A Week at the Newspaper - Part 1

What is life like as a small-town newspaper editor? In this post and the next, I'd like to invite you to join me for a week!  While, for most people, the week starts on Sunday, for me the week really start on Wednesday, the day my papers are printed, and I start work on the next edition of the paper.

At the Clarksville Star office: this is where the receptionist, Mary, now works...my desk is one table back.
(This was a convenient place to pose when I showed my family the office shortly after I started working here.)

I'm always learning something new! 

• Holes/eyes in Swiss cheese are formed by carbon dioxide gas created by the bacteria that flavors the cheese. Micro particles of plant origin serve as nuclei for the bubbles of carbon dioxide. In Switzerland, the cheese suffered from blindness as sealed milking machines largely precluded the presence of microscopic hay particles in milk until scientists figured this out. 
• Chickens used to wear glasses (see here for an explanation).
• Cows at a local dairy wear pedometers much like runners wear FitBits or Garmins to count their steps.

Marshall County Courthouse and Clocktower

Some time ago, I posted about the Marshall County Courthouse in Marshalltown, Iowa.  We visited during the winter, and the clock tower was closed for the season.  So, during the summer of 2015, we called the county Board of Supervisors, and Lisa Gassman kindly agreed to give us a tour.

Courthouses that allow visitors to climb the stairs up to the clock tower are few and far between, so we were especially grateful for this opportunity.

Mai Pho & Cedar Rapids Leatherjackets Part 2

After completing the first day of the Cedar Rapids Leatherjackets tournament, we spent the night at the DoubleTree. In the morning, we did some running on the sidewalks in town. We returned to the hotel and took the stairs up to our room on the 9th floor. But...we didn't stop there. The hotel has 16 floors, so we headed up to the top! Before long, I was thinking of A Stairway Chase on Studio C! I started out running, but by the last floor I was slowly walking. The view from the 16th floor was beautiful.

For lunch, we stopped at Mai Pho in Cedar Rapids, which is a favorite with my family because of their bubble teas and other sweet beverages.