Staff blogs
Frank Sports Talk (F.W. Manning II)
Viking Voyage: U.P. Grappler's Trip Journal (Second Entry)
The Pilot Sports Team has enlisted the help of Union Pines senior wrestler Mike Brennan, to keep a trip journal so fans and readers can stay updated on how the boys' 12-day excursion is progressing. This is Mike's Second Entry
Frank Sports Talk (F.W. Manning II)
Viking Voyage: U.P. Grappler's Trip Journal (First Entry)
The Pilot Sports Team has enlisted the help of Union Pines senior wrestler Mike Brennan, to keep a trip journal so fans and readers can stay updated on how the boys' 12-day excursion is progressing. This is Mike's First Entry
Skink-1, Beetle-0
I have been encountering Blue-Tailed Skinks around my house more and more frequently. It just so happened that I had a camera in my possession this weekend to catch this little guy chowing down on a beetle. It's an interesting progression of photos that remind me of a dog retreating under a couch to gnaw on a bone. The last photo really starts to bring out the monster in the little fella.
Gimme an S...gimme an A....
I am perplexed and a bit worried about comments tendered concerning an op-ed piece satirizing the first televised GOP presidential debate. I am and always have been a groveling, unworthy acolyte of political satirists/Pulitizer Prize laureates Maureen Dowd and the late Mike Royko. Key word here is SATIRE, defined as ...
Stunning beauty in the countryside
Life's more interesting if you look for the beauty in small things. You just never know when an extraordinary scene is around the curve. Driving back from a quick trip to Charlotte on Father's Day, we were traveling along NC 24-27 near Robbins. We passed a field of sunflowers in ...
A saga of life and birth
There is no telling what drove her to choose this particular site to have her offspring. Perhaps it was the near perfect camouflage for her coloring. Perhaps it was a sense of urgency, stemming from the eggs that she had inside. Whatever it was, she chose a rough, mossy patch ...
End of the Weinie Roast
I'm a bit shocked that former Rep. Anthony Weiner is already yesterday's news. A few limp jokes remain about what he will do next -- and what we learned from the debacle. Rumors are that he refused to resign until promised a lucrative job a la Elliot Spitzer, the whoremonger/CNN ...
Men Behaving Badly (on Twitter)
Many years ago, when I lived in a charming New England city, a relief organization asked me to help acclimate a refugee family from Eastern Europe that they were sponsoring. This meant "showing them the ropes," from how to pay bills to what the kids wore to school. The greatest ...
Remembering D-Day
Today is the anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Europe in World War II. Most people, less aware of history, or younger and less connected to the generation that went through it, will pass through today and not think about it, or even be aware of it. But today, I ...
TEE Shots (Senior Writer Tom Embrey)
Live Music: The Perfect Medicine
Attending a concert can be he perfect medicine to cure what ails you.
Coca-Cola 600...Vroom Vroom
I attended the Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway this past Sunday. This is interesting only because I have lived within minutes of an official Nascar Stadium for twenty years of my life and this was the first race I'd ever been to. These are my thoughts on the whole experience:
Experience the joy of exceptional music
Generally speaking, it's more likely you'll find me at The Rooster's Wife on a Sunday evening, soaking in the sounds of American roots music, than at a symphony concert any day of the week. Like any music, classical has its various threads and styles, some of which are pleasing and ...
An important day in N.C.'s history
Regardless of what your feelings are about it, today marks an important date in the history of the Old North State. It was 150 years ago today that North Carolina withdrew from the United States and joined the other southern states in forming the Confederate States of America, and thus ...
Close up looks at spring
I've been shooting closeups of blooms for the past year, and find that the closer I look, the more beautiful they appear. Here is a clematis from last weekend.
Frank Sports Talk (F.W. Manning II)
UPDATED UPHS Spring Sports NCHSAA Playoff Schedule
No more playoffs till the fall season of the 2011-2012 school year UPHS Viking Baseball bracket UPHS Lady Vike Soccer bracket UPHS LV Softball Bracket
United for a few minutes
If only for a brief and fleeting instant, it appeared the country came together this week with the news of Osama bin Laden's death. Even if we don't know exactly what it means in terms of bin Laden's role as a fading memory, American's seemed genuinely relieved. My neighbor, who ...
Willie and the Wonker
I'm a media wonk. That means I absolutely knew that before the confetti had been swept off London streets royal wedding wrap-ups would include investigations into Kate's...er, Princess Katherine, Duchess of Cambridge's upbringing, with a sly slant. The slant materialized: Kate's then-middle-class parents sent her to a series of schools ...
TEE Shots (Senior Writer Tom Embrey)
Reaction is a matter of perspective
A different reaction to the news of the death of Public Enemy No. 1.
TEE Shots (Senior Writer Tom Embrey)
Off the Limb: Oreo the cat finally comes down
Oreo the cat is out of the tree.
