Coaching Done Right

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I want to give a public shout out to Justin’s (my youngest son) baseball coach, Dale Slate.  Dale’s enthusiasm and dedication to the boys is infectious and it is telling that the two boys with the least experience on the team for their age (Justin and another boy) are thriving and having a good time.  Dale’s approach is not to baby the boys, but to demand 100% effort from them and for them to play to their ability.  It doesn’t mean he expects a kid who normally has a hard time hitting the ball to come out and go 2 for 3 every game, but he does expect that kid to swing.  He doesn’t expect a kid just learning how to throw to go out and pitch a no-hitter, but he finds spots in the game for that kid to get a chance to take the mound and give it his best shot.  He doesn’t penalize failure, but he expects the kids to pay attention and hustle.  The long and the short of it is that he’s the best youth coach I’ve ever been around.

On top of doing all the on-the-field stuff, Dale also puts out an email after each game that’s written like an article in the sports page.  He makes sure each boy is mentioned and he does it after every game.  Here’s the latest:

Rattlers Slither by RiverDogs 6-5
Rattlers hang on for 8th straight victory

On a hot day in a well-played game between two of the top teams, the
Rattlers managed to end the Dogs’ rally in the bottom of the last inning
with the tying run on third base. On a day when the Rattlers’ top of the
order was shut down, the rest of the team stepped up to secure the victory
to remain in first place.

After the Rattlers were retired in order to start the game, Fernando pitched
and retired the first batter on a pop-up. The RiverDogs then pushed across
two runs on four straight hits. In the top of the second inning, the
Rattlers bats came alive. Bobby continued his recent hitting streak with a
single off of the kid pitcher. Connor, Fernando and Blake all followed with
hits to tie the score. Cody then grounded out but drove in the third run in
the process. Keyon’s ground out moved Blake into scoring position, and
Justin drove him in with a sharp single with two outs. Fernando pitched well
in the second inning, holding the RiverDogs scoreless thanks to two great
plays by Justin. He got the first out when he stopped a hard grounder and
threw to Dakota at first. After Fernando struck out the second batter,
Justin managed to hold on to a pop-up at third base just as he was getting
clobbered by a hustling Fernando.

The third inning was rather quiet, as the Rattlers went down in order and
the RiverDogs scratched out only one hit against Dakota. Bobby got the third
out when he caught a blooper at second base. In the fourth inning the
Rattlers got two VERY important runs to push the lead to 6-2. Bobby again
led off with a line drive single off of the kid. Connor and Fernando then
ripped singles to get Bobby home, and Cody drove in Fernando with a key
two-out hit. In the bottom of the inning, the RiverDogs managed to scratch
across one run on a sacrifice fly that Fernando ran down.

In the fifth Kyndale ripped his second hit of the game off of a kid pitcher,
the 6-3 lead. After getting the first batter on a pop-up to Bobby at third,\u003cbr /\>the next two RiverDogs ripped a double and homerun to cut the lead to one as\u003cbr /\>the pressure was building (at least for the parents and coaches). Fernando\u003cbr /\>then made a terrific play on a grounder to first base for the second out\u003cbr /\>that seemed to settle everyone down – momentarily. But then the RiverDogs\u003cbr /\>batter ripped a double and stole third to get everyone back out of their\u003cbr /\>seats. With the parents holding their breaths when the RiverDogs coach came\u003cbr /\>in to pitch to the next batter and Coach Slate digging a trench in front of\u003cbr /\>the dugout as he paced back and forth, Coach Corn stayed cool and said\u003cbr /\>everything was going to be okay. When the coach\’s last pitch went by the\u003cbr /\>batter and settled in Blake\’s mitt for the final out, everyone was able to\u003cbr /\>breathe a big collective, sigh of relief and the Rattlers remained tied for\u003cbr /\>first place.\u003cbr /\>For the game Connor, Bobby, Fernando and Kyndale were all 2 for 2. Fernando\u003cbr /\>and Cody led the way with 2 RBI each. While Cam, Davis and Dakota were held\u003cbr /\>hitless, none of them got to bat off of me and all of them hit the ball hard\u003cbr /\>- the defense just made the plays to get them out. The Rattlers managed 5\u003cbr /\>hits off of kid pitchers – Bobby and Kyndale had two each and Fernando had\u003cbr /\>one. The Rattlers pitchers had a good day against a good hitting team, only\u003cbr /\>allowing their coach to come in six times in the five innings.\u003cbr /\>Next up will be the Grasshoppers, the team that dealt us our only loss thus\u003cbr /\>far. Game time is 9:00 next Saturday on field # 4. The kids should be at the\u003cbr /\>field by 8:15. We will have a practice on Friday night at 6:00 at Reedy\u003cbr /\>Creek. Directions will be coming in a separate email.\u003cbr /\>Happy Mother\’s Day to all! Go Rattlers!\u003cbr /\>\u003c/div\>”,0]
);
//–>but was stranded on base. Cam came on to pitch the last inning and protect
the 6-3 lead. After getting the first batter on a pop-up to Bobby at third,
the next two RiverDogs ripped a double and homerun to cut the lead to one as
the pressure was building (at least for the parents and coaches). Fernando
then made a terrific play on a grounder to first base for the second out
that seemed to settle everyone down – momentarily. But then the RiverDogs
batter ripped a double and stole third to get everyone back out of their
seats. With the parents holding their breaths when the RiverDogs coach came
in to pitch to the next batter and Coach Slate digging a trench in front of
the dugout as he paced back and forth, Coach Corn stayed cool and said
everything was going to be okay. When the coach’s last pitch went by the
batter and settled in Blake’s mitt for the final out, everyone was able to
breathe a big collective, sigh of relief and the Rattlers remained tied for
first place.

