropped the F-bomb after hearing about Peyton Manning's move to the Denver Broncos?  The above YouTube video is the station line on what really happened.

I can't help but remember the time Sally Fitz reportedly told Ralph Rayburn to "stick it up your ass" when both were trying to interview the same person in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew.

We were all still on 12-hour shifts and Sally and Rick Sanchez had been dispatched to field anchor from South Dade.  Both did incredible, award-winning work.  But it was exhausting and stressful.  Ralph and Sally came upon the same story at the same time.  Both wanted the interview and Sally pulled rank.  Unfortunately, her mic was live during the "discussion."

I was pretty sure Princell Hair, then a producer, was in the booth but my pal Bill Pohovey was actually there.  (I was the Assignment Planner and had camped out in my office behind the assignment desk. I was asleep when it all went down)

Sally ended up with the interview.

Shortly thereafter, the Miami Herald reported the incident and Sally, ever the professional, explained that Ralph's IFB had fallen out of his ear and that she was really just pointing it out.

"Apparatus...I said apparatus" she explained to the newspaper.

There was no YouTube in 1992 so I guess we'll never know.

One of the things I miss most about South Dakota--the night sky

Yankton Press & Dakotan Ap-state-sd Time-lapse videos showcase S. Dakota's landscape

Great read on the difficulty of changing a culture

News executives acknowledge ‘toxic’ cultural divide between print and digital:
After 18 months of work and countless pinky-shake vows of confidentiality, my colleagues at the Project for Excellence In Journalism have a fresh report out today on the newspaper industry’s search for a new business model.

The report, “The… Read more

Meet the New Kansas City