If anyone knows Cheryl Wilburn, let her know I'm getting her emails. Thanks.

Shortly before the 2008 presidential election I began getting emails from the Obama campaign. At first I didn't think it was too odd, since I was in favor of the Senator's candidacy. But when I looked more closely, they were actually trying to send emails to Cheryl Wilburn. I can only assume her email is something like chwilburn@yahoo.com, just one letter different from my own.

I hope she hasn't missed out on any of the events that have followed. Today the mailing list, which has now turned into "USA Service" touted the president's initiative to increase community service around the U.S. The new organization is also apparently on a first-name basis with recipients now, saying only "Dear Cheryl" and leaving off the last name. Nice to know they're cozy like that.

According to the email, they are "grateful for the work you've done since the National Day of Service in January." Make that the work Cheryl has apparently done since January. I hope her service isn't dependent on getting pep talks and adulation in her inbox.

On a completely different note, it must suck to be a dentist. I went today and got the expected "you need to floss more." Seriously, who actually flosses the correct amount?

That's why it would be terrible to be a dentist. All day, every day, you're seeing people who flat out ignore the instructions you give them when you meet one or two times a year. You think to yourself how simple a task flossing is, how little time it takes and how it is clearly good for each and every patient.

And yet nobody listens. I bet dentists have a higher number of kids than the national average, if only so they have someone under their roof they can MAKE floss as often as they feel is necessary. I'd also bet children of dentists are extremely unlikely to be dentists themselves, opting to work at ice cream shops and chocolatiers in disproportionate numbers.

On my way home from the dentist I stopped to get gas. At the pump next to me...a MetroAccess bus. They're coming to get me.

It's never a good thing when a nemesis you thought you had made peace with returns, and nearly kills you.

Back in my grad school days at the University of Maryland, I was dispatched to do a story on cuts in the MetroAccess program in the Washington, D.C. area. MetroAccess provides rides to the disabled who cannot use the bus/rail options provided by the area transit authority.

It should have been an easy story--interview a few users who would be inconvenienced by the cuts, a metro spokesperson defending the cuts, and get some video of the MetroAccess cars and buses. Before doing the story, and even that morning on my way to the interviews, I saw the vehicles everywhere.

As soon as I was looking for a few to get on tape for the story, they mysteriously disappeared from the streets. I spent a solid half an hour walking around downtown D.C. waiting for one of them to go by. Never happened. So I went to locations where they could be picking people up or dropping them off, such as complexes with multiple doctors offices that served the elderly/disabled. Again, nothing.

The professor serving as our assignment editor calls to tell me she has found the main MetroAccess compound in Maryland. The way she's talking about it, it seems like she has contacted them and they are allowing me to come and get video. So I go there, get out my camera and start shooting. After about 15 minutes, a vanload of very official-looking people show up and come right towards me. They want to know who I am and what the bejeesus I am doing there.

I explain the phone call, after which I am asked to go inside and talk to their security people. They say they have no record of the call, and nobody remembers talking to the professor. After a short time of explaining my harmless intentions, they ask for my card and ask me to leave. I comply.

The second I got out of their parking lot I called the professor to ask why I was in yet another position to be detained while shooting a story. She says basically not to worry about it...and the story ends up being really lame anyway.

Fast forward to last week. I was crossing a street in D.C. with the light. There was a left turn lane that also had a green light, with the drivers expected to not plow over people utilizing the crosswalk. The driver of a MetroAccess bus pulls into the intersection, not even remotely seeing me. Good thing I was paying attention and could run a few steps to get out of his way. It was only then he made eye contact and sped away. Good thing I'm nimble; that would be a terrible way for my life to end.

Ahh, March Madness. It's a wonderful time of year when we can focus on college athletes competing at the highest level, and can enjoy their spirited fans as well.

There's nothing like a college crowd to come up with clever ways to get under an opponent's skin. Even simple stuff like yelling the guy's name every time he touches the ball can add great enjoyment for fans at any game. Having never been that athlete, I can't say for sure how it affects them.

I am pretty sure, however, that it doesn't scar them for life and is within the spirit of the game. A Wisconsin school district thinks even those simple taunts--including "airball," "over-rated" and "what's the score?"--are too much for kids to take. Those extremely hurtful attacks are now banned.

Good thing the administrators are protecting those kids. I wonder what sort of things are said in the hallways of those schools. "Hello sir, how did you enjoy today's math test?" "My your sweater and jeans combination is simply strapping today!" "Sir I respectfully disagree with your assessment that Britney Spears is an upstanding citizen!"

Give me a break. This is the latest in over-reactions to benign actions of fans that don't bother players two seconds after they are said.

It brings to mind a string of incidents at Susquehanna basketball games when I covered our men's basketball team. A few of our fans yelled out a guy's name whenever he got the ball, or when they committed a turnover said "Hey, we worked on that in practice!" I bet the players were just fine after those incredibly hurtful taunts.

But our athletic director had campus security go sit with the five or six guys and eventually they were asked to leave. Here's an editorial I wrote back in Dec. 2004.

The best part of that article was the day after it was published. We had a home game, and I was seated just behind the sports information director who was keeping score of the game. He had the paper on the desk as well, open to my editorial. During halftime, the athletic director came over to the SID. She picked up the paper and looked at it like it was completely made up and out of nowhere.

Even better, I was still sitting three feet away. We had spoken on the phone during my time as the sports editor, but I'm fairly certain we had never spoken in person. So as she questioned my premise, I was able to hear all of her comments with complete anonymity. After she left, the SID turned around and I commended him on his ability to keep a straight face knowing exactly what was going on. Good times.

I subscribe to Newsweek, a fantastic publication full of interesting articles regarding the news of the week. It also features a name with two Ws and a K. Those are all good things.

But there is one thing about the magazine that absolutely perplexes me and makes me feel slightly dumber each week for not being able to figure it out--the page numbers.

