Author: Bob Benz

Categories
Prankster Bob

LBJ of the dead




skeleton_lbj.jpg

Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

LBJ managed to make the trip over to the new house, and he found a home in the beams above the great room along with the large skeleton from my Dia de los Muertos collection. It was brutal getting the skeleton perched there, but after a lot of swearing and tottering around on a ladder, I pulled it off.

The house is “livable” as Lara says. We’re settled in pretty well now and we’re both amazed at how well our art collection works here. There are a few pieces we’re still trying to place, but overall, it’s gone well.

Now we have to try to sell the place in Hardin Valley. We’re going to try to do it ourselves intead of using a real estate agent since we’re not in a big hurry. It cleaned up nicely and we’re hoping to start advertising it in earnest within the next week or two. Also, we’re going to try a viral marketing campaign, offering a 1 percent finder’s fee to anyone who brings us a buyer. If we close, you get 1 percent. Not a bad deal …

I’ve posed a few more photos on my Flickr account and am uploading video that offers a bettter look at the great room. More soon …

Categories
Tribute Bob

A sad day for journalism …

Scripps has announced that it will sell The Albuquerque Tribune or, barring that, will close the paper.

I can’t even begin to say how devastated I am by this.

The Trib definitely was the apogee of my journalism career. I’ve never worked with a group of more talented, conscientious people. I’m still in touch with many of them. It also marked the first year of my marriage, our first house, fond memories of roaming the Sandia foothills with Pigpen and Crystal … So many memories flood back to me as I sit in a half-filled house that Lara and I are moving into in Knoxville, thousands of miles and decades away from the Albuquerque days.

I’m hoping for the best for my friends at The Trib and thinking about them a lot these days.

Perhaps the most amazing thing here is that the Tribunista spirit still is alive and well. In the story announcing the proposed sale, former and current Trib employees are flocking back to log memories and pay homage to the greatest little paper that ever was. It definitely brings a tear to my eye as I scroll through them, and it comforts me to know that no matter what happens, The Trib will live on in these incredible people.

Categories
Travel Bob

The travel gods give, the travel gods take …




dfw_sunrise.jpg

Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

Business travel can really suck. This past week was a great example. I managed to get stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare airport during a swarm of terrible thunderstorms that raked the Second City. As I watched lightning crash around the airfield it became increasingly clear that I wasn’t getting home that night. I was booked onto three flights. All canceled, forcing me to wait in a 2-hour cab line to get to the only hotel I could find. It was all the way downtown.

The next morning, I arrived at the airport early, knowing it would be a zoo. It was. After a few delays, I did manage to get home at about 5 p.m.

But the trip had a few bright spots:

— The sunrise pictured here, as viewed from my hotel room at DFW airport in Dallas. I returned to my room after a 5 a.m. struggle in the fitness center to be greated by this scene. Very cool.

— The Knoxville effect. It’s never hard to tell which gate the Knoxville flight is departing from. It’s the one with all the people wearing gaudy orange clothes and baseball caps with the UT Vols logo. And they talk to each other. While other gates are packed with people doing their best not to acknowledge each other’s existence, the KnoxVegas gate is filled with people who talk to each other and socialize. This was true even as we watched flight after flight cancel at O’Hare. Talked to several great folks and we decided to laugh instead of cry. A few of them spent the night at O’Hare, and I saw them the next morning after I returned from my hotel to try again. A true Knoxville experience.