Part of this has to do with the fact that television programming really stinks right now. Part of it has to do with the fact that my 4-year-old son is a sports nut. And part of it has to do with how personal these Beijing games feel.

It’s not just the inclusion of local athletes – most notably Noblesville’s own Olympian, David Boudia. This paper has covered the diver closely for years, and – along with his parents – he is providing content from the Olympics for our Boudia Beijing Journal that runs in our sports pages. But I’ve never met David nor his parents, Jim and Sheilagh.

It’s another story when it comes to others connected to the U.S. diving squad.

Many years ago as a young sports reporter, one of the beats I covered was the Ball State University swimming and diving teams. The diving coach at that time was John Wingfield, who is now Boudia’s coach. Wingfield has logged considerable face time on the Olympic telecasts.

While I’ve had my share of conversations with Wingfield, those chats pale in comparison the number of times I’ve interviewed Ned and Marian Dunnichay, the parents of 15-year-old Elwood diver Mary Beth Dunnichay. I covered cops and courts in Madison County for two different papers during my career. At different times, Ned and Marian each have served as coroner for Madison County. When Mary Beth competed in the synchronized platform diving event Tuesday, the cameras kept flashing to Ned and Marian.

I’ve had brushes with many of the other athletes in these games. For years, I’ve worked a part time job doing behind the scenes work for telecasts of sporting events. Most of the members of the men’s basketball team I’ve seen up close and personal several times during Pacers games. Having worked many Indiana Fever games, I’ve even shared a few “hellos” with U.S. Olympian and Fever star Tamika Catchings.

In 2005 I worked the U.S. Gymnastics Championships in Indianapolis and rubbed elbows with nearly all the U.S. gymnasts competing in Beijing.

I have to admit, seeing people I know or have been around on the Olympics telecasts is pretty cool.

In this business, it’s not unusual to see someone you know or someone you’ve interviewed on television. But this is the Olympics. The whole world is watching the games.

So if Michael Phelps’ march toward history in the pool, or women’s beach volleyball weren’t already enough to draw my attention, the prospects of seeing a familiar face have made these Olympic games well worth a watch.

Just look at the pages of your paper throughout the week and you’ll see listings for hundreds of events, programs, fundraisers, galas and festivals. This doesn’t even take into account the dozens of government meetings, sporting events and things that just pop up.

Try as we might, we here at the Noblesville Daily Times just can’t be all places at all times. Covering a county this big with a staff our size is a daunting task.

Everyday, there are events we just cannot cover with a reporter or a photographer. But that doesn’t mean those events don’t deserve coverage. It certainly doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a spot in your paper. That’s right … your paper.

A community newspaper is an interactive forum. Your contributions should not be limited to letters to the editor or online comments.

From our social networking Web site Hamilton County Today.com, to our printed products to our brand new prep sports Web site Fans Post.com, reader-generated content – pictures, videos and the written word produced by you, the readers – is important to what we do.

Newspapers have long embraced certain items from readers – the traditional engagement photos and birth announcements. But today’s readers – having become accustomed to the interactive digital world – expect more input, and we try to give you that forum.

When you’re out at an event, feel free to click a few pictures and send them to us. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sporting event, or a fundraiser or a church event, take some pictures of your friends and neighbors and get them to us.

If your church or sorority or service group is planning a function, drop us a line, we’ll get that in too.

We often have people ask what is the best way to get items to us. Well, I typically tell them whatever is most convenient for them.

We can take items you drop by our office in the Model Mill Building, or that you mail to us. You can even pick up the phone and call. For a quicker turn around, e-mail works great. Just remember that if you send an attachment, be sure to jot a quick note in the body of the e-mail to let us know what the attachment is.

Our digital products provide even more options. You can log onto Hamilton County Today.com or Fans Post.com and upload your own photos and videos. You can upload your own press releases and calendar events at noblesvilledailytimes.com through the Post It Here feature.

Never has it been so easy to get something in the paper. And never has it been so important to us that you do so. Like I said, we can’t be everywhere, but we certainly can offer you the space to take us there.

I’ve been told several times in recent weeks that longtime Republican dominance in Hamilton County is coming to an end. Of course, this analysis comes from Democrats. As I look at the slate of candidates for county offices in the November General Election, all I can think is, the proof is in the pudding.

Ten county offices are up for grabs. Just two of those have Democrats slated for November’s election.

