The shocking story

Some have heard this, but I’m going to repeat it because I now have photos.

Here's my final destination, the 11th floor.

Last week, I had a rough time at work. One day in particular was just brutal. (Actually, two, but just go with me on this, OK?)

The last left turn.

Here's a sample of the deep ruts in the sidewalk. We are talking inches deep, and when it rains, the water is pretty much ankle-deep, and there's no way around.

Actually, the day wasn’t too bad until there was about an hour or two to go, which is, coincidentally, about the time the rain started.

By the time I got off, which, if I remember correctly, was 10, it had rained cats and dogs and was still not exactly drizzling when I left the office.

The layout of the building is it's on a main road, but it's a divided road, and there just aren't simple U-turns in this country. For me to take a cab home, if I get one in front of the building, I will be pointed the other way and essentially at least double the distance I travel to go home.

More of the Indiana Jones obstacle course that is the sidewalk to work. This hole on the right is new from Friday.

This is where the lake is. This entire stretch was completely under water on my electrocution night. You can see a little fence on the right, which has a wall of bushes right next to it, eliminating any thought of stepping to the side and avoiding Lake South Jakarta.

Up until that point, the weather has been OK enough to just walk, both ways. It's about 35-40 minutes one way. It can be really, really sweaty, but it seems safe.

My commute entails about five minutes on a side road, then three 10-minute stretches, give or take, to the building.

On the way back, the first 10-minute walk is against traffic, and then I turn into a side road where it's both ways down a residential area.

On the bad night in question, I was upset and decided to walk a little to clear my head. I mean, had had an umbrella and am washable. I figured I'd walk that first 10 minutes, get a cab from there and then it'd on take about five minutes to get home.

This is the stretch right that doubles as a bus stop. There are also vendors here frequently (not on Sunday -- I deliberately took photos today knowing it wouldn't be as crowded) and therefore it's also a good rat-spotting area.

Going to work, this is right after the bus stop. Watch your step.

Water is a heck of an eroder. This hole is new, and on my little photo excursion, it wasn't the only hole that wasn't present on Friday. Heed a warning: walk slow and watch your step.

So, armed with the only folding umbrella I've found here -- it's pink -- I set off. The water onthe sidewalk was far deeper than I thought, usually because the sidewalks have caved in and have huge potholes and by the time I had one block to go before the two-way traffic, I was already soaked halfway to my knees.

And my pink umbrella broke. Not terribly, but the handle came off and basically I was holding a stick with a droopy pink covered skeleton over me.

But I trudged on, figuring I'd just get a cab after that last block before the turn into the residential section.

It's a bad one. There aren't actual sidewalks, just some cement hole things with covers. I don’t know what they are, really. There's also an open sewer to one side, or at least a cement ditch with running water and nasty stuff that smells not unlike a sewer.

And mud. Oh my, the mud. The water had to have been inches deep, and I was wet and wearing old tennis shoes.

Both ends of this obstacle course are new, too. I am not sure when/if they get repaired. It reminds me of Detroit in that way.
OK, we're now up to the scene of the crime. Picture this with inches of standing water. It's the last block before the residential section where I planned on catching a cab. There's so sidewalk, so it was a slippery mess.

I slipped. Not the first time that evening, but a scary one. When I went to brace myself, I had two options. On my right, the open sewer, and on my left, a utility pole.

Beyond the fact that I was holding an umbrella in my right hand, the sewer idea didn't seem too appealing, not that I actually pondered it. Basically I just stuck my hand out for balance.

ZZZTTT.

Just like sticking a finger in a light socket, I had a jolt run through me. It scared the bejesus out of me, especially since I was standing big-toe deep in water with no way to move without stepping in some deeper puddle and possibly still managing to slip and land in the sewer.

But, hamdullah, I was OK and pretty quickly got out of there.

Here's the utility pole that tried to kill me. I snapped it quickly since there were people around and didn't realize it was out of focus. But you know, that's not inappropriate for what was going through my mind -- and my body -- at the time.

Door No. 2, or where I would have fallen had I not opted to shock myself. Gross.

