Something happens when you fly over Louisianas swamps and Lake Pontchartrain comes into view through the tiny airplane windows on your way into New Orleans. Your spirit lifts. Your heart slows down. Your head gets a little lighter. At least, thats what happens to me.

Information is my job. I read a lot of newspapers and magazines, mostly on the internet, but I do like to get my hands dirty with a print edition when I have the time and the dime. used to say. Its a necessity of my job, I believe, to stay as well informed as I can about matters that affect my community, my readers.

Eight minutes is not a lot of time. Sure, its a lot of time if youre holding your breath, or listening to a drum solo, or pulling a bank job. But eight minutes, professionally speaking, is like the blink of an eye for something as fundamental as an interview.

Down on the ground level of the Greensboro Coliseum, a college basketball fan is fuming. Not literally in fact, its his inability to light up thats getting him so hot. Im sorry, sir, says the lady in the blue blazer and gray pants. This is a no-smoking facility.

Its not hard to fool the Bradford pear trees. Its just a couple days after a freak March Carolina snowstorm and already theyre giving up their creamy purple flowers, their pheremonal funk.

The upshot is that 8.1 percent of the workforce is unemployed, and many millions more underemployed. The situation feeds into the current economic climate, creating more foreclosures, less spending, increasing stagnation in the national cash flow. Move on down the food chain and.

Just past dusk on Sunday night the rain that had been pelting my house and yard, that had frozen into icy stalactites on my rain gutters and the bare tree limbs, crystallized into snowflakes big as cotton balls drifting past the streetlights. I cursed them, as I always do.

When Jordan Green asked me if he could have some time off in February to head down to Mexico and work on a pet project of his what passes for a vacation for Jordan Green I had no problem with it. Little did I know at the time that Greens jaunt to Oaxaca would coincide with the biggest trial in Greensboro since YES! Weeklys.

She still asks my advice, even in our eighth year of marriage. But it doesnt carry the same weight it once did. You need new brake pads, Ill tell her. Then shell come home after an oil change and say, The guy says I need new brake pads. Yep.

And though its possible, we suppose, that the papers could have been picked up by hordes of ravenous readers who descended upon the freshly-printed bundles like locusts on a quivering field of wheat, we think it more probable that this was the result of a concerted effort on the part of a few.

Have you ever had your pocket picked while at the same time being kicked squarely in the groin? No? Well let me tell you, my friends: Its happening out there, today. Right now. Its been happening to me over and over again, like its playing on a loop.

It feels like forever since Ive been in the Rhinoceros Club, and its probably been at least a couple years since I surreptitiously darkened its door.

Ted Stevens series of tubes has plundered every chamber of the daily newspaper in a manner so methodical and thorough the old rascal himself probably appreciates it. Sports scores, stock quotes, real estate ads, obituaries, wedding announcements even crossword puzzles play better on the internet.

I took the call in my office. Is this Brian Clarey? Thats me. This is Deb Moys best friend. I wasnt expecting the call, but I wasnt much surprised by it either.

Its New Years Day, and the afternoon sun lays down the kind of light peculiar to North Carolina in the wintertime clean and white and tinged with gold. Its clear outside, but a cold wind blows down my street, rattling the dry branches and convincing the neighbors theyre better off staying inside.

If you're doing it right - if you've got your eyes and ears on and you can process those things you take in - you're gonna pick up some knowledge along the way. I'm at the precise age where I realize just how little I know. I'm barely halfway around the tack, and I've only really been paying attention for the last 10 years or so.

Santa Claus comes early to my house. Its a deal we make with the fat man every year: He hits us up a couple days in advance so we can get on the road to Long Island and the people we see up there, it seems, only at Christmas time. This is a tradition that goes way back in my family.

Man, Ive been slacking lately. Its probably stress, or an excess of holiday lackadaisicalness, or maybe Im just a moron. Either way, Ive got to sharpen up in 2009. Did you happen to see the corrections section this week? Theres a couple of doozies in there, each of which is completely my fault.

Ive got ace-eight, off suit. What the hell. I call the big blind, 30 bucks. A ninja calling himself The Bonaparte raises to 90. Screw you, Bonaparte. I call. The flop comes out eightten-queen. Rainbow. Bonaparte checks, and I know its because hes got nothing.

The Piedmont Triad can be a pretty small place, and nobody knows this more than a journalist. We find ourselves living in the same neighborhoods as our sources, getting story leads from friends and relatives, doing business with people were written about and having awkward encounters next to those with whom weve disagreed in print.