Each page that has an article has a page number. They are on the lower left for left-side pages and the lower right for right-side pages. Full-page photos/graphics as well as ad pages do not have a number.

But the problem comes in how the pages are counted. The full-page photos that go with stories are counted in the page numbers, even though they don't feature the number themselves. The page before might be 40, meaning the page after the photo would be 42. Makes perfect sense.

When it comes to the ad pages, things get squirrelly. (On a side note, the Myspace blog box has flagged "squirrelly" as a spelling error. I assure you, it is not). Some of the ad pages are counted like the full-page photos--they are counted in the page numbers but don't have one on their page. Again, I'm perfectly fine with that system.

But then there are some ad pages that are skipped in the numbering. This system becomes especially troubling with the first pages of the magazine. Opening the cover this week, you find an ad that spreads across the entirety of the first two pages (the back of the cover and the first right-hand page). If you count the pages until the first one that has a number, you have to leave out the first page of that ad.

How can we operate under a system that counts half of an ad as a page but not the other?! It's insanity. If you're going to count ad pages as pages, fine. Count them all. If not, don't count any of them. My head is on the verge of headache for no logical reason, and such a situation should not exist in a civilized world.

Have a room in your home in serious need of redecoration? Why not turn to the artwork of children to brighten those bare walls? Even better, dig up some of your own work if you still have it laying around.

My parent's basement is plastered in the artwork my siblings and I brought home during our elementary school days, mainly because my mother kept every single piece of school-related paper. Several years ago, we all started going through our boxes and boxes of material to try to pare down the gargantuan load. In doing so, we ended up with a pile of our artwork, and were sitting in a rather undecorated space.

So this happened:




In my case, it was clear that my artistic skills ceased at about the second grade. If I drew a flower today it would look quite a bit like one done by my 8-year-old self. But there is one piece that I find particularly entertaining. It's hanging on the wall just above my computer screen. According to what's written on the back, it was done in the sixth grade. The assignment was some sort of poster contest, though I'm not sure the exact theme.



I went with "Save The World, Stop The Violence." A worthy cause if I say so myself. I'll point out the globe in the "O" of World. That's probably my greatest artistic achievement. I remember tracing the gun from something, and my teacher not wanting to display my work because it had a gun. I can't imagine what would have happened today. I probably would have been expelled for plotting to take down the school.

Then of course, there is the stop sign. If you didn't look closely before, I'll wait while you give it another glance.......Ok, what's wrong with this picture? That's right, my sixth-grade self made a stop sign with only six sides. It's not like I didn't pass by at least three of them while I rode my bike to school every day. Maybe that's why I didn't win the contest.

One of the overall best works is courtesy of my sister. It makes me want to have a little card next to each piece explaining what the assignment was supposed to be. Check out this girl standing outside on a nice, sunny day:



She certainly looks very happy. But what makes this picture curious is the text. It has apparently been translated by a teacher to read "Abraham Lincoln got shot." Um, what? Why is the girl so happy, and what does Lincoln have to do with this outside scene? Obviously the assignment was completed, since we can see the teacher's red smiley face in the upper right corner. Was this a depiction of Jefferson Davis' granddaughter? A previously unidentified Booth co-conspirator? This is why we need time machines.

The confusion brought to mind a casualty of my horrid handwriting from my Susquehanna days. My dorm room desk featured a pull-out keyboard tray that I used to store pens and an ongoing to-do list. My entire organization system depended on a single sheet of paper with a list of the item, a day I intended to complete it off to the left and the day it was due on the right. If I needed to scribble down a random piece of info, like a phone number or a message for my roommate, that made it onto an unused portion of the page.

But my final list has an entry I cannot decipher. I had no clue what it said just days after I wrote it, and sure don't have a better idea today. Here's the full sheet:



Down in the bottom right corner is the boxed-in, questionable item:



Any ideas? I think it's a name since both words appear to be capitalized. That is of course if we assume it is two words. That would lead me to say it's Lauren B---. I hope I wasn't supposed to call her or provide any sort of vital assistance, since I can't recall ever knowing a Lauren B---.

Of course, it could just as easily be Carmen or Camera or Laven. If only I didn't use the blue pen to write it, I'm sure this would have been no mystery. Despite my known poor handwriting, I still sometimes used a blue ballpoint pen that always added extra loops and confusion to my writing. Why didn't I use the trusted set of black pens?!

Lauren, if you're out there, I'm sorry.

Today was a fantastic day. A great, old friend came back into my life and I can't think of a better addition to my Tuesday. That friend is chocolate Teddy Grahams.

Early this afternoon I had a hankering for a snack, nothing too big but enough to squelch the "I'm hungry" voice beckoning from my belly. I opened our pantry cabinet dealio to hunt for potential remedies. My eyes scanned over boxes of Pop-Tarts, granola bars and peanut butter crackers. I started to choose one of those satisfactory but not excellent snacks when I came upon a truly exciting box.

Teddy Grahams have been one of my favorite snacks since they were first thought of by the guy who invented them. I loved them before he or she even told anyone else about their idea for a bear-shaped cookie-type snack that comes in several delicious flavors.

We didn't have them very often at my house, but they were a staple in my grandmother's snack cabinet. There was nothing finer than a trip to Nana's, complete with noshing on Teddy Grahams during a break from the pool.

Today I didn't have quite the same experience. It's about 37 degrees outside and there's no pool here in the basement. But the taste of the Teddys brought me to my happy place like granola bars could never do.

Another recent smile-inducing moment was brought to me by my good friend TV. Actually, it was whomever decided a Web site called OnlineBootyCall was a good idea and made it happen.

Now I'm not saying I'm all about utilizing such a service. I just enjoyed this commercial for the site as it played during a popular TV show last week. The sheer bluntness of it is incredible. It's not one of those jeans commercials where the only reason you know jeans are involved are because there's a pair slumped over a chair deep in the background. You know exactly what OnlineBootyCall.com is about.

