Sunday column: Respect for authors

If there’s one group of people I really respect, it’s authors.
I say that as a guy who’s not read a ton of books in his life — I know, newspaper editor and writer who doesn’t like to read books … something’s not right about that, is it? But I also say that as a guy who, on his list of things he must do before he dies, has “write a book” near the very top.
Interesting side note of a few other things on my “before I die” list: Get my name as a listing on IMDB.com someway, learn to play the guitar, play said-guitar in front of an audience, be a rude American in France and be a Disney character at Disney World for just a day.
Of all those, “write a book” seems to fall best in line with my actual capabilities. I love to write, I have an active imagination and I want to produce something that makes me rich.
But I just can’t seem to get started. And that’s why I respect authors … they’ve all gotten over that hump.
For me, it’s coming up with the idea. I’ve got a few dozen of them (I want to write fiction) … but none of them seem to slap me in the face and scream “success.”
And maybe that’s my problem. I’m expecting success with the first thing I write. I’m expecting “Da Vinci Code” hysteria, and none of my ideas come off as Da Vinci-esque.
I had a talk with my wife this past week about it. She’s my biggest supporter and someone who’s always encouraged me to just lock myself in a room and get to writing. The problem with that is if the Internet’s on the same computer I’m writing on, I tend to check sports scores. If there’s a TV around, I get lost in a “Green Acres” marathon on TV Land.
I’m a procrastinator. A big strike against me.
The good news is I finally took my wife’s advice and just started writing, and even though I hate what I’ve done so far … well, at least I’ve started writing.
I took great joy in reading about one of my favorite authors — Chuck Palahniuk, who penned “Fight Club,” “Choke” (which is about to be released on film) and my favorite, “Invisible Monsters.” Palahniuk has become a cult icon for his sometimes shocking form of transgressional fiction.
His style is fluid, his imagination both sick and beautiful all at once.
But get this … Palahniuk didn’t begin writing fiction until his mid-30s.
I’m 31.
There’s hope for me, yet.
I know our area is full of people who love to write. Some have put their names on actual published books. Others stick to the Internet and entertain us with blogs. Some write for the sheer joy of just writing.
So I’m sure I’m not alone in my inability to write the world’s greatest novel. I’m open to writing tips and suggestions if you have them. E-mail me or give me a call.
And maybe you’ll be the one who helped me publish the book that allowed me to retire at 35.
Just don’t ask for a percentage of the profits.

3M incentive plan: Lee County

The Lee County Board of Commissioners on Monday will host a public hearing, discuss and vote on an incentives package for 3M, which is located at the Simpson Industrial Park in Sanford and employs about 180 people.

3M is proposing a project that will add new equipment to the building’s film coating facility and building renovations to accommodate the new equipment.

Details of the incentives package were laid out in an e-mail from County Manager John Crumpton that wasn’t delivered until either Thursday or Friday (I received my copy Friday). The fact that details on a major incentive were not made public until 3-4 days before a public hearing has many upset, and very understandably so.

The incentive figure calls for a total of $70,135 for 3M — $29,673 from the city of Sanford and more than $40,000 from Lee County. The incentives would be paid in five installments over five years of nearly $6,000 from the city (the packet didn’t show the county’s payout, but if it follows the same format, they would pay around $8,000 a year for five years).

I have just begun looking over the documents, and we will have more on Monday’s meeting and the incentives package in Sunday’s Herald.

Until then, you can download a PDF of the incentives plan here:
LEE COUNTY, 3M INCENTIVES PUBLIC HEARING

Lost Season 4 Finale: Frozen donkey wheel

Warning: SPOILERS below
Updated: 10:30 a.m. Friday, May 30

While it didn’t have the punch-in-the-gut impact Season 3’s cliffhanger had, the season 4 finale delivered big and lived up to the hype. Here’s one man’s assessment … enjoy:

Who’s in the coffin?
That was answered tonight — Jeremy Bentham. If you don’t want to know who Jeremy Bentham is (maybe you didn’t watch it yet), then read no further (and don’t look at the photo below).
Jeremy Bentham’s character was named after a utilitarian philosopher who designed the panopticon, a prison that allows the prisoners to be watched without their knowledge, something he described as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.” He also was buried in a coffin for with a glass top for public viewing. Take that for what you will.
We learn in the finale that he visited Walt, he visited Hurley, he visited Jack and Kate and Sayid (not sure about Sun) and told them all they needed to go back to the island. Turns out, very bad things happened to those who survived.
The closing scene shows Jack breaking into the funeral home he was in at the Season 3 finale to see Bentham’s body one last time. Before we see who’s in it, Ben Linus walks in and informs Jack that he can get back to the island, but he needs to do so with all 6 castaways … and John Locke, the man in the coffin.