In May, we began hearing how Democrats are finally getting some options to vote for in the county. Earlier this month, the Democratic Party opened its first permanent headquarters in Hamilton County since the 1980s. Hamilton County Democratic Chairman Keith Clock said the 42,000 people who voted in the county’s Democratic primary is proof of the high number of Democrats who are finally able to stand up and be counted after decades of being forced to vote Republican, or for nothing at all.

Happy days are here again. Or are they?

The first true test will come in the presidential election in November. Lot’s of Hamilton County voters cast their ballot for a Democratic presidential candidate in May. Will they this fall?

Nothing draws voters like a presidential election. In May, the ability to choose between presidential candidates inspired many to carry a little card marked with a D into Hamilton County voting booths – many doing so for the first time.

While the Republican race was already sewn up, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were still engaged in mortal combat in May. As we were told ad nauseam, this time Indiana’s votes counted in the presidential race.

Well, all Hamilton County voters – not just those casting a Democratic ballot – will have the opportunity to choose between viable presidential candidates come November. Anyone else get the feeling that presumptive Republican candidate John McCain will carry the reddest county in one of the reddest states in the nation?

For me though, the true sign that a party has come of age shows in the local offices. Eight county offices on the ballot in November offer only Republican candidates. Eight out of 10. That’s pretty dominant if you ask me.

It’s true that as more new residents move into the area, Democrats will be amongst them.

And I absolutely agree that many people in the county who would otherwise choose a Democratic ballot in the primaries vote Republican here in Hamilton County so that they can have a say in their local government. Therein lies the problem. If the Hamilton County Democratic Party wants to lay claim to a great coming out, then they need to give the closet Democrats a reason to come out of the closet.

Until the party offers a substantial slate of local candidates, any reports of the demise of Republican dominance in Hamilton County are greatly exaggerated.

I hope you got chance to check out our fair preview section in last Saturday’s edition of the Daily Times. In it, we laid out all you needed to know about the fair including a schedule and locator map.

But that was just the beginning. In recent days we’ve covered events including the fair queen competition, the beginning of judging and animal move-in day. Today, we bring you coverage of the fair in multiple platforms. In this edition of our printed product you get photos and stories about what’s going on at the fairgrounds. Online you can find dozens of other photos and a video about the fair’s opening day.

Throughout the end of the fair next week we will continue to keep you on top of what is happening at the county fair.

Any county event that draws tens of thousands of visitors is something worthy of our coverage. But the 4-H Fair is special. The fair is about fun. The fair is about food. But it is also about teaching young people responsibility and hard work.

Nearly 2,000 youths put their blood, sweat and tears into their 4-H projects. That hard work deserves recognition. That’s why you see their faces and names in your paper every day.

That’s why we also will bring you a commemorative results section July 31.

In years past, we’ve run 4-H project results throughout the course of the fair. We’d have to plug them in where we had room. That made it tough for our readers to know where to look to find them. It also made it easy for a proud parent to miss the day their kid’s grand champion recognition made the paper.

Last year, we compiled all those results in one easy-to-navigate, collectible package following the fair. Our readers loved it. This year we’ll do the same.

Not only does this give 4-H’ers and their families a keepsake of their accomplishments, but it frees up space in each day’s edition of our print product to bring you more sights, sounds and stories from the fair.

When you are at the fair, make sure to stop by the Daily Times booth and let us know how we’re doing, or just say hi. At the booth you can also register to be a contestant in our Deal With the Daily Times game for a chance to win up to $1,000.

Deal With the Daily Times will be 3 p.m. Sunday at the Exhibition Center.

If you see reporter/photographer/4-H fanatic Robert Herrington, make sure to tell him you appreciate the hard work and long hours he’s putting in at the fairgrounds for you. I hear his editor is a grouchy jerk who tosses around compliments like they are manhole covers, so he could probably use a pat on the back.

Speaking of the grouchy editor, I’ll be at the fair periodically, and will be manning the Daily Times booth along with Managing Editor Rob Borders Sunday afternoon. We’d love to meet you.

It is true that more knowledge is available at the fingertips of more people than ever before in the history of mankind. The problem is, along with all that information comes more than a healthy dose of misinformation.

Cyberspace is ripe with asteroid belts of rumor, gossip and outright lies. Often these falsehoods grow organically and innocently, as rumors become fact in chat rooms – a modern day version of the old telephone game where a fact is twisted and changed as it passes from one person to another.

Other times the deceit is deliberate and dirty. I wish I had a dollar for every e-mail I’ve received in recent months containing bold-face lies aimed at assassinating the character of the various presidential candidates. Mudslinging and deception is nothing new in politics. The problem is, when Joe Sixpack gets a chain e-mail full of “information” about a candidate, then Joe sees the information repeated by traditional media outlets that also received the “information,” he’s going to believe it.

