Break out the bubbly!

Hello bloggers! I'm back from vacation and back on the 'net. With some good news, no less.

Do you remember that big state exam I had to take back in July? (If you didn't know, I had to take a big state exam back in July.) I studied my ass ass off, and guess what?

I PASSED!

Woohoo! Thanks for your well wishes. They helped. :-)

--Mom

A new baby!

This is our new baby. Isn't she lovely?

Photo props to Keith. Thank you, again!

Well, we did it. We bought a boat. We took it out for the maiden voyage yesterday, and it was awesome! We met up with friends for our first multi-boat tie-up out in the bay. It was a blast. The kids swam, we made new friends, and just enjoyed the weather. It was hard having to call it a day. And MacDaddy docked it like a champ! Looks like we won't need to pay for any damage to other boats...yet. LOL

We're having a hard time deciding what to name her though. Someone got it in our heads that it's bad luck to rename a boat. :-/ So we're not sure what to do. Take our chances and figure out how to appease Poseidon? Or just throw caution to the sea and go for it?

Here are some of the names we're considering, see what you think...

• Pi$$ing it Away
• Bad Parents
• Cheers
• Sandy Cheeks
• Boat Dorks
• Just Add Water
• Newbies - Stay Back
• 5 O'clock Somewhere
• If This Boat's a-Rockin'...
• Who the Hell Needs College Anyway?
  

My personal favorite is "Keith's Fault." We secretly blame our friend Keith for giving us the boat joneses that fated Sunday afternoon on the river.

So what do you think? Do you have any great boat name ideas? It's an awful lot of pressure!

--Mom

A good day for this journalist!

I did the tourist thing today and took a trip to Washington, DC. I've been wanting to see the Newseum. Today was its first birthday, and the founders were hosting a par-tay!

I went to school to be a journalist. Worked in the newspaper industry for almost 20 years. And now I teach journalism, and man, I felt at home. ~happy sigh~ I really love my trade industry. The media often takes a lot of grief, but without it, we'd be one ignorant and ill-informed society. As former Washington Post publisher Phillip Graham said, "Journalism is the first rough draft of history."

The Newseum houses amazing exhibits. Each day someone changes every newspaper in the "Front Page Gallery." There's a memorial to the fallen journalists who have died in action. A tribute to 9/11. An interactive newsroom where I filmed a news video. Hundreds of original newspapers featuring hundreds of our most important events in history. There are a dozen theaters that feature news events from the last century. Several sections of the Berlin live at the Newseum, along with a guard station from Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie. There are exhibits about the First Amendment, world press freedom, the FBI, Lincoln's assassination, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs, and much more. I could have spent days there! DAYS!

This is a portion of the "News History Gallery"...

Journalists caught up in the violence at the "Time Warner World News Gallery"...
First freedoms at the "Cox Enterprises First Amendment Gallery"...
Sections of the Berlin wall, torn down in 1989, in the "Berlin Wall Gallery"...

In these hard economic times, it makes me sad to see newspapers failing due to steep declines in advertising revenue. It feels like pieces of history are dying. Thank goodness for the Newseum and its ability to preserve and present the news. And for the First Amendment for its ability to protect the news. I can't wait to visit DC again to see everything I missed!

--Mom

P.S. If it weren't for media technology and the migration to do-it-yourself journalism, our beloved blogs wouldn't be possible! ~hugs the laptop~