The residential section I walk through every day. I think people are getting used to seeing me.

More of the residential section. Also a rat sighting spot.

So far, that’s been the most exciting thing to happen on my commute. Even the rats have stopped roaming around this past week, although that might be more because I’ve mostly been getting off at 9 or 10 p.m. instead of 11:30 or after.

Tonight, though, was fabulous. All around, really. I had a great day at work and the commute was nice – not even too hot and sweaty.

Again, these photos were taken on Sunday (which it still might be where you are!) Normally, there are FAR more people on the streets. I just didn't want to bring a lot of attention to myself.

This is the only shot I took of the main road, which is the same main road as my prior commute, just more of it. There are several stretches like this, where the pavement is simply missing. You can see gaps up the way, too, and some of them are large enough to lose Mackenzie too but still small enough to jump over. There are many points where the individual sidewalk portions are sunken or broken, which makes it tough to maneuver in the dark. If Hollywood staged a chase scene, it would require a stuntman.

My new commute

I’ve been in the new office for about a week now.

It’s kind of … meh.

It looks nicer, for sure, but there are a lot of differences. The most notable, I guess, from the outside is we’re no longer a few floors over a mall. It’s a real office building, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when you take away the options of Giant Supermarket and the food court on 3A (remember, no fourth floor), the food supply dwindles.

Most people are coping by ordering out, but I don’t do that much. I’m bringing PB sandwiches, and I think I’m already tired of PB sandwiches. Blah.

I did cave in and get a milkshake from Fat Burger (which, as it turns out, is owned by Queen Latifah), but it was a bad idea. Three people got them and two had no problems, but my sides were hurting. It wasn’t a bad milkshake, but it was incredibly melty. I’m not sure where Fat Burger is, but judging by the consistency, that sucker had been in room temperature at least 20 minutes. Not a great initial order-out success.

The people who got burgers from there were happy with them, so maybe I’ll do that in the future. There’s also an Italian place that delivers that might be good.

My big issue with ordering out is when the shift starts at 3, the orders get placed around 4. I can’t do that. It’s likely that most people wake up pretty much right before they leave, so they’re essentially ordering their first meal of the day, but I’ve already eaten breakfast and lunch when I get there. I just can’t order a big meal two hours after eating lunch.

More than anyone needs to know about my lunch ritual, I’m aware.

Back to the offices: it looks nicer, but the spaces we’re sitting at have reduced to cubicles too basically just a little table with a drawer. These are all strung together, so it looks like we’re at either side of one long table. There’s not even enough space at the computer terminal to unfold a paper or leave a notebook out.

We each have a drawer as our “personal space,” but the tables are so low, if you’re over, oh, say, 5-foot-6, your knees bang it. So several people have opted to remove their drawers during work hours and place them directly behind them.

I don’t have this option, because there is some door right behind me. I’m not really sure what’s in there – it’s some techy room – but people go in and out. I put my newspaper behind me one day, not realizing there was a door there, and it disappeared. Someone moved it out of the way.

The newsroom is smaller than the old one but we’ve crammed more people in there. It’s really just an odd move. I guess parent company, which owned the mall building as well as the new building, got a higher-paying tenant for the old space.

My commute has doubled to about 35 minutes, but it IS walkable, which I wasn’t sure about. So that’s great news.

Thus far, it’s been OK to walk back, too, which I really didn’t think would happen. I am positive there will be some days when I cannot commute by foot because it’ll rain, but considering one day this past week I left at 12:40 a.m. and had no issues, I pretty much feel fine making the walk back.

It’s super hot and muggy some days and I try to get there early to go into the bathrooms (which are nicer and bigger than our old ones but have ZERO water pressure – trying to wash your hands is near impossible) and cool off.

I got rained on a little once, but I had my umbrella with me, so it wasn’t a big deal. The sweat is the big thing. When I get home, I pretty much jump straight into the shower, and the trip home is much cooler than the walk there.

My walk is about 35 minutes. It’s roughly five minutes from the apartment road to the first main road, then 10 minutes on that and then 10 through a neighborhood and finally the last 10 on a very main road.

