I’ve got a new apartment (I had been living with my brother. 20+ years is more than enough time to be stuck living with a sibling, especially a younger one).

My new place feels so big and empty right now. I’ve got some huge photos of New York City, an old piece of the FOX Toledo set (yep, I’m a nerd — but it does look cool), a couch and a TV. But it still feels like I’m wasting so much space.

Thing is, I’d like to avoid wasting money.

So I’m looking for suggestions on cheap furniture or other simple ideas to make my apartment feel more like a “home” rather than an empty shell. If you’ve got ideas, let me know!

Old desk (after I accidentally kicked the leg out from under it):

New desk:

As much as I miss Michelle Zepeda, I do like my new desk better.

And, by the way, who really says “digs” anymore?

While it’s nothing like the massive fight scene from Anchorman, we occasionally do jokingly mess with our friends from other stations (and, yes, we are almost all friends).

For example, Chris G. from channel 13 chose an interesting parking arrangement — leaving his Jeep right over the dividing line.

So, when photographer Chris Poturalski and I pulled up — we just parked in the space provided (even if I had to fold in the side mirror and get out before he parked).

We were nice and left before they did, and even gave them a heads-up in case they had to leave the event early.

That didn’t make it any less entertaining for us…

I’ve now had two instances where, either reading a press release or a news story, I’ve discovered that someone I know was involved in a serious accident.

What an awful feeling…

What a dark and tragic weekend in Toledo. A homicide. A 2-year-old, hit by a car (his mother told me Sunday night that he is expected to be okay — ::phew::). Another child, who just turned 12, killed in a freak accident after she’s pinned by a sliding parking lot gate. A motorcycle crash involving a boy on a bicycle — his injuries aren’t life threatening, but a woman who is on the motorcycle later dies.

For me, that’s too many awful reminders that life’s so unpredictable, you’ve got to live every day like it’s your last.

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of going to Pemberville. I’m sick of trying to get to the same curve. I’m sick of looking at motorcycle parts, strewn about the road like pieces of a squashed bug.

In the past month, I’ve made three visits to the sharp curve of State Route 105 between Aufderstrasse and Banks roads for motorcycle crashes. Those trips down nearby State Route 199 have included many glances out the driver’s side window of the Jeep, expecting to see a Life Flight helicopter paralleling me.

Today, it was taking off as I pulled up. There was person inside headed to Mercy St. V’s with life-threatening injuries. Another — the other person on the motorcycle — had died in the middle of the two-lane road. In the field,  a car sat with its hood ripped off. The bike was in the ditch; its front wheel landed about 50 feet away.

As of tonight, we don’t know exactly what caused this accident, as the troopers were still trying to sort it out when I left.

I can only hope this was some sort of true, freak accident but, aware of this curve’s tragic history, that isn’t likely the case.

In one instance last year, I recall investigators telling us a motorcyclist took the curve too fast, went left of center and clipped a car. The driver was crying, sobbing — not yet able to deal with the rapid chain of events that had just played out.

A woman who told me they live close enough to hear the screams when the accidents happen told me tonight that people love to fly around that corner. She’s even seen posts on Facebook from kids complaining about getting pulled over while joyriding on 105.

She says they think it’s fun. It’s some sort of game.

If only those kids could have been there tonight to see three lives changed forever. Someone will more than likely live with guilt. Another will live with pain and scars, a long hospital stay and rehab — in the best scenario. The third won’t have the opportunity to do either.

I’m sick of it.

This week has been an amazing experience but, needless to say, I never want to see our area go through this again.

I learned so much in just the past week or so and, considering the scatterbrained nature of my thoughts in this time, figured a list would sum things up pretty well.

(I didn’t realize before I started this that Michelle Zepeda had a similar train of thought… great minds…)

• I will never think it’s “just another tornado warning.”
• I will never underestimate the power of a community’s positive actions.
• I will never take for granted the time I have with my family (a touchdown three miles sooner would have decimated my parents’ house).
• I will stress the importance of people having a weather radio, text or phone call alert system in case of severe weather at night.
• We’re lucky to live in an area with access to amazing medical care, both in the field and at hospitals.
• Firefighters, police officers and EMS workers are amazing people. I’m not saying that because I do that job, I’m saying that because I, even after being raised and growing up around these kind of people, could not believe the dedication and passion for helping the community these emergency workers had, even after some of their own homes were damaged or destroyed.

