Local Columns Section
|
Buy Local, Price Local With the entire state of California drowning, school districts scrambling to keep schools open, municipalities cutting to the bone in an attempt to find one more pocket of untouched reserve, it comes as no surprise that people just don’t have the same kind of cash flow as they once did. |
|
|
Dawn’s Column – The Breakup I recently broke up with my hairdresser. |
|
|
MARG-INS - Letting The Guard Down There’s something to be said for keeping your defenses up. |
|
|
Swept Up By The Games They’ve been hard to escape; if you haven’t heard re-caps on the news or found them as you wield the TV remote, chances are you have talked about them at work or with the family over dinner. And there are many stories to tell, as the Winter Olympics in Vancouver play out on the ski slopes, the ice rinks, the skeleton and luge tracks. |
|
|
Stuff ‘n Nonsense - Cookies And Pickles There are moments in our lives that remind us — sometimes painfully — that the march of time is resolute. I’m not talking about the inevitable body changes or the pressure of responsibility that seems to increase with each passing year as we age but rather something far more heart-rending. I’m talking about the moment when you realize you won’t always have your loved ... |
|
|
Mommy Musings - Seeing Differently I’m not your atypical sports enthusiast. |
|
|
Macho Madness - Temptation Island “Whoa,” I thought to myself while looking at a newspaper column photo. “That guy has a big ‘ol mustache, just like me.” |
|
|
Circling The Toilet The Oakdale City Council doesn’t like it. |
|
|
Dawn's Column - Loos, Lace, And The Law Usually when it comes to our columns, we write about what’s going on in our lives. In a previous column, I made the promise that I wouldn’t write too much about my wedding planning. The problem is, that with the exception of car trouble and my fiancé being stuck on jury duty because he thought he wouldn’t get selected, wedding planning is pretty much what my life’s ... |
|
|
OPINION - Welcome To Whoville And so the time has come. |
|
|
Marg-Ins - Never Ready I’m rarely stumped for a column topic but this time was a little different. After tossing around a few ideas in my head, I found myself repeatedly coming back to the same thing. It’s not the weather, or some escapade perpetrated by my youngest child … I keep coming back to a feeling of sadness after having experienced a loss. A couple of them, actually. |
|
|
Mommy Musings - I Saw That … Thinking fast on your feet is critical in the game of parenting. |
|
|
Opinion: Blame The System Sometimes it helps to get another perspective, to look at a situation from a different point of view. At times, in fact, it might even result in a change of heart, or at least a change of mind. |
|
|
Stuff N' Nonsense: 2010 At A Glance I had several ideas floating in my head for my column this month but when it came down to putting those thoughts on paper, I was disenchanted with the possibilities, which then lead me to sit and think of all the things that are happening in my life and what the coming year promises to yield. |
|
|
Mommy Musings: The Sands Of Time A colleague and I were recently having a conversation about how quick time passes, even at a weekly paper. I had just completed covering the birthday of Vera Piccetti who celebrated her 107th birthday. As I took the ceremonial photo of her with her cake I joked that she was my job security. After all, I’d been covering this event since she hit the triple digits in 2003. ... |
|
|
Macho Madness: Cool Dog Tricks I recently came across a YouTube video of a dog’s reaction to an earthquake that occurred in Arcata in Northern California earlier this month. The video has gone viral, as they say, and has been viewed over a half million times. |
|
|
Universal Healthcare I’m going to offer an unpopular opinion for a town as conservative as Oakdale. |
|
|
Safe And Secure, Or Just Exposed? A recent conversation in the office brought to light that someone had actually seen me in an “anatomically correct” mode at the airport without my knowledge. You see, I was somehow randomly selected to step into this high-tech glass booth at the Las Vegas airport a couple months ago. |
|
|
Mommy Musings – Life and Birthdays I’m a December baby. For those who follow astrology, a Capricorn to be more precise. As a ‘child of the Holiday season,’ revealing my birthday always seems to promote conversation. The comments most common are pretty obvious: You must hate the holidays; Oh … a tax deduction; (more popular in my youth) now replaced by, How did you like that growing up? or You must have been shorted in the gift department at Christmas. Truth ... |
|
|
Getting Back On Track Here’s hoping you made it through the holidays safe and sound and only a few pounds heavier. |
|
|
Out With The Old? The New Year, fast approaching, obviously calls for a column on the subject. But what’s the big deal? At least Christmas brought feasting, drinking and partying; food and warmth and merriment in the middle of winter for pagans and celebration of a savior for Christians. |
|
|
Mommy Musings – Keeping Up With … For those of you not yet hit by the recession and still running the race of keeping up with the Jones’ — well, good for you. Personally, I find myself busy these days trying to keep up with the fat man in the red suit — that’s right, Santa. |
|
|
Stuff ‘N Nonsense - The Spirit of Christmas Miles away in a different time zone, where snow buries the yards and Old Man Winter takes up residence for a wintry season, the true spirit of Christmas blossomed in the bosoms of total strangers to the benefit of those close to me — my sister, nephew and brother-in-law. |
|
|
Share The Wealth Have you started the Christmas shopping yet? Or are you one of the ultra efficient types that has everything purchased, wrapped, tagged and ready to go? |
|
|
Macho Madness - Bah Humbug? Not Me! I’m not a Christmassy kind of guy. |
|
|
