We had a "first" in our family this past weekend. We've had kids hanging around the house for about 18 years now. In that time, naturally, there have been visits to the emergency room. Lots of them were asthma-related. Other times were the result of typical kid behavior. Our oldest son, Alex, made a trip to the ER when a rocking chair collapsed under the two of us. He didn't even have a bump on the noggin but, as a new father, I had some internal bumps on mine.

Years later, when Samantha was about five, she was outside kicking a ball around when she tripped over it and came to the door with a huge lump on her arm. She wasn't crying, just confused. Our next-door-neighbor, at the time, was a nurse and she said to get the would-be soccer star to the emergency room. It didn't look broken but it was.

About a half dozen years later, Taylor was really into skate-boarding. On a Saturday, as we were getting ready to go to see the Royals play the Cardinals, Taylor was supposed to be getting in the car. Instead, he decided to take a few spins on his board...trying to do tricks off the base of the basketball hoop. He came walking in the door with a look of panic on his face and an arm dangling precariously. No question, this time, about the break. His big brother was very concerned: "Oh, no! Does this mean we're not going to the game!?!?!? AAAAAAHHH!" Turns out Taylor is pretty resistant to pain-killers and such. He tried to explain to those working on him that whatever they had given him was not making a difference. One doctor looked at me and chuckled, "I think that's the medication talking." I explained that I got the sense that Taylor was not loopy at all and really was feeling the pain. Well, just before they were about to straighten his arm, he was told by most of the attending folks that it wouldn't hurt too much as they had given him some numbing stuff. Taylor looked at me and asked "Will this hurt?" I told him the truth: "Yes. It will." It did. The kicker on this broken tale is that within days of having gotten his cast off, he broke it again. We had told him not to get back on the skateboard. I think our actual words were "We'd better not see you cruising up and down the street on that thing!" Well, this particular child is a stickler for details...especially when he can use them to his advantage. (He's the one that went to that debate camp I mentioned a few days back.) With this child, you need to say exactly what you mean. Well, he didn't "cruise up and down the street." He had been standing on the skateboard in the garage...on his "half-pipe," which was a ramp-like thing...just rolling back and forth. Kerplop! In he came with his arm, again, just hanging there. The look on his face was not panic or pain or fear. It was complete disbelief. Off we went to the ER.

We paid a call on the ER one other time when my wife broke her big toe. I'm not going to tell you how she did it except to say that I am no longer allowed to carry anything in my back-pockets.

All this brings us to our "first." It happened on Saturday night. The youngest boy, Harrison, was playing outside with the neighbor kids. Around 9:00 p.m. or so, my Kreskin-like wife, got up from the sofa and said "I think I'd better check on Harrison." As she approached the front door from the inside, Harrison came running up from the outside. He was holding his hand to his forehead and had blood all over his neck, shirt and pants. His first words were "If this means I can't go to the Royals game tomorrow I'm going to be so mad!" (Again, a trip to the emergency room right before a trip to Kauffman Stadium...just a coincidence? Hmmmm.) Well, Harrison had a good-sized gash in his noodle. It wasn't very long, but it was a little deep. My wife, daughter (who loves anything medical) and I got the boy in the van, holding a towel on the wound. He never cried. He wasn't scared. He was just angry. He had gotten too close to another boy who was swinging a baseball bat back and forth. Harrison had a little goose-egg but not the worst one we've ever seen. Once, while playing "Toboggan Trail" by flying down the driveway in their wagon, Harrison had flown out and had received a much larger bump. Taylor once tried to do an Evel Knievel with his Big Wheel and raised a nob the size of Mount Hood...a goose egg deserving quite a gander. This was mainly a cut.

It only took seven stitches. Our very first stitches! In 18 years and four kids! Of course, that distinction made Harrison very happy. All the talk about salves and ointments aimed at "minimizing" scarring fell on deaf 11 year-old ears, too. Hey, if you're going to take a shot to the head with a bat, you want something to show for it. He's been using the wound effectively around the house. Ask him to put the dishes away or fold some laundry and he'll say "Not sure I'm up to that..." then point, plaintively, to his head.

Of course, we are very grateful that it was just a minor cut and that we had great folks waiting for us in the emergency room. Meanwhile, Harrison is eager to get the stitches out and be able to show off his battle scar. Until then, he'll keep wandering around the house, avoiding chores and singing, like the monster in Young Frankenstein, "Puttin' On The Ritz!"

Last week on FirstNews, there was a story about a survey done by Salary.com, indicating that the average employee wastes nearly two hours of a typical eight to nine hour work day. The leading reasons: personal Internet use and socializing with co-workers. That last one is not a problem for me since nobody here will speak to me. I would have written something about this last week, when the story actually aired, but, somehow, time got away from me. Instead of using the Fifth Amendment, you know, to avoid incriminating myself...let me just say, in words heard often at various congressional hearings and, therefore, obviously, acceptable, "I do not recall wasting time at work...uh...it is not my recollection, at this time....mumble, mumble, mumble (this is where I'm leaned over with my hand covering the microphone, conferring with my legal counsel).....Mr. Chairman, I simply can not say I remember anything about wasting time on the job." However, if I did waste time on the job, it would probably be something like this:

All times are in the a.m. The very early a.m. So early in the a.m. that p.m. often thinks he has a right to these hours.

3:00--Arrive at work. Startled, as usual, that my key card still opens the station door.
3:05--Fire up computers and glance at weather maps.
3:06--Sit in Larry Moore's anchor chair and pretend to be Larry.
3:15--Do my first on-line jigsaw puzzle of the day at Jigzone.com. (Today, it was cockle shells.)
3:19--Check out some newspapers on the interweb. Include the Madison, Wisconsin papers where I check my status as a cheesehead. Also, pretend to read The New York Times and Washington Post so as to appear really informed on current events.
3:30--Glance at weather map, again.
3:31--Do another Jigzone puzzle.
3:40--Marvel at how difficult that last Jigzone puzzle turned out to be.
3:41--Make my regular crank calls to Jim Flink. "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" "Is your refrigerator running?" "I'm going to use all your mousse and other hair-care products on my dog!" That kind of thing.
3:45--Go to the bathroom and turn the ignition on the sand-blaster. It has to warm up for about 20 minutes before I can use it to prepare my face for the several layers of make-up necessary to appear on the air without scaring too many children and small animals.
3:50--Watch some TV. I find the infomercials about stain removal products and "Get Out Of Debt Now" programs particularly inspiring. Still, my viewing is not the same since the Singing Bass and Flowbee shows have disappeared.
4:29--Call KCMO Talk Radio 710 and leave some weather forecasts.
4:29:30-- Call KCMO Talk Radio 710 and, using the voice of a little old lady, tell them "I think that young whippersnapper of a weatherman you have, is the best part of your show!"
4:30--Head back to the bathroom and sandblast my face. Apply makeup after stopping the bleeding. (Over the years, I've found that if I don't wait, I just end up having to start over.)
4:45--Notice that the show starts in 15 minutes and panic because I have nothing to show on the air. Look at Busby's weathercasts from the night before and steal most of his graphics.
4:50--Wander through the newsroom looking nonchalant as I rifle through people's desks.
4:59--Put on microphone and ear deal. Sing a medley of songs from the shows of Andrew Lloyd Weber. I find it relaxes me.
5:00-7:00--Do my part on FirstNews. That means weather comments every couple of minutes. Do some live weather for the radio show while trying to impress radio host Chris Stigall by incorporating politics into the weather forecasts..."You know Chris, it is going to be hotter than Fred Thompson's forehead on a visit to the Equator!" "Chris, the rain moving in is soggier than the front row at a presidential debate!" Do longer weather presentations on the TV so co-anchors Jere Gish and Donna Pitman have time to get their conversations, shopping lists and taxes done. Also, while they're doing the news, I am required to change the oil in their cars as well as wash and vacuum them. The cars, not the anchors...not that management didn't try to slip such a clause into my last contract!
7:00-?--In between little weather cut-ins for Good Morning America, I try to improve my computer skills by playing Solitaire and Hearts. I also do a few more jigsaw puzzles on-line. I am almost up to the 20 piece puzzles, by the way. Every now and then, I will gather several weather maps, stick pens behind my ears and markers in my shirt pocket, assume a grim look with furrowed brow and worried frown, and march through the newsroom. I can almost hear my co-workers remarking, under their breath, "My goodness. That Joel Nichols is always hard at work. I wonder how I can get that fired up?!" I think that's what they're saying, although, once I though it was more like "My goodness. That Joel Nichols is always such a jerk. I wonder how I can get him fired?!"