For the game Connor, Bobby, Fernando and Kyndale were all 2 for 2. Fernando
and Cody led the way with 2 RBI each. While Cam, Davis and Dakota were held
hitless, none of them got to bat off of me and all of them hit the ball hard
– the defense just made the plays to get them out. The Rattlers managed 5
hits off of kid pitchers – Bobby and Kyndale had two each and Fernando had
one. The Rattlers pitchers had a good day against a good hitting team, only
allowing their coach to come in six times in the five innings.

I think I saw what makes Dale tick the week before last.  That Thursday I flew in from New York and got to Justin’s field in the middle of the game.  When I walked up I saw Justin taking the mound for the first time in his life and I can’t tell you how thrilled I was for him.  After the game I mentioned it to Dale and his eyes lit up with excitement.  I think to him that story symbolizes what Little League, or any youth sport, is all about.  He knew I didn’t care if Justin struck out anybody, or even if Justin threw a single strike.  I just cared that Justin got to try, that he got to feel what it was like to stretch his boundaries and most importantly that I (and the rest of our family) got to share that moment with him.  And it says a lot about Dale that he was also excited for us.

Dale and the other coaches on the team do try to win games, but I can tell you that the emphasis is on how the boys play, not the score.  The result is a team of boys who are having a ball and learning how to play in the process.  It’s been a lot of fun to watch.

Mother’s Day, Lowder Style

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Yesterday was Mother’s Day, which until Saturday I was pretty sure was an event invented by the folks at Hallmark.  Then I read that the genesis of Mother’s Day was as a kind of peacenik revolution started in 1870 by some ladies who didn’t want to see a repeat of the carnage of the Civil War.  Thus another gap in my education has been revealed.

In our home yesterday this is how our mom-in-residence was celebrated:

  • My daughter Erin presented Celeste with a necklace that featured a stone she’d found in a mine during a school trip.  The trip was about a month ago and the stone was found because Erin and a friend brought their own money and decided to upgrade from the $5 bucket to the $10 bucket so they’d be guaranteed a better "find". She found what looked like a cut diamond and on the spot decided it would make a great Mother’s Day gift.  I was away on business so she emailed me to ask if I would help her get it set when I got home from my trip.  Last week we went to Davie Jewelers in Clemmons and after I was assured the stone wasn’t in fact paste (ends up it was aqua) we had it set in a white-gold pendant and bought a white-gold necklace for it to be worn on. Erin joked that she provided the labor while I provided the capital.  That girl’s going places…she already knows in business you only risk other people’s money!  Of course Celeste was moved to tears.
  • Our youngest, Justin, hopped out of bed and decided to wake his mom up by presenting her with a card he’d made at school.  Actually it was more like a booklet made from a brown kraft paper gift bag and some linen-like paper.  Each page had a reason that Justin appreciated Celeste and of course that moved Celeste to tears as well.  My personal favorite was page 5.  At the top it says "You take care of me when I’m sick" and then in the middle Justin drew a picture of a note from the school.  The note says "Note from the school.  Your child has:" and then it gives the following choices:

A. Thrown Up
B. Something Else

And then there’s an entry that has been erased, but is still faintly legible:

C. Died

Ah, the value of a good editor.

