Reporter Nicholas St. Fleur Invents Time Travel Machine

Nicholas St. Fleur, of the New York Times

Those in the know say it was only a matter of time (excuse the pun) before the U of C at Santa Cruz graduate Nicholas St. Fleur perfected time travel.

Emily Kaugummi, the Director of Extraneous Affairs at the Willard Scott Institute for Something like Science, says:  "Mr. St. Fleur combines the intuitive brilliance of Einstein with the mettle of Tesla -- and he also does a mean SpongeBob Squarepants imitation."

St. Fleur first considered the intricate challenge of time travel when he was appointed to the Trilobites desk at the New York Times three years ago. Looking at all those old fossils made him think -- made him think they should get some younger editors around the place. It also made him think how cool it would be to go back in time to see a real dinosaur, an authentic Bubonic Plague victim, or an original Swanson's TV Dinner. As he explained to M.I.T. students last year:  "I took the multi-dimensional theorems of Rutherford and combined them with the quantum mechanics of Niels Bohr to come up with the equation  BVD = PDQ x 2. From there all I had to do was contact Steven Spielberg for the financing, and the machine practically built itself." 

Mr. St. Fleur says he has already used his time travel mechanism to go back and warn Julius Caesar of the dagger attack in the Roman Senate, and help Thomas Edison invent the Nerf Ball before beginning on the electric light.

While he is reticent about future time travel voyages, he has thrown out hints that something should be done about the price of Starbucks' Frappuccino.

His other interests include rehydrating snow globes, brewing his own dishwater, and eradication of the gingersnap. 

He was recently awarded a Best Mixologist certificate from the Elkhart Distillers Association.  

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A New Work by Emerging Thai Poetess Sutita Gai

From being a hermit, now I am awakening,

ready to rise, shine and to follow my dreams,

I can not tell how much I do love sharing,

the energy of caring, courage, comfort and hope,

to all men and women arond the world.

I'm Giving Away Five Dollars this Morning

HEY!  I'm giving away five dollars this morning on a live video broadcast on my Facebook page. All you have to do is call in and answer the riddle "What did Jack say to the Beanstalk?" 

The first person to give the correct answer will have five dollars mailed to them, no strings attached. 

I have posted the answer to this riddle on my Twitter account. What's my twitter account? Sorry, you'll have to look that up yourself.

What's my cell phone number? Sorry, I won't reveal that except on my live video on my Facebook page in two hours (9 a.m. Mountain Time.) So you'll have to find me on Facebook if you want a chance at that five bucks.

Hope to hear from you in 2 hours!  

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Well, this is humiliating. I stayed on for 13 minutes and nobody, not one single solitary soul, called me for the five dollars.  My social media sucks . . . 

Postcards

Hi -- thank you for your message. Please note I am out of the office until Dec. 3 and will respond to your email upon return.

I wish all 'out of office' notes

were eaten by a herd of goats,

and those that put 'em up were fried

in Crisco and then quick tie-dyed.

If you're not in and won't reply

please do not my slim patience try

with idiotic automation

that sends me such cold notation.

I gonna go back to postcards

when sending someone my regards;

at least they'll get it, wait and see,

sometime in this here century.

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Reporter Jennifer Maloney Likes Trains

Jennifer Maloney, of the Wall Street Journal

Jennifer Maloney likes trains. No, that's not strong enough. Jennifer Maloney loves trains -- she dotes on them. And why not? It was a train that saved her life and set her on the journalist's exciting and remunerative path.

On a hike across Lake Winnemucca during the dry season in Nevada as a teenager, Maloney was set upon by a herd of feral merino sheep. Just as they closed in on her, their fangs dripping with lanolin, she spotted train tracks, with a locomotive pulling train cars headed her way. As the rabid sheep made for her jugular vein, she leaped into an empty boxcar and was thus saved from a sheepish death. Exhausted with terror, she immediately fell into a deep slumber.

When the train pulled into Primm, a kindly conductor found her still asleep in the boxcar. Rather than turn her in as a vagrant, he took her to his home and fed her beetroot souffle to build up her strength before sending her back home. His parting words to her as he put her on the train back East were:  "Never trust anything you don't read in the local newspaper." 

Ms. Maloney never forgot that sage piece of advice. In a few years she was a star reporter for Newsday, and then came to the Wall Street Journal to report on book publishing, cultural institutions, and trains. Her work has been translated into over a dozen languages, including Xhosa and Michif. 

Today she limits her writing to stories about the liquor and tobacco industries (she lost a bar bet.)

She enjoys touring gypsum mines and eating at restaurants that still use flypaper. She is working on a history of cow catchers, which is already out of print.  

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