That’s what scares me most about the so-called information age. Media outlets hungry for juicy gossip, peer-to-peer “journalism” and wanting to be on top of the latest “hot” topics have taken to espousing this information as truth, without any independent verification.

In the past couple weeks major news outlets have been caught with egg on their faces because they fell prey to Internet hoaxes. I read a story about photos taken of a “lost Amazon tribe” on a number of Web sites.

It has since been revealed that the tribe in the photos was anything but “lost.”

News outlets were scrambling days later when it was revealed that a video clip showing a “catch” by a ball girl at a Triple A baseball game was a fake. Those outlets had shown the clip – which has the young lady scaling a wall and making a miraculous backhanded stab – which turned out to video from a sports drink commercial.

I don’t mean to cast a condescending stone at those media outlets. As newsroom budgets shrink, editors and news producers are forced to find content from alternative sources.

This new fangled problem brings to mind an ancient Latin phrase – caveat emptor – let the buyer beware.

I’m not a legal scholar, but I have covered the law most of my career, and read way more than my share of Supreme Court opinions. In the end, I think the court got it right.

The ruling in District of Columbia, et al v. Heller struck down a Washington D.C. law that essentially prohibited handgun ownership. The court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to own guns.

It is the first time since 1939 that the court had taken on the issue of Americans’ right to bear arms.

In the 64-page majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledged that many feel that right, as promised in the Bill of Rights, is “outmoded.” But, he wrote, “… it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

From a legal standpoint, I think that is right on the money. You hear so much political rhetoric about “activist judges” trying to legislate from the bench. Those occurrences are few and far between, but make for good fodder by those with a political axe to grind. This ruling is a perfect example of how government should work, and in fact, usually does work here in America – the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch determines if those laws are being followed.

As for the bigger, real world application of the decision – will this lead to more crime and violent deaths – only time will tell, but my guess it will not.
Many nations allow their citizens to own guns yet do not see the number of gun-related deaths we see in the U.S. That tells me there are forces at play other than just the right to bear arms. Yet many believe stricter laws are the answer to bringing down violent crime rates.

If history teaches us anything, it is that enacting more laws seldom solves anything.

Ironically, this week was the 75th anniversary of Indiana ratifying the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition. Leading up to Prohibition, many claimed outlawing alcohol would cut crime and immorality. Once it was imposed in 1920, Prohibition had the exact opposite effect, leading to organized crime and making otherwise law-abiding citizens turn to dangerous bootleg liquor. You can’t legislate morality.

When it comes to guns, the government can make all the laws it wants and criminals will still get their hands on them.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe all Americans have the right to own bazookas. Justice Scalia, in the majority opinion, pointed out that like all rights, the Second Amendment is not unlimited.

I grew up with guns, shooting from practically the time I could walk. I have no handguns in my house, though. I removed them when I had kids. Despite the availability of trigger locks and gun cabinets, I just didn’t feel secure having one in the house where my kids or their friends might somehow stumble across it. Better safe than sorry.

But I don’t feel it is my place to tell others they can’t have guns in their homes. And I don’t feel it is the government’s place, either.

As Henry David Thoreau wrote in his influential essay “Civil Disobedience,” echoing the feelings of the founding fathers, “That government is best which governs the least.”

Most importantly, a good journalist never stops learning about his or her craft. The hope is that each day you are a little better at the job than you were the day before.

This week, I was able to spend some time with one of the great newspaper men in the state at the premier newspaper in the state, as judged by the Hoosier State Press Association.

Our sister publication, The Herald-Times in Bloomington, was chosen the Blue Ribbon Daily – the best all around paper in the state – by the HSPA in 2007. Bob Zaltsberg has led the Herald-Times’ news staff since 1985 and is an industry giant.

I spent time in Bloomington at the Herald-Times in hopes of making the Daily Times here in Noblesville even better. I think we’ve got a pretty good paper here already. But we’re always looking to improve. And anytime you get a chance to spend a few days in a newsroom like the one they have in Bloomington, you jump at it.

Z — as everyone knows him — described his staff as a little “tired,” this week. They’ve been working nonstop in recent weeks covering the devastating floods that have hit the southern portion of our state – the heart of the Herald-Times coverage area. Yet, the newsroom was hopping and vibrant while I was there this week. It was good to sit in on their planning meetings, and watch them practice their craft, seeing how a staff that big – more than 40 journalists – works together.