How’d he get there?
John Locke seemed so sure of himself when he walked up to the Others camp after Linus informed him he’d be the leader. After a life of hard knocks, this is what John had been waiting for his entire life. He was a leader.
So why three years later did he leave the island, and why is he dead? Will getting him back to the island bring him back to life (it cured his “dead” legs, didn’t it?).
We have about 34 episodes of Lost left, and hopefully, we’ll see why things went so wrong. We’ll see what is driving Jack to near suicide. We’ll see why Locke ultimately gave his life to get people back to “save it.”

Desmond and Penny
I am not disappointed that they’re together. I was hoping, however, that their reunion would have been saved for the final season. Doing it now — here — seemed anti-climactic to me. Perhaps it was never meant to be what drove the show. Perhaps having Desmond in the picture will make Ben’s hunt to kill Penelope (to get even with Widmore, who had his daughter killed) will make that storyline better. I’ll trust Lost’s writers on this one.

Quick Hits:
• Sayid and Keamy’s fight: Single greatest fight in the show’s history. It took two bullets in the back to stop Keamy … Sayid finally met his match.
• Sawyer’s sacrifice: He jumped from the chopper so it could save fuel, only to swim ashore and happen upon a drunk Juliette. Oh yeah, they’re hookin’ up. So what did he whisper?
• Michael’s sacrifice: Loved the whispers and Christian Shephard’s appearance before the boom. Loved it. I’m also hoping Jin survived.
• Charlotte and Faraday: Daniel has lost the island (he was on the raft when it was ‘moved’), and Charlotte and Miles stayed on it. Charlotte’s there to find her birth place. Hmmm.
• Checkmate, Mr. Echo: Cool line, and I doubt it was just a throw-away line. The dead live on in Lost, which means even after we learn how John Locke died (probably by Season 5’s end), he’ll still be around.
• We have to lie: Up until the very end, Jack was skeptical. He saw the island vanish, yet he still wasn’t a believer. Then suddenly, right before Penny’s boat saved them, he decides they have to lie to protect the people on the island. I’m thinking Jack felt guilty about all the death that happened up to now, and the last thing he wanted was his conscience eating away at him (which it does anyway, we find out).

From ‘Doc’ Jensen at Entertainment Weekly
• Spooky how Locke was able to see the dark road that lay ahead for Jack. He told his rival that he was going to have to lie about the existence of the Island and the remaining castaways, and he knew that doing so would eat away at Doc Integrity. I also thought this was painfully catty: ”If you do it [lie to the world] half as well as you lie to yourself, they’ll believe you.” Rrrowww! Frankly, it’s that kind of insight — and button pushing — you usually get from Ben. Guess the Other is starting to rub off on John.
• As for Ben, we now know how he wound up in his Dharma parka in the Tunisian desert at the start of ”The Shape of Things to Come”: Apparently, that’s where he landed after he moved the Island. The date: October 24, 2005, or about 10 months from when Ben moved the Island. So…where did the Island go? Nowhere. My guess is that it’s in the same spot where it’s always been — it just rematerialized in reality 10 months in the future, just like Ben.
Click here for the full article

From Lostpedia
• During her flash-forward dream sequence, Kate receives a garbled phone call. When played backwards, the message states: “The Island needs you. You have to go back before it’s too late.”
• Each year the producers have a special name for a secret scene in that year’s finale. This year’s special name turned about to be literal – “Frozen Donkey Wheel”, referring to the frozen wheel Ben has to turn to activate the teleportation of the island.