The sidewalks are horrible when there are sidewalks. We are talking 10-foot stretches of open sewers, where I have to step into the street (and oncoming traffic) to not fall in, and parts that just have no sidewalk, so when it’s muddy it’s pretty scary. My biggest fear, I think, is losing my balance on the edge of the sidewalk and falling into traffic.

But I do feel safe. The walk through the neighborhood is the slightly weird part, but for the most part, the people who are out are just sitting, playing chess, smoking or taking down their little fast food places.

To entertain myself on the walk home, I count the rats. Last post I joked about only seeing two or something like that, but the very next day I doubled it. That particular day, I saw one dead one and one live one that might be dead by now. I was walking home on the apartment road stretch and saw this cute kitty. Just as I said “Hi, kitty!” this rat ran out of a sewer pipe and the cat gave chase. I’m confident one of them walked away happy.

Since then, on my walk home, there’s only been one day where I didn’t see a rat. My high so far is three, but one is the norm. There’s a slight paranoia when I wear sandals.

Moving day at the office was surreal. We finished on a Friday and they moved the offices that night and Saturday, then Sunday it was back to work in the new office.

The copy editors are among the last to finish work. My old desk faced a wall, and as I worked, I kept hearing loud noises behind me. I finally said at one point that it sounded like a party and turned around. Lo and behold, it was a party.

As each desk was finishing, they were joining the party. And, as they were partying, the techs were disassembling their computers.

Every time I’d get up, there’d be more big empty spaces. The person who sat beside me left his shift at 6 p.m., and in no time at all, someone came and took everything away.

It was like working the OR at a MASH unit. We were working as everything came down around us, and if you got up for more than three minutes you risked not having a workstation when you got back.

But now everything’s settled in. It’s not really comfortable, but that’s what we’re working with.

I finally was able to take my passport to be renewed, and now I’m facing another deadline. According to the US Embassy, it will take two weeks (maybe a little quicker), and that would mean a new passport on 5/31.

Well, the rest of the paperwork has to be completed by June 10, which means that it’s going to be cutting it close, especially since I have to exit and reenter the country by then. (I don’t plan the trip, but I have to make it.)

I’m just not really sure how they go about it, but I am under pressure to get the passport finished. Unfortunately, I have no control over that, but sometimes I wonder if the powers that be understand that. It’s pretty common for the Indonesian government to accept bribes, but as far as I know, the State Department doesn’t, and I wasn’t going to ask.

An endorsement for reading the directions

I’m finally into my three-day weekend and quite relieved about it. Last week, six days straight, was just rough. I’ll leave it at that.

Yesterday, I went to dinner at a place called Mad for Garlic in the poshest mall around. It’s really an incredible place. There are two Dairy Queens, even. (That’s above and beyond the Cold Stone, the Magnum Café and the ice cream and fudge place that also sounded good.)

It was good to get out to do something non-work related even if it was in the company of a work colleague. I don’t know anyone else.

Today is Sunday, and it’s the first day in the new building, but I’m off. I’m still a bit unclear on how long it will take me to get there, but I am hoping to walk at least on the way there. Since it appears that I won’t be getting off before midnight in the foreseeable future, I’ll definitely be adding at least cab fare home to the budget, which is still unclear.

There are no plans for today. There were, but by 2 p.m. I’ve already accomplished them. Not sure whether that’s good, bad or neutral but that’s how it is.

One of the tasks was to figure out the laundry system in the building. The deal is you take the stuff to the minimart, but beyond that I wasn’t entirely sure. Turns out, it costs about $6 to do what amounts to one load of laundry and it takes three days to do it. Sounds quite extreme, but this is my only option right now.

So far, I’ve been washing Morocco-style (except not on the roof) and just hand-drying, but I had jeans and sheets to do so I cut my losses, filled up to little grocery sacks and splurged.

I’m not sure what I will do to A. dry off and B. sleep on tonight, but that’ll sort itself out. I still have a comforter here, and it’s possible to air dry.

It’s certainly hot enough. You know how when you take a shower and you have that second thought as soon as you pull the “shower” lever and you realize the first jolt of water that shoots out is going to be cold? Well, that doesn’t happen here. It’s cold, but you think, wow, how refreshing!

