Heh. Well, the morning I wrote that last entry, my order for a desktop WAS in at Staples. Then I looked at the laptop right next to it in the ad – same i5 chip, same amt. of memory, pretty much the same specs – but a laptop! So I went there that day and [...]

They used to be beige, now they’re black. All the ports were in back, now some are in front. And by my reckoning, they are still the best ‘bang for the buck,’ in terms of the fastest chip, most memory etc. you can get for a sub-$1,000 price. I speak of the lowly desktop computer, [...]

A rally on climate change was held in Bend Sunday. For a moment, I’d like you to step back from your personal views on the topic and consider this perspective: You are the reporter, or the editor who assigned such a story. In some cases, such a rally brings out counter-demonstrators with a different perspective. [...]

My employer was kind enough to provide me with an iPad – something I hadn’t exactly drooled over, but had been mighty curious about. (I’d probably have gotten an Android tablet if it were my dollars, since they are tight in the situation of my wife’s unemployment, but even that wasn’t an option

If Friday wasn’t an emotional day for you and those close to you, you weren’t paying attention. And that just might have been a better path to take, all things considered. There’s no way anyone was indifferent about the awful events in Newton, Conn. The very idea, the mental image of innocent children fell

We got new desks in the newsroom this week. Big whoop you say? Well, they are a grand step up from what we had, let me tell ya. We’ve had one of our periodic waves of staff turnover this year in the newsroom — not unusual for small-market TV stations. But it also scrubs the [...]

I don’t care as much about Election Day as the day after, and the four years after. I have blogged quite a bit about the Blame Society over the years. And yes, presidential politics have been a nasty, brutish sport since men wore wigs and stockings. But if we come out of this nasty election [...]

You may have noticed fewer videos on KTVZ.COM this week. (Then again, maybe not.) Our video service provider, Syndicaster, is located in a data center in lower Manhattan, so … power was cut off there as floodwaters rushed in. Their (Critical Mention is the co.) gear is upstairs and all fine, they say – but [...]

Neil Armstrong died today. A man who didn’t seek out the hero’s mantle, and surely didn’t cash it in as some have. I grew up to be quite a space nut – and not just because my father, an engineer who worked for Boeing, actually got to work on the space program. It was just [...]

This is a blog. Blogs are usually one person’s posts, thoughts and comments, usually presented chronologically. A blog is NOT an online forum system, or a commenting system on news articles. Somehow, many folks have gotten confused about just what a blog is — and isn’t. Our daily paper has a front page sto

OK, what a month June was. Last day ends with a boom and a storm-induced power outage - how fitting, and proud of our weekend anchor/producer Kim Tobin for managing to get dang fine 10 and 11 shows out when it took hours after the hour-long outage to get everything back up and running (a lot of [...]

My wonderful wife Debbie and I are closing in on ‘done’ with our first move in a decade. We were in our 40s the last time. Now we’re … not. And for the first time in close to a quarter-century, we’re in a 2-story home. “Are you sure?” I asked Deb, more than once. “Yep [...]

Here’s The Central Oregonian’s, wonder what percentage of our comments at KTVZ.COM would survive if we firmly enforced such a set of rules? (Heck, I’m guilty of ‘random thoughts’ myself now and then;-) Commenting guidelines: This is intended to be a constructive forum for the use of civilized p

Thank you for responding to this request from the National Survey Association Our research has shown that the number or surveys the average American encounters in an average month averages 1,034 — up 94.2 percent from our last survey survey conducted a year ago. We know you may be feeling overwhelmed with the number o

Thank you for responding to this request from the National Survey Association! (Which popped up on your computer screen and won’t go away, so what choice do you have?) Our research has shown that the number or surveys the average American encounters in an average month averages 1,034 — up 194.2 percent from our

A quick note to say how much I love my Nook Tablet (when I can tear myself away from the keyboard to read on it.) Books? A few. Web? Yep, looks fine. But I’ve always been a magazine junkie, and had faltered and let many lapse because of my hoarding instincts, and also because of [...]

