Odds and ends, 6/1/07

Look for another good piece by reporter Bryan Chambers this weekend. He's looking at something that we've talked about here in the office for the past couple of weeks. After it runs, I can have nice, long post about it, assuming the computer can hold everything I want to say about the topic. What is it? Check the Web site on Sunday.

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Today was the last Friday of the school year for Cabell County. Next week, I hope to have a column describing what happened with my three young'ns this year. Main points: My ninth grader found out she's every bit as smart as I told her she was, and then some. My first grader found out how far he can go if he pushes himself. And my seventh-grade son learned he can go an entire year (so far) without having one discipline problem. Last year I wanted a bumper sticker that said, "My child is in detention at Beverly Hills Middle School." But this year he managed to behave himself.

If he has had one problem adjusting to middle school, it has been the Vogons. Those are the overly bureaucratic creatures from "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy." Poor kid has more trouble keeping up with the paperwork he has to fill out than anything else in middle school.

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Someone has sent me a form purporting to be the business license renewal application form for the city of Point Pleasant, W.Va. The form lists the license fees for various types of businesses. A beer distributor pays $150, while a laundromat with 10 or more machines pays $15. The sender points me to Line 18, where lawyers pay only $5.

"Wonder who wrote this?" he asks.

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For both people who read this blog, I was wondering if there's anything in particular you would like to see more of or less of. I'm curious.

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What the whatever. It's time to go pick up my first-grader from his after-school program. The best part of the program is that he gets to ride a Thomas Built Buses Saf-T-Liner C2 from his school to the after-school. The only thing that would improve that would be if he got to ride a Thomas Built Saf-T-Liner HDX once or twice a week.

Or if he could see a few more Freightliner trucks on the way. The kid was disappointed a few weeks ago when I told him Thomas Built Buses and Jeeps (one of which I drive) will soon be made by separate companies. But as long as Freightliner is still the parent company of Thomas Built Buses, he'll be happy.

He's the only kid I know who sits home at night reading sales brochures for school buses or who keeps asking his dad to get on the Web and find more history on the Superior Coach Co. That was the company that made the buses I rode at his age.

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