Don't want a pesky relationship? Don't want to promise marriage just to hook up? OnlineBootyCall is for you!

And lest you think I have abandoned reading for additional hours of television, here's the stack of completed books in 2009:



That's seven so far. For comparison sake, I was just finishing the second of 2008 at this point in the year.

This year's picks thus far:
-The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
-Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
-You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers
-IV by Chuck Klosterman
-The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
-The Winter Of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
-The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I send text messages. I pay a monthly fee to my cell phone provider for a text package. I am not a teenager, which according to one study means I don't spend an hour every day punching little keys on my phone.

That hour isn't time spent in a text conversation, that's the literal time spent sending the messages themselves--no waiting involved. A Nielsen study says teens with cell phones send an average of 2,272 texts a month, as reported in this Washington Post article.

That's equivalent to about 76 messages every day (given a 30-day month). If the teens get 8 hours of sleep, that means sending roughly five texts every hour they are awake. The staggering number is the average per year, which works out to 27,264. That's a lot of LOLs, GR8 C U THENs and THX BFFs.

I don't think I could send that many if I tried, and I'm sure there are thousands of parents who thank whomever came up with a way for them to not have to pay for those texts 15 cents at a time.

Of course, I wasn't a teenager when "everyone" had a cell phone, so it's hard to truly judge the Nielsen data. Back in the day, we had Instant Messenger as the form of communication "everyone" utilized. Your screen name was the ticket to endless banter about today's history assignment, who smelled on the bus this morning or who was going to the football game on Friday.

Before the advent of such detached technologies, I suppose people used regular phones to actually speak to one another. Those are the same people who wrote letters and mailed them--with stamps. I'm not saying we should go back to that kind of society; I like the ability to send a sane number of text messages in a month. But maybe certain things shouldn't be unlimited. Back in the beginning years of the internet, we were all concerned about the number of hours we were using. Now that DSL and cable are practically ubiquitous, "everyone"--myself included--spend more time than is really necessary online. Without that clock, those limits, there's less of an incentive to pursue other things.

The text packages are the same way. The article states that the subject family spends $30 a month to get unlimited texts. How different would habits be at $0.15 for every one of those important messages? Surely some of them would be handled in other ways, and maybe that would promote a more well-rounded experience for "everyone."

G2G. TTYL.

There are many rules and regulations meant to protect our society from lots of dangerous things. Some of these rules come with signs attached to the top of posts: No Swimming, No Smoking, Handicapped Parking.

But one of the most common signs needs to be amended. It's the one you see along the curbs outside many buildings that says "No Parking or Standing--Fire Lane."

I understand the point is to keep cars away from that area in case of a fire. An emergency vehicle would need access to that space in order to address the flames and work to ensure people's safety. But the "Standing" portion is a bit unnecessary.

Today I picked up someone for lunch, and thus had to wait outside their office building until they came out. There were far-flung parking spaces open, but the area just in front of the door was a lot more convenient for both of us. I defied the signs in the area warning me not to "Stand." I would never park in such a location, but I don't see the problem with standing.

If there is a fire, and people are fleeing the building, I'm going to want to get away as well. I'm not going to say: "Hey, look at those awesome flames! Let me continue sitting in my car in front of this fire hydrant." That's one of the wonderful things about cars--they're meant to go places. By the time a fire engine arrived--even with amazing response time--my car would no longer be standing in that location.

Sure, there are people who would me so mesmerized by the smoke-and-flames situation that they would continue their standing. But even then, if a fire engine rolled up right behind you and beeped that incredibly loud horn, you'd probably get the picture and get out of the way. Or in any statute that removes the "No Standing" provision from the sign, we can include a line about the right of emergency vehicles to ram into cars that are in the way without fault.

Let the vehicles stand.

For perhaps the first time in a long, long while, I agreed with action taken by House Republicans. They were the driving force in defeating a bill to delay the DTV switch, which had already passed in the Senate.

The measure's proponents, including the Obama administration, argue that switching off the analog TV signals is going to leave too many people without programming. The Associated Press says Nielson estimates 6.5 million households will not be ready for the switch.

Where have those 6.5 million households been for the last 15 months? If you have a television, and watch it even occasionally, how could you miss the nearly incessant warnings that his was going to happen. The Feb. 17 date has been in print ads, TV/radio ads, newspaper stories and promos done by network TV stars. Did they stutter? Did you think they were kidding?

The bill would have pushed the transition back to June, when presumably more people would be "ready" for the switch. What good is giving four extra months to people who couldn't get prepared with years of notice? As I read somewhere this morning, the only way to truly get those 6.5 million people to take the necessary action is to go through with the switch. When they lose their signal on Feb. 17, you can be sure they'll get a digital converter box that very day.

Lost in the overall debate is the cost to TV stations. Congress mandated the change, one that cost stations all over the countries boatloads of money to enact. Right now they are all paying to broadcast both digital and analog signals, and certainly expected to be able to shut off the analog transmitter on Feb. 17. Now they have to continue paying for the simulcasting. In a time of already stretched budgets, that means having to cut costs elsewhere.

So if you missed the message...DTV IS COMING FEB. 17. IF YOU GET YOUR TELEVISION THROUGH AN ANALOG ANTENNA, YOU NEED TO GET A DIGITAL CONVERTER BOX IN ORDER TO CONTINUE GETTING TV. NO BOX=NO TV. GO. NOW!!!!!!!! As mentioned in the ads, for more information visit DTVAnswers.com. NOW!

If you think I have a lot of time on my hands now, clearly you didn't know me in high school.

Or at least, there is some evidence to suggest that even though I'll probably easily read five books this month, there was a time I pursued less fruitful tasks. I give you exhibit A, a collection of homemade ping pong paddles circa 1998:



Now I didn't make all of these. The one on the far left, "Da Rippa," with the sweet gold paint job with lightning bolts and leather grip is mine. It looks the most used after roughly 10 years because, well, it has been involved in the most pong action.