On the topic of showers, I’ve been frustrated with mine since I moved in. While the water pressure seems fine, I have not been able to get the shampoo out of my hair. Now, I am not blessed with thick hair. Mine’s baby fine and just not that long.

As an aside, my hair sheds a lot. A LOT. My tile floor seems to constantly have hair all over the place. I might shed more than Kocur.

But for some reason, as much as I rinse, the minute I put in the Pantene, it suds up again. It’s been really frustrating, and God knows I’ve had some frustrations.

My hair’s also been really dry here, which seems weird considering the humidity, but it’s just basically out of control and straw-like. I mostly just pull it into a ponytail, and it’s been so ratty that I can’t even get a comb through it. My industrial-strength comb – not a cheap one – actually snapped off, and I’ve had to cut out some mini birds’ nests.

I don’t spend money on shampoo, because Heloise and Mary Hunt and every expert around stresses that shampoo is simply detergent, and it’s silly to waste money on that.

Instead, conditioner’s where it’s at. I spring for Pantene, and I brought a whole litre or something with me. A big bottle of it, which I use following the cheapo Suave shampoo. I brought enough of both to last six months.

And, as I washed my hair after my workout this morning, I put in the conditioner and it sudsed up again.

Only then did I pick up the bottle of Pantene and read the label. It clearly states “shampoo.”

Yeah, perhaps I should check out the directions next time.

I finally documented part of my walk to work. Even with the relocation of the office, this will still be the second leg of it. (The first leg involves just walking down my street and remembering to avoid the big one open sewer and dodging the food stalls, motorcycles and rats. Although I’ve really only seen one rat, but it was enough.)

Mostly, this is just the view from this crosswalk where I go over the highway, which is under construction. It’s a little scary because the stairs aren’t exactly uniform (although they are much better than ones in Morocco, and they have handrails) and at night there are people sleeping in there. (Not begging, sound asleep.)

I took a photo of a little stretch of sidewalk, too. They’re kind of done in concrete slabs and usually – but not on this stretch – they are partially sunken or cracked or something.

You can also see the apartment building (my tower is the short one; I am on the 8^th floor facing the other direction) and gauge about how far it is. The crosswalk marked about a third of the way to the old place but will likely be an eighth or so to the new place.

The river is one I cross every day. It’s loaded with filth and has some shanties on the banks. I took the photo the day after some serious rain so the river was quote swollen and the trash was flowing.

The last photo is simply my view on a rainy day.

If you look closely at the third photo, you can see a Starbucks sign. As far as I can tell, there are three within a kilometer from my apartment. Too bad I am not a coffee drinker.

Red Light, Green Light

There are mirrors in my apartment. Rather large ones.

My closet, which is on the side of the bed, has two panel mirrors on both of the sliding doors,

The apartment itself, at one time, was connected to the next-door one. Like hotel rooms, there was an adjoining door.

The door’s gone now, and in its place is now a huge floor-length mirror.

It’s a contrast from Morocco, where the only mirror in my house was a little 6-inch or so thing over my (outdoor) bathroom sink. My bathroom sink here, which is inside with the bathroom, is regulation-sized.

So everywhere you turn, it’s definitely “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.”

And I’m not kidding myself. I might be the fairest in Indonesia based on skin tone, but after only one month of my little fitness routine, I’m not even close to the overall.

I am still proud of myself though. I haven’t missed a day yet.

And I learned how to maneuver the AC remote control, so it’s a bit less of a sweatshop in there.

I’m up to 25 minutes on the joggy thing to open and 15 minutes on the bike to finish. I then hit the shower and the pool, which was a bit uncomfortable today because there were two fathers in there with their kids.

Then it’s back to the mirrors. They’re very distracting, and not in a narcissist way. I’m 100 percent positive I’m alone and all of a sudden I catch a movement in the corner of my eye. My head jerks around, and I discover it’s either me, or some movement off the TV reflected in one or two reflections – or in that endless cycle of reflections on reflections.

