Delayed start

Most kids head back to school Tuesday, but not kids in Saugatuck.

Due to construction at the schools, the kids start Monday, Sept. 8. One more week won't hurt us.

Work

My new boss starts soon. I'm looking forward to some changes (perhaps I will regret saying that!). What's funny about this is she started her newspaper writing career as a freelancer for The Sentinel and I was her editor. That was back in 1994. I have little recollection of her, and I shared that with her. She laughed. I laughed. And I still can't remember much.

I also found it funny that, when she met with the news staff on Thursday, she told the story of how I called when her material was late. Sounds like me.

See, the reporters are having a hard time dealing with some of my "quirks." One of the main ones is time. When someone is scheduled to be in at 9 a.m., that person should be in at 9 a.m. I've gotten red in the face telling people that "9 means 9." Not 9:02 or 9:10.

I think I've become a joke already over that.

I suppose this stems from my upbringing that if you weren't 15 minutes early, you were late. Moreso, though, it reflects my more than 20 years in page production and deadlines. When our deadline was 11:30 p.m., that mean't 11:30 p.m. If I sent a page at 11:31 p.m., I was late, had to explain it to my supervisor and the publisher and, for awhile, I would lose any pay bonus because of bad page flow. Ouch!

In newspapers, even in this online age, time is not only money, but it's also pride (who wants to be beat on a story?), customer service (who wants to read an old story?) and survival (who wants to file unemployment?).

Thought: Time for a change.

Taste of Saugatuck

Above is a picture of the girls and friends at the Taste of Saugatuck Sunday. From the right, it's Alyssa with a unicorn on her cheek; Elspeth with a dragon her her cheek; and Elspeth's friend Maggie with a dragon also.

The Taste of Saugatuck is a way to sample some local restaurants in a street-fair environment. Jayne and I have been going for almost 20 years. It's fun and we usually see some friends.

The girls enjoyed the face-painting (obviously) and chocolate-covered strawberries. I had a great wrap from What Not Inn and Jayne had some shrimp and ginger spring rolls from the Sea Wolf. We also had some pizza.

Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc.

I wrote yesterday about the cartoon "Total Drama Island." Go Owen and Gwen! You rock!

Another cartoon we've all gotten addicted to is "Phineas and Ferb" on the Disney Channel. It's about two stepbrothers who are on summer vacation from school. To pass the time, they invent their own adventures. Their sister, Candace, tries to get them in trouble for it by telling their mom, a former one-hit wonder singer. Their dad, who is British, knows what's happening but responds in the typical Brisitsh way of understatement.

Also, Phineas (red hair) and Ferb (green hair) have a pet platypus named Perry who is a secret agent. He is assigned to watch Heinz Doofenshmirtz (above), an evil genius, who is always scheming to take over the tri-state area.

Lots of subplots, like Candace's crush on Jeremy; Doofenshmirtz's relationship with his daughter, Vanessa, whom Ferb has a crush on (Doofenshmirtz is divorced and his ex-wife is in a cooking class with Phineas and Ferb's mother); the mom's former musical career; Phineas' neighbor Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, who has a crush on Phineas and uses her Girl-Scout-like group to assist in their adventures.

So, it's a hoot.

Episodes to watch:

-- Dude, we're getting the band back together: Phineas and Ferb reunite the 1980's hair band Love Handle for their parents' anniversary.

-- Time machine: Phineas and Ferb travel to dinosaur times, but the Doofenshmirtz subplot is best. Doofenshmirtz gets a new nemesis, Peter the Panda, to replace Perry the Platypus. We all sing the "Nemesis Song" from start to finish.

Why I hate the Olympics

I've been catching some heat at work because I am not a fan of the Olympics. It's true. In fact, I hate the Olympics even more than baseball!

To boil it down: The Olympics is all about ego. The winners kiss their medals. Fans count the number of medals won. And people cheer for a nation, just like an extension of war.

I read an article about what the U.S. medal winners do with their trophies. People sleep with them, hug them, show them off, wave them in the faces of others. All so wrong.

The Olympics is different than professional sports. The NFL and the Tour de France, for example, do not pretend to be anything but money-making operations for entertainment purposes. That's OK with me.

Real competition

So, in place of watching the Olympics, I've been watching the cartoon "Total Drama Island" with the girls. It's a take-off of reality shows with two teams on an island trying to make it through challenges. It's like the Olympics, but this is more real.

A shot of the cartoon teams is above.

My favorites? Owen and Gwen. It must be the four-letter w-name thing.

Movie night

Lastly: Jayne and I watched the movie "The Business of Fancy Dancing." It's a look at a Native American who leaves his reservation for the big city of Seattle and becomes famous writing poetry about his reservation experiences. The people back on the reservation are torn over his "Indian-ness" and his success in the white world. They all meet over a friend's funeral.

It's often surreal and heavily symbolic. Throw in the main character's homosexuality and you've got quite a challenging flick. Jayne likened parts of it to "Fiddler on the Roof."

It's by the same folks who made "Smoke Signals," so you get the idea. You won't feel good after watching the film.

More changes

I found these photos.

The first one is from 2003 at the New Richmond Bridge. How little are the kids?

The second one is last year. The bridge has changed, too.

I think I could make an album cover out of this.

Summer shadows

Above is me looking over the New Richmond Bridge on Saturday morning. It's one of my favorite spots to relax. At the top of the photo are the supports for the railroad bridge crossing of the Kalamazoo River.

That day, I waited for a CSX freight heading south to pass. After it did, I continued on my bike ride.

I've been working on shifting (nudge nudge). I'm trying to work out the best time to shift as I head uphill, which works into my other goal of better hill climbing.

Thought: Sit down to type on the computer and the kids won't leave you alone!