It was also heartening to see that despite being big and successful, the H-T faces many of the same challenges we do everyday here at the NDT.

I’ve worked in many newsrooms, and visited dozens. But it’s always good to visit a new one to gain insight and perhaps steal a few tricks of the trade.

It was a great experience, which I intend to put to use here. I’ll keep you posted in coming weeks about some changes coming for your hometown daily paper. Some have been planned for a while, others grew out of my trip to Bloomington.

As always, if you have any ideas about how we can better serve you, my door, phone line and e-mail account are always open. You can also pitch ideas through our online suggestion box at noblesvilledailytimes.com.

Journalists learn not only from one another, but most importantly, we learn by listening to our readers. In this business, we’re always looking to learn and improve.

What the hell was I thinking?

Being a father is hard. It’s like trying to pick up a penny while wearing boxing gloves. It’s maddening. It leaves you wondering if there is any hope for success.

Then your daughter brings home a bar of soap she fashioned into a fish for you as a Father’s Day gift during an art project at daycare, and the gloves come off. Suddenly you aren’t merely picking up a penny, but acquiring a wealth you never dreamed possible.

Of course, two hours later that same sweet soap artist refuses to comply in any way as you get her ready for a bath – running butt naked through the house laughing louder and louder the angrier and angrier you get – and those 12-ounce Everlasts are back, firmly affixed to your hands.

There’s no way to prepare for the rollercoaster ride that is fatherhood until you are strapped in that seat and shooting through a corkscrew.

People try to warn you about how tough it can be – the diapers filled with stuff that couldn’t possibly have come from inside a human, the frustration of potty training, the whining over the most inane things.

You might think you get it, but until you’ve dealt with the full-scale meltdown of your own child in a crowded restaurant, you have no clue.

People try to tell you about the rewards – the first time your child calls you daddy, the hugs, the laughter that echoes through your soul.

You might think you get it, but until you’ve tucked your son into bed, and he says “you’re the best daddy I’ve ever had in the world,” you have no clue.
Fatherhood is not what I expected at all. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes that’s a very bad thing.

One of the main reasons I wanted to be a father was to instill life lessons. I looked forward to those days of intense heart-to-hearts where I’d teach my children right from wrong, and how to avoid the mistakes I’ve made.

What I’ve learned with two toddlers – Zach is 4, Emily 2 – is that they learn much more from watching than from being told. That’s been a tough lesson for me. I’ve long known what I wanted to tell my kids about any number of issues. I’ve always been good at explaining a situation or teaching someone how to do something or simplifying a matter. What I’ve always struggled with is setting a good example with my own behavior.

I’ve never been someone who cares what others think of him. I’ve lived my life on my own terms, and if anyone had an issue with me, that was their problem. Just as pregnant women are told they are eating for two, however, as a father of two, I feel I’m living for three. The impressions I make do matter now. Destructive behavior I may exhibit impacts more than just me, whether I like it or not. I care deeply what my children think of me.

By far the toughest thing for me as a dad has been striking that delicate balance between buddy and bully. Every parent wants their kids to love them. Nothing feels better to me than being my son’s funny pal, my daughter’s hero. But being a good parent means being just that, a parent, not a friend. It’s tough being the bad guy – making them go to bed when they don’t want to, saying no when they want that new toy.

On the flip side, I have to allow them to be kids, and not hover over them, scrutinizing every step or misstep. I’ve always been a bit of a control freak – about as anal retentive a person as you’d ever meet. I’ve always craved order and perfection. Life with kids is messy, though. They will force you to either let go of that, or go insane. The jury’s still out on which path I’ve chosen.

One thing is for sure, Zach and Emily have made me a better man. Fatherhood has been harder than I could have ever imagined, but I’m so much more complete for having experienced it.

Tomorrow, they will present me various handmade crafts and cards their mother picked out thanking me for all I’ve done for them. Yet I should be thanking them.

Father’s Day is supposed to be a day when kids tell their dads how lucky they are to have them as a parent. We fathers, though, we know we are the lucky ones.

I find Moore for the most part to be a bombastic boob. Often his “interviews” in his films are nothing more than ambushes used to spin the message and drive an agenda, not seek the truth. As someone who also grew up in a hunting family, I also believe in responsible gun ownership. However, I am someone who eagerly exposes himself to points of view different than my own in hopes of better understanding a subject.

Moore’s 2002 documentary did not help me better understand the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, but it did raise one interesting thought with which I agree wholeheartedly: America is a nation that loves to be afraid.

The film points out how Americans are constantly bombarded with messages of doom to the point that we are one of the few places in the world where nearly everyone locks the doors of their homes.