I don't recall what the catalyst was for heading into the workshop on the other side of the basement with the idea of making our own paddles. But I do know that everyone involved came out extremely happy with the process and it has heightened the enjoyment of our basement festivities.

We've gone over Da Rippa, so let me run you through the highlights of the rest of the collection. Moving to the right, we come to the "Canada Paddle," named for it's somewhat resemblance to a maple leaf. This is one of the more enjoyable paddles to play with, despite it's uncomfortable grip. You will inevitably try to hit a ball that ends up going right in between the points of the "leaf" and look like an idiot. But hey, that's what ping pong is ultimately about right?

Next we have Da Black Knight, created by my younger brother. It too has a grip and a name featuring "Da." It's a more uniform geometric shape than mine, but I'm a far better player than Pat and thus don't need such foolishness to improve my game.

The highlight of the collection is also the smallest--the "Stop Sign Paddle." I bet you can't get how we got that name. Matches between the Canada and the Stop Sign are often the most high-larious, for obvious reasons.

The last one on the right might be the "Oriental Paddle" or maybe the "China Paddle," I don't remember which. I bet Pat will provide a comment to assist me on this matter. I'm pretty sure it was created by our older brother, thus the massive over-engineering. The handle is actually three times as thick as the others in the group thanks to extra pieces glued onto each side. I'm sure there was an official reason for this, but it does add a very different feel. If only it wasn't 438 pounds, I might try it more often. I'm also pretty sure there would be some sort of regulation against a paddle that size. Then again, I'm also pretty sure mine wouldn't qualify either, since the international ping pong authority is very anti-lightning bolt.

Moving up one to the perfectly round gold paddle, we have a paddle without a name. I guess we could call it "Mike's Paddle," since it was created by my friend Mike. You would think the others in my family would be the most-used, but Mike's is probably second on the list. We play an inordinate amount of ping pong. We are also both single. Surely the two can't be related. Mike is a total perfectionist on this type of thing, and with a bit of an art background it's not surprising everything is perfectly uniform on his paddle. Now he just has to work on his skillz.

The final one, in the top left, I have no idea who made that one. It's made of a different type of wood than the others, which I believe were all just standard plywood. This one is very thin, and has a polyurethane finish. It makes a much lower sound when you hit the ball. Actually, I bet Ben made it since it has an extremely overdone handle. As in the Oriental/China Paddle, it has three pieces, except this one has finger grooves and is perfectly sanded for comfort. If you look closely you can also see a hole drilled through the bottom of the handle, which may have been intended for some sort of string like those found on racquetball rackets.

You should probably avoid playing ping pong against anyone who has their own homemade paddle. That's like playing pool against a guy who brings his own cue in a fancy carrying case--just not a good idea. Unless of course you want to challenge me in ping pong. In that case, just bring some cash and totally take my word that I'm not very good...

So if you no longer want to pay for housing, apparently Britain is the place to be. I ran across this fascinating story in this morning's Washington Post.

It recounts the story of some squatters taking up residence in a $33 million home in London. Apparently all you need is an open window, or an unlocked door and you're in: "In Britain, trespassing is a civil offense, not a criminal one. Provided the squatters do not break a window or door to enter or otherwise damage the property, police are largely powerless to remove them."

The article says most people are kicked out in days or weeks, but "if they last 10 years, the law allows them to petition a court for ownership." What a great country. Just when you thought our legal systems were alike...

In other odd news, today I cut my fingernails. Except I realized hours later that I only cut the ones on my right hand and not my left. In a bit of Chris Trivia I probably shouldn't admit, I do this ALL the time. I'd say a good 30 percent of fingernail trimmings involve finding later on that I inexplicably only did one hand, and it's always the right.

I know what you're thinking, maybe, and I understand that's a fairly odd thing to admit. But you're also thinking, "Hey, at least he didn't write about another book." I pledge not to do that for a long while, unless it's really really ridiculously warranted...but I am through No. 3 already...

Parents who make a lot of noise insisting their children are special and need to be recognized as so eventually end up getting their way. That doesn't make the kids any more talented or able than they already are. It does, however, reinforce in the parents' minds the notion that their kid is some sort of special gift to be celebrated.

That's not necessarily good for the kid, and could end up setting impossible expectations against which the child will never be positively measured. Such is the fight going on right now in Fairfax County where a group of parents is trying to alter the grading system to boost their kids' grades.

I'm a product of the current system, one that has a grading scale requiring students to achieve a 94 average in order to earn an A. This group of parents says it's an outrage that their kids aren't measured under a system where a 90 gets an A, as in many school systems around the country.

As a Fairfax County student, you're told you have a great opportunity to learn in a top school system--one that will challenge you and prepare you for whatever your next step may be. For most of us, that was college. That's where the uproar begins.

The parents say a kid from a 90-percent school has a huge advantage because their GPA will be higher. Yes, averages will be essentially higher across the board, but at what cost?

If you only have to get a 90 for an A, what's the point in working any harder than that? I know there were several classes I took in high school where I sweated out the final exam results to see if I was going to get to that 94, or at least the 93.5 that most teachers would round up. The key example here is freshman English, which was taught by Ms. Amaker. She had a policy stating if you received an A for each of the four quarters you were exempt from the final exam/presentation. You could also borrow one percentage point a quarter in order to boost your grade, the only catch being that you would have to pay it back next time. (Go from a 93 to a 94 this quarter, but be sure you have that 95 to be able to keep your A next time).

I rocked through three quarters with an A and worked hard in that fourth quarter to push through the final A. At 90 percent, I would have been able to slack off and still net the same result.

I went through my high school transcript to see just how much the proposed grading system change would have affected my bottom line. The result: I would have earned a 3.87 instead of a 3.67. That's a five-percent overall boost for doing absolutely nothing, and doesn't take into account how much less effort I could have put into the A's I originally earned.