The FOX Toledo/Toledo Free Press relationship is going strong. We collaborate on big stories, share information, co-sponsor certain events and, at one point, I worked for both.

So a few weeks ago, when my assignment editor told me I’d have a TFP reporter tagging along with me on a press conference, I wasn’t entirely surprised.

What did catch me off-guard was learning that Betsy Woodruff isn’t from our area and, instead, is just spending the summer here from Hillsdale College.

And, like most people not from around these parts, it seems, she didn’t really know much about Toledo.

After the story, we both had a little time to kill and, seeing as she hadn’t been to Tony Packo’s yet (egads! – with a hint of sarcasm), we headed to Packo’s at the Park. There, I explained the city’s facination with Jamie Farr to the best of my ability  (“So was he the star of M*A*S*H?” “No, he was the one who dressed up like a woman…”).

Then, she asked what there is to do in our beautiful metropolis. It’s one thing to plan a trip with friends (oh, how many late summer nights in high school were spent wandering the aisles of the Perrysburg Meijer) -

- or to tell someone about the zoo or Imagination Station if they’re staying a day or so.

But a whole summer? I’ll admit, it was a bit difficult. Not because there isn’t anything to do, but because I have a tendency to spend most of my free time working.

Thankfully, Betsy and her equally-creative (yet “stingy – but not always,” according to their blog) roommate, Mary, came up with culinary time-consumers.

The best part? They’re keeping track of all their random adventures and recipes on a blog: Dirt Cheap Delicious.

Though, maybe I’m a bit biased. I had the pleasure of trying their  “*anybody* can make these enchiladas” enchiladas and, even after hearing the two of them ramble off the list of people who can make them by memory, they were scrumptious.  Even the ground beef — with a bit of chili powder mixed in — was amazing all on its own.

So if you find yourself wondering what to do this summer — as I many times do on those unexpected days off — now you’ve got a little place for some inspiration and, at the very least, a serious amount of entertainment.

Then just hit up one of the area farmer’s market’s, grab your second-hand sunhat and sit outside to make everyone jealous.

I spent four hours looking for flash flooding in Michigan this past weekend, trekking all the way through Monroe County and more than halfway through Lenawee and didn’t find anything.

I mean, except the dirt roads.

And yes, the Jeep did get a wash shortly after this photo was taken.

I’m a sarcastic person, so when I’m assigned a weird story — I go nuts. Sometimes, producers or, more likely, Laura end up reeling me in. Other times, I’m allowed to indulge myself.

I’ll go into detail later below about my decision-making processes with these three stories later but I want to know what you think first.

Was my presentation respectful? Accurate? Too entertaining? Too stiff?

Leave your comment below and I’ll mention it in a later post.

This story, for me, was a no-brainer. Not only was it ridiculous — the stabbing victim told me it was ridiculous. That made the decision pretty easy to tone down the seriousness and bump up the “What the heck?!” factor. I haven’t heard any complaints on this one.

This one kind of shows an instance that I could have gone much further — but I chose to keep this serious over sarcastic. How would I have done it? Probably more emphasis on the mouth-to-mouth, or the fact that the officer milked the dead doe for the fawn (which, while definitely admirable, had most of my friends quoting a scene from the movie Meet the Parents). But even reading over that last sentence makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong — so that, in part, is why I didn’t do it.

And then there’s this one. The inspiration came from a paramedic who, walking away from the scene, told me, “We did everything we could.” The over-dramatic beginning was meant to mock people’s perception of television news, and the rest was sound-bite driven. Everyone there was light-hearted about the whole ordeal, joking and laughing amongst piles and piles of meat.

So when I got an email from one of the people minorly injured in the accident, angry that I would make light of the situation, that’s how I explained it. My job as a reporter is to sum up not only what happened, but the emotions at any given story. The emotion at this scene was just as I reported it — of course, had there been serious injuries, that would have been much different.

I’ll admit I often walk a fine line with my presentation of stories — but, if I can deliver the facts and make it entertaining to watch without compromising the story in any way, I’m going to do it.