This point was hammered home Tuesday night as I watched local television news coverage of thunderstorms that blew through the state. While each of the networks I scanned no doubt felt they were providing a public service, much of the coverage was blatant fear mongering.

On one station, the meteorologist worked hard to keep things in perspective, despite the best efforts of the anchors to get him to scream “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!”

Let’s make no mistake, I am a longtime, unabashed basher of local TV weatherpeople. But this particular meteorologist was performing admirably, and was performing a vital public service. Yet the station was dedicating more than a full hour to storm team coverage during the late primetime slot, so the anchors had to keep the broadcast compelling.

Repeatedly they asked the weatherman to compare the size of a storm looming in Illinois to those that ripped through Indianapolis a week ago Friday. Despite the radar jockey’s best attempts to explain that size doesn’t matter in a thunderstorm, that intensity is what kills, the anchors picked and prodded. I was waiting for the weather guy to give up and say “fine, this line of storms in Illinois will no doubt produce tornadic activity that will trumpet the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” He held his ground, however, pointing out over and over that all the tornado warnings in the state had been cancelled by then.

All you have to do is turn on the TV, read a newspaper or pick up a magazine and you see food recall after food recall. You are told that meat will kill you and you have to drink 50 gallons of water a day or you will die or that this drug or that is the only way to keep from getting breast cancer. The government tells us that security threats are changing colors and that terrorists are going to blow us all to smithereens.

This isn’t simply a matter of the evil media trying to sell copies of their product. The problem is the proliferation of media. Fifty years ago, a tragedy might be played out on three TV stations and a few radio stations. Now it’s on a few dozen TV stations and hundreds of Web sites. This leads to the erroneous conclusion that school shootings are on the rise. They aren’t. Or that violent crime rates continue to skyrocket. They aren’t. People must learn to keep such reports in perspective. But it is hard.

It’s enough to make you take off and head to the woods for a long weekend.

I’m definitely not a “glass is half full” kinda guy. But, as you may know, I’m working on shifting my paradigm, generating a positive aura, and all that kind of feel-good hippie-type crap out of fear of an early coronary and a life of regrets if I don’t change my ways.

So today, I am actually offering a list of things that have me pretty happy right now (you know, in addition to the happy family, good home, good job, and all that other regular junk). In no particular order, and without further ado:

1.  As you read this, I will still be coming down from the Eric Clapton show Friday night. Slowhand is one of my heroes, and thanks to an early birthday present from my family and some connections from my sister-in-law, I was able to catch the show at Verizon Wireless Music Center. I had been afraid I’d miss it as my concert budget has shrunken as my kids-need-stuff budget has grown.

I’ve seen Clapton many times over the years, and each time I’m afraid it will be the last as he’s treated his body even worse than I’ve treated mine over the years, and he’s getting up there in age. Afterall, it’s more than four decades since London graffiti regularly proclaimed that “Clapton is God.” The thought of missing him in his first-ever appearance at Verizon, just a few miles from my house, had me pretty bummed. But the SIL saved the day. I mean, when god comes to Noblesville, you HAVE to see him.

2. The Clapton show was a nice lead-in to one of my favorite weeks of the year. Every year for most of the past decade, my buddies and I have taken a boys-only camping trip. Not that we don’t love our wives and kids, but it’s nice to get away for several days each spring or summer to be slobs with no responsibility.

This year’s trip is this week, and I couldn’t be more excited. This is the only time of the year I see some of these guys, and as our lives become ever more hectic, I’ve been seeing even less of those who live around here. I’m looking forward to getting reconnected with nature and my friends, enjoying a few good cigars and adult beverages, and playing some music without two toddlers climbing all over my neck and my guitar’s.

3. Speaking of guitars and music, you have to check out the new “Mudcrutch” album. Mudcrutch was a band that featured Tom Petty and future Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, which gained some regional notoriety before they left Florida for fame and fortune in Southern California. Petty, Campbell and Tench hooked up with former Mudcrutch members Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh to write and record the self-titled album released last month.

While a couple songs would feel right at home on any of Petty’s recent releases, the entirety of the Mudcrutch disc is pure country-based rock, more reminiscent of The Byrds or The Flying Burrito Brothers than the Heartbreakers. It’s a really good album and has been in regular rotation in my disc player and my iPod the past month.

4. Finally, spring is here. Sure my allergies are driving me nuts, but there’s something about being able to get out of the house, play with the kids in the yard and not have to wear a coat to really put a spring (pun intended) in one’s step.