In fact, looking at the individual years shows a bigger effect. I would have finished freshman year with a perfect 4.0 vs. the 3.79 I earned. Sophomore year--3.71 vs. 3.57. The boost would have been best my Junior year, giving me a 3.86 instead of another measly 3.57. Senior year would have also sent me out on another perfect 4.0 vs. the 3.83 I actually earned.

In several Washington Post articles, the school system has said students don't have a disadvantage when it comes to college admissions and in fact may get a boost from admissions officers. They say colleges know a county's reputation, even down to individual teachers, and give a boost to Fairfax students that way.

But what about the effect on students' minds? I left high school knowing I was a good student, but certainly not the top tier. I didn't think about going to Princeton or Harvard, or even UVA. I knew I wasn't that level. But a kid who gets boosted by the system to a 3.87 thinks he's a great student who doesn't have to work as hard to succeed. When he applies to college, not only is he now going against a greater level of competition (thanks to other students getting help), but may not truly grasp which schools might be a better fit for his academic future.

Once he's in school, the kid still thinks it's easier to get good grades. That means he doesn't work as hard and suddenly finds he's struggling in college. He calls his parents, who think of him as the 3.87 prodigy, and all three blame the college for being too demanding.

Perhaps we should take a step back and realize that challenging students is a good idea. It's part of the point of school. You should learn your abilities and limits and how to push through that in order to get to the next level, whether that's a C+ or an A. Changing the grading system to achieve those goals instead of forcing students to work for them is not the path to success for the county, parents or the students.

Too bad the school board looks like it's giving in to those who want to be "Proud Parent of an Honor Student."

Despite my heroic efforts, it appears the Year of the Book was not a nationwide project.

In fact, according to a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts, the percentage of adults who read any book not required for work or school dropped in 2008. While I knocked out 20 titles, only 54.3 percent of adults finished even one. The Washington Post has more.

Come on people!

It's not like there aren't amazing stories awaiting people's attention. Maybe if people were inside reading books murder rates and overall crime would plummet. Maybe car crashes would be a thing of the past if people had a book in their hand instead of a steering wheel (hopefully not trying to do both at the same time). Perhaps ratings for TMZ and Access Hollywood would be taken to crushingly low levels if turned off in favor of literature.

I certainly won't hold my breath. But I will do my part and keep reading.

I think the Year of the Book officially ends with the closing of 2008, but I at least thought about declaring it finished with the closing of the final book. I wrote about my intentions for this personal project on December 18 of last year, wanting to read 20 books during the past 12 months.

That sprang from an avid reader—myself—hearing statistics and soliciting my own poll results about how many adults actually sit down and read a book these days. In that blog I wrote about a poll that found 57 percent of adults read one book in a year. I was working in a writing-heavy environment and assumed my coworkers would certainly be above average. But what I found was that many people I worked with hadn’t read a single book all year.

The number 20 came out of a guesstimate that I could probably do 15 without much trouble, and thus wanted to add a few more to make it challenging. Beyond committing to a concrete project for 2008, I’m not sure what I actually thought I wanted to get out of it except for a few good reads and to clear off the unread portion of my bookshelf. Actually, that’s a lie. Like a normal person—at least I think—I keep them roughly alphabetized without discrimination for the unread.

What I ended up with was a really great experience. The project brought in some of my closest friends with their recommendations for the books that perhaps not surprisingly were some of my favorites. I tried to read a diverse enough group that I could learn things about different areas and experience a wider range of storytelling. A somewhat alienating schedule, a quiet one bedroom apartment and some heartbreaking and uplifting stories gave me moments of almost meditative reflection on some characters I never knew, and others that never existed.

The reading itself took place in five places. There was the recliner in my apartment in Jacksonville, Fla., which had great natural sunlight and the dull drone of traffic on nearby State Road 9A. On nicer days, those that weren’t too hot, I dragged the current selection down to Jacksonville Beach and parked in the sand in front of the Comfort Inn. I believe every book through October made this trip at least once, including reading all of “The Last Lecture” on one particular trip. This spot involved the least amount of clothing, but also the most effort due to the 10-minute drive and certainly the least comfortable seating. Actually, I take that back. Location No. 3 definitely takes that title. That would be terminal at Jacksonville International Airport. I know I took care of a large portion of “At Home in the World” and “The Dead Beat” while waiting for flights to North Carolina and Virginia, respectively. The last two sites were the setting for reading everything in November and December—the couches in my parents’ family room and basement, which qualify as the two most comfortable reading locations possibly known to man (particularly the basement spot).

One of the parts of the journey I have most enjoyed is being able to chronicle it in some way. I’m sure many people have clicked on one or two book-related entries and been bored to tears. But mostly, the writing has been for me. I have gone back several times to re-read what I posted about earlier books and it has been invaluable in being able to put together a sort of retrospective of the journey. My thoughts about the first few books I read may be very different now than how I felt when my eyes went across their last period. As I finished more and more books I liked, the ones from January and February are afterthoughts when trying to place them all in context. It wasn’t until I had all of them stacked up today that I remembered how much I loved “The Year of Living Biblically” or “At Home in the World.” I’ll get to some sort of awards system shortly, though as I wrote in the post announcing the project, there has only been one book in my recollection that I truly hated—Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms.”

This is the first and only time the entire collection has been together, seen here in chronological order from “Zlata’s Diary” to “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs:”



And I know I promised at some point to try to build something cool out of the books, but that proved immeasurably more difficult than I thought. Perhaps if I had more than three hardcovers in the group it would have been a touch easier:



Before I began, I listed 12 books as the initial list with a plan to obviously add more as time went on. Of those, only seven actually made the final cut. A total of eight of the 20 were recommended by friends. Actually one was by the author of a recommendation, but I switched to a different book (Hornby’s “How to be Good”). The last of those was “A Confederacy of Dunces,” which I found through an awesome new tool to me. It’s a Facebook application called Visual Bookshelf that allows you to show your friends what you’re reading, what you’ve read and give comments. It’s no real surprise that people I feel like I get along with very well have similar reading histories and loved books that I did as well.

