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I just discovered that Chuck Ferris, an 83-year-old Park Merced resident who maintained an entertaining blog called "Dribble," died earlier this month. We wrote a story about Ferris about a year ago. Chuck was a delightful man, happily sharing with us anecdotes about his life. My favorite moment of our interview was when he hopped on his keyboard and started playing an improvised song about his "dog named Blue." He told us about how he met John Travolta at an airport in the 1970s and about various people he met through his blog.

One of my daily jobs as the Sun-Star's crime and courts reporter is typing out the police log from the Merced Police Department. In a nutshell, the police log is a list of the calls the department receives during a 24-hour period. The log is not a definitive list of every crime that goes down during a day -- but it is a glimpse into what alleged crimes police respond to during the day.

Of course, the department receives literally hundreds of calls on a daily basis -- so there is no way I can type out all of the calls. That's why the police log in the Sun Star carries a disclaimer that states it is only a "short list" of calls the department receives. For example, the calls that I include on the logs generally include aggravated assaults, burglaries, auto burglaries, thefts, missing persons, etc. Oftentimes if I see a call that stands out, such as a shots fired call or an aggravated assault, I will call the department to get more information.

We went to a San Francisco Giants game on Saturday night. It had
been awhile since I had been to a major league game. Indeed, if
memory serves me correctly, Jimmy Carter was president the
last time I sat in the stands and watched "The Show." Too long, by
any standard.

The last time I went to a Giants game, Jack Clark was with the
Giants. The time before that, Willie Mays was playing with them. I