Clearly, whoever thought McDonald’s isn’t a way of life has never been to Norwich, NY. For anyone who hasn’t noticed, the Norwich McDonald’s was demolished the other day to make way for a new, modernized McDonald’s. Yes, gone are the days when you can satisfy your craving for a McCheeseburger and a McShake, resulting in a need for McInsulin and a McNap – temporarily anyway. A picture of the demolition site got its fair share of comments on the Evening Sun Facebook page too (I’ve heard McDonald’s called a lot of different things, but never a “historic building” before. That’s a wee bit of stretch). Now that McDonald’s is closed and all that’s left is a few grease stains on the pavement where it once stood, I’m looking for a new restaurant where I can get all my free napkins and ketchup packets; I’m running low already.

Scary stuff for the folks at Chobani this week after an ammonia leak forced employees to evacuate, but I applaud the company for the way it handled the emergency. It’s nice to know everyone’s safe. And while on the subject of Chobani, the company’s still shooting it’s commercial using local farms, employees, and people. Soon, I know Chenango County’s going to have its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, earning a rightful spot someplace between Jackie Gleason and the country band Alabama (Yeah, I would say a lot of Chenango Countians are a cross between those two).

As I’m sure most are well aware by now, Facebook went public last week with the intent of turning billionaires into gazillionaires. Unfortunately, it seems that the value of Facebook was a little exaggerated and stocks of Facbook have sunk like a bag of rocks since it’s IPO (if only life were full of guarantees… I wonder how many investors are unfriending Mark Zuckerberg). And now, it seems that some of the company’s shareholders are pursuing a lawsuit, suing Facbook Inc because they believe Facebook’s value was intentionally modified. Suing someone for loosing a gamble? It all goes back to that old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, accuse someone of faulty information that veils crucial statistics and leads to the substantial decline of common stock.” Who didn’t recite that line once or twice as a child?

On a more personal note, my wife and I are planning a trip to New York City this weekend. It’s going to be the second mini vacation we’ve had since marrying in 2009, so it should be nice, even if I’m not looking forward to driving in that mess. The crowded streets, bumper to bumper traffic, concrete and glass everywhere – It’s a long leap from my visit to Smithville earlier this week (Cue theme from “Green Acres”).

Very rarely does a week feel like it was a week long. There are weeks that fly by and others that seem to defy all natural laws of time and space, moving so slowly it forces the hands of the clock to actually spin backwards; but that wasn’t the case this week – just five days, Monday through Friday, 24 hours each, no more, no less. It’s one for the record books.

On Thursday, I had the privilege of covering the Sherburne-Earlville Wall of Fame induction ceremony at the S-E high school. As an S-E alumni, I would say it was nostalgic being there, however, there have been so many renovations, it didn’t feel like the same building. I almost felt I could get re-lost and should leave a trail of bread crumbs to find my way out. My congratulations to all this year’s honorees. Everyone of them really deserves it. As for me, next year’s my year so make room for the “Shawn Magrath” spot on the wall. I’ll help hundreds of elderly women cross streets throughout the county, plant trees and encourage recycling, save a litter of puppies from a burning building – whatever it takes to be honored. (Just for reference, I would like my plaque photo taken from my right side).

On Wednesday, Chobani announced that beginning next week, it would film a commercial to air during the Summer Olympics and that it would be comprised entirely of people, farmers and businesses in Chenango County. This is great economic and agricultural news for a county that can sometimes feel like it’s nothing more than an ingrown hair on the face of NY state; everyone knows it’s there but no one really wants to look at it. I, on the other hand, happen to agree with what was said by Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya: This area has a great story to tell. It’s a beautiful area and it really does have a lot to offer, so a big hurray for us. Already, I can see some locals getting a big head from the fame roused by national television exposure – I look forward to the first low-riding tractor I see with spinning chrome rims.