Anyway, that's what I would do if I wasted time at work. But, I don't. Speaking of wasting time at work...if you are at your job right now, what are you doing looking at this? I won't tell if you won't!

There's not much to this story and I'm pretty sure there is no deeper meaning to it...but, why should today's literablog be different from any other day. I get into the station around 3:00 a.m. As I'm driving in, I often hear the voice of Sinatra: "It's quarter to three. There's no one in the place 'cept you and me....and that semi-driver and that state trooper and a variety of possums and raccoons." Okay, I apologize to Johnny Mercer for desecrating his lyrics. Anyway, I got here today at my usual time. The weather center is in the basement of the building so it's very quiet and still. Well, I planted myself in the chair in front of a couple of the weather computers and started to pretend I know what I'm doing. Again, business as usual.

Then, it happened.

As I wheeled the chair from one computer to the other, I took a total tumble. The chair fell over and I ended up on my shoulder and knees. No reason. Just splat. Now, there has always been talk that the Lyric Opera Building, where Channel 9 is located, is haunted. Some say the spirit of a stage hand wanders the place...playing pranks. As many of you may know, KMBC will be leaving the Lyric shortly for a new state-of-the-art studio. Perhaps, the so-called ghostie is sad to see us go! Maybe he or she upended my chair! I mean, how does a person just fall over in a chair? Now, I've tripped over cables in the darkened studio before. I even fell off the news-set once...it's about a ten inch drop. But, at least in those cases, there was a reason for the stumble. This morning, I just plain fell over.

In the olden days, when Channel 9's poor judgement allowed me to do silly feature stories, I did a lot of pratfalls. Whenever I didn't have a real finish for a story, I would try to trip, fall over or run into something. In the hands (or keister) of a master like Chaplin or Jerry Lewis or Will Farrell, slapstick can be an artfully beautiful thing but for me it was just a way to overcome my lack of writing skills. Once, while doing a Halloween story, to make the point that costumes need to be safe, I appeared to trip on a too-long robe and do a header down a hill. I've been slapped on camera. I've fallen on the ice. I've gone flying off sleds as they zoom down icy hills. During the American Royal Parade, some years back, I would get out of the pick-up truck to visit with folks along the road then run back to the vehicle and do a flip over the side into the bed of the truck. I made it through all those things...and many others...with little more than the occasional bruise. Now, just sitting in a chair...in the middle of the night...all alone...quietly...has become a demonstration of extreme clumsiness. The worst of it is that this little fall has left my rapidly aging body rather achy and sore.

So, this is what it has come to: falling out of my chair for no apparent reason and feeling it in my bones the rest of the day. On the positive side, it does give me hope for continuing my so-called broadcast career. I know, once everything goes HD and people get a clear look at my ugly mug, they will decide they just can't take it and I'll be bounced. So, based on this night's solo-acrobatics act, I believe I can become a spokesman for a very popular product. I already know my line: "Help. I've fallen and I can't get up."

My intention was to write this bloggeriphany yesterday. But, as often happens, I went off on a tangent and never got back to my point. I was off on that tangent for so long, I had to stop for gas, a giant Hershey bar and a chocolate shake. So, I decided to make it a two-parter. A cliff-hanger! Even though the two parts have little or nothing to do with each other. Assuming you don't remember yesterday's drivel...and who could blame you?...or, even better, didn't even waste your time reading it...let me recap: One morning, I referred to myself as the "Orson Welles" of the FirstNews team because the other on-air folks are so slender. For the younger among you, Orson Welles was the creative wizard behind the movie Citizen Kane and many other wonderful works. He also was on the Dean Martin show a lot, so you may have seen him pop-up on one of those infomercials. Basically, as he got older, he got rather large. So, when I referred to myself as Orson Welles, it had nothing to do with his genius and everything to do with his girth. A kindly and, probably, myopic, viewer said I should NOT intimate that I was chubby. As I mentioned, as well, yesterday, America is always talking about weight and fitness. For many it is a serious health issue but, for some, it is more about appearance than wellness. Being extremely superficial, I fall into that last category. Not that you could tell it by looking at me.

The first time I ever noticed I was getting a little pudgy was in college. Turns out a diet of Oreos and chocolate milk for breakfast, a slab of cheese and sleeve of Ritz Crackers for lunch and a package of Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs for dinner is not recommended by Jenny Craig, Richard Simmons or, even, Dom DeLuise. I punctuated that menu with frequent snacks including M&Ms, Doritos and, when possible, French fries. Fruits? Vegetables? Who had time, in college, for that stuff? Exercise? I was young and feeling rather invulnerable so why would I have replaced hours of watching reruns of The Bob Newhart Show with a jog or jumping jacks. Sure, I could've done a work-out while viewing but that really would have ruined the experience for me. I mean, you'd miss the subtleties of Howard Borden's "Hi, Bob!" if you were stretching and straining and sweating. Well, one day, as I was waiting for the bus, I took a good look at my new bus-pass. Who knew that Jabba-the-Hut used public transportation!? This was followed by a comment from a female acquaintance, after I had gotten a short hair-cut: "Wow! You have a fat head!" Then, I noticed that my next semester's classes were all on the third or fourth floors of the various buildings. I was getting winded just by changing my mind. Obviously, it was a conspiracy. I decided to make some changes.

I made a point of eating a good breakfast and decent lunch. I cut way back on snacks. I ate a very light dinner. I also started to exercise a little. (If I use the personal pronoun just a few more times in the story, I will qualify for Ego-Maniac of The Moment! The prize: an I-pod!) My exercise regimen was quite antiquated, heavily influenced by my early-childhood exposure to Jack La Lanne. I loved watching that show. He had his big white dog named Happy. He'd sing while he worked-out. As for "equipment," forget the expensive weight machines, a chair was about as complicated as the gadgets got. So, when it became clear that I needed to find something more active than watching golf on TV, I started doing things the old-fashioned way: jumping jacks, sit-ups and push-ups. Most of the time, I did these things in private. The idea of going through these contortions at some sort of gym or club was crazy. Once I made the mistake of doing push-ups in front of a woman. She laughed so hard, she burned more calories than I did. She said I looked like some sort of giant chicken trying to peck seeds out of a dusty road. Apparently, my form was unbecoming. Basically, as I did the push-ups, my body formed an upside down "V" with my nose touching the floor and my, well, other end, waving in the breeze. "At least you're showing off your best side," the young lady chortled. (By the way, I got even with that laughing girl. I married her and, now, she's stuck with me. All sides of me!)