It’s worse at night, when the mirrors no longer reflect sunlight and make the place bigger. Instead, it shrinks the 30-square-meter room by reflecting darkness but still distracts me when I can see the reflection of my back in one mirror through the reflection in another.

Which reminds me: I need a haircut.

But the thing that I really notice at night is the reflections of the lights in the room. Since it’s dark, there aren’t many. It’s not like I have outside lights, either, because I pull the shutters in my east-facing room so as not to be blinded in the morning.

I have three sources of light at night: two green lights and one red one on my AC unit, a blue light on the cable box and another red light on the TV.

These are constantly on, and in the spectrum of a normal-sized house, it’s nothing. But in this tiny space, with the endless reflections, it’s like that Captain Kirk’s red light: you cannot ignore it.

No matter which direction I face at night, I have some glimpse of Christmas lights. It’s amazing at how much light you can get off of reflections of all those little lights.

I’ve been here now for a month, and I’m somewhat acclimated. It’s very boring and very ugly, but I’ve adapted likely as much as I will.

I don’t speak the language and haven’t made any local friends, but that’s expat life, or so it seems to me. My building is almost all locals, though, and I see people, who are all friendly but it’s not like Morocco where you meet someone and have not only an instant friend but also a lunch invitation.

People here don’t invite people to their homes. Instead, they eat at cafes, restaurants or these little roadside stands that are sometimes permanent and sometimes they just appear during the afternoons.

I’m not big on going out to eat. Beyond Dunkin Donuts, which doesn’t count, I’ve been to dinner twice and lunch once. I really prefer to cook. It’s more relaxing to me than sitting at a restaurant or whatever.

This week, I am happy to report, is close to being over. I am still having a hard time at work but overall am doing better.

I had a little outburst the other day that might have helped. It’s to early to call. Basically, what happened was I turned in a story and the guy didn’t like the headline or the pull quote I’d selected. Not exciting enough, which made sense because the book review itself was burnt toast. It was horrible, and my headline was pretty much a straight news one. Not exciting.

So I changed it and the quote. The new quote came from a passage of the book (a book on essays, extremely boring) whereas the previous one had been from the reporter. Therefore, on the first quote I didn’t identify the reporter, since it went without saying, but when I replaced it, I forgot I needed to add the attribution. I forgot. Shoot me. This is why I am only a copy editor and not a copy chief. I make mistakes.

So I got called on that, and I immediately realized what I’d done and said I realized it was a mistake, here’s what happened and explained it.

Well, instead of listening to me, he jumped on me and went on about how it was in there previously. I said I knew that, but what had happened was….and then I explained it again. And then went back to my desk.

Well, he came by a minute later and said the attribution had been in the version two before the mine, why did I take it out? And I explained, for the third time, what happened. I basically raised said “I MADE A MISTAKE. HERE IS THE REASON I DID IT…IT IS NOT AN EXCUSE, BUT IT IS THE REASON.” And he *finally* listened to what I’d been saying, that I’d changed the quote he didn’t like and when I put in the new one, I simply forgot. I’m not sure if he got that I’d told him the exact same thing two previous times, but he finally understood it.

I finally just said “IT WAS A MISTAKE. AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING RIGHT” or something like that and he finally backed off.

The past few days have been a little better. Tuesday, I got a blessed schedule and was off at 10, which was fabulous.

It shouldn’t make much of a difference, but the 3-11 schedule has been 3-12 regularly and getting off at 10 meant getting home two hours early.

Last night went all right, but I had another one of those frustrating things, which took place at midnight. And honestly, my give-a-damn shuts off at 11:30 or so. I am tired, hungry and frustrated by that time, so criticizing me when my brain isn’t functioning isn’t really welcome.

But I tried. One of the criticisms was the phrase “Until now,” which I had interpreted as, well, “until this point in time.”

Apparently that is not the case. Like Kirk Maltby’s “Fer sure,” it’s just filler that means nothing.

But this is what I am working with: When I asked, “So, should I just leave it out?” the answer was, “No.”

In trying to understand, I followed up with, “So, what do I do with it?” (I always try to ask questions so I can at least take something positive from these little demoralizing chats.)

