How a crappy computer program and New Kids On The Block changed my life

If you've ever met me in person, you likely have heard the story I'm about to tell.

But I realized today, as Jennifer and I mark four years of marriage, I've never actually written it down.

Picture it: Hanover, Pa., March 2009.

President Barack Obama had been in office just over two months. Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska, began erupting after a prolonged period of unrest. A young Jimmy Fallon took over for Conan O'Brien on NBC's "Late Night."

And I was uncertain about my future, both professionally and personally.

Less than three months earlier, about a third of the editorial staff of The Evening Sun was laid off as part of cost-cutting by then-parent company MediaNews Group. The mother ship decided to consolidate the majority of the copy desk functions at the main office, 18 miles away in the York, Pa., suburbs.

That included my job as news editor. I laid out Page A1, the jump pages and other things.

Because I had some longevity, then-Evening Sun Editor Marc Charisse managed to keep me employed, but I was essentially demoted, returning to reporting on the municipal beat.

In the transition, there were some technological kinks that needed to be worked out. Namely, The Evening Sun was operating on Mac OSX computers using the top-notch Adobe InDesign layout program that we'd just purchased nay a year before.

The York Newspaper Co., which oversees the operations of the York Daily Record/Sunday News, operated on PCs that dated to Bill Clinton's first term and used a layout program called Harris. It was created in the mid-1990s by what many believe to be a group of drunken sixth-graders.

But, since The Evening Sun was the red-headed stepchild of MediaNews' Pennsylvania cluster of papers, it was required to devolve its computing ways to match its antiquated bigger sibling.

To teach the remaining Evening Sun staffers how to use this piece of junk, the Daily Record sent over then-Day Metro Editor Amy Gulli.

Flash back a few weeks earlier, and Amy was attending a New Kids On The Block reunion tour stop in Hershey with one of her best friends from college. This friend, one Jennifer Lynn Botchie, told Mrs. Gulli over dinner before the concert that, after some difficult relationship issues in the past, she might be ready to try love again.

Flash forward to The Evening Sun newsroom, where, after a crash course in drunken sixth-grade computer coding, Amy, my pal James and I decide to take a break.

During that break, I begin to lament my love life. Earlier in the day, I'd received a phone call from a girl that I had met through ... sigh ... an online dating site. We were to go on a date that weekend, but she canceled because she had met someone else and didn't want to ruin things.

I talk about my life to Amy (James already knew most of it), mentioning off-handedly that I'm a Baltimore sports fan, Catholic and still had a passion for journalism, even though the institution had beaten me down.

Gulli smiles at me.

"So you are a football fan?" she asks me.

"Yeah," I say.

"Would you be interested in a girl who is a Cowboys fan, but also cousins with Vince Lombardi?"

"Uh, ok, that's cool."

"And you're Catholic?"

"Well, I do have 16 years of Catholic schooling."

She smiles wider.

"I might have someone for you," she says. "She's a good Catholic girl who is a former cheerleader and former sports editor."

My curiosity is piqued.

A few days later, after some pestering, Amy suggested Jen and I be "friends" on Facebook. That led to posts and messages over several weeks and a first date, at the Blue Parrot Bistro in Gettysburg, on April 10 — Good Friday.

History was made.

A year to that day, I asked her to marry me.

Two years, two months and 15 days after that first date, we got married. (Amy was the matron of honor, listed in the program as "The Matchmaker.")

And three years and 12 days after our meeting, Sophie Marie was born.

Through job changes and new residences, we've snuggled and struggled and laughed and cried.

Meanwhile, we've managed to not only not kill each other, but grow as individuals and as a couple.

At least, I like to think so.

And, to think: If it weren't for a crappy computer system and New Kids On The Block, we never would have met.

Happy anniversary, Jenny.

I love you.

Or, as Sophie would say, I ee ee!

Silly thing

As we finished up graduation season, the copy desk at The Herald-Mail encountered the term "Silly String" for the first time this year. 

A quick Google search found Silly String is the trademarked name of the foam — at least, I think it's foam — product.

This led the copy editor in me to wonder: Is there a generic term for it? 

For those who are asking, "Why not just call it silly string?" the simple answer is that newspapers should avoid using trademarked names. Do we know for certain the students didn't use "Goofy String"? Or maybe they used "Fun Streamer"?

Yes, this is the kind of thing copy editors think about. And the Associated Press Stylebook, loathsome as it is at times, is what we're supposed to use as guidance when we encounter trademarked names.

Other examples include Dumpster (AP says, "Use trash bin or trash container instead"); Band-Aid (AP says to use "adhesive bandage"); and Kleenex (AP says to call it "facial tissue").

Yep. Even Rollerblade should be called "in-line skates," AP says.

So, what about Silly String? There is no listing in the AP Stylebook. And I don't have the money to get an account with AP's online stylebook, on which a forum might have addressed the issue at some point in the past.

Another Google search landed me on Wikipedia, which suggested "aerosol string."

Um, no.

I mean, "After the diplomas were awarded and the class custom of spraying aerosol string completed..." just lacks the same punch.

For simplicity's sake, we decided to leave the name Silly String, capitalized, and prayed that no one from one of the competing manufacturers gets upset, should their product have been used at the Greencastle-Antrim High School graduation in Greencastle, Pa., instead of the brand name.

Pomp and Circumstance

It's graduation season, and at a small-town newspaper, that means a plethora of stories and photos featuring caps, gowns, tears and cheers.

Plenty of talk of "reaching for the stars," and "making the future brighter."

And, from the rogues gallery that is the copy desk, plenty of cynicism.

I must admit, as the older folks groused about the future the teens are supposed to make brighter, I offered one of my favorite lines:

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll still end up in the vacuum of space where no one can hear you scream.

Setting aside the grizzled comments from journalists who've lived at least three and four times as long as this year's graduates, I began thinking about my own high school graduation.

Based on other graduations I've witnessed, mine was atypical.

You get that with an all-boys Catholic high school run by Jesuits in the rich side of town. (I didn't live on the rich side of town; thanks to my mother teaching in a Catholic school, I was able to attend Loyola Blakefield.)

Anyway, our graduation wasn't in the gymnasium or on the football field. It was in the Hollow, a section of the 60-acre campus, nestled between some of the classroom buildings and the Jesuits' residence, that was typically used for Frisbee-throwing and napping in good weather.

We didn't graduate in caps and gowns. We wore white tuxedo jackets. It was like 172 James Bonds processed into the ceremony.

And, if memory serves me, we graduated on a Sunday.

Other than hugs from family and friends — some of whom are no longer with us — I don't really recall too much else about my graduation. And no, it's not because I was under the influence of some elixir or potion normally not allowed an 18-year-old.

I guess what was said at that time really didn't have much impact on me. For that, I apologize to Mike Evans and Chris Co, classmates who I recall speaking.

And so, these thoughts have helped diminish some of my cynicism. You see, I didn't go to high school in a small town. The local paper — The Baltimore Sun — didn't cover it.

I've realized, after sitting through probably about two dozen graduations as a reporter, and reading more than a hundred graduation stories as an editor and copy editor, that graduation coverage is one more public service done by the local newspaper.

Grandma or Aunt Ethel clip out the story and save it for you, to help you recall that time when you were young and innocent and thought maybe, you might just reach those stars.