Fun!

This is such a great idea. I want to remember to do this on all future trips. Very reminiscent of my London jumping photos, some of which I will post once I find them.

A Random Synopsis of the Last Few Weeks

I've been super busy lately and therefore I am not maintaining my personal blog (i.e. this one) nearly as often as I'd like. Here are a few updates in bullet-point fashion if any of my loyal readership is at all interested:

• I covered Super Tuesday by speaking with like, 30 Obama supporters, when all I needed was ONE Hillary supporter. (Read story here.)
  
• Last Saturday I went to New Jersey to spend the afternoon with my Gram. That was good. Sometimes it feels really good to get out of the city. Though the suburbs do scare me. A lot.
• Mitch moved into a new apartment over the weekend and out of the rathole he got stuck with after the fire. Thank goodness.
• My internship at ABC rocks. And I can't say anything more about it or Disney will sue the pants off me.
• I registered a Web site. . . . Soon, you'll be able to check out this blog, and everything else on earth I have any control over, on www.kathrynlurie.com. But not yet. I have to make it first. Funny how that works.
• Leonard Nimoy was at school on Thursday to observe the Journalistic Judgment class, which I am not in. I did see him wandering around the school a bit afterward though. He's one of the founding benefactors of my school. Which makes him super cool in my book.
• Just in time for the Oscars next weekend, I have finally completed the viewing of the last of the films that are nominated for Best Picture (a personal tradition going back years and years). I will write my own little one-line predictions in another post.
• I have been pretty ill all weekend and I'm currently trying to will myself into writing my Craft piece for tomorrow. I can't exactly talk because my throat is raw from this crazy severe coughing and near-retching for the past 48 hours. Fun times.

Blog Address Change

Sorry, I know--all your bookmark libraries were all settled and comfy and I had to go and muck it all up. But this title is more fitting and not quite as cheesy and it's a Feist lyric. So there.

A Funny

This is one of the most hysterical things I have seen in a long long time. Dog owners especially will enjoy it.

Where I've Been

Well, really, where haven't I been?

Over the past couple of weeks I have traveled to Portland, Ore., for the annual AAN conference; the same day I got back from that, I left for Venice, Italy, for an almost-two-week vacation with five members of my family (for those of you who like to know the details, it was with Gram, Uncle Ken, Dad, stepmom Holly and stepsis Laura). We went on a cruise during which we toured a small portion of the Mediterranean--we visited Bari, Italy; the Greek Isles (Santorini, Mykonos, Katakolon a.k.a Olympia, and Rhodes); and then Dubrovnik, Croatia, before spending a couple of days in Venice. It was amazing and there is so much to tell about everything, and of course, hundreds of photos to be shared. I will post some here over the next few days.

I promise I will be posting more regularly now that I am back! ;-)

Virginia Tech Tragedy

Pulled this from the CNN 360 Blog a little while ago. It really resonated with me and put the tragedy into very real perspective. It's a difficult, but short, read. . .


Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Volunteer contributes what he can: Body bags

It was a tearful, lonely drive for Brian Horne.

The Christiansburg, Virginia, resident was called to the Virginia Tech campus Monday morning as a member of the local volunteer fire and rescue squad. Horne did not see the carnage; he was stationed at a command post on campus.

But as authorities began to comprehend the scope of the disaster, Horne volunteered to take care of a sober task. His family owns a funeral home about 10 miles from the campus, and Horne drove back to collect 36 body bags.

"We knew then there were at least 30 dead and possibly more," Horne told CNN in a brief interview outside the funeral home, where a giant American flag flies at half staff in honor of the victims.

Horne said he has responded to many tragic events in the past, but nothing anywhere comparable to the scope of the campus massacre. "It is difficult to comprehend, but at that moment I knew I could assist with what we needed to do," he said.

Horne would not speak on camera out of respect for the victims. He also said he did not want to overstate his role in the rescue operation, saying many friends had it much worse. He recounted their stories of helping collect and count the bodies, even as the victims' phones and PDAs rang and vibrated.

-- By John King, CNN Chief National Correspondent

One-Word Free Association

Stole this from the blog of a boyfriend of a friend.

1. Yourself: Katie
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): city
3. Your hair: long
4. Your mother: worrier
5. Your father: geekery
6. Your favorite item: laptop
7. Your dream last night: none
8. Your favorite drink: tea
9. Your dream car: flies
10. The room you are in: editorial
11. Your ex: Florida
12. Your fear: dying
13. What you want to be in 10 years? accomplished
14. Who did you hang out with last night? Nate
15. What you’re not? bored
16. Muffins: yummy
17. One of your wish list items: elliptical
18. Time: precious
19. The last thing you did: walked
20. What you are wearing: black
21. Your favorite weather: balmy
22. Your favorite book: many
23. The last thing you ate: coffee
24. Your life: fantastic
25. Your mood: calm
26. Your best friend: many
27. What are you thinking about right now? meeting
28. Your car: silver
29. What are you doing at the moment? working
30. Your summer: easy
31. Your relationship status: boyfriend
32. What is on your TV? nothing
33. What is the weather like? chilly
34. When is the last time you laughed? evening

Metroland's Blog

The editorial staff at the newspaper where I work are very excited, because we finally have a blog on our Web site!

We need to blog more, to be sure, but we did live-blog the election.

Also, another area blog took enough notice of ours to call us "boring." That was nice. At least people are looking.

Out of Space??

That's what my blog peeps are saying. . . I'll have to figure this out. Till then, I'll try to do some updating on my MySpace blog.

I Heart the Nice Woman at City Hall

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while, wondering if I'd keep it up, or if I'd grow weary of a blog's navel-gazing implications. But then, there are some things that happen to you that should simply be shared. For example, today I went for a jaunt down to the much-dreaded traffic office of City Hall to pay for a couple parking tickets (one from last year--$85--and one from two weeks ago when I was double-parked outside my bank--$90) . . . and they reduced both of my tickets to 50 bucks a piece. This act of benevolence makes me very happy. And so begins my blog.