  • Proving that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree my oldest son woke up and was oblivious to the fact that it was Mother’s Day until his sister told him what she’d done for their Mom.  Quick as a flash he hunted Celeste down to give her a hug and a heart felt "Happy Mother’s Day" while we exchanged that look known to men everywhere, that "Holy crap I almost forgot" look tinged with the "I’m sure she’s fine just knowing I love her, and she doesn’t need a gift to tell her that" gleam in the eye.  I also suspected a hint of "Dad you hung me out to dry" in his look, but I can’t be sure.
  • Me, with my 40 years of practice dealing with Mother’s Day, came through with a nice dinner out at New Town Bistro.  This was planned while sitting in the Lowe’s Hardware parking lot after we spent a couple of hours pricing out potential materials for a basement renovation project we’re planning.  Just color me romantic!  I was feeling pretty good about things until I remembered that this is the same woman who got me a large screen TV for Father’s Day a few years back.  And I come up with…dinner?

Yep, it was a pretty typical Mother’s Day in our house.

Ego Check

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I read this piece in the Wall Street Journal online today about a pregnant woman who Googled all the potential names for her baby to make sure the name she and her husband picked for the kid would be searchable.  From the article:

Before Abigail Garvey got married in 2000, anyone
could easily Google her. Then she swapped her maiden name for her
husband’s last name, Wilson, and dropped out of sight.

In Web-search results for her new name, links to Ms.
Wilson’s epidemiology research papers became lost among all manner of
other Abigail Wilsons, ranging from 1980s newspaper wedding
announcements for various Abigail Wilsons to genealogy records listing
Abigail Wilsons born in the 1600s and 1700s. When Ms. Wilson applied
for a new job, interviewers questioned the publications she listed on
her résumé because they weren’t finding the publications in online
searches, Ms. Wilson says. (See Google results for Abigail Garvey and Abigail Wilson.)

So when Ms. Wilson, now 32, was pregnant with her
first child, she ran every baby name she and her husband, Justin,
considered through Google to make sure her baby wouldn’t be born
unsearchable. Her top choice: Kohler, an old family name that had the
key, rare distinction of being uncommon on the Web when paired with
Wilson. "Justin and I wanted our son’s name to be as special as he is,"
she explains.

And here’s a bonus they don’t mention: the kid can ride the advertising coattails of the Kohler company that makes plumbing fixtures.

This got me to thinking about how searchable my name is.  Turns out that thanks to this blog and the fact that my name is plastered all over some former employers’ websites I’m doing okay. Type in Jon Lowder, even without the quotation marks and my blog comes up first and a bunch of work stuff, my LinkedIn profile and other stuff related to me comes up in the first few pages.  So I decided to see how I do with just Jon.  There I don’t appear until the 9th page of results (54th position) but that’s okay considering that there are some pretty web-loved Jon’s out there: Jon Stewart, Jon Udell, and Jon Lebkowsky.  Wait…who?!  I’m being beaten by a guy named Lebkowsky and who names his blog "Weblogsky"?  At first I thought maybe it was a fan site for The Big Lebowski but I was wrong.  Ends up its just a blog by a guy named Jon Lebkowsky, and from my short reading I’ll have to begrudgingly admit that it’s a good blog.  Okay, it’s a better blog than mine, but that doesn’t help my ego.

So I decide to try just Lowder.  How many Lowders can there be?  More than you’d think, but I still do relatively well by coming in at #3.  A company called LowderNewHomes is number one and a former soap opera star (Days of Our Lives) named Kyle Lowder comes in number two.  Not bad.

Knowing one’s place in the universe is a good thing.  Thanks Google.

For My Friends (and Relative) in the Newspaper Business

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In an interesting opinion piece written for the Wall Street Journal online Walter Hussman, the publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, makes the argument that newspapers are killing themselves by providing news on their websites for free.  He compares the circulation losses of newspapers that provide free news on their sites to the gains or less egregious losses of his paper and the Wall Street Journal (they both charge subscription fees for full access to news on their site).  He also throws out some numbers like this:

The Inland Cost and Revenue Study
shows that newspapers will generate between $500 and $900 in revenue
per subscriber per year. But a newspaper’s Web site typically generates
$5 to $10 per unique visitor per year. It may be that newspaper Web
sites as an advertising medium, and free news, just can’t generate the
revenue to sustain a valued news operation.