And, as God is my witness, the answer, verbatim:

“Get rid of it.”

I suppose right now I could go on and on about how frustrating it is to ask if something’s right and be told it’s wrong and then be corrected to exactly what I had asked was right, but I think you get the point.

Easier, but not easy

Adjustment is a roller coaster. I’ve got the swing of some things but not so much others.

Last week, the goal of my day off was to pay my cable bill. It took forever, but I accomplished it. Not without the help of my landlord, because he almost literally held my hand through it.

Backing up, the cable guy had told me to pay at an ATM, which seemed weird, but that’s the way bills are done here, it seems.

But I tried using my Florida ATM card and it didn’t work. The card works, but I don’t have the “payment” option, only the “cash withdrawal" one. I tried on several machines prior to the day off, so I figured I could pay it in cash.

Somehow. I have no idea where First Media is, or at least their payment center. On the bill, there’s no address but on the Web site (sorry, new AP style – website) there are multiple addresses, each in different places of this sprawling city.

However, although I know my address, I’m still not sure exactly where I am. My world revolves around about a two-kilometer square area and although I am pretty good at that, I’m not sure where it falls in the entire mass that’s Jakarta.

So addresses on a page mean nothing to me. Absolutely nothing.

But also listed were several banks indicating I could pay in cash. One address I recognized by the initials (acronyms are BIG here. That’s Big-Immense-Giant) as being in the World Trade Center, the banking complex across the street from me.

So last Friday, I headed out there so I could pay in cash, since until I get my work visa, I can’t even think of opening a bank account.

Unfortunately, after two tries at HSBC (which I still think of as either the “Hot Sauce Blue Cheese” or “Holy Shit Buffalo’s Cold” bank) it didn’t work. That bank requires you to have an account there to transfer funds to another.

So I gave up and figured I’d just give the money to someone I worked with and ask them to pay it the next day.

But I ran into my landlord in the lobby on the way back up to my apartment and asked if I’d paid the bill. I got the impression the cable company had called him and asked when they were getting their money so he was eager to help.

And help he did. Quite like my host mom in Morocco would do, he took me over to another bank, filled out a transfer form and waited with me until I got the thing paid.

In the end, it was fairly simple, but the act of trying to figure it out was quite complex.

Today, another day off, I got to use applied knowledge to pay another bill. As I was already planning to go to Dunkin Donuts today in the WTC center, I conveniently found my utility-maintenance bill shoved under my door. It’s steeper than I would have thought for about three weeks, but what can you do?

I went to yet another bank – luckily I remembered which one they’d told me – and had absolutely no problems and no surcharges. Just a long wait, which was OK because I brought a book.

This past week, I also got my paycheck, which was deposited seamlessly in my Florida account. Honestly, if the cable and utility bills are the only ones I have to pay, I’d just as soon stick with my Florida account.

So my little apartment life, which isn’t very social, is somewhat falling into place. It’s boring, but I did take a walk today around the neighborhood and it was a nice change of pace from the joggy thing. (I’m putting that off til this afternoon today – too hot to go at midday.)

Hopefully, at some point, the paper will all click soon, too. So far, it’s still a struggle.

I’m getting a little better with the banking stories, but somehow I always manage to not understand some crucial thing. I stare at it and try to decipher the stuff, but it doesn’t always work.

A lot of it is simply confusing. Everything is an acronym, and for some reason we have to list all the acronyms in the story. They’re not so simple as BIG, though, because lots of times the letters used in the acronym are from the words in Bahasa Indonesian, not the English words, so they don’t just make sense. It’s not like we’re saying “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” where you know it’s “FBI.” (we don’t list those, we only list the weird ones.) It'd be something like "BJI."

Everyone’s titles are long and we have to put those in. There’s such a thing as “president director” and the same person can officially be called “chairman” or “representative” or even bulkier. Part of my job is to fact-check, and it gets complicated when you can’t tell what the title is because they’re called different titles in the past.

Fact-checking is HUGE, and it’s a PITA. You have to check every little detail, including stuff like if the president’s name is spelled correctly, and mark that you did it so the next person doesn’t have to.