Mommy Musings - Soccer Mom? … TBD It’s been less than one month since Oakdale Youth Soccer League wrapped up its 2009 Season. My two-year-old is still running around with pink pom-poms asking, “Today soccer practice?” as her five-year-old brother sits in his room admiring his first trophy. |
|
|
Wedding Belle Blues As some of you may have noticed in my previous column, I slipped in a piece of personal information without too much fanfare. That is, that I am engaged. I’m not one to really share too much of my personal life in my columns because at work I’m about business. |
|
|
Boost The Local Economy Black Friday has come and gone but it is still a little too early to tell if it can be classified as a success. |
|
|
Marg-Ins - Who Hit Fast Forward? The saying around here has been pretty much the same from everyone. What?! How did it become December? |
|
|
Stuff ‘n Nonsense - Time To Be Thankful… It goes without saying that we should always count our blessings but it’s a sad fact that many of us are remiss in our appreciation for those most important in our lives or the advantages we benefit from on a daily basis until a certain time of year duly reminds us. |
|
|
Counting Our Blessings Now is as good a time as any — actually, probably the best since it’s tradition — to take stock of your situation and offer thanks. |
|
|
Tree House Of Horrors I love the way kids think. |
|
|
Don’t Let This Pass November 11; the day flags will fly, government offices and even schools will be closed in observation of Veterans Day. While the observances are being conducted here in the United States, many of those veterans are continuing their journey on our behalf on foreign soil, as well as here on the homefront. Even more ironic is that for the veteran who has returned home and to civilian ... |
|
|
A Quickie In Vegas I recently took my first trip to Las Vegas. Astonishing, I know. Pretty much everyone has been to Vegas. It’s hard to believe that it’s taken me this long. I have traveled quite a bit, starting when I was fairly young, but somehow never made it to Vegas. |
|
|
Mommy Musings - Just Taking Notes I’m still at the front desk. |
|
|
Marg-Ins - The Weekend Immune System Among the myriad of things that pass across my desk on any given day, one of them led me to the idea for this column. Actually a few things did but as I was tossing ideas around in my head regarding what to write about, a slip of the fingers sealed the deal. |
|
|
Show Some Respect Whether or not you exercised your right to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 3 — either by going to the polls or perhaps sending in your mail-in ballot, the sheer fact that you had that opportunity is not something everyone gets to experience. |
|
|
Stuff ‘N Nonsense - The Sweet Scent Of Bookprint I’ve always enjoyed a love affair with books. When I was a kid, the town library was located in a historic building that was also part museum. So if you went up the front stairs to the right, you found rows of books and a cozy reading area with a beautiful rock fireplace that in the winter sometimes had a crackling fire going; if you went left, ... |
|
|
Mommy Musings - Pressing Issues The past 30 days have really been pretty exciting. |
|
|
Ike’s Insights – Let’s Impeach Roger Goodell I try not to be a hater, but when it comes to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, I’m on the sidelines gulping down tiny green cups of hater-aide with a death stare that could melt steel. |
|
|
MACHO MADNESS - Hooked On Skype Remember the Sunday evening phone call? |
|
|
Back To High School? I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about how things went at my recent class reunion. I’m an Oakdale High School alumna, and the word is around town about the wild party. For those of you who haven’t been in a local beauty salon or coffee shop to hear all about it, this is my story. |
|
|
Mommy Musings - Living A Fear I’m not sure about the rest of you, but parenthood seems to have this inexplicable effect on both my rational and irrational fears. |
|
|
Hope For The Future You’re probably thinking what that title could possibly mean, since there really are a lot of topics we could cover with that type of blanket statement. |
|
|
Turn Down The Heat Too darned hot. It’s too darned hot. Here we are, the end of September and the temperature is still hovering in the high nineties. It even touched 100 degrees in the past week. |
|
|
Vanity Thy Name Is… Does there ever come a time when you make peace with all the little flaws that make you an individual? If the plastics of Hollywood are any indication, the answer is a resounding no. Statistics taken from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery state that people aged 35-50 had the most procedures — over 4.5 million — and while women were at the top, men are in ... |
|
|
Bye-Bye Dial-Up “Welcome home.” |
|
|
Macho Man Revisited Like most parents who go through the experience of an empty nest, my wife, Donnelle, and I have run the gauntlet of mixed emotions about suddenly becoming child free. We’ve had ups and downs as we learned how to cope with our son and daughter both leaving home within a couple of months of each other three years ago, while learning to enjoy the freedom our new ... |
|
|
Tragedy Turned Triumph Will we ever stop talking about the events of 9/11 and all that it entails? My hope of course is that we will not. In my opinion, it was undoubtedly an event, which not only altered this country but the world — forever. |
|
|
My 80s Reunion Ch-ch-Changes, as the old David Bowie song goes, talks about how “time may change me.” Well it has changed me, but in some ways, it seems like it’s all the same. |
| Sections: | BUSINESS | CONTESTS | ENTERTAINMENT | GAS | HOMES | LIVING | NEWS | OPINION | SPECIAL SECTIONS | SPORTS |
| Services: | Subscribe | Advertising |
| Submit News: | Contact Us | Anniversary PDF | Engagement PDF | Wedding PDF | Birth PDF |
| Online: | Archives |