Without getting into the details (read his piece if you want the details) he goes on to conclude that the decrease in revenue leads to layoffs in the newsroom, which is essentially killing the newspapers’ Golden Goose:

Collectively, the American
newspaper industry spends $7 billion on news and editorial operations.
This includes everything from copy editor salaries to sports travel
expenses. In addition, the Associated Press spent about $600 million
world-wide in editing and creating news. By offering this news for
free, and selling it to aggregators like Google, Yahoo and MSN for a
small fraction of what it costs to create it, newspaper readership and
circulation have declined.

These declines are accelerating.
In 2004 and prior years, industry circulation declines were usually
less than 1%. Since March 2005, these declines have been 2%-3% per
year. With declining readership comes declining ad revenues, which are
followed by layoffs.

The newsroom layoffs are most
troubling, as less news with less quality, context and details results
in more declines in readership and later, declines in advertising. If
the $7 billion spent covering news becomes $6 billion, and later $5
billion, it is not just the newspaper industry that gets hurt.
Journalism will be diminished in America with less investigative and
enterprise reporting; indeed, less reporting of state houses, city
halls, school boards, business and sports. Clearly a lot is at stake.

It is time for newspapers to reconsider the ultimate costs and consequences of free news.

I think there are some very valid points to be made about newspapers charging a subscription for access to their news, but I think Mr. Hussman is being short sighted, and here are some reasons why:

  • Ad dollars have only just started to migrate online.  Online advertising is still a relatively immature business and old-line advertisers, agencies and publishers are just now figuring out how to best buy and sell ad inventory.  The online piece of the advertising pie is going to explode and the newspapers that put up a paid wall around their online operations will probably suffer in the long run.
  • Web sites are a hell of a lot cheaper to run than printing presses.  When the online advertising takes off the margins of the online operations will make the print guys green with jealousy.
  • The "newsroom" is going to look very different in the future.  I think the trend towards a professional staff of writers/editors managing content submitted by semi-pros in the community will continue.  Operations like the Greensboro News & Record are beginning to show that members of the community who have a vested interest in stories are more than willing to provide content for free, or really cheap.  Editorial operations should actually get bigger as a percentage of total head count in the future.

These last three points are a real stretch, but since I have no vested interest and everyone knows I’m not that bright I’m going to make them anyway.

  • I think that offset presses are going to eventually be replaced by digital on-demand presses that do small runs for micro-markets.  Think of all those neighborhood editions on a smaller scale.
  • With the digital production I think you’ll see micro-market ad packages being sold. The ad rates will be higher on a cost-per-thousand basis, but they will be more attractive to advertisers because they’ll offer more neighborhood-specific targeting.  For instance, if you’re a restaurant wouldn’t you be willing to pay $30/thousand to reach the 5,000 people who live within a 5-mile radius of your restaurant than $10/thousans to reach the entire 100,000 newspaper circulation?
  • This type of production might necessitate a new distribution model, i.e. using the US Postal Service for home delivery from Mon-Sat.  Not sure what would be done on Sunday, but the reason this might happen can be found in the direct marketing industry. Direct marketing companies already do household-level prospect targeting using digital production and the USPS Zip+4 database.  You know those Money Mailers you get in the mail all the time?  That’s advertisers buying space in an envelope that they know will be delivered to only select neighborhoods they want to reach.  The newspapers could offer similar targeting.

    You could argue that readers want their paper first thing in the morning, but honestly how many people use their local paper for breaking news?  They get that on TV, the web and radio.  The local paper is for depth of local coverage.  I’d be willing to bet that most people would be okay with reading the paper over dinner rather than breakfast.  Also, because the number of home subscribers is trending down, quickly, it might not be cost effective to have dedicated delivery people who drive around delivering papers door to door. If there are only two deliveries per street how much can a delivery person reasonably expect to make?  On the other hand the mailman is delivering one way or another so why not piggy back?  Obviously the USPS isn’t the only option, but I think it would be interesting to look at it. I’m still not sure what you’d do about Sunday delivery, which is a rather large hole in my thinking.

These are just some of the reasons that I think Mr. Hussman’s conclusions are right in the short term, but not the long term.  The media environment, of which newspapers are but one part, is dynamic.  Mr. Hussman is right to challenge the current thinking in the newspaper industry, but I think his strategy will ultimately limit his newspaper’s growth potential. 

(Cross posted on Lowder Enterprises, LLC).

