Thank heaven

I still have a job. But man, have the past five days been tough.

After weeks of waiting and uncertainty, today we finally found out who was going to be laid off. The damage to the copy desk is not as bad as I feared -- we lost one part-timer, whereas my cohorts and I were under the impression we were going to lose many more. Nineteen other people in the newsroom were laid off.

I am incredibly relieved, but daunted a bit by what's ahead of us as a management team as we reinvent the production process. But it sure beats the alternative.

Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and kind words of support as I was going through this. They mean so much to me.

Got the time?

Amaze your friends and have a party at this special time Wednesday:

12:34:56 7/8/9

Michael Jackson coverage

It's always fun after a big news event to see how other newspapers handled the story. Here are some of the horrendous covers of Michael Jackson's death.

The headlines on the "Herald" and the "Post" are simply awful -- "The Thriller's Gone" isn't any better -- but I think my worst-cover prize has to go to "O Sul" for the Michael-Farrah mash-up. Yuck.

Bad day for Gen X -- good day for others?

It's never good when a headline goes vertical only because the designer ran out of space.

And yes, I am listening to a Michael Jackson CD as I post this.

Brownies with a twist

On Sunday, one of our ward's food-canning specialists was handing around a plate of brownies. She asked us to guess the secret ingredient. Pot and laxatives seemed to be out, since this was church.

They were good, but you could tell they'd been health-ified. Kind of like when you put applesauce in chocolate chip cookies. But when she told me the secret ingredient, I was in shock:

BLACK BEANS!

She said you can use black beans, which are fat-free, instead of oil. And the brownies certainly don't taste like there are black beans in them. So, if you're feeling brave, here's the not-from-scratch recipe.

Reduced Fat Peanut Butter Brownies
1 pkg. brownie mix (for 9X13 size)
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup black bean puree (substitution for 1/2 cup oil)
2 eggs
1 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients until moistened. Pour into greased pan and bake immediately. Check pkg. for cooking times. Replacing all of the oil with black beans will make a cake-like brownie. For a chewier brownie replace only half of the oil with beans.

Enjoy it!

Furcation, Part I

I had a great furcation. It was a bit of a whirlwind for the first half, and then nice and relaxing toward the end: Tubing the river, flying to Orlando, taking an airboat ride, going to Disney World, flying home, then sleeping and making photobooks. Whew!

Tubing down the Salt River was a BLAST! It was a spur-of-the-moment outing, with me, Joe and Mike. It was certainly a trial run: the cooler got waterlogged, soaking the pretzels; we didn't have anything to connect the tubes together; and I lost a flip-flop (and my pride) exiting the river. But next time we'll know better!

The guys were nice enough to do most of the paddling and steering, so all I had to do was relax and enjoy the ride.
Of course, the one photo of the group turned out less than ideal! Not sure how the woman we asked to take this managed to get this weird effect. That's Joe in the center, Mike to the right.
Sometimes the river was pretty deep (Joe's a tall dude, and I don't think he could touch the bottom here). Other times, you got a bum massage from the rocks!

Upcoming layoffs

Today was my first day back at work after my furcation. I learned that Gannett is laying off 10 percent of its employees. That wouldn't be so bad, of course, expect for the fact that Gannett owns the paper where I work.

D-Day is reportedly July 8, although the rumor mill is reporting that the cuts could come next week -- or in late July.

I'm worried -- I don't think anyone has the luxury of feeling layoff-proof in this economy -- but, as a good friend said, I'll get laid off or I won't. No amount of worrying will change that.

My favorite signs at Disney World