OK, not the tissues, per se. But at some point this year, Kimberly-Clark decided to make the tall, roughly 280-count boxes of tissues I’ve bought since time immemorial … extinct, apparently. Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t spend all my life blowing my nose or wiping away tears or picking up me

Sorry. Again. As usual. See, I tend to start thinking that this blog must have Finely Crafted, Very Important Things. Otherwise it’s ‘Dear Diary, today I went to the grocery store….” So rather than small news, I offer no news. Because I’m too busy with “real news.” Bleh. So I’

Fear, anger, frustration, disgust — or all of the above? All of the above is winning in our latest KTVZ.COM Poll about folks’ prime emotions regarding the awful display of partisan bickering amid the debt crisis on Capitol Hill. How do we break the seemingly endless, for-sure vicious downward spiral of juvenile

I was still a sophomore at John Adams High in Portland when the skyajcker forever known as D.B. Cooper dropped into history. But five years later, I was working beside the man who named him. A man you’ve never known, but who was a funny, gentle man and a heck of a good reporter at [...]

My wonderful wife (my biggest blessing for 28 years now) and I have never been blessed with children. Cats, yes, and they’re great, but… I once in a while think all the many thousands of words and stories I’ve written are my children, in a way, sent out into the world – good, bad, rushed [...]

I got my long-awaited new netbook on Friday at Best Buy — a Toshiba NB505. It cost me more than I’d hoped — over $400 with the memory upgrade to 2MB, the upgrade to Win7 full instead of the starter edition. It’s quite cute. But it does take a bit getting used to the smaller [...]

“Stephen Trono’s on the phone for you!” Ted Taylor, our 6pm show producer, saw my jaw drop to the floor when I entered the newsroom and he said that. Thus began a mad scramble to get a phone-recording system running so we could talk – and we did, for almost a half-hour. I’ve written all [...]

Man, deja vu and not in a good way. AP quoted NPR and CNN (if I remember correctly) in reporting an Arizona congresswoman’s death after a mass shooting. She did not. No doubt, there will be mass dissection of how the mega-error happened, but what will be just as sadly interesting is how, 30 years [...]

Wow, what a week. Awful, tragic news — and editorial judgment calls for our news staff. On the one hand, it’s ‘exciting’ and energizing to have breaking news to cover, in an area where we blessedly have relatively little major crime, etc. compared to bigger cities. Still, it can be frustrating when p

Where in the world did basic design rules go? Why do so many sites do as this one does http://www.regrettheerror.com/2010/12/03/they-sullied-his-good-name/#disqus_thread and www.poynter.org – and go with gray or worse, light gray on white type? It CAN’T be just I who has to squint to read the words displayed lik

Karma can be a thing of wonder. Picked up the morning Bulletin off my sidewalk and opened it up to find a P. 1 headline that reads: “How do local kids fair at COCC, Oregon universities?” (Side note: I wish our Web provider would go to downstyle headlines rather than Capping Most Words. But I [...]

OK, I know, comparing Facebook to the ol’ phone book is a little odd, but I’ll try. First, a funny image - that of Steve Martin in The Jerk, running through the neighborhood, shouting, ‘The new phone books are here!” Well, I wasn’t THAT over the moon about them, but let me tell you, few things

Can I get myself into a pattern of regular blogging? Not sure, but will try. I do enjoy, in its own way, wildfire season. Many people turn to our Website for the latest fire news, and I’ve been doing this long enough I know just what to ask and how to assemble it, fast. One [...]

Nowadays, compromise is out of fashion – shrillness, finger-pointing and finding who to blame for our troubles is, alas, the way to go. I just read a great, reasoned, ‘middle ground’ posting on the still-burning timber/wildfire issue. I hold such postings precious, because it shows a mind is at work, rathe