Meeting with the Cos

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JeffandbillcosbyMy cousin Jeff graduated from High Point University with honors in December.  His graduation ceremony was this past Saturday and they had Bill Cosby as their commencement speaker. To the left is a picture of Jeff shaking hands with the Cos and according to the email from my Uncle Frank about the graduation the Cos shook hands with all 700 graduates.  You can hear the full commencement address here, and it’s vintage Cosby. 

I wrote about Jeff’s graduation here so I’m not going to repeat myself.  All I’ll say is that my admiration for Jeff’s accomplishment has not diminished with time.  Way to go bud.

A Tale of Two Cities

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I spent much of last week in New York staying at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.  Although most of my time was spent in a conference room I can tell you that even when I ventured out to get a late dinner at 11:00 pm on a weeknight I still found myself surrounded by thousands of people.  Cut to last night when Celeste and I went to Charlotte with our friends Bobby and Beth Figuracion to see comedian Brian Regan.  We pretty much had the city to ourselves until right before the show when the few thousand people that could fit in the Belk Theater showed up.  You could roll a bowling ball down Trade Street without fear of hitting an animate object, and this on the final day of a major PGA tournament being held in town. You know a town is sleepy when not even Tiger Woods can wake it up.

New York can make almost any other city in America seem sleepy, but Charlotte is downright somnolent. We got to Charlotte early so we could grab some dinner, but we found most of the restaurants closed and ended up eating at the Champions in the Marriott.  (About the restaurant: on a 1-5 scale I’d rate it a 1.5, but because we were eating with Bobby and Beth it seemed a lot better. Great company forgives a lot doesn’t it?)  I’m sure if we’d kept looking we’d have found some other restaurants open, but I was amazed how many we came across in the immediate vicinity of the theater that weren’t open. We’re talking the heart of downtown, in the midst of all the hotels and they didn’t open their doors at all on Sunday.  ZZZZZZ…..

By the way, Brian Regan puts on a great show, is about as "clean" a comedian as you’re going to find today (i.e. safe for pre-teens and up) and the Belk is a great venue to see a show. 

The Week (+) That Was

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Well, it’s over.  "Hell Week" is that week, or more, built around the SCIP conference where I feel like I disappear into an abyss.  Days begin at 6 a.m. and usually last well into the night.  Sunshine is an abstraction except on the rare occassion that I get out to grab a sandwich.  This year’s conference was at the Marriott Marquis in New York (Times Square), surrounded by Broadway theaters and my only experiences outside the hotel were a couple of quick trips to delis or restaurants.  One of the shows I’d really liked to have seen was Spamalot and the theater was literally less than a block away, but there was no way.  Ah well, maybe next time.

For the record, everyone on the SCIP staff is in the same boat and some of them have it harder than me.  They all do a great job dealing with the stress, probably much better than me, but speaking for myself I can tell you that I’ve rarely been as tired as when we finish these conferences.  It amazes me that they weather it and I literally get email from them the day after the conference as if it’s just another day in the office. 

The conference went really well and I’m glad that it was a success, but honestly I’m relieved that it’s over and I’m home.  I was originally supposed to take a 9:30 p.m. flight out of LaGuardia on Thursday, but I got lucky and got a seat on standby on the 3:30 flight.  That meant I was able to get to my youngest’s baseball game in the fourth inning, just in time to see him pitch for the first time ever.  That helped me get over my fatigue. Well, that and the hugs and kisses I got from Celeste and the other two kids when I got to the field.

The last couple of days have largely been spent hanging out with the family, recharging the batteries and hoping to God I never have to be gone for 9 straight days again.  I know other people do it all the time, but I’m just not built for it.

Home sweet home.

Running on Empty

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I apologize ahead of time for the whining.  This time of year is usually tough for me because there’s too much work and lots of stuff going on with the kids, like baseball, soccer, tennis and such.  Truth be told this year feels worse than the last few because, truth be told, I’m not getting any younger.  Right now I’m sitting at the computer trying to wind up my day after getting up at 4:45-ish, heading to the airport for a 6:30 flight to DC, heading straight to SCIP‘s (my client’s) office and I’m still here at 8:30 (that’s PM) with another hour of work to do.  I know there are lots of people who have it worse, but I’m telling you my tank’s about dry.

