It's Wednesday morning of the first full week, and I feel like I've fought a small war. They threw me right in, writing three stories in the first four days while simultaneously getting situated, learning the system, learning the area, gathering sources, you know - getting a new job up and running. I've been working 11-hour days and I wonder if that'll be the norm.

During undergrad, back in another lifetime, I spent about a year and a half rowing for the freshman and JV squads. There was nothing we hated/feared more than the 2K sprint, completed in the upper room of the Thompson boathouse on the Potomac. We would all sit in a line on the ergs - man's most dreaded invention next to the A-bomb - and go to work. For the first 1000 meters, you would just attack that bitch, wired on adrenaline. Then, suddenly, around 1200...you would just hit it. The Wall. The "Ohmigod what've I gotten myself into" Wall. You just do everything you can to shut off your mind so you can't hear your muscles screaming, and do your best to not fly-and-die.

I just hope I'm not rowing a 2K here. If I am, at least I know to expect The Wall - I've learned to deal with it before, to power through. I remember our coach telling us at the end of freshman year: "If you guys can do this, you can seriously fucking do anything. Anything."

We'll see, Thad.

Anyhow, here's an interesting story I wrote yesterday on bird poop. An animal rights activist wakes up, makes coffee, feeds the pets, admires the sunrise from her window overlooking a scenic golf course...and watches three men with rifles walk onto the fairway and start blowing away wildlife.

Sometimes, this stuff just writes itself.


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A couple of other quick items: "Crash" for Best Picture? Really? Was I the only one bothered by this? That's what I thought, then I read Chuck Klosterman's Super Bowl blog for ESPN page 2:

"I see that the big (SAG) winner was "Crash," a movie designed for people in Los Angeles who just figured out that racism was "complex" (and must therefore be secretly central to every conversation any two Americans ever have). I wish one of the bears from "Grizzly Man" would eat Matt Dillon and Ludacris."

Brilliant.


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I don't know if I've read all the facts here, but I think I know enough to say that this is pretty despicable. Freedom is on the march.

'Gotta run. See? Now I'm on friggin blog deadlines! What's going on here?