Still being fairly young, I did lose weight. Eventually, I got downright skinny. Some of the pictures from that period look like something Edvard Munch may have painted...The Scream of a Cheesehead. In fact, I was still quite slim when Kansas City became our family's home. Just about that time, though, lots of factors converged. First of all, I hit an age where my metabolism slowed way, way down. In fact, there were many times I found my metabolism sound asleep in a hammock in the backyard. Of the four of us brothers, the two oldest never really had their body fat sneak up on them. However, the two youngest, including me, discovered that our fat-burning abilities became a bit impaired as we approached the age of 30. Of course, we are far, far better looking than the older two, so it's really a wash. It was as if I woke up one morning and my body said "Well, Joel, the party's over. You can no longer eat anything you wish and, then, quit grazing for just a day and drop the pounds. From now on, things you love, like Nestle's Quick chocolate milk and Velveeta Cheese will not only add tonnage, those goodies will make you feel queasy, if you overdo it! HA! HA! HA! Oh, one more thing, to lose excess weight, you will really have to work at it! You? Work? Fat chance...excuse the expression."

In addition to this attack from within, it turned out that every time my lovely wife was with child, I gained many sympathy pounds. Sympathy pounds act just like real pounds, it just sounds kind of sweet to put it like that. Of course, after the baby was born my lovely wife, the same person who had laughed at my "hen-like" push-ups, would go running and lose the baby weight. I didn't. Even the KMBC news director at the time, noticed I was getting a little paunchy and subtly advised me to lose a few: "Hey, Porky, how about moving out of the light so the rest of the anchors can be seen?" He was not appeased when I told him I was just trying to do what he told me and become a "more well-rounded reporter." I even overheard a visiting talent coach ask one of my co-workers if I'd swallowed a Volvo since he'd last visited. During this time I got a "fan" letter from a viewer saying "I really enjoy watching you even with your 'happy fat!'" I wrote back that the camera adds pounds...in my case, up to 35!

Part of the problem when I gain weight is that so much of it goes to my face. For example, if I put on those 35 aforementioned pounds, 30 of it seems to reside in my cheeks, chin(s) and jowls. I begin to look like an over-achieving chipmunk the night before the season's first snowstorm. It was always particularly disconcerting to have such a tubby, round melon sitting on my puny shoulders around Halloween. At the pumpkin patch, kids would always run up to me, holding their pumpkin choice, to see if the orange orb was round enough as compared to the gourd I used for a head.

Anyway, thank you to that viewer who said I didn't resemble Orson Welles. I appreciate the support. In fact, right now, I'm going to have a calorie-free, big glass of cold, clear water in your honor! Also, I need something to wash down the giant Hershey bar I was eating as I wrote this.

Several weeks ago a friendly person, who is a regular viewer of FirstNews, approached me to say she was upset with something I had said on the show. She simply couldn't believe her ears. Why would I say what I said? Now, before she filled in the details, I was doing a mental checklist of all the possibly offensive things I may have uttered on the air. On any given day, that list is pretty extensive. Over the years, I've given up...I mean, I've given up trying to figure out what will strike folks in a bad way. In many cases, just my presence on the TV is enough to irk people...and that's just my family. For them, the only saving grace of my being on the TV is it means I'm not at home.

Sometimes the forecast is what gets under a viewer's skin. For example, a couple summers ago, I consistently ruined one guy's golf outings. I'd say a "chance" of rain...just to give my sorry self a little or a lot of wiggle room...and, depending on the inflection of my voice, this golfer would decide if I really meant it or not and base his tee-time on that insight. More often than not, he'd get caught in the rain and I'd hear about it, via e-mail, the next morning. "Why don't you just admit you have no clue and move on? I wish I could be wrong as often as you are and still get paid!" Sometimes, I will make assumptions that folks don't appreciate. Once, during a stretch of drizzly, cloudy, coolish days, I used adjectives like "drab" and "dreary" and "dull." Now, I like cool, rainy days just fine but this had been many days in a row. I "assumed" everyone would like a little sunshine. Well, as you learn quickly when taking multiple choice tests in school, any answer that includes words like "all" or "none" or "EVERYONE!" is probably wrong, wrong, wrong! Sure enough, I got a voice-mail: "How dare you decide that what you think, is what we all think! Some of us love this cool, drizzly weather! Quit thinking you know best! Who made you The Decider!" In fairness, I never called myself The Decider. That was someone else. But, it is an example of something you can say...in total innocence...that comes back to haunt you. Don't even get me started on all the grammar calls and e-mails I've gotten over the years. "Quit saying 'further' when you mean 'farther,' you dope!" "Don't end a sentence with 'at,' you pin-head." "Quit saying 'There you go' when you don't have anything else to say, you numb-skull!"
That last one was from a number of years ago. I quit saying "there you go." It had become one of those verbal crutches people start to rely on without knowing. I wasn't aware I had replaced it with something else until my family and I saw the movie, Anchorman. There's a scene where the weatherman, Brick Tamblyn, is just spouting phrases like "That's right, sir" and "O-kay!" As we were walking out of the theater, my kids said I say things like that on the air. According to them, I use the word "absolutely" a lot. Most often when it is clear that I have nothing else to say. I made a point of keeping track after this and, guess what? The kids are all right.

Anyway, back to the mystery comment. At some point during FirstNews, Johnny Rowlands, Jere Gish and Donna Pitman were discussing some news story about a new weight-loss idea. Now, these are three very slender and fit people. My left thigh weighs more than the three of them put together. So, as they finished their chat and segued into weather I said something along the lines of "You three talking about losing weight is ridiculous. Working with you guys makes me the Orson Welles of morning news." That was what got this viewer a little perturbed. She was very kind to me: "You have no reason to talk about your weight. You look great. You look healthy and should just realize that!" What started out as a minor complaint took a swift turn toward a major compliment.

Still, despite that person's kindness, I fully realize that I am the member of the FirstNews team who puts our combined total weight at the national average. Without me, the other three would be the average for a community of Keebler Elves or convention of Oompaloompahs. I am fully aware that, for many people, watching their pounds is a matter of health not vanity. But, I'm on television and very shallow, anyway, so for me, it's mostly about being vain. So, tomorrow, in this ever-expanding space, I will discuss my ever-expanding space. I'd do it right now but I think I hear a chocolate chip cookie calling my name. Probably just wants to complain about something I said this morning!

On Sunday, my lovely wife and I were up and out of the house fairly early. It was time to retrieve our second-oldest son from his two-week sojourn into the land of debate. Remember the old days when I kid would go away to camp and come back with a hand-made leather wallet or bookmark? Now, they go away and come back with a list of issues and argumentation techniques. The last thing my kids really need is instruction in how to twist and turn a discussion in their favor. Still, this particular boy is just plain good at debate and, so, he has spent a portion of the last couple of summers honing his skills.

I am not going to use his real name or the actual name of the educational facility he was visiting for reasons which will become clear. I do not want to risk insulting some financial aid officer or influential alum. With only one kid off to college and three more to go, we have to keep every option open. So, I'll call the child...uh...F. Lee, as in F. Lee Bailey-famously argumentative attorney and the school "Faber College" in honor of Animal House. Well, as I mentioned earlier, F. Lee headed for Faber a couple weeks back. As his mother and I understand it, these debate camps are for the socially-conscious but not, really, for the socially-minded. They don't sit around campfires and sing. They don't go off-campus and haunt the downtown. They don't really hang out. They work. They research. They cut and paste arguments onto cards. They practice "speeding" which, as I understand it, is the art of talking very, very fast while still being understandable. (I am trying to perfect that for my weather-casting. It will work well with my other weather-man strengths such as "hedging," "dodging," "faking," and "saying-one-thing-while-meaning-another.") Over the two weeks, whenever we were able to talk to F. Lee, he was squirrelled away in some dusty corner of the dorm, building his team's case. At times, he would only speak to us in code, for fear of being overheard by some opposing unit. "Well, the eagle flies at midnight. The boat has sailed. Say hello to Lilly Marlene on your long, long way to Tipperary." We never did figure out what any of that meant but he sounded okay as he said it, so we were moderately comforted.

