I do like a college town, but the time had come to take a break from preppies and hipsters, so I ambled over to foreign-studentville. Bubblecup boba tea caught my eye about a week ago, and despite it being next door to a local ice cream legend, I did it anyway.   BubbleCup? Or […]

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  No, PingWi-Fi. You can’t judge a coffee bar by its dreadlocked buskers. I totally expected to be overcome by the telltale, pungent odor of patchouli … eau de hippie … when I checked out Columbia’s homegrown Lakota Coffee Company. Not so. There is an earthy vibe … yes … real timber chairs, an American […]

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    Today, let’s get old school here in the college town of Columbia, Mo. None of that blogging about nothing. No rock or film reviews. No interviews of FOX or CBS correspondents (dig into ping, they’re there). Today, we ping Wi-Fi hotspots — as we did when this blog began — here in the […]

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    Man I hope that some day, I get money for being crazy … just like Gary Busey in that Amazon commercial where he talks to his devices. Until then, I just be all crazy for no good reason … other than just trying to stay entertained on The Dirty Gig.   This week […]

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    It’s happened again. The unthinkable — a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas.   Undeniably, senseless violence is happening more and more and more … whether it is Islamic extremists, bullied teens, shell-shocked servicemen. Unfortunately, it is going to continue.   What do we do? What do we do?  

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As a travel writer – gone months at a time — it’s probably no surprise that my home town changes while I am on the road … a lot.   After a couple of recent back-to-back two- and three-month excursions I returned to find that Fort Worth now has this awesome plaza in the downtown […]

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A good friend of mine just posted a story from The Austin-American Statesman that questions whether or not Austin “drinks too much.” Ha … Define too much. What was it Jimmy Kimmel said, he was in town not for The SXSW Festival, but an intervention. Something like that.   Anywho … Then there is the […]

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    The Wichita State Shockers were playing the Indiana State Sycs of the storied Missouri Valley Conference on TV this weekend, and one couldn’t help but think back to the golden age of WT … No not White Trash … West Texas … the college formerly knows as West Texas State University. The Buffs. […]

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    The first visit to The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., I came up empty. There was a slightly less-than-friendly greeting at the help desk, and I was told I could not take photographs in the exhibition — even if I was a member of the media — not without an […]

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  I had yet to hear the weather news on Ground Hog Day, so I hopped in the car, chasing my own wintery shadow around The Cities — KC K and KC Mo. I don’t remember much about Kansas City from my first blog visit, back in 2003 … mostly I remember The Plaza and […]

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