I’m not a fan of gossip as it’s seen on the front pages of tabloids in every grocery store check-out line, but I figure it’s worth mentioning that former Vice President Al Gore now has a girlfriend. The two were spotted under a drove of flying pigs in the pale light of a blue moon… imagine that.

Is “Just Sayin” the new, trendy slogan. I’ve seen it all over Facebook lately (never used by me) and today, for the first time, I saw it at the end of a ‘30 seconds’ post. I’ve nothing against anyone who throw in those last two senseless words, but good God, is it obnoxious – right up there with the overuse of the word “like” (as in ‘I’m, like, typing a blog’). Fortunately, I now know I don’t stand alone in my battle against all phrases that annoy me. Together we can beat this stupid trend Man from Sherburne.

Another $52,000 has been tacked on to the total cost of the Kurt Beyer Pool renovation project. Who would have ever thought that a pool would cost so much money? It’s a hole in the ground that holds water. Nonetheless, I commend the city for moving forward with the project. It’s better than the alternative; a kiddy pool and a slip ‘n’ slide in the back corner of Rotary Park…

Apparently, the national gas price average has fallen for the fifth consecutive week. Has anyone noticed? Yeah, me neither. I’ll be a little more impressed when $5 of gas is enough to get me out of the Hess parking lot. Just sayin’.

To offset the cost of gas, how about a hover car that produces no emissions? In comes Volkswagon to the rescue. The company has unveiled a concept design for a hover car that would undoubtedly change the way we get around and even more exciting, bring us what we’ve all been waiting for… reduced road kill and significant jump in mid-air collisions! Finally! I would happily explain how the hover car works if I understood it (something to do with magnets) but thank the stars I write for a living.

Sunday is Mother’s Day. My macaroni necklace and Popsicle stick picture frame gifts are coming along very nicely and so far, no unfortunate hot glue incidents. It’s going to be a good day. Just sayin’.

After careful deliberation and weeks of weighing my options, I’ve decided it’s time for me to move on. The last few weeks have been difficult and there’s no question that I’ve reached an impasse. Clearly, I have overstayed my welcome and with a heavy heart I say, I’m leaving MySpace.

I know this is sudden and may come as an untimely surprise. I just want everyone to know, I’m taking all my pictures with me. I would like to thank the friends I still have, especially Tom, who’s been there since the beginning.

It’s always a relief to get bad news out in the open.

Now that I have that monkey off my back, May 4th, as many already know, is “Star Wars Day” (May the 4th be with you)… Not much I have to say about it; I just thought it was worth mentioning.

Also worth mentioning, the CEO of Yahoo! falsified his resume, saying that he earned a Baccalaureate in Accounting and Computer Science when his degree was really just in Accounting. Of course, Yahoo! is passing it off as an “inadvertent error,” which is a fancy way of saying, “Oops, I screwed up.” Anyhow, it got me thinking of how many people in the area have jobs because they lied on their resume. There’s a lot of pressure in getting a good job and really, imagine what you would be able to offer a new employer with the skills you’ve developed as a “championship diver,” “professional tamer of large mammals,” “astronaut,” and “inventer of the weel.” (Mr. Magrath, why don’t you tell me a little bit about how your experiences as Prime Minister of Norway might help us here at the Evening Sun).

And we all know that the things we choose to lie about will look a hundred times better than the ugly truth:
• Objective: I want to play a major part in watching the company advance.
• Education: Graduated eighth in a class of ten
• Strengths: I have integrity so I will not steal the office supplies and take them home
• Achievements: Nominated for prom queen
• Special skills: Can hold my breath for 53.7 seconds
• Hobbies: Having a good time
• Work related background: Employers say I shouldn’t work with other employees
• Reason for leaving current employer: Terminated after saying it would be a blessing to get fired
• Personal: My family is willing to relocate. However, not to New England (too cold) and not to Southern California (earthquakes). Indianapolis or Chicago would be fine. My youngest prefers Orlando’s proximity to Disney World.

