Author: jbenton

Here’s the story I was working on yesterday, about how reentry is supposed to feel. I’m back at work today, too.

My job today was to track down some of the 100-plus astronauts who’ve flown on Columbia over the last two decades. (A few of them will show up in a story in tomorrow’s DMN.) I spent some time trying to track down a working phone number for Ken Bowersox, who’d gone up on Columbia twice (STS-50 and STS-73). For some reason, I just couldn’t get in touch with him.
Then on the way home, I realized why: He’s been on the International Space Station since November. I imagine he wasn’t waiting by the radio for my call today.

Didn’t I say, just hours ago, that I need a weekend?
I didn’t say I need a weekend of calling every astronaut in America in search of an interview.

Jesus. Another Challenger, right overhead.

I need a weekend. Thankfully, I hear one’s coming up.

A pet peeve of mine: stories that report someone has gotten in trouble for saying something insensitive — without saying what the comments were! Like this story on a Major League Baseball umpire who made an anti-Semitic remark. You have to go to another version of the story to find out what exactly he said.

FYI, I’ll be on TXCN live this afternoon at 4:20, then looping on tape throughout the evening.
Perhaps I’ll be loopy on something else entirely by then.
Emergency request: I’m supposed to go on a Cheap Date tonight. (For new readers: I write an occasional column for my employer detailing a night on the town that, for two people, costs less than 30 bucks.) But I’ve been too busy to plan. Anyone have any good ideas for a Dallas Cheap Date?

Here’s my story from today’s front page, on a new testing standard that means almost a third of Texas schools will be declared failing by the feds this year.
And here are links to the equivalent stories in the Houston Chronicle, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Austin American-Statesman, and the San Antonio Express News: um, oh, that’s right. They didn’t get the story.

What a day. Along with the NYT thing, here’s my story from today’s front page, a somewhat interesting profile of the new chairman of the House education committee. I’ll also be on tomorrow’s front page with what might (?) be a nice exclusive. (Maybe.)
There’s nothing like being in the New York Times to bring old friends out of the woodwork. Hello, old friends! (And Times readers.)

On the other hand, why wait until tomorrow when the story is posted today? (Notice the annoyingly smirky photo. That’s the look you get on your face when you’ve been smiling and holding a CD in the same position for 45 minutes straight. Sorry.)