Before I go too far into some numbers and awards, here’s the final list in order of their completion:

-Zlata’s Diary by Zlata Filipovic
-The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
-The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
-The Audacity of Hope by president-elect Barack Obama
-Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
-The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
-At Home in the World by Daniel Pearl
-Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
-The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
-The Survival Game by David P. Barash
-The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
-The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson
-A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
-Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
-How to be Good by Nick Hornby
-The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
-1984 by George Orwell
-The Best Seat in the House by Spike Lee
-A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
-Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman

In case you were wondering, I am enough of a nerd to have made an Excel spreadsheet involving several aspects of the project. But thanks to that effort, I can quickly and easily share some things with you:

-Total pages: 5579
-Average length: 279 pages
-Longest: 437 pages (Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius)
-Shortest: 132 pages (The Prince)
-Two books had the same length (1984 & Beautiful and Damned at 297)
-During one stretch I almost read three books in a row with the same length (278, 276, 132, 277)

I did a calculation of how long it took me to read each one, though my data set is slightly inaccurate. The only thing I had to go on was the date I posted the blog about each book, which in many cases was one-to-several days after actually finishing. This includes one day where I posted about two books, and two postings in two days though I know there was a bigger gap between those books. But for the most part, I think it is still a useful way to look at how the project got off to a decent start, then quickly bogged down for a few months before finishing at a torrid pace.

The average time between postings for the year was 19 days, with the longest gap being 63. Here are those gaps in order: 19, 28, 14, 29, 63, 10, 34, 18, 28, 1, 28, 30, 7, 1, 5, 7, 12, 7, 15. If I told you I was not working for one of these stretches, it’s only slightly obvious where. Hint: see all items following “30.”

Made me laugh: “Year of Living Biblically,” “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs”
If you only read five of them: “Year of Living Biblically,” “Audacity of Hope,” “Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” “Book of Illusions,” “Confederacy of Dunces”
Would have left out: “Best Seat in the House,” “The Prince”
You’ll learn something: “At Home in the World,” “Last Lecture,” “Survival Game”
Hate the characters, love the book: “Picture of Dorian Gray”
Best cover: “Year of Living Biblically:”



While I may not have a whole lot going for me in a conventional sense right now, this gave me a lot to be happy about today and throughout 2008. I wouldn’t recommend this project to others in a do it like I did sense, but I think something in this spirit has a lot of value. It gives you a chance to do something with and for yourself outside of all of the other pressures and responsibilities of life. It’s no small feat to commit to something for 12 months and ride out the ups and downs of life and your schedule and come out on the other side having finished what you started. So for 2009, make your own goal and make it happen. Mine doesn’t involve another reading number, but does involve a lot of writing inspired by 2008. Happy New Year.

"For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth-grade level. They can't talk and they can't write, but they can read silently and understand the text. Many cats love this new skill, because they now have something to do all day while they lay around the house; however, a few cats become depressed, because reading forces them to realize the limitations of their existence (not to mention the utter frustration of being unable to express themselves). This being the case, do you think the average cat would enjoy Garfield, or would cats find this cartoon to be an insulting caricature?"

That's what caused me to interrupt a perfectly calm holiday evening in our household as I failed to quell my laughter. Thank you Chuck Klosterman. That's an excerpt from his book "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs," specifically a section on the 23 questions he asks everyone he meets in order to decide if he can really love them.

So far, everyone I have asked says cats would enjoy Garfield. I think I agree, though there are undoubtedly some really snooty cats that would be offended. I think these cats are the really long-haired ones that seem to think they're better than other cats and probably you as well as they eat their Fancy Feast. You absolutely must read this book for the other 22 questions, or at least spend the 10 minutes at a bookstore laughing in the aisle as others wonder what is wrong with you.

Ok, I'll give you one more. This one has a familiar feel to anyone who has gone through the joy of journalism school and lessons on newsworthiness: "Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness Monster. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, a bear hunter in the Pacific Northwest shoots a Sasquatch in the thigh, thereby allowing zoologists to take the furry monster into captivity. These events happen on the same afternoon. That evening, the president announces he may have thyroid cancer and will undergo a biopsy later that week. You are the front-page editor of the New York Times: What do you play as the biggest story?"

Of course, in j-school the hypotheticals are usually more common occurences about wars, car accidents, plane crashes and fires. Still a valid question though.

Even taking into account a low sample size, this is the only book of the 20 my mom has seen lying around and been befuddled by its title. Or at least the only one that has caused her to ask what the heck it was about.

"Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" has discussion of all three topics, along with a host of other pop culture essays and other thoughts. Cocoa Puffs come into play in a section about what you can tell about people from the cereal they eat. Klosterman writes that cereals that sell themselves with things like "a laid-back bear wearing a mock turtleneck" (as in Golden Crisp) are for "nonsense people." That's in contrast to "no-nonsense" cereals like Grape Nuts, that put a picture of, um, Grape Nuts on the box. "Consequently, we nonsense types spend hours and hours staring at cardboard creatures like the Trix Rabbit and absorbing his ethos." I'm a Cocoa Puffs man myself.

Of course, perhaps even more important than a discussion of what cereal means to our society is a chapter featuring Saved By The Bell. Klosterman writes about watching the show with a friend in college. He says the friend--a term he uses loosely--would say virtually nothing during the show until one days he burst out in exasperation at the unlikely relationship between Zack and Mr. Belding. Klosterman writes about how odd it was that this instance was the truly unbelievable thing in the show:

"I mean, Bayside High was a school where students made money by selling a 'Girls of Bayside' calendar, and it was a school where oil was discovered under the football team's goalposts. This is a show where Zack had the ability to call time-out and stop time in order to narrate what was happening with the plot. There is never a single moment in the Save By The Bell series that reflects any kind of concrete authenticity."