Lately, I’ve been considering the possibility of buying a new cell phone. Mine has lived well past its life expectancy and has finally reached the point where it works but only when it wants to. In a way, I’ll be sad to see it go. It’s lived in my pocket for so, I’ve dropped it more times than I can count over the years, and it still has the old (slightly embarrassing) ring tones that no one has anymore. But if you want to talk about ROI, I bought it for $15 back in 2006 – I’ve gotten my money’s worth.

So I embark on the search for a new phone and my options are as wide as the ocean is deep, the sky is high, and as hairless cats are ugly. The market for phones has exploded over the last ten years, which has become clear just by watching prime time television commercials (phone commercial, car commercial, car commercial, phone commercial, phone commercial, phone commercial, low calorie soft-drink commercial, phone commercial, and back to the show). There are so many choices of phones that by the time I decide which to get, I’m not going to want to use it – I’m just going to want to take a nap.

As much as I’ve always said I would never go the way of smart phones, I’m really considering it now. It would be great to get emails on my phone; my biggest fear is getting a phone that’s smarter than I am (I’m talking about you, Siri). Of course, there are other options. I would happily use my old wall-mounted rotary phone if it didn’t take 20 minutes to dial a number (zip, click-click-click-click-click-click-click, and repeat).
“Hello?”
“Hi”
(long pause)
“Why did you call?”
“I don’t remember…”

I suppose if choosing a new phone is really as complicated as it all sounds, I’ll just go with another $15 special.

Have you ever had one of those days where it seems that you can’t do anything right? And of course, the harder you try to fix your mistakes, the more you unintentionally make a problem worse – sort of like putting out a fire by dumping gasoline on it? Thank goodness I’m not having one of those days, although I did accidentally put the word “condolences” when I wanted “commendations” in today’s article about an SE student selected to play in the Great American Marching Band during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I accidentally switched the words while running spell check and didn’t notice (and in hindsight, I suppose “commendations” wouln’t have the best choice of wording either… Live and learn, I guess). But hey, whether she’s offered condolences or (more likely) commended for her efforts, that girl should be proud of her accomplishments. Kudos, Meaghan!

I read an interesting online article last night that recognized a federal bill out there that if passed, would mandate all car manufacturers to install a black box device on all makes and models beginning in 2015. The government could access recorded data on this device if given a court order, or in an investigation by the Secretary of Transportation to find who has driven where and when. Of course, I’m not too worried about this Big Brother-ish bill passing, at least not without a lot of pushback. Really, what’s the purpose of monitoring every driver’s move (which the GPS in millions of cars and cell phones already does). Personally, I don’t need constant surveillance to remind me of the ever so unexciting snooze-fest of a life I lead. I know the average data in my car’s black box would be as follows:
• Home to work
• Work to home
• Home to grocery store
• Grocery store to home
• End of day
I feel sorry for whoever’s put in charge of monitoring my travel data. It’s going to put them to sleep.

And into another not so subtle change of topics, heads up to anyone hoping to go back to school. The Wall Street Journal’s reporting wider gaps in wage equality between college majors. Not surprisingly, majors in math and science are likely to make much more money in their field over the course of their career than anyone else, which is devastating for some of us who chose an English major. Oops. Well, I may be at the low end of the socioeconomic food chain for the rest of my life, but at least I know the difference between condolences and commendations. You can’t put a price on that.

I hate grocery shopping. On a long list of things I would rather not do, I would rank grocery shopping someplace above root canal and just below asbestos removal.

Really, what is there to like about grocery shopping? Aside from the skyrocketing price of groceries in the last year (which has made it more expensive to buy a loaf of bread and a box of Cheerios than to buy a human kidney on the black market), there are other little annoyances to deal with.