Overall, he had a great experience at Faber College. He and his debating partner won the camp championship and F. Lee was chosen best individual speaker. However, he did have some major problems with the "facility," in general, and the food service, in particular. This is why I am keeping this all very secretive. You know how you get those "We Value Your Opinion" cards when you eat out or stay somewhere. I don't usually fill those out because I'm pretty sure that, if they got to know me, they wouldn't value my opinion at all. And, frankly, I don't think I want to patronize a place that values my opinion. Well, when F. Lee filled out such a card he was rather brutal. On the scale from one to five, five being great, only one item made it to a three. Everything else fell under the ones and twos. Now, again, this was not about the actual nuts and bolts of the camp, just about things like cleanliness of the room, helpfulness of the housing staff and, especially, taste and presentation of the food. His main problem with the staff had to do with not being able to get on-line for research, which the pre-camp info indicated would be possible. He was bounced all over until he ended up right back talking to the person he first reached. They never resolved his techno troubles. Later, after walking from one building to another in a pouring rainstorm (vehicle transport was not available), F. Lee put his soggy shoes over the vent in his room to dry out. He got caught without shoes outside of his quarters and was told he was in violation of the rules. In true F. Lee style, he said "You get me on the Internet as promised and I'll wear my water-logged shoes everywhere...even to bed." This did not endear him to the staffers. F. Lee is a good boy but he is not Dale Carnegie. He is not opposed to the idea of influencing people but the "Win Friends" part doesn't really speak to him. He's not unlikable or anything but, on occasion, even Will Rogers may have wanted to give F. Lee a little kick in the hinder.

As for the food service, it wasn't so much the quality, which was rated pretty low by all the campers, I guess, but the illogical rules for serving. F. Lee wanted to have a bread stick with his taco. But, when he tried to put a breadstick on his plate he was told the breadsticks were only for people taking pasta. F. Lee explained that he really didn't want to waste the pasta, which he knew he wouldn't eat, just to get a breadstick so, couldn't he just take a breadstick, please? He was informed in no uncertain terms that the rules stipulated that the breadsticks were only...repeat only...for those having pasta! F. Lee tried another tactic, ala Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces: "Okay. I'll have the pasta with the breadsticks. But, please, hold the pasta." The woman was not amused. At least, F. Lee had not said "Hold the pasta between your knees." Now, let me make it clear that none of this has a financial element. The debate campers were allowed to go through the line as often as they wished during the lunch and dinner periods, the cost of which was already included in the fees. F. Lee tried to convince the lunch-line lady that it really made no logical sense to make a customer take a meal he didn't want and wouldn't eat just to get a breadstick. But, for this particular person, she had a rule and, doggone it, she was going to enforce it. Well, F. Lee ate his taco and then got back in line. He took the pasta so he could get a breadstick. The pasta went to waste and the breadstick got eaten. By this time, F. Lee didn't really want the breadstick anymore but it was a matter of principle! He just could not fathom the complete lack of sense exhibited by this silly breadstick ONLY with pasta rule.

Well, all of these minor injustices made it onto his "We Value Your Opinion" card. Not only did he wallow in the low numbers but he added comments. He outlined his displeasure about the computer hook-up and, especially, about the breadstick incident. His commentary was a little over the top. I just don't think you gain anything by referring to a group as "bad humans." My wife got a hold of the card and did some editing. By the time she was done, it looked like a letter sent from a Siberian Gulag.

Well, F. Lee is home, now and Faber College is still standing. The way things spin around in this world, it is quite possible that F. Lee will end up attending Faber for real in a couple years. I guarantee you he will not have forgotten the breadstick incident and, if for some bizarre reason, he were to make the college commencement address a little further down the line, you can bet that whole episode will be in there somewhere. Welcome home, F. Lee. Enjoy the breadsticks.

Thursday morning's FirstNews had a story about a Wisconsin dog named Pepper Ann who has very expensive tastes and taste buds. Pepper Ann got into grandma's purse and ate more than $800. They were able to...uh...rescue...much of the doggy dough out of the doggy doo. It's a weird twist on a goose that lays golden eggs, I guess. One can imagine a next door neighbor, not knowing the whole story, seeing the grandma out back picking up the cash and wondering "Where can I get a dog like that?" Pepper Ann also left some of the green stuff shredded but undigested. The local bank was willing to exchange most of the damaged bills for new greenbacks. According to Pepper Ann's human, this canine will eat anything. I know a dog like that. He's a Golden Retriever named Casey and, especially as a younger pup, he was not particularly discriminating.

Being a retriever, his instinct was to carry stuff around in his mouth. Since, just by looking at me, he could tell I was no hunter or, if I was, it would be in the Elmer J. Fudd tradition, Casey had to find things other than dearly-departed ducks and long-gone geese to "retrieve." He particularly loved Beanie Babies and other stuffed animals. He certainly had room. Yes, my dog has a big mouth. (He also has a pointy noggin...a canine cone head...and a few discolored patches of fur and a little bumpy thing on his eye-lid. We love him but he's not going to the Westminster Dog Show unless it's to get paw-tographs from the other dogs.) Anyway, one day I saw him carrying around a brand new teddy bear. I told him to drop it, which he did. The bear was followed by a zebra Beanie Baby, a couple of Matchbox cars, an athletic sock, a few baseball cards, assorted Legos and a magenta crayon. I felt like I had hit the big puppy payoff on some furry slot machine. He actually got pretty good with the Legos. He once ate a bunch of individual blocks, then, "refunded" a beautifully constructed suspension bridge.

Of course, sometimes the stuff in Casey's mouth would make the whole incredible journey. It wasn't all bad. If one of the kids was missing something important, he or she was much more likely to take on the pick-up duties in the lawn. In some ways, cleaning up the backyard was a little bit like a visit from the Easter Bunny...if the Easter Bunny had a serious eating disorder and on-going digestive problems. At the end of the school year, when several boxes of used crayons would appear at our house, Casey would have a field day. Talk about Rainbow Stew, Casey would devour any shade of any color at anytime. It was Casey and The Amazing Technicolor Pooper-Scooper. One year, he ate a glass Christmas tree ornament. Initially, we were quite concerned about how his insides would handle it. In the end (sorry) everything came out all right. (Again, sorry.)

Of course, over the years, other dogs have nibbled their way through our house. A little black and brown dachshund-chihuahua mix named Jingles once gnawed the corner off a trumpet case of mine. Everyone's a critic! He also climbed on top of the kitchen table and ate most of our Sunday ham one time. When we caught him, there was no guilt. He just looked at us as if to say "Well, it's a little salty but not too bad and, by the way, where's the baked potato I ordered?"

Still, it has been Casey with the most active and inventive culinary tail...I mean, trail. But, even Casey hasn't pulled a Pepper Ann and swallowed the big bucks. If I ever did have a dog that consumed my bankroll, I think I'd name him Ate The Money or ATM, for short.