But it’s necessary because screw-ups happen. I understand that. It just seems at some point I have to give credit to the writer, whose name appears on the story.

It’s been rough this week, especially. One guy is on vacation and maybe that’s a part of it, but we haven’t finished close to on time for awhile now. My shift allegedly ends at 11, but I haven’t left before 11:45 for a bit. Oh, and now we get to start editing blogs in our free time – like working an hour extra every day – but not getting OT – in any way translates to having free time.

Last night was brutal. I was almost done at 11:30, and just lacked a quote box on the front page. But for some reason, I couldn’t access the box. I could see it, but not click on it.

It took about 20 minutes for someone else to fix it, because it was one of those things that is supposed to work. You know, like when you call the help desk in frustration and they basically say “that’s not supposed to happen” and you’re like “well, it is, so now what?”

Finally, the guy – who was more baffled about it than me – and I went to pull the quote.

Now, these are tricky, because there’s not a lot of room. You have to have something concise or it won’t fit.

And, in the entire story, only one quote fit. It was a decent one, too. But the attribution was “he said.” And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out who “he” was.

I’d thought about it previously, when I’d edited it, but convinced myself it was this “Prince of Jihad” fella whose website (I remembered!) we’d quoted earlier. But it didn’t look right.

I went to the other guy again, and he looked it and assured me it was the “Jihad” guy, and I said OK. But I looked at it again, and it just didn’t look right. The “Jihad” site had things like “We will avenge” and crap like that. The quote I was looking at said something like “It’s a good thing, but it’s not over.” It just didn’t make sense that the same guy said it.

So I had to Google for the story, which was an Agence France Presse story, and sure enough, someone who’d looked at it before me had chopped out the first reference to Guy No. 2, who was a moderate Muslim and relieved Bin Laden was gone.

By the time I finished, it was midnight.

It’s constantly stuff like that, or just trying to figure out why the heck things appear in the paper in the first place. This week, I had to do a caption on a photo of a guy driving a tornado-slammed car from the week before. In the pre-written caption, it said something about it being Thursday and President Obama was visiting Friday.

Of course, this was running on Tuesday the following week. Which makes no sense. Tell me there’s not a newer photo. One that’s maybe, you know, relevant?

Same thing with the stories. I got one yesterday that said the Thai president was going to have surgery on May 2. Minor procedure, not a big deal. But I’m editing this on May 3 for a May 4 edition. (I did a search for the story, and it was on the wire April 28.)

As I’m not Mitch Albom, I don’t know if the surgery took place, so I can’t say it’s a done deal. It looks pretty dumb, IMO, to run something on May 4 that said something “would be” done on May 2 without saying if it did or didn’t go. When I brought this up, I got a “well, there’s been no further statement.” True, and I put that in there, but it still looks silly.

So the whole point of running it is ….is….Bueller … Bueller?

Had another one the other day, too. Right now, we have a big embezzlement case going on, so some attorney took the opportunity to hawk some other case.

His client’s ex-wife, he said, embezzled millions from their bank. Now, beyond the fact that the bank says this absolutely didn’t happen, they knowing made a loan, this entire thing took place in July.

I get this story, and for the life of me I can’t figure it out. No charges were filed, the bank denies there’s embezzlement, and it certainly would seem they’d know.

Nothing has happened since July, which is when the then-wife took out the loan. Not even a personal loan – in the name of her company.

I go to the news editor and ask what, exactly, is the point? He said, basically, that there is no point. Since there’s another embezzlement case (a real one) in the news, they thought they’d mention it.

Now, not that I’d want to start running Lindsay Lohan crap (although we do that, too), but newspapers are supposed to be full of news.

A guy who has a grudge against his ex-wife for something that happened last July just isn’t news. I’m trying to understand it so I can get with the system, but there’s definitely a learning curve.

So that’s about it from here. In more fun news, Zippy took Nic and Zac fishing over the delayed-launch weekend and Nic fulfilled one of his life’s goals by catching a little bass.

With a three-foot "Go Diego Go" fishing rod. Go figure.