Wednesday, October 15, 2003
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Wednesday, October 15, 2003 |
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Home, paper get fresh, new look By MICHAEL
BOYLAN Check this out! Do you like the new look of the paper? It’s pretty sleek, huh? It’s like going to a fancy salon and telling the stylist, “Go crazy! I want to look like a new person.” It is a rebirth, a renaissance! A rejuvenation for everyone on staff. Though we still write the stories the same way, it feels like we are working for an entirely different publication. It is a popular idea these days, this makeover process. Just look at some of the more popular programs on television these days: “Trading Spaces,” “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” “Monster House,” “Ground Wars,” and the list goes on and on and on. People want to change things and shake things up. Thomas Jefferson once recommended a revolution every few years and, by remaking something, whether that is your kitchen, your backyard, or your newspaper, you are a revolutionary of sorts. I had nothing to do with it, though. Our crack team of the redesign spent countless hours in meetings and workshops trying to get the new look of the paper just right. All I had to do was nod my head and give my opinion on a few things. What is interesting, though, is that the redesign comes right after Sabine and I played “Trading Spaces” with our guest room. I was a little more involved in that process and I’ve got the paint in my sneakers to prove it. I guess it was last year, when I was hallucinating while trying to mow my gargantuan lawn, that I realized I was not as prepared for the work related to homeownership as I needed to be. I was a fairly passive observer in the chores around my house growing up. Sure, I took out the trash now and then and cleaned my bedroom less regularly, but I never really learned those little home maintenance tasks that keep the value of a home up. Mowing the lawn wasn’t an issue because we had an in-ground swimming pool, and painting wasn’t an issue either because I lived in the basement, which had wood paneling. I always felt that when the time came to do things, I could just read the directions and do it. This theory hasn’t worked all that well. We cracked open the paint cans Saturday afternoon and got to work. My first job was to cut in from the trim. This is done so that you can get the spots that you can’t reach with the paint roller. I did this but still dripped on to the trim in places. “No big deal, we’ll paint over it tomorrow when we do the trim,” said I, now master painter extraordinaire. Of course, I then found out the next day that the green paint bled through the trim. Next was the part I thought I couldn’t possibly screw up, using the roller. I painted, learning very quickly that painting was very hard and tiring, only to find that there were patches where, because I painted them over and over, trying to darken the area, were now light and patchy. Now, I was getting frustrated. Would there ever be a project where I didn’t feel like a complete moron? Luckily, the problem was fixed by just painting a very light second coat around the room and evening it out. While I stunk up the previous two tasks, I had now found my calling — evening out. On Sunday, I found my second calling, painting the trim. I was good at painting the trim around the ceiling and floor, if I do say so myself. In fact, when we paint the next room, I will be the evening out and painting the trim master. The newly painted room looks great and it makes our upstairs look like a new place. I know it isn’t new, just like this issue of The Citizen still has everything our readers look for every week, but it does please the eye and it makes the boss happy. What else can you ask for? |