Our main national story on FirstNews Wednesday morning had to do with the Senate staying in session all night debating Iraq War policy. Now, of course, that is an important issue demanding everyone's attention but, watching what they were doing in DC was a little odd. They had cots set up in the cloakroom in case a Senator needed to take a break. They also ordered pizza by the cart-load. Mostly, the chamber was filled with lots of talk. I could make a crack about Washington hitting a record high temperature today due to all the hot air. But, that would be a cheap shot so I won't...make a joke about hot air...in Washington....due to all the politicians....talking....and talking....and talking...leading to a record high due to all the hot air. I just won't. At one point, a reporter referred to the occasion as the Senate's All-Night Pajama Party. Well, if they start painting each other's nails, braiding each other's hair and, then, getting into a pillow fight, I'm never voting again! Co-anchor Donna Pitman said maybe they'd watch movies like some all night parties. She, wisely, suggested the Capra classic Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

For some folks, the phrase "all-nighter" brings back memories of college. Staying up late studying for an exam or, in some cases, I guess, attending a social function. At least, that's what my wife tells me of her university days. I never did either one in college. I was far too serious a student! I worked my way through school and didn't have time for such frivolity! I paid attention in class and stayed caught up on the reading so the idea of having to "cram" was completely foreign to me! I had no friends to hang out with anyway! So, there!

As a little kid, it took me awhile to get up the nerve to spend the night at anybody's house. Once, I went to a friend's place with every intention of staying up all night and having fun. We had pizza and played kick-the-can. We watched TV and, then, it got to be about 10:00 p.m. and I got homesick. I wondered what was happening in my own house. I missed my dog. I wanted my own bed and pillow. I wanted to have a snack. I wondered what the weather was like back at home. Finally, I got up the nerve to leave. I felt liberated as I crossed the street and returned to my own home. I was 27. Actually, I did participate in sleep-overs as a youth that were really more like "wake-overs." We'd play Monopoly and euchre (that's that Wisconsin card game I've mentioned before which is a requirement for Cheesehead Citizenship.) We'd watch Love, American Style which, for the time, seemed kind of racy. Then, again, anything with Adrienne Barbeau seemed racy to me at that point. Around midnight, Channel 15 out of Madison, would broadcast Lenny's Inferno which was a scary movie show, featuring Mr. Mephisto. Mephisto was more goofy than terrifying but the commercials feature Crazy TV Lenny did leave me with lingering nightmares. We rarely made it through the whole night without falling asleep. But, we always lied about that in the morning. "No, I was awake. YOU were the one who fell asleep. I stayed up all night!" Of course, because everyone had, at some point, dozed off, you couldn't really dispute the point too much.

Now, on Labor Day weekend, as I've written about before, I did stay up all night to watch the Jerry Lewis Telethon. Thanks to cold wash-cloths, strong-smelling, skin-stinging Aqua Velva and lots of chocolate, I would make it through the whole deal most years. I will always treasure those glimpses of Julius La Rosa, The Amazing Kreskin, Charo and a kick-line from the Tropicana at 3:30 a.m. It felt pretty classy and show bizzy for a kid sitting in his dad's recliner in Wisconsin.

Today, around our house, our oldest son pulls all-nighters or near-all-nighters on a regular basis. Many's the time I will be heading downstairs at two in the morning or so, and Alex will be awake. Doing something on the computer or watching TV or eating or all three at the same time. My response to his bat-like habits varies depending on my mood:

Bad Mood: "GRRRR. Go to bed. What's the matter with you? Get some sleep. GRRRRR."
Moderate Mood: "GRRRR. Go to bed. What's the matter with you? Get some sleep. GRRRRR."
Good Mood: "GRRRR. Go to bed. What's the matter with you? Get some sleep. GRRRRR."

Okay. Maybe it doesn't vary all that much.

Alexander's sister, Samantha, also stays up too late too often. She claims she uses the overnights to clean. Right. The orderliness of her room runs the gamut from cluttered, on a good day, to toxic waste dump used for HAZMAT training, on a bad day. However, she can quote whole portions of dialogue from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Roseanne. At least she's getting something from being up in the wee small hours.

The youngest, Harrison, makes a run at dawn but doesn't make it. The trick here is finding him in the morning. He may have fallen asleep on the sofa or in our bed or on the floor of a sibling's room or, rarely, in his own bed. Once, he crashed on his sister's floor and we didn't find him for three days. He had subsisted on half empty bottles of water, bits of popcorn and already-been-chewed gum. This only served to bolster our daughter's case for NOT keeping her room clean.

Finally, the second oldest boy, Taylor, actually goes to bed. He has a nightly routine that would be right at home in any rest home anywhere. He washes up. Brushes his teeth. Flosses. Does a little reading. Then, turns off the light. Shuts the door. Gets under the covers and goes to sleep. Often by 10:00 p.m. Sometimes earlier. Nothing haphazard or helter-skelter about it.

Well, as for my lovely wife and I, "all night" ends no later than 11:00 most of the time. Although, last Saturday night, after I filled in on the evening newscasts, we did stay up watching TV and talking until almost two in the morning. That's when I'm usually just getting up for work. 2 A.M.! It was youthful! It was decadent! It was exciting! It was...it was...it was exhausting.

Sometimes a weather person's best friend is the thesaurus. If you have a stretch of days when things just don't change much, it helps to have a variety of adjectives from which to choose. Like right now. We've had 90 plus temperatures since Saturday. That means having to talking about heat each day. Of course, this is not even close to record-setting heat. You need to be up around the 110 mark to do that this time of the year. Still, by most definitions, when you have three or more days above 90, it can be called a heat wave. For someone in my line of work, and I use the word "work" very loosely, that means trying to freshen up the forecast when it's really getting stale.

Enter the son of a Swiss preacher named Peter Mark Roget. Really, every weather person out there should send some greenbacks to Mr. Roget's estate or give him an on-screen "thank you" or at least a FirstNews coffee mug and Bryan Busby Weather Calendar for all the help his much-used book provides when the weather is stuck in neutral. It gives a talking head so many options. Instead of just hot, it lets us say baking, blistering, boiling, broiling, burning, fiery, heated, red-hot, scalding, scorching, sizzling, sultry, sweltering, torrid, feverish and pyretic. Now, I've used most of those...I especially seem to like sizzling, scorching and sultry...but I've never ventured into "pyretic." Another word for hot, listed in the thesaurus, a word which, itself, always sounded like a well-read dinosaur to me, is "ardent." That has more to do with passion and romance than weather, I suppose. It's the kind of forecast phrase Fabio would use if he was a weatherman: "The weather will be ardent today as I pull your quivering soul close to mine despite the sultry feeling in the air. What's a little sweat between lovers. Our romance is more torrid than even Mother Nature can imagine. Then, as you swelter in my arms I will whisper to you 'I can't believe it's not butter' which you will mis-hear as 'I can't believe it's not better' and, deeply hurt, leave me to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous heat indices all alone. Back to you, Bill."

In addition to the heat, there's the humidity. Back to the book: muggy, sticky, steamy, cloggy, gluey, gooey, clammy, gummy, tacky, mucky, soggy and damp...or should that be dampy?

Sometimes you use phrases...the more hackneyed the better, in my case. "Hot as a firecracker." "Toga weather!" "Like a sauna out there." "You could fry an egg on the sidewalk!" "Hotsy-Totsy." That one is really a misnomer since the phrase "hotsy-totsy" means something great or special. At least it did back when Barney Google and Snuffy Smith first used it in the funny papers. How about "It was so hot today I saw a robin requesting his worm with ice" or "It was so hot my weather computer melted so I'm going home" or "It was so hot the trees were calling the dogs" or, as we used to say in Wisconsin, "It was so hot the cows were giving evaporated milk." If you have any you would like to share, just e-mail them to me at jnichols@hearst.com. I'd love to steal...I mean...hear them. I'll give you credit unless the phrase is really a great one, in which case I'll just pretend I thought of it. (If a person has a sudden bit of inspiration about such a phrase, would that be called a "hot flash?")

