This is my 200th blog entry, a real cause to celebrate. Thanks for your interest in my book, the Gerald Robinson case, my job as a religion editor, my musings on music and entertainment, and life in general. I appreciate every reader and encourage you to leave comments.
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I was reading a tech column in Newsweek that caught my attention: The columnist lost his MacBook Air, that super-slim laptop computer that can fit inside an interoffice envelope. After much detective work, he concluded that it must have been scooped up by his wife along with the Sunday N.Y. Times and a stack of other newspapers when she was getting rid of the clutter, and then tossed into the condominium's trash compactor/shredder.
No joke.
It's that thin and light, it could have gotten lost in a pile of newspapers.
Then I read that Charlie Rose, the PBS program host, suffered a black eye and facial abrasions when he was crossing a NYC street, stepped in a pothole and started to head for the pavement. He had to make a choice: sacrifice his head and face, or sacrifice his newly purchased MacBook Air. He chose to let his face hit the ground rather than the fragile, expensive, sexy little laptop.
Charlie will recuperate fully in time; his laptop would have been permanently damaged.
Life is full of tough choices.
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Took my dog Scotty to the vet this morning for his annual checkup. He's doing well, the only problem was some wax buildup in his ears that the doc took care of. The only pain was to my wallet -- $140 for his shots, exam, and medicine.
That dog is just the cutest, nicest pet I've ever had -- maybe the best dog I've ever met. He's a schnoodle (part Schnauzer, part Poodle) that I got from the county pound on March 30, 2007, shortly after my return from Scotland and Ireland (hence the name Scotty). He was a year and a half old at the time.
Little did I know that Scotty had a bad case of separation anxiety when we got him, and literally destroyed our leather couch, tearing it to shreds. What a sight that was when we came home and found the couch's stuffing all over the floor and the nice maroon leather chewed into little shreds.
Cute as he was, Scotty almost went back to the pound that day. But we did our homework, learned what his problem was, and worked with him on it. He's totally fine now. We can leave him out in the house all day and he doesn't do anything wrong.
Scotty weighed 18 pounds when we first got him, and weighed in at 28 pounds today. He literally was skin and bones when we met. His hip joints were sticking up so high I thought he may have had a deformity, but it was just that there was no meat on his bones.
Scotty is a real joy to have around. All our guests love him, and I've learned in retrospect that they weren't very fond of Sadie, my former dog who died at age 10 1/2 in January 2006. I always thought Sadie was a sweetheart -- she was part German Shepherd, part Australian Shepherd and weighed about 45 pounds -- but now people tell me they didn't exactly love her. Sadie was a good dog, followed me everywhere I went, was loving and protective, but just didn't have the personality that Scotty does.

Toledo, Ohio
March 26, 2008