My complaining usually begins as soon as my car’s front tires cross the entrance of the parking lot. Just the drawn out search for a parking spot is enough to make the sweetest elderly woman cuss like a trucker. When I think I’ve found an empty spot, it turns out to be filled by a small car that’s pulled up too far and wasn’t seen behind the tank-sized SUV that’s parked back too far; or the space is taken by an empty shopping cart generously left behind by someone who didn’t walk the extra 20 feet to the nearest cart return.

If I were to label myself with a superhuman ability, it’s the inexplicable skill to pick out the worst shopping cart possible – the one with broken welds, a front wheel that only turns to the left, or a sticky handle; or it’s tangled by the child safety strap of the cart behind it, thereby making it impossible to take one cart without taking the next two with it and sucking me into a man vs. shopping cart battle, which naturally draws stares of curiosity mixed with pity from everyone around me.

Then there’s actual people to deal with – other shoppers who also don’t want to be grocery shopping. I really believe that I’m a people person, soft-spoken but sociable. In crowded places on the other hand… well, it’s one thing to deal with a few people at a time, but dealing with hundreds at a time is a different animal entirely.

I’m the type of shopper who likes to get what I need and get out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that can’t happen when entire groups of people walk side-by-side at half the speed of peanut butter down the middle of the aisle. If some of them were to move any slower, I might tip over.

Of course, if it’s not slow moving traffic standing in my way, it’s the shopping cart of someone who’s pondering the seemingly life-changing decision of which salad dressing to try. It’s a bit of a stretch, but my thought is that if someone takes more than 60 seconds to pick out an item, they should pull their cart to the side of the aisle, set up road cones and emergency flares, and have someone divert traffic around them.

Just as I have an uncanny sense of picking out the worst cart, I can also pick the checkout line that stands still the longest (another God given talent that I wouldn’t have picked for myself). Even so, I stay in that line because I know that if I move, it’s going to take off like a rocket while my new line goes nowhere. So, I entertain myself by reading gossip headlines I don’t care about and rearrange produce into the shape of a face on the bottom of my sticky-handled cart (two oranges for eyes, a banana smiley face, and fresh lettuce hair), all while waiting for 19-item guy to pay for his things in the 15 items or less checkout lane.

Still, despite all my whining, I have to suck it up. Saturday is grocery shopping day – I guess it’s not reasonable to live off Campbell’s soup and Ritz crackers forever.

No one ever says “Bully.” I mean, people say it, just not in the context I’m talking about. What I mean is that no one uses the term “Bully” as an adjective to explain how extraordinarily great something is. Granted, it’s possibly because it’s not 1910 anymore, but it used to be a common expression, so why don’t we still use it?

I’ve always thought language and communication is an interesting topic. I wonder, why does slang and common pros change as culture changes? How much influence does culture have on language anyway? And why isn’t the average person in this country as well versed in reading, writing and spoken language as we once were?

I have a theory that over the years, we’ve become a little lazier in our written and spoken language, which of course, I’m plenty guilty of too. I might even go so far as to say that abbreviations and acronyms are more understood in writing and much more widely used than the complete spelling of words. Avid Facebookers might know what I’m talking about: LOL means laugh out loud; IDK, I don’t know; BTW, by the way; YNTTMWTMBISACDK; you need to tell me what this means because I sure as crap don’t know (which is one I made up for myself. It seems pretty obvious to me). Sure, it’s fun to use this stuff in social media, but when high school students write these acronyms in formal essays (which is happening more than anyone would like to admit), it becomes sort of problematic, doesn’t it?

We’ve become so lazy in oral communication that we don’t even finish a full sentence – even the most simple, single-word sentences. If you’re like me, “Thank You” has been shortened to “Thanks.” “Yes” has become “Yeah” (which isn’t even a word more than it is just the sound of someone exhaling with a “Yuh” in front of it) and one of my favorites, “I don’t know” is dumbed down to “iouoh” (pronounced i-uh-oh, slurred together in one easy, single syllable, grunt-like noise).