Of course, in this day and age, the word "hot" can also mean good-looking. It has morphed into the word "hottie." I thought someone called me that one time at the grocery store. "Look, it's that weather guy. He's a little hottie!" Turns out the person said "Look, it's that weather guy. He's a little dotty." I looked it up. Dotty means, among other things, feeble, mentally unbalanced, ridiculous and daft. Then, I had to look up "daft."

All in all, this balmy blog has been a hot-time filled with plenty of hot air. I don't want to be a hot-head or appear hot-blooded, but I have to hot-foot it out of this hot-bed of weather wackiness, jump in my hot-rod like a hot-shot, and head home. Put on my summer time hot-pants (sorry for the visual image) crank up the hot-plate for some hot cakes and hot dogs and, then, settle into the neighbor's hot-tub. (I have to be out before they get home and catch me or I'll be back in the hot-seat before the Homes Association...again.)

Maybe I'll just lean on the words of wisdom from my father. He used to say "When it's over 90, it's hot, period. Just say hot. Oh, and get your bike out of the driveway, pick up your room and take the dog for a walk. NOW!" Just like the old days: he's hot under the collar and I'm in hot water.

Last week, on FirstNews, we got into a discussion of what birth-years were included in the designation "Baby Boomer." At first, my extremely young co-workers, Donna Pitman and Jere Gish, were doubtful that I fell into that generation. Now, that could be taken as a compliment. "Oh, you're much too young to be in that group." But, I suspect it really meant "You certainly look old for being in Generation X!" I explained that, according to most sources, Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. So, I make it with a few years to spare. Mr. Gish pointed out that it was "weird" to think his parents...I said HIS PARENTS!...and I were in the same generation. Thanks, Jere. My oldest brother is about the age of Jere's mommy and daddy. I have nieces and nephews older than Jere and Donna. For that matter, I also have ties and underwear older than Jere and Donna. Let me make it clear: I have no malice toward my talented associates due to their tender ages. They are young and vital and energetic and that's just fine by me. But, do they also have to be so darn skinny? So, to summarize: Age discrepancy between us=no malice. Weight/fitness discrepancy between us=malice.

The truth is that my in-laws are only a little older than my oldest brother. From youngest to oldest in my family is a 13 year spread so that adds to the confusion a bit. In fact, it was my oldest brother's birthday over this past weekend. As I pointed out to Randy in his card and when I phoned him, it was his last in the 50s! He is now, officially, in his 60th year! He loved having me call and point that out.

Even though there is more than a decade separating us, when I was little, he was my ally. For my mom, he and my brothers were built-in baby sitters. I remember especially liking it when Randy would be given the job of putting me down for a nap...which my mom had him do until I was well into my teens just to keep me out from underfoot. Anyway, when I was a toddler, Randy would put me in my bed and, being a good brother, sit in a chair until I fell asleep. The great part was that usually he'd fall asleep and I'd get up and play.

Now, I've mentioned Randy before in this space: He's the one with excessive body hair brought on, perhaps, by being given too much fish oil as a baby. He's the one who wrestled in high school and always smelled like oranges as he tried to make his weight class. He's the one who, once when the phone rang as we were saying our pre-Sunday dinner prayer, answered by saying "Amen?" He's the one who has said he is so old, he remembers when 3M was only 2M. He's the one who was and is a great dancer as he proved again at a family wedding a couple years back when he wanted to keep going as the youngsters were fading fast. He's the one who earned some extra money in college by being a clown and, from time to time, let his little brother become his mini-me-in-mayhem. (Making a total fool of myself in public was great preparation for being a TV weatherman.) He's the one who tooled around Wisconsin in a Corvair looking like he really should have been picking up Frankie, Annette and maybe, even, Elvis, for a day of fun and sun on some California beach.

Randy got his college degree in business administration but I think his true calling may have been in teaching. He has always had an incredible amount of patience and compassion. When I was little I had what they used to call a "Lazy L." Now, it wasn't a formal diagnosis or anything but, for example, when I'd say the word "milk" it came out closer to "meehhhwwwk." Sort of like a Holstein who's had one too many egg-nogs at Christmas. As you may have guessed, not saying the word "milk" clearly, when you are from America's Dairyland, could have been a major embarrassment. It wasn't just that word. Really, any work with an "L" in it was problematic. Basically, someone with a Lazy L doesn't quite push his tongue all the way to the back of his front teeth when making that sound. The farther back on the roof of your mouth your tongue lands, the lazier the "L." In my case, there were times my "L" was so lazy that when I'd try to say something like "I'd like malted milk for lunch, please" my "L" was actually asleep in a hammock outside. Well, Randy, took note and worked with me on getting it corrected. Coincidentally, Tom Brokaw went through his entire career with a Lazy L. His was much more pronounced than mine. I remember once he read a story about "lovely llamas living in Guatemala" and his head nearly exploded. Just think, if Randy had never helped me wake the "L" up, I could've been a network anchorman!

I remember, as a little kid, just thinking my brother Randy was a pretty cool guy. He still is. There are lots of reasons to admire him. He's kind and calm and easy-going. He's a great father and grandfather. He's sincere and good-hearted. He's also, for me personally, convenient. By that I mean that whenever Jere Gish and Donna Pitman express amazement about how old I am, how I'm in that Baby Boomer group, I can point to my brother and say, "Well, at least I'm not that old!" So, from my much younger end of the Baby Boomer Generation I am hollering...loudly...via this new-fangled interweb deal to Randy's much older end(actually, all of Randy is older, not just his end)...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

It's Picture Day at KMBC! Oh, boy! Yes, it is a lot like grade school picture day but with a little more hair gel, mascara, hair gel, lipstick, hair gel, rouge and, did I mention, hair gel? And, that's just the anchorMEN! Anyway, this is the day we all line up and get our pictures taken. The photos are used in promotional ways and sent to viewers who request an autographed picture. Well, that's how most are used. Mine are sent to the City Market for use in wrapping fish and to area pet shops to line the bottoms of cages. It has been shown that using my photo actually encourages animals to become paper-trained. Something about being an attractive target. Anyway, the station has to schedule these photo-shoots every few years in order to make sure the pictures actually still look like the person, unless your anchorman is Dorian Gray. As for me, in the photos I had taken when I first started here at Channel 9, I appear to be about 13 years old. Then, as the years went by, I made the trip from youthful dorkiness to elderly twerpiness. Believe it or not, when I first hit the air in Madison, Wisconsin, some near-sighted viewers thought I looked like Michael J. Fox. A couple years ago, while doing the weather in front of an area high school, a group of 10th graders approached me and said "You know who you remind us of?" In my head, I'm figuring they will say Michael J. Fox. Either the Family Ties version or the Spin City version. I'm fine with either one. "No...who?" I replied, with a smug and knowing smile. In unison, they hollered as if doing some sort of spirit cheer: "REGIS PHILBIN!" That's why they take new photos.