I think high school would have been a lot more entertaining if I had the ability to stop time. I would have become a pro at stealing packs of mini chocolate donuts from the vending machine near the gym. Imagine what I could have accomplished by saving those 60 cents every time. That could put an end to world poverty, or at least have netted me nearly two chocolate chip cookies at lunchtime. I bet with stopped time I could also learn how to break into the Veryfine machine and add a fruit punch to my daily time-stop snack. I would certainly have moved things on people's desks, but only slightly to mess with their heads without giving them any notion that anything concrete was happening.

The last bit of Klosterman-ness I'll touch on is a more serious portion citing the Oklahoma City bombing. He writes about the newspaper coverage afterward, specifically of the victims. The Chicago Tribune mentioned each of the 168, with a one-sentence bit following their name. "There's nothing intrinsically wrong with any of those details. However, as I read and reread every little bio on the list, I found myself deflated by the realization that virtually everyone's life is only remembered for one thing."

Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "The Great Gatsby." James K. Polk was president of the United States. What will your sentence say?

Next up: Tomorrow I'll do the grand wrapup of the Year of the Book, including fabulous pictures and perhaps even a graph! Make sure the kids get a good night's sleep and keep their excitement under wraps (I know it will be hard!)

Since I live in close proximity to the District of Columbia, I frequently find myself in the city for one reason or another. Sometimes it's to have lunch with a friend, attend a hockey game or some other gathering. Whatever the reason, I tend to try to find other things to do as long as I'm there.

That frequently involves hitting up a few museums, and though I've been to just about all of the major ones there's usually a new exhibit or something to check out. But yesterday I was just walking on the Mall when I came across a curious situation.

For months preparations have been underway for President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration and the festivities that go along with it. So it was no surprise to see lots of plywood, trucks and workers along Pennsylvania Avenue just in front of the White House.

But I didn't expect to see a team of men apparently tasked with protecting trees from the rowdy masses ready to descend on a cold January day. Here's a look at a line of trees that extends for several blocks. The guys were rolling down the street with this flatbed truck, a closer look here, slapping up beautiful plywood boxes around each of the trees.

When they're done, they look like this. If you'll recall from the first photo, they have small metal edgings to begin with. You can still see them here, despite the fortress that has been installed.

One of the big questions: how many trees did we cut down for the plywood that's protecting these trees? Plus, I don't know if you've noticed, we sort of have a financial crisis on our hands. How much are taxpayers shelling out for the manpower and materials to construct the tree boxes? I have just enough free time to give half an effort to email some people and pretend they'll get back to me on such important questions.

It's Monday, and apparently that means I should be writing about another book I've read. At least, that's according to statistics I have recently (in the last four minutes or so) compiled about The Year of the Book (one man's quest--mine--to read 20 books in 2008).

Including this one, which will eventually get onto discussion of John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces," five of the 19 wrapups have been written on a Monday. That compares with six for Tuesday, three for both Wednesday and Thursday, one each for Friday and Sunday and not a single one having been written on a Saturday.

I'm not sure what to make of the distribution. It's clearly not evenly spread among the seven days, but given my schedule of awful weekend overnight shifts for most of the year, perhaps it's not surprising that I didn't quite make the effort to get to a keyboard until Monday or Tuesday. Those are also the days I was most awake, and perhaps more likely to read large chunks or all of a given book.

Had I looked up these statistics a few days ago, I would have tried to end Saturday's losing streak since I actually finished this book then. Maybe it will get lucky with the honored 20th title in this year's collection. We'll see.

"A Confederacy of Dunces" is all about one of the most annoying characters in the history of character-ness (or is it characteritude?) Either way, Ignatius Reilly is a complete oaf who has no one but himself in mind at all times and absolutely hates to be taken out of his comfort zone.

He's a philosopher at heart with a high education, who's also living at home, unemployed, and can't be bothered to interrupt his mental work to venture out into a world that doesn't understand him. He also wears a giant green hunting cap, the kind with the ear flaps on the side. His social graces are so refined that "when he was talking, he'd pull the earflap down, and when he was listening, he's stick it up again."

Ignatius has a friend from his time in college named Myrna. Their relationship is extremely hard to describe given that it is mostly carried out in the form of contentious, borderline hate-filled letters the two fire back and forth from Ignatius' home in New Orleans to Myrna's residence in New York. In the story, Ignatius isn't capable of getting through reading one of Myrna's letters without several interjections, often including the phrase "Ho hum." But it is one of Myrna's letters that I found to be one of the most enjoyable part of their relationship: "I hope that you are working on your personality problems, Ignaius." What a friend.

During this process I know I've described how I dog-ear pages several times, but I think I'm definitely marking fewer things in books I really enjoyed. I'm so much in the story that I don't think to break that, just keep turning the pages. I only marked three out of nearl 400. Probably a sign you should just read it, since it's easily one of the top 3, if not the best so far.

But the first noteworthy item was the way Ignatius' mother described his romantic life, or rather, lack of such a thing. His mother is purchasing cakes, which he eventually devours in short order. The lady at the bakery asks about him and mentions she thought he was married. His mother replies: "He ain't even got him a prospect. The little girlfriend he had (Myrna) flew the coop."

Using the term "prospect" made me laugh because it's a way my friend Chris and I have talked since high school. In our system, we equate things using a professional baseball model, with someone being called up to the Major Leagues as someone you're currently seeing (or going to make a serious attempt at), with those you are less interested in being classified as being in Triple-A, Double-A, or Single-A depending on how they rate on your scale. It's an extremely efficient system that allows for quick discussion and understanding between the two of us, while also having the advantage of being somewhat coded to the outside world. Don't tell anyone, or I'll have to kill you.

"A Confederacy of Dunces" is the only book on the list to win a Pulitzer Prize, though there was one other finalist--"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." According to its foreward, it also has a tragic history that makes us lucky its even in print.