Other fun stuff
• A commercial for Octagon Global Recruiting aired toward the end of the epsiode. This organization is looking for applicants for the DHARMA Initiative. Their recruitment drive begins in San Diego on July 24th – 27th, 2008. This is the same date as ComicCon ‘08. Click here for the Web site.
• Two alternate endings were aired on Good Morning America Friday. One had Desmond in the coffin, the other had Sawyer. Watch it below:

Trace embezzlement suspects arrested

News coming from the Lee County Sherrif’s Department today is that the former treasurer of the North Shores Property Owners Association (in the Carolina Trace subdivision) and his wife were arrested for allegedly embezzling more than $220,000 from the POA’s bank account.
Ed Fowler and his wife Helen were arrested Thursday. Ed Fowler was reportedly found in New Hampshire, where he is being held. It’s not yet known if he was in New Hampshire hiding or if it was just a trip. Helen was arrested in Lee County, according to reports.
A full story will appear in Friday’s Herald.

Function at the Junction schedule announced

The 2008 summer concert series at Depot Park in downtown Sanford has been announced. I’m posting the flier below. If you can’t read all of it, go to Downtown Sanford Inc’s Web site to download the large PDF (as of Thursday, they still had 2007’s up, but I’m sure they’ll add 2008 soon). Then get your eyes checked.

Loads of ‘Lost’ Links

Well, tonight’s the big season finale. Two whole hours of Losty-Lostness (three if you count that they’re showing last week’s episode at 8).
I’ll have an extra-long recap of the season and the finale tomorrow (heck, maybe even tonight). Until then, get in the Lost spirit by visiting the following links (some supplied by my beautiful Lost-lovin’ wife).

• Entertainment Weekly’s Lost preview: ‘Doc’ Jensen and his readers go into tons of predictions for tonight’s finale. One prediction is they’re moving the island to the arctic. If you think back to some arctic-related clues (polar bears, parkas, Penny’s search squad in the snow), it makes sense. Crud, I just ruined the finale, didn’t I?
• Top 15 moments from Season 4: Again, from Entertainment Weekly. I won’t tell you what No. 1 was, but I wills say I completely agree with their choice.
• Lost writers in the space-time continuum: From USA Today, an article about the time traveling Lost has performed brilliantly.
• Behind the scenes of Lost: Blog/article from the L.A. Times about the F-bombs in Lost’s scripts that don’t show up in the show.
• Take the hardest Lost quiz ever: I didn’t do so well on it, but I made some good guesses and got some right that I was surprised I knew.
• See the flash-forwards in chronological order: Somebody has taken the meaty parts from all of Lost’s flash-forwards and put them in correct time order. All in 8:15 … oooh, numbers.

Lost dog

Got this from Peggy Taphorn, director of the Temple Theatre, who has lost her 4-month-old puppy. The box mix was last seen near Steel and Chisolm streets in Sanford. A reward has been offered. Call Peggy at 774-4512, Ext. 223 or (917) 837-4188.
Here’s hoping she finds her pup.

The Josh Hamilton story

I was there for the short Nolan Ryan era in Arlington, Texas. I was there when newcomers Pudge Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez burst on the scene and took the Texas Rangers to the playoffs three times.
I sat on the hard steel bleachers (the kind that put the lines in your butt) in the outfield at the old Arlington Stadium, and I was there for the opening of the beautiful Ballpark in 1994.
I’m a huge Texas Rangers fan … through thick and thin. The current era of Rangers baseball is the “thin” part, but thanks to a North Carolina boy, things are looking up.
For a while, Josh Hamilton was on a path to be one of the saddest stories in baseball — a phenom from Athens High School in Raleigh who took his multi-million dollar contract out of college and wasted it in on drugs (the hard kind) and booze (the hard kind).
But Hamilton has turned his career around in Texas this year, currently leading or almost leading the American league in the three Triple Crown categories — batting average, home runs and RBI. Sports Illustrated has written a fascinating article on him, dubbing him The Natural.

Here’s an excerpt:
He is sitting in the video room at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, speaking in his soft North Carolina drawl, a plug of tobacco inside his left cheek. He’s wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and the 26 tattoos he acquired during his years bingeing on booze and drugs are exposed. Satan’s face gazes out from the crook of his left elbow, blue flames shoot down both his forearms; he now regrets getting every one of them.

Click here for the full article.

How would you grade Sanford’s beautification?

