Productive weekend, ready for the final push.

It turned out that I didn't have nearly as much free time this weekend as I thought I would, which is why I didn't post more on here. I actually spent pretty much all day yesterday and today working on various things. I had gotten behind on reading the news for a few days, so I was catching up on that, which is quite time-consuming. Try reading a newspaper front to back sometime, not just skimming articles and only reading the ones you're interested in, but really trying to absorb all the information in the paper. It takes a surprisingly long time. Especially with those thick Sunday papers.

Anyway, I was also doing more work on the Bruce Coville story. Thankfully, the two sources that I still needed to complete the article got back to me. I spoke with one of them yesterday, and just finished the interview with the other one a few minutes ago. So now I just need to organize my notes, figure out what material I'm going to use (and I have a TON of material) and then I'll be ready to write. I was planning on writing a first draft of the story tonight (and my first drafts usually bear a striking resemblance to my final ones) but now I'm not sure I'll actually get through the draft. It's already 8:30, I need to look over the notes quite a bit, and I'm distracted by the return of the NFL. Yes, it's the Hall of Fame game, and it's completely meaningless and not even that interesting, and Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison aren't even stepping on the field for the Colts, but still... it's the NFL! Anyway, even if I don't write the draft tonight, the story's not due until Wednesday morning, and they're giving us the afternoon off tomorrow and Tuesday to work on our stories, so I've got oodles of time. And I'm not a man who uses the word "oodles" often or lightly.

There's been a lot of interesting stuff in the news lately. The guy who was probably the anthrax mailer killed himself as the feds were closing in, the presidential campaigns are starting to get down and dirty, the oil companies are reporting record-breaking profits while automakers are reporting devastating losses (wrap your minds around that one), but this was the story that interested me most over the weekend. When I've got some time to write more about it, I will, but for now just read the story and ponder the implications. Okay, that's all for now. Still got some work to do tonight.

-Nick