The author committed suicide at the age of 32 back in 1969, and it was his mother who found the manuscript and asked a professor at Loyola to read it.

19! I wrote after #16 that I was pretty sure 20 was in reach, but I certainly thought my goal had no chance when I was still ploughing through #12 in late October. Now I have 16 days to read just one book, and that seems downright easy. That also means I'll have some extra time to do an amazing wrapup of my experience, perhaps including graphs and a planned picture featuring a giant tower or other construction featuring all 20 books. Get excited.

Next up (and last!): Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs"

Thanks to the fine folks at the Susquehanna University bookstore, I once purchased a bag of books for $0.50 a piece.

Some of them were promising steals at clearance prices. Others were of the "why the heck not, they're 50 cents" kinds of purchases. In the end, only one of them has been even slightly worth my time. It's not "The Columnist," which was one of the abysmal literary endeavors of my life.

Spike Lee's "Best Seat In The House" is the one that makes the cut, though I'm pretty sure having the late Ralph Wiley involved was instrumental in the experience. It's a basketball memoir of his life as a Knicks fan. The book covers the Knicks from his early childhood until roughly 1997. That timeline, read 10 years later, is somewhat interesting to look back on based on his comments about certain players and teams.

Penny Hardaway? Oh, there was a time he was supposed to be good. Juwan Howard, Chris Webber and Rod Strickland? Apparently they had promise for the Washington Wizards nee Bullets. Oh well.

There's only one anecdote I feel the need to pass on. When he was a kid, Spike used to ride his bike from Brooklyn into Manhattan with his brothers and some friends. On one such trip, his brother Chris' bike gets a flat. Not wanting to walk the thing alllllll the way back home, Chris picks it up and throws it into the East River.

There's more than just straight basketball talk here. Spike brings in the chronology of his films to bring out certain points about the atmosphere surrounding sports and the country's cultural status. It's an effective way to mix worlds and widen the perspective of an otherwise possibly restrictive read.

It's also number 18 on the list. Now onto John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces"

Shortly before the election I wrote about a kid I saw eating grass. I said the future of American surely can't be that bright, especially since the grass was right next to where thousands of horses have surely done their business.

That incident took place .76 miles from my house in the illustrious Copper Crossing neighborhood. Today there was another sign of a dismal future, but this time it hit much closer--a mere .14 miles away.

A young boy was walking home from school as I drove by. Because he was walking, I can only surmise he attends Floris Elementary. In its heyday, Floris injected knowledge into such brilliant minds as my own and those of the students who also happened to go there. I was also a walker, which at the time I thought made me somehow special.

But I don't want to get too off track here. The kid was toting two items on his walk home: a jacket of some sort and one of those newfangled "backpacks" that looks more like a piece of small luggage more suited for rolling down the hallways of nearby Dulles International Airport.

Now back in my day, we just carried regular backpacks during the arduous journey home. Sometimes we rocked two straps, sometimes just one, depending on what was cool at the time. But I'll even let the kid have a pass for being lazy. However, I will not let him off for dragging the thing sideways, one step at a time, instead of using the built-in wheels.

That's right. The kid could easily have been walking at an easy pace with the "backpack" rolling cheerily along behind him. Instead, he was struggling one step at a time, heaving the thing along on its side.

Fear for the future. Actually that reminds me of the movie "Idiocracy," which many will tell you sucks but yet I think is beyond awesome. Yesterday I was flipping through a catalog and saw this. If you haven't seen the movie, Brawndo is a Gatorade-like substance that Americans have been convinced is an absolute replacement for water--suitable for watering plants despite the obvious evidence that all the plants are dead. It's got what plants need!!!

I also got two DVDs from Netflix today that both have the exact same runtime. Must be a sign of some sort.

George Orwell's "1984" is a book I'm pretty sure that most people have tackled at some point in their life. For me, this was my second time.

The first was the summer before my senior year in high school, which is now a whopping 8 years in the past. As I read I didn't remember much from that first encounter. Actually, only two things stand out and really neither has much to do with the plot or themes.

One is how almost useless it felt for me to read the book at the time. That's not to say it wasn't a good read or that I didn't enjoy the act itself. Rather, in an academic sense it made absolutely no difference.

My sophomore and junior years at the illustrious Oakton High School I was enrolled in advanced English classes. That meant that not only did I have to do more summer reading than the "regular" class, but it also required papers and discussions on each one. Senior year I decided to take the English side a bit easier since I was taking on AP Calculus and AP Government.

That turned out to be a great decision for my sleep schedule. On the first day of class we were given a writing assignment. It was some sort of college essay that was roughly two pages. And it was due by Thanksgiving. I should have started bringing a pillow to class. No mention of "1984" whatsoever. None. The period itself was divided--half hour of class, then lunch, then the last hour of class. That meant that any quiz or graded item was done before lunch and I spent the hour conked out on my desk. I can't imagine what would have happened had I stayed awake the whole time. Though I'm not sure I could have improved on my roughly 105% average in the class. That's probably also the reason the teacher never bothered to wake me up.

I remember sitting on our front porch to read a good portion of the book. The other distinct memory is the image I had of the main female character, Julia. One of the sometimes jarring things about watching a movie version after you have read a book is how different the actor is from what you had pictured while reading. For me, Julia was Britney Spears from a video that I will now look up online because I'm happy to say I don't know the name of it.

Hold please.

Ok I'm back. It was the video for "Oops I Did It Again." I think Britney became my Julia because that video was on TV that summer, and Orwell describes her as having some sort of jumpsuit type attire. If only he had predicted K-Fed's influence and the emergence of Trainwreck Britney.

Actually, I'm going to argue that he did. These two people who work for the same basic entity end up in a pretty inexplicable relationship. It's wrong on many levels and yet they become intimate very quickly. They are eventually exposed and beaten down both physically and mentally by guards and drugs. They emerge with a relationship that will never be the same, and neither looks remotely the same.

Maybe Orwell was the original TMZ.