That was the week that was....

OK, so we have a little catching up to do. Random observations from a week in the life.

Monday 9/18: The old saying that two things you don't want to see being made are sausage and legislation never was more true. Took my Advanced News Reporting class to the Union County Commissioners meeting for the first of several "real life" reporting assignments. And as in real life, some things of great significance can also be tedious to observe. Commissioners spent 2 hours and 45 minutes thrashing out the details of an Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) for one of the state's fastest growing counties. We won't be there when the ordinance has an up-or-down vote on Oct. 2, but we will be at the following night's Union County School Board meeting where whatever happens will certainly be a topic of discussion.

Tuesday 9/19: Congratulations from Jayne and me to our good friend Jenny Cecil, who's soon going to work for one of our favorite journalism stops in our peripatetic careers, the Pensacola News Journal (http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com) in Florida. She's a fine young photgrapher whom we got to know well last summer and here's hoping her career will take off in the home of U.S. naval aviation.

Wednesday 9/20: First issue of the year for Wingate University's The Weekly Triangle, soon also to be back up and running online at at http://www.theweeklytriangle.com. We have some work to do, but just getting the first one out is an accomplishment in itself.

Friday, 9/22: Spent the evening doing what I've done most fall Friday nights for the past 30 years -- covered a high school football game. Saw Indpendence High of Mint Hill extend its winning streak to 97 games, longest in the nation, beating Weddington, 44-0. More interesting than the score indicated. Weddington, which was competitive in both a regular season and a playoff game against Independence last year, spent nearly half the second quarter on a potential game-tying touchdown drive, only to fumble the ball away. Independence returned it 80 yards for a touchdown and was never threatened after that.

The winning streak has to come to an end eventually, but it doesn't look like it will happen any time soon.

Saturday, 9/23: Visited with my brother in South Carolina and we watched Clemson rout North Carolina 52-7. For a Clemson graduate living in Charlotte, college football doesn't get much better. Makes up for a long Homecoming afternoon at Clemson in 2001 when I suffered through a 38-3 Homecoming loss to the Heels along with a couple of friends of mine.

Today: A Sunday at the Southern Women's Show at the Merchandise Mart in Charlotte is becoming a fall tradition for Jayne and me. Jayne's an independent sales director for The Pampered Chef (http://www.pamperedchef.biz/jaynecannon) and she's been in charge of the Pampered Chef booth at the show for the past several years. I always lend whatever muscle I can muster to the packing up and tearing down part of things.

The show is pretty much a full-out tribute to the power of American commerce, and it's always amazing to see the variety of products and services offered, from brooms to sunrooms. But for me, the biggest attraction is a focused blitz of the booths offering free samples of food. Favorites: Mayfield (See http://www.thedairyblog.com) ice cream and Margaret Holmes (http://www.margaretholmes.com) canned Southern classic foods (squash with Vidalia onions this year), usually washed down with a little Cheerwine (http://www.cheerwine.com) Unfortunately, had to settle for Diet 7-Up this year.

Is this a great country or what?