Gustav, and this paper, continue to astound me. The Charlotte Sun survived Hurricane Charley, which devastated the area and leveled just about everything in town, with a single shingle - one - to show for the damage. We never missed a single deadline.

Today, because of the wind and rain from the outer band of Gustav, we lost power for the third ( Read more... )

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. - Have y’all ever prayed for a drought? How bout y’all start praying for one down here? I’m going to drown, seriously. I got into work today and lightning hit the same transformer it did just the other day, and again we were without power ( Read more... )

The rain is coming down in sheets outside, a torrential downpour not unlike when Fay rolled through our area last week and left behind sheepshead and catfish swimming in the ditch ( Read more... )

Today, I successfully got the words "forgotten bush" and "stiffer" in headlines. On the same page.

One small step for Dawn, one giant leap for copy editors/designers everywhere.

That is all.

PUNTA GORDA - There were a lot of things I expected when I accepted this job a few weeks ago. I thought I'd get my fill of Little League, follow women's church league bocce ball and maybe even weasel my way into covering a Rays game or two ( Read more... )

First and definitely most importantly, the wonderful, amazing Shane Loux was called up to the majors this morning. I got the text message around noon ET, and he was on a plane to L.A. shortly afterward. I'm so freaking proud of him/excited/nervous/giddy I can't stand it. It's like Christmas came early this year, and I actually have a reason to pay ( Read more... )

I just begged one of the sportsguys to find me a place where Faygo is sold, and buy me a "redpop." This touched off the age-old soda/pop dispute, which I (correctly) defended by saying that Faygo is actually identified on the label as "pop," so pop it is ( Read more... )

So my darling Shane is back in action after what amounted to the shortest trip to the disabled list I've ever heard mention of (what, 3 days? 4?) I thought there was a rule of at least 15 days from when you were DLed, but apparently that doesn't hold true. He came back in grand fashion and held his opponent to one run over seven innings...and STILL ( Read more... )

I drove down to Port Charlotte and met with my new roommate for the first time today. She seems great! Better yet, she loved the place I picked out to live so we didn't have to spend the entire day driving around aimlessly in search of apartments. Woot! Hopefully, we'll be settled by the end of the month. Now this whole packing thing is a whole ' ( Read more... )

Saturday is officially my Friday at the Charlotte Sun, since my weekend consists of Sunday and Monday. It's nice for now, because I hate going to the beach on the weekend; there's way too many people then. I have one beach day (my old apt. is about 5 minutes from the sand and sun, woot.) and one "productive day," which since I have no cable or ( Read more... )