Getting pictures taken was one of the hardest things for me to participate in back when I first started on TV. Of course, this was in the time before cameras so you had to sit very still for a very long time. Okay, that's a minor exaggeration. At that station in Madison, they took the photos in the basement of the place. I went downstairs wearing my hip salmon-pink sport coat. Trying to make Madison Nice into Miami Vice...and failing. The photographer told me to smile naturally. I tried. "Come on, Joel. It looks like you ate moldy olive loaf. Just smile so I can get out of here and watch the Packer game," he pleaded. This was not a guy who lived for his art. He was no Ansel Adams but, then again, I wasn't the Grand Tetons. I simply had not yet learned to smile on command. I worked with a master of that art in Madison. He was the most popular on-air person in town, weatherman Elmer Childress. His smile was so warm and friendly he should have been working with the State Department. I am convinced that if you just let Elmer chat with the aggrieved parties, maybe have him sing a couple songs, world peace would break out all over the...uh...well, world. Elmer's secret was that he was, and is, a genuinely nice person. He was sincere in his smile. As a famous Hollywood exec once said "It's all about sincerity! Once you can fake that, you've got it made." For Elmer, it was not a ruse. But, for a punk like me...not at all sure I could do what I'd been hired to do...it wasn't so easy. Now, all these years later, I'm more chunky than punky and I KNOW I can't do what I've been hired to do, so I may as well smile.

Today's picture party, does remind me of those photo days in grade school, though. The best one I ever had taken was in first grade. I had several of my front teeth missing and, for some reason, a bit of a black eye. I was wearing a white shirt, green paisley clip-on tie and red velvet vest. I looked like the love-child of Rocky Marciano and Liberace. By junior high, most of my photos looked like something that should have been hanging in the post office. Then, you hit your senior year and, thanks to air-brushing, you look like the cover of Tiger Beat!

Back then, the photos were taken in the fall and that was it. You'd order sight-unseen and take what you got. Now, you have several different packages to choose from. Do you want an 8x10 and four 5x7s plus 16 wallet size and 400 photo stickers, a bookmark, a fridge magnet and a luggage tag all with your child's mug on them? Speaking of mug, you could order the photo-emblazoned coffee cup, too. All for one low price that may or may not involve refinancing your house. You work your way down from there. The photo company diplomatically refers to the various packages using letters of the alphabet, but, I have the feeling, around the old dark-room, they're saying things like "We need 100 'I Love My Child Most and Want To Do All I Can To Boost His or Her Self-Esteem El Grande Super Packages' and six 'Sure, I Love My Child But Really What Am I Going To Do With 400 Stickers and A Bookmark and A Luggage Tag Just The Basics Packages.'" Then, in the spring, the grade school pulls a sneak attack by taking another photo and sending the whole package home with the child. Which means, if you really don't want or need or like the photos, you have to send your child back to his room carrying the packet full of himself. Sending the clear message that "Well, your mother and I feel we have more than enough pictures of you around the house and, frankly, this isn't your best work. So, be a good scout and just hand them all back in." Of course, the company knows that most of us parents operate on a mixture of luck, hope, prayer, fear and guilt. They are banking on that last element kicking into overdrive. It usually does.

The more I think about it, the more I think I've found the right presentation for today's photos. I'm going to get a green paisley tie, a red velvet vest, black out a few teeth and walk into a door. I may as well face facts, when it comes to my photogenic qualities, it's all been downhill since first grade.

Do you hear bells? I do...and, as much as I like all of you, I don't think it's love. As I've whined about before in this space, I have a little bit of tinnitus. That means having extraneous noise in your head. In my case, due to all the empty space up there, it echoes. There are lots of possible causes for this stuff. For example, not getting enough sleep can exacerbate the condition. (When I call it a "condition" it makes it sound much more important...like maybe I can get on Dr. Phil and talk about my "Battle With My CONDITION!") Also, putting foreign objects in your ears can be a potential cause. I know what you're thinking: Well, that explains Joel's problem because he probably sticks beans in his ears. HA! I don't do that...anymore. But, there is a foreign object in my left ear most days of the week. It is called an IFB which stands for Interruptible Fold-Back or Feed-Back, depending on which text-book you look at or grizzled broadcast engineer you talk to. It's the little ear-piece through which the newscast producer and/or director can communicate with the on-air person. For newspeople, it is a way to be told about breaking news or timing issues. In my case, I usually hear nothing with the exception of the occasional dejected sigh as I torpedo yet another carefully crafted program. Every now and then, the producer or director will say "Joel. Please. Wind it up/Out of time/Gotta go/SHUT UP!" The command varies depending upon how disastrous my weathercast has been. It's a sliding scale. I don't really mind the IFB. Now, when people tell me to "Stick it in your ear" I just assume they mean the IFB. Coincidentally, in high school, I was chosen most likely to be pursued by the FBI. Maybe our yearbook editor was dyslexic.

I like to think that it is the combination of a lack of solid sack-time and wearing the ear deal for over 20 years that has me hearing things. But, there is another possible reason. WARNING: THE NEXT PART OF THIS BLOGITANY IS NOT ONLY THE USUAL WASTE OF YOUR TIME BUT IT IS ALSO A LITTLE GROSS. The other reason could be excessive ear wax. That's what the medical books say. I think I have pretty good ear hygiene, although, whenever we visit one of those historic reenactment villages, the woman making candles does try to stab me with a wick. Frankly, I'm nervous about getting the canal cleaning. I'm just not sure I want to hear everything being said around me. Whatever the reasons, I do hear things. In my case, the tinnitus presents itself (WOW! That sounded like something Chad Everett would've said on Medical Center!) with a cacophony of sounds including a whooshing. Sometimes that particular noise is so pronounced that the kids will press their ears to my mouth just to hear the ocean. The whoosh was so loud one time that Nike sued me for copyright infringement. This sound of rushing water has me constantly asking everyone in the house to double check the faucets and toilets.

Less prominent for me is the "ringing" that many tinnitusians deal with. The word, tinnitus, comes from the Latin root meaning, just that, ringing. The literal translation was "Et tu, Brutus? Can someone please pick up that phone?" Lots of famous folks have this situation including William Shatner. It may explain his celebrated delivery which is studded with so many dramatic pauses. He keeps hesitating when he thinks he hears his phone. "The...Klingons....have....taken....control....of my....caller ID, Spock!" Frankly, I don't think I'd mind the ringing. It would remind me of simpler times when a phone sounded like a phone.

Nowadays, phones sound like someone being put into Captain Kirk's transporter and sent down to the surface of Cubic Zirconium Alpha or some such place. Phones don't ring. They beep or chirp or trill like a meadowlark hopped up on highly-caffeinated earthworms. Cell phones are even worse. They play classical music as performed by Alvin and the Chipmunk Philharmonic. Of course, you can get a ring-tone that is a real song. For example, our daughter, Samantha, the duchess of downloads, has Bobby Darin singing Mack The Knife for her incoming calls ring-tone and Dean Martin crooning Everybody Loves Somebody for texts. I think she has several other tunes on her phone for other functions. She even helped me load Merle Haggard's Mama Tried for my ringer because she felt the song was appropriate for me, in that it fully exonerates my mother (Samantha's beloved grandma ) for how I've turned out. My wife has Jingle Bells for her holiday ring-tone but most of the year she uses a sound that is like one of those old-fashioned slide whistles. Every time her phone goes off I expect Benny Hill to run through the living room with his pants around his ankles.

In some ways, I'd like to have our home phone set with different rings depending on who is calling. For example, when folks wanting money call, it would ring at a higher pitch for the higher debt. The lower the bill, the lower the notes, the more likely I would be to answer. Maybe a song like Too Much Month At The End Of The Money, would be fitting.

