For my second anniversary

Today, Sept. 13, 2009, is my second anniversary with my lovely girlfriend, Sarah.  She is quite special to me.  She does take a quite special interest in this website and frequently comments how she is not the subject of many posts.  Here is a post dedicated purely to her and only her!

She did notice my reasons I love my brother that I posted for his birthday. For our anniversary she recommended I do the same for our anniversary! Easy enough, we have been together two years, so I just need to do two reasons I love Sarah?!

I could do that, but again, we know this website is for raising the bar.

Here are 24 reasons I love my girlfriend (one for every month):

1. She is one of the only people that will let me make fun of her then she responds with, “I love you.”
2. Whenever I am in trouble, there is ALWAYS a way out. It might be as simple as telling her my love or as complex as taking her to Jersey Mike’s or Jimmy John’s.
3. She loves sandwiches, which rubbed off on me. Nothing like stopping in to pick up a good sandwich.
4. She is from Boston. While I always said I wanted to fall in love with a Southerner, she took my heart.
5. My family loves her, more than they love me.
6. She thought SD in our football pool meant South Dakota and not San Diego.
7. She asked me how to make a stall shower get the water to come out of the shower head while water was flowing out of the shower head.
8. She was convinced that “instopped” was the opposite of “outgoing.” I couldn’t stop laughing for weeks. In fact, that makes me smile still.
9. She loves baseball, although she is a Red Sox fan, it could be worse. She could be a Yankee fan.
10. She takes things in stride. While she only has one eye, she plays tricks with me on our friends! It is so funny watching their faces when she hits her finger nail against the fake eye!
11. She cares as much about my best friend as I do.
12. Even though I was really busy in college, she never held it against me, even when it did cause some scheduling problems.
13. She likes weird music. Sometimes it is really, really annoying. Other times she has shown me some really great music.
14. She thinks her stuffed animals are real and have feelings. When I hang them, it causes many problems. (Refer back to number two)
15. One time I hung her stuffed animal from a hook in her room. When she went to break it, I told her it cost me $10. She reluctantly didn’t break it. The next day, she noticed I had 10 of those same hooks. She thought I spent over $100 on hooks! “Bry, those hooks can’t be $10.” “No kidding kid, why would you think…nevermind.”
16. For her birthday last year, she let me buy “her” an iPod Touch [for me] while she got my three year old iPod. She just wanted the storage space and loved that it holds all of her weird songs.
17. She calls her house and leaves messages for her dog. She also tells me that the dog talks to her. I don’t doubt it does.
18. After I started calling her, “kid,” she didn’t know what to call me. She went through, “adult, big kid, etc.”
19. After I started calling her, “Sar Bear,” she again didn’t know what to call me. Convinced that the only thing rhyming with “Bry” was fly. She also said it was a good fit because I annoyed her.
20. One time when I made her mad, I said, “Sar, remember a time when we were in love and you were nice to me?” She responded, “Bry, you keep talking about this love thing. I can’t ever remember that in our relationship.”
21. In the car she leans her head on my shoulder. I always give her a kiss on her forehead. She promptly raises her head. She said once, “Whenever I want a kiss I put my head on your shoulder.” I responded, “Whenever I want you to get your head off of my shoulder I give you a kiss.” She laughed harder than I did!
22. She is super tickleish. When I tickle her, she makes up excuses why I can’t, “I just ate…I’m about to eat…it is late…it is early…I don’t feel well…this will wind me up…it hurts and I laugh when I’m in pain…etc.” None of them are true.
23. She knows how to get anything out of me. “Bry…” works every time. Sadly, she knows of this power.
24. She is her, unique. If you ever met her, you know she is quite unique. If you ever met me, you know she is perfect for me. I just try to be perfect for her.

There you go. There are 24 reasons I love my girlfriend. There are many more, but here is a few that come to mind frequently. She is special to me and I love her dearly. I’ll see her this week for the first time since the first week in July!

So this is to year two complete. I’ll see you, Web 2.0, Sept. 13, 2010 to celebrate another year down.

Thanks, Tom

Tom Berry, 48 of High Point, NC, died last Sunday after battling a serious infection. Berry wrote for the High Point Enterprise for over 20 years as a beat writer and columnist.

The reason I bring this to attention is because I learned a few things here and there from Berry. He was the beat writer for High Point University sports. We bumped into each other here and there. Sometimes we were fighting over interviewing players after games, other times we were sharing a table as we ate in the hospitality room of a tournament.

I really never spent a lot of time talking to Berry. Sure I knew who he was. He always got first pick of players and coaches after games. By the time I got to the head coach, the gym had cleared out and Berry probably had written half of his copy.

When I learned of Berry’s death, I remember two instances of interaction with Tom, the reporter.

The first was after HPU played Winthrop at the Millis Center. This was the second time High Point had beaten Winthrop this year and second time in a row at home. The series record stands with HPU only winning four games.

Earlier in the week Gene Harris, active career points leader, was suspended from the team for the game. The whole school population knew why. Harris was mad he lost the starting job to a freshman. Still, a reporter had to ask head coach Bart Lundy for the reason.

After the game, Tom and the beat reporter for the Rock Hill, SC newspaper grabbed the star players from the game. I really lucked out because that left Lundy available. I got the first crack at asking the burning question, “You won without Harris, why?”

I started with the basic questions about how he felt about the game, what were his thoughts down the stretch, etc. Then when I got to the burning question, the other reporters all were done with the players. So there I was, conducting the impromptu press conference.

“Coach, what is your comment on Gene Harris? Why did he not dress?”

Tom stood on my left, the Rock Hill Herald reporter on my right. They quickly jot down the answer. When I was done, I stood nearby to hear if they asked any follow-ups that I missed. Tom didn’t. He had the answers he needed. It was like he gave me a pat on the back. A vet in the industry thought I did the job well. (Read my article here)

The second instance of Tom putting a mark on my journalism career came at the Big South Tournament Quarterfinals. HPU, the last seed, played at Radford, the first seed. It was a blow out. (Read my article here) I think Tom, me and a few fans could have put up that performance. While High Point fell 20 points behind, Tom started writing his column for the paper.

We struck up small talk about the season. We discussed the problems the team had. The Harris incident came up along with a few other player problems during the year. I would add a thing or two that Tom didn’t know. He asked, “What happened with [player x]?” I asked him, “You want the story the team says or what I heard through the grapevine?”
“The grapevine.”

I told him all the dirty secrets that weren’t supposed to get out. I just thought we were having general talk. I am a moron!

The next day I went to compare how Tom’s article was to mine. I noticed his column in this search. The “grapevine” suddenly extended to the High Point Enterprise readership. (Read Tom’s column here)

I learned something, “When you speak to a reporter, he is always a reporter. It never turns off.” I used that same logic when a sandwich maker made small talk with me about the Oak Hollow Mall being for sale. She told me insider information. I broke the story, a week before any daily had it. I sat on the story for two weeks before that too.

When I was writing it all I thought about was Tom and mine “grapevine” talk. It gave me the ok to write the article.

Thanks, Tom. May God give comfort to his wife and daughters along with the many professionals that remember Tom Berry, 48 of High Point, NC.