What happened to us? Maybe it’s time to put more emphasis on great literates like Hemmingway, Conrad and (loud gulp), Shakespeare. Not that I think doing so will encourage anyone to speak in pros that hasn’t been used in 300 years, though it would be fun. “Yay, thou hast held the door open for me and surely for it, I offer my deepest gratitude.” Maybe just a full “Thank you” would be nice enough.

I’d like to think we’ve all had encounters with people that we almost immediately regret. I’m sure even Ned Flanders would grimace and mutter something a little less than flattering at the sight of a familiar face that he would really, really, really like to avoid.

Of course, we’re not talking just avoid. No, we’re talking about going out of the way to avoid.

I had one of those encounters at the grocery store earlier this week (and in hindsight, I suppose only one per week isn’t so bad). I wasn’t even given the chance to avoid it. I simply turned and, well, there was no “pretending” I didn’t see him, no ducking down behind bread shelves, no last-second turns down the feminine products aisle which involves other risks that I’m willing to take… My only option was to not move and just hope he didn’t see me, which of course, didn’t work the way I had hoped.

It’s not that this gentleman’s a bad guy. He’s not rude. He’s not threatening. He doesn’t complain, doesn’t cuss, smoke, yell or hassle me. On the contrary, he’s almost too pleasant – the rot-your-teeth-from-too-much-sweetness kind of pleasant. Really, I don’t mind his persona. My problem is his lack of regard for personal space – you know, the “personal bubble.” Everybody has one and it’s only big enough for themselves.

This guy definitely tries to fit too much of himself into the too little space available in my bubble. It’s a complaint straight from a Seinfeld episode; a great guy but stands waayyy too close – a literal toe to toe conversationalist. So close, I actually needed to push my elbow backwards to shake his hand. I take a step back and he inches his way closer while he talks to me. Another step back and he inches closer. Another step back and he inches closer… A few more steps I might actually make it to my car (assuming he doesn’t try to carry on the conversation as I’m rolling up the window and driving away).

And it’s an awkward situation. He’s an acquaintances I don’t see too often and it’s just not worth the risk of sounding like a jerk by asking him to back up a little. Truth be told, I don’t even remember the conversation. I just put it on autopilot – I smiled, nodded my head, watched his pupils dilate and stuck with it until he spotted someone else he knew.

Who wouldn’t want to relive that? I Can’t wait until I see him again.

There’s something truly amazing about Fridays that creates a vacuum in both time and space, forcing the clock on the wall to actually tick backwards. Of course, it’s an unproven hypothesis but it would explain why it takes so long for the weekend to get here.

Not that I’m anxious for this week to end. It’s been an interesting enough; Ag Day on Tuesday, my car breaking on Wednesday – and yesterday, I found $40 in the pocket of a pair of my jeans, leftover from one of those wild and crazy trips to the grocery store – when things got out of hand and I found myself rearranging items at the checkout line to avoid smashing bread products with canned goods and a gallon of milk, I slipped some extra cash into my pocket and forgot about it later. Such is the exciting life I live. (Finding loose change in the dryer makes me scream like a nine-year-old girl. Finding $40 in my pocket nearly gave me an aneurism and an unforgettable scene for fellow grocery-shopping onlookers).

In regards to my car, all is doing better than I had expected. The warning lights are making the dashboard light up like a Christmas tree, but fortunately none of them have to do with the recent noise it’s making – at least I think it’s fortunate. The old car (a.k.a. The Rolling Turd, named after the motor home in “RV”) is in need of new struts and springs, but I think I can put the problem off just a little longer, at least until it begins to bounce so much that holding a cup of hot coffee becomes a little too risky. My thanks to the few who emailed me suggestions or comments about my auto woes from my last blog, but my plan A is still in effect… If someone wants to steal my car, I promise to act surprised… Come to think of it, I really would be surprised. I promise to act disappointed.