To be completely honest, not easy for a weatherman, I miss the old phones. The ones with the comforting sound of a rotary dial. The ones firmly attached to the wall with a hand-held deal to listen from and talk into. The ones that were always in the same spot and didn't require you play the "hot/cold" game every time it rang. The ones that sounded like phones when they rang! The fact that you can carry your phone with you at all times makes certain things impossible. You really can't hardly claim to have "just missed your call" when trying to avoid people anymore. Where would Lily Tomlin's Ernestine the Operator be today with no "One Ringy Dingy. Two Ringy Dingy?" Also, a great joke once played on my mom would be unlikely now. I may have already mentioned this in an earlier entry but it's worth a repeat. (I'm on TV and it's summer so repeats are standard operating procedure.) My mom was outside washing the windows on the front of our house back in the old neighborhood. She was near the top of the ladder when she heard the phone ring. She climbed down and hurried inside but didn't make it before the caller hung up. So, back out and up she went. Just as she got to the top of the ladder, the phone rang again. Back down the ladder. Back in the house. Too late, again. So, she went back to her chore. Up the ladder. She had just started to scrub when, you guessed it, the phone! This time she really got a move on. Practically jumping down from the ladder. Zooming up the front steps. Crashing through the door. Lunging for the still ringing phone. "HELLO!" she shouted just in time to hear the click of a phone being hung up. She went back outside and climbed the ladder. From across the street she heard our neighbor, Barney, come out on his front steps and holler over to her "Why don't you answer your phone?" Barney had orchestrated the entire episode from his kitchen table just for his own amusement. Now, that whole scenario would not have been possible if my mom had the phone in her back pocket.

Another thing about the new-fangled phones: It has caused great consternation in the Mime community. When you are miming the act of making or receiving a call, is it still acceptable to hold your hand with your thumb and pinky extended as if holding an old-fashioned phone or do you have to sort of cup your hand, thumb on one side and four fingers on the other, to mimic today's deal? It's a dilemma.

Apparently, you can download a ring-tone that sounds like an old phone actually ringing. Retro ringing. I am officially old, now, that the ring I grew up with is considered nostalgic. It wasn't enough that the so-called "oldies" station in town is playing songs from my adulthood. Now, my whole previous life is like a travelling history exhibit from the Smithsonian.

Anyway, to answer the question posed at the start: Yes, I hear bells...and water whooshing....and assorted other clangs, tweets, buzzes, beeps, barks, quacks and snorts. The trouble is I can't always tell if this onomatopoeia opera is coming from a phone or just inside my noisy noodle. Either way, I'm not going to answer.

You knew it was just a matter of time before this bloggiana went right into the toilet. I just hope, after you've perused this puffery, you won't think I have a potty mouth. Yes, this is all about bathrooms. But, don't blame me. Blame the Chinese. See, they have opened what they are calling the biggest public restroom in the world. There are more than 1000 places to...uh...go. It is four-stories tall. Frankly, if I ever have reason to use it, I'm headed for the top floor. Why take a chance? I remember some old joke about a two-story outhouse. No way, I'm staying beneath three other floors of activity. Now, if this has bowled you over, I will plunge ahead. Many of you already know about the luxurious restrooms at the Shoji Tabuchi Theatre in Branson. For all the times my family and I have visited Branson, we've never been inside that particular venue. But, I've heard there are lots of wonderful accouterments inside the tiled wonderland. One report says there is a pool table in the men's room. Unless the felt is painted ocean blue and there's the sound of waves bumping up against the eight ball, it really isn't going to do much to facilitate the function.

A friend of mine, back in school, always had to go to the restroom. If we went to a movie, he had to go several times. If we went to the mall, he'd have to go each time we passed one of those restroom that-a-way signs. By the way, the name of the shopping center was West Towne Mall. It seems if you are going for cute, quaint or classy, all you need to do is add the letter "e." It would not have been the same experience to shop the shops at West Town Mall, as it was to shop the shoppes at West Towne Mall. From now on, I will spell my name Joele Nicholse and see if it helps my standing. Anyway, my friend knew where all the best toilets were. He developed ESP...Extra Sensitive to Porcelain. Eventually, he could walk down a street and just know where the cleanest, most conducive facilities could be found. He was convinced that if he tried to hold it, he would develop some disease. I had been raised to believe that holding it was the right and proper thing to do. If you gave in to the urge it was a sign of weakness and moral decay. I seem to remember one of my Sunday School teachers telling me that Martin Luther actually had a 96th thesis decrying the overuse of public restrooms but he had to make a pit-stop and forgot to post it. This same teacher told our class of an entire group of stoic Lutherans who vowed to never give in to the call of nature. Apparently they made it to their early 30s and exploded. More rupture than rapture.

My personal talent for avoiding public restrooms has less to do with religious fervor or fraudulent health worries than with the fact that, as a child, I grew up in a family of six with one very tiny bathroom. Also, our father seemed to be able to drive forever without ever needing to make a tinkle break. He would guzzle coffee and smoke Kents all the way from Wisconsin to Connecticut and never admit to having to use the men's room. Maybe he had hollow legs. His feeling was that if he could do it...or NOT do it...then we could do it...or NOT. My brothers would yell from the back "My eyes are turning yellow!" or "My back teeth are floating!" and he'd just drive on. I remember one time, when our dad ran out of cigarettes, we all ran for the restrooms. My oldest brother was actually in tears as he reached the sacred portal. When our dad saw this weeping he asked "What's your problem?" to which my brother replied "It's my potty and I'll cry if I want to...cry if I want to...cry if I want to." Boy, that's a long trip just to reach an old joke.

Well, congratulations to the Chinese for their trophy toilet. Somewhere the Tidy Bowl Man is looking for a yacht. If you gotta go, you may as well go in style. That's the bottom-line.

Now, if all this talk has made you have to visit your own linoleum lounge, I'm sorry. You really should have taken care of that before we left.

Maybe it's because I was born in Wisconsin where summer is usually rather brief. For example, I remember the Summer of 1974. It fell on a Tuesday. But, ever since I was a tot, I've looked at July 4 as the end of summer, not the mid-way point. Now, I fully realize we, in KC, have a solid two and almost three months of potentially hot, humid weather ahead of us. In fact, by looking at the KMBC Weather Calendar, I see that we are just now entering, based on average high temperatures, the hottest stretch, statistically speaking. The average high temp around here will be 89 degrees until August 8, when it tumbles a whole degree. There is a lot of useful information on the KMBC Weather Calendar but not as much as there used to be. I remember when there were lots of weird little weather facts listed for almost everyday and important dates like the birthdays of the weathercasters. I think they eliminated that information just in case someone, meaning me, was shown the door before the end of the year. Also, I may have gotten a little greedy by listing my clothing sizes, favorite colors and most-shopped-at stores on my birthday date. The bottom-line is that, as far as heat is concerned, summer is just getting warmed up. Still, I prefer to focus on the approach of autumn. Of course, I also like to pretend I live in Mayberry. Get my hair cut by Floyd. Eat Sunday dinner at Andy's and help Barney nab Ernest T. Bass...so, you probably shouldn't go by me.

Interestingly, my kids, maybe without even knowing it, seem to fall into the end-of-summer mode, too. When the neighborhood pool first opens, they are there a lot. They spend so much time in the water, they look like extras for Return of the Prune People. Now, not so much. Oh, they still make token appearances but their hearts aren't really in it. And, truth-be-told, since they start school in about 39 days, it may well feel like summer has slipped away from them. This anti-summer feeling may also have to do with my just completed vacation week. I don't really have time-off scheduled until nearly September now. Despite the pleas from viewers and management. So, that makes it feel like the season is dwindling.

The facts are as follows when it comes to summer: According to the hanging-on-the-wall calendar, we have around 74 days until autumn. According to the hanging-on-the- meteorologist calendar, July and all of August are considered summer months. According to the temperatures, it doesn't get consistently below 80 until around the end of September. According to the school schedule, summer runs until at least mid-August or so for most kids. SO, according to the FACTS, it is still summer for a long time to come. But, for those of you who've watched my forecasts, you know I never let the facts get in my way. SO, for me, I declare the end of summer. Now, where are my mittens?