I wasn’t here at the time, but I’m told “beautification” was the buzz word during the most recent mayoral election, and it was mentioned (but not at the forefront) during the most recent city council election back in November.
Currently, we have a poll at sanfordherald.com that asks readers to grade Sanford’s beautification.
My grade right now: C
I think our city has a lot going for it … the recent effort to beautify Horner Boulevard (which needs it) from U.S. 1 to the Washington Ave. railroad bridge; the soon-to-be started Endor Iron Furnace greenway, which will begin in Sanford and wind through much of Lee County; and I think the work being done on and around the new bypass has been done with greenery and aesthetics in mind.
Sanford’s west side, which is considered its “rich side,” and that’s no secret has its moments. Several neighborhoods in the area are a joy just to drive through, but visitors to Sanford rarely get to see this side.
My “C” grade comes because of some of the plight we’re seeing downtown (don’t get me wrong, great efforts are being made in some areas, but there are still too many empty buildings, unkept streets and more for the grade to be any higher). My “C” grade comes because of the way many businesses along Horner Boulevard have completely let their store fronts go. My “C” grade comes because of the plight you see in portions of the eastern side of Sanford, where nice well-kept homes are mixed with rundown homes and empty boarded-up lots.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts — the good and the bad of Sanford’s beautification efforts. Out of 138 voters so far, 38 percent have given the city a C, 20 percent a B, 18 percent a D and 17 percent an F. Only 6 percent have given the city an A.

Hiking in N.C.: Raven Rock State Park

My wife and I, our two dogs, our friends and their two dogs followed The Herald’s advice this past Sunday and celebrated Memorial Day within 30 miles of Sanford by going to Raven Rock State Park, located off 421 about 6-7 miles before Lillington.
We’d been to Raven Rock once before, last year before the leaves started growing and the weather was a little cooler during the fall, we made the trip and did the 2.5-mile hike to the giant rock (“the” Raven Rock) and back. It was a scenic, beautiful hike with lots of hills and the cool giant rock.
But this time, we took the Campbell Creek trail, a 5.5-mile windy, rocky, creeky trail that was enough to make my legs quiver when it was all said and done.
But was it fun? Will I go again?

Raven Rock State Park
Location: Just west of Lillington on U.S. 421
Distance from Sanford: 17-20 miles, less than half an hour
Closest big city: Fayetteville
Number of hiking trails: 10 total, some are suited for horseback riding
Other amenities: Picnic tables-a-plenty, bathrooms, canoe rental and river access to Cape Fear River, primitive tent camping, fishing spots, tubing (bring your own)
Pet friendly: Yes, pets on a leash
Web site: www.ncparks.gov/Visit/parks/raro/main.php

Click map for full-size image

The Hiking:
Like I said earlier, the actual Raven Rock trail is the medium-length trail, a 2.6-mile loop with lots of hills and some very steep stairs once you reach the rock, which stands 150-feet tall from the river. It’s a moderately difficult hike, even though it is short, but the payoffs are the great scenic views of the river and lots of little creeks.
This week, we took the Campbell Creek loop, which is 5 miles total, but more if you detour to see Lanier Falls or some of the campgrounds. While this trail has a few ups and downs, it’s mostly level and if you veer left at the first fork, then the second half of your trail hike will be along Campbell Creek, which has several entry points to allow your dog to get wet or to let the kids go in knee deep. We didn’t see any snakes, though we think our dog saw one (a funny moment where our dog Miles hopped through the creek after seeing something move).
The last .7 miles of the trail is uphill, which is killer after you’ve already almost gone 5 miles … but you feel good when it’s all said and done.
The Lanier Falls portion of the trail was a bit of a disappointment because you really couldn’t stick your feet in the river (and it’s barely “falls,” it’s more of a little stretch of white water … which looked fun for tubing). The creek was by far the most interesting part of this hike.

The con: It was the end of May and we had a wet spring, so of course, there were tons of ticks. We wore bug repellant, but even that wasn’t enough to keep them off of us, as my wife and I both found one or two on us when we were done. Our dogs — which wear Frontline tick and flea repellant — weren’t so lucky. Miles, which had a Frontline treatment done earlier that day, faired better with just 3 or 4 ticks, but our little dog Honey must have had 20 altogether. They ranged in size from the big ones with the yellow dot on their back to the tiny ones between her toes. We think we got them all, but it will certainly make us reconsider Raven Rock this time of year.
I know there are few state parks now where there aren’t ticks, but this was a little ridiculous.

Overall, we like Raven Rock because of its proximity and all it has to offer. As it gets hotter, that 5-mile hike will get tougher for some, but we may make it out again this summer if only to try the canoeing .. possibly get in a camping trip. Who knows.

Grade: 3 out of 5 stars

Other reviews:
Morrow Mountain State Park: ***