I’m hoping to sleep hard tonight, but I’m one of those people who can’t sleep well in a hotel so I don’t hold out much hope.  The worst part is that this is the first day of an eight day trip.  The last four will be brutal as we put on SCIP’s largest event of the year.  Everyone here will be on the clock from 6:00 a.m. until some time after dark, and everyone in SCIP’s office has had it as bad (actually worse) than I’ve had it for the last few weeks.  I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a closed room with any of us come Wednesday of next week. The upside is that these are a great group of people to work with and I seriously don’t think I’d be doing it if they weren’t. 

BTW, if you’re in New York next week you should drop by the Marriott Marquis and check out the conference, especially if you happen to be in the competitive intelligence business.  It ain’t free, but it’s a great conference.  If you’re not in CI then maybe you can just drop by and check out the elevators in the place; they’re fast and they go way-high (49 floors).

Yep, I’m exhausted because even as I write this I know it’s one of the dumbest, most self serving things I’ve written yet.  I know it’s self serving because I’ve yet to mention what Celeste has to deal with while I’m gone: games that overlap and necessitate scheduling gyrations and begging for carpools, single-handed homework checking, and dealing with two teenagers and one tween for eight days solid.  It’ll be a miracle if I don’t come home to find her in AA.

But, it beats the alternative of unemployment and everything that comes with it.  With that I declare this whine-fest over.  Everyone have a great week.

Am I Cool or an Embarassment?

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So I roll into my driveway last night, or rather this morning at 1:30 a.m. returning from my brief business trip to DC.  I’m up at 5:30 because I have a tight deadline that I have to meet today, and I go out to the driveway to get the paper while the coffee’s brewing.  There I find that this little ‘ol blog has been profiled in the Winston-Salem Journal, and it includes a picture of the family.  I’m thinking this is kind of cool and I’ll bet the kids will love seeing their picture in the paper, so I put it on the kitchen counter and get the two olded up at their usual 6 a.m. to get ready for school. (The youngest is at Camp Hanes with the rest of Lewisville’s 5th graders). Here’s what happened:

  • Neither one of them noticed the paper on the counter.  They’re pretty much zombies in the morning.
  • I pointed out the article to Michael, my 14 year old son, first.  He says "Cool" and goes to get dressed.
  • Five minutes later I pointed out the article to Erin, my 13 year old daughter.  She says "Oh my God.  This is so embarassing.  I’m going to be laughed at at school."  Then she packs her stuff up, gives me a kiss and leaves for the bus.
  • Michael says "See ya" and runs out the door after her.

That left me with a cup of coffee and the question of whether I’m cool or an embarassment.  Yep, a normal day.

FYI, Kim Underwood from the Journal emailed me some questions for the profile a few weeks ago and asked for a picture.  I wasn’t sure if it would actually make the paper because the other blogs they’ve profiled involve "missions", or in other words they are written by people doing something good for the world.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out he actually ran the profile since this thing is pretty much random thoughts spilling out of my addled brain.  Make sure you check out next week’s Web Sightings since it will feature what I consider the best blog in town, Life in Forsyth.

In a Vacuum

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As I mentioned in my previous post we lost power on Sunday night and we’ve been without power and/or cable for about two days.  A consequence of our blackout is that we (Celeste and I) had no idea that something was going on at Virginia Tech until one of the people sitting at the table next to us at Panera started playing the video from CNN on his laptop.  After that the only update I got for hours was on the radio while I was driving my son to his orthodontist.  We stayed at a hotel last night so I was able to watch the news there, but really I felt like I was in a vacuum.

This reminded me of 9/11 when I was stuck on the streets of DC trying to get home and didn’t hear about the towers falling down until someone told me as we waited to get on the Metro.  After that I had no idea what was going on until I got home that evening and saw for the first time the video that the rest of the world had seen hours earlier. 

This also reminded me that my habits have changed considerably in the last few years. I used to get most of my information from broadcasts, radio or television, but now I get most of it via RSS feeds in my reader or by browsing any number of news sites.  I’m beginning to realize how limiting the broadcasts feel, because when I’m online and getting my usual news stream I’m seeing one story from literally dozens of viewpoints.  With TV I’m getting that one story from a limited number of sources who all feel compelled to package events like this as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech" and then in two days will package it as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech: The Aftermath", and then in two more days will package it as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech: The Recovery Begins", etc.

Of course I could have read my feeds on my PocketPC but I had the slight problem that I’d deleted my mobile feed reader (long story) and had neglected to restore it.  Once I get the chance that’s now a high priority, because I can’t take much more of the broadcasters.