MikeTharp's blog

This may have set some sort of record.

I wrote April 25 about how fast and efficient the Merced DMV office had been that day when I went in to replace a lost license. Twenty minutes in and out.

The Lovely Sarah (she has now become a local icon) told me, pro forma, that it could be three to four weeks before the new one landed.

I got it sometime last week (while I was out of town).

In other words, from time of application to my mailbox was A WEEK OR LESS.

Say hello to Peter, Keith, Al, Paul and Taff.

They're all former British Royal Marines, enlisted men and noncommissioned officers, who've done time for two decades or more in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the Arctic, Afghanistan, the Middle East and, most recently, rural Virginia.

These salty ex-commandos are trainers for Centurion Risk Assessment Services Ltd., founded in the United Kingdom in 1995 to help teach journalists, diplomats, relief workers, peace organizations and other outfits how to survive in "hostile environments."

DMVs anywhere usually get a bad rap.

They usually deserve it.

The folks who issue driver's licenses and registrations have become a metaphor for slow, shoddy, impersonal service: "The airport in Tirana, Albania, has all the charm of a Beverly Hills valet parker, the beauty of the 405 Freeway at rush hour and the efficiency of a DMV office."

Stop the presses.

I just went to the one in Merced to replace a lost license.

Next week I report for a week's training required by McClatchy for reporters headed for Iraq or Afghanistan. A British outfit will put us through our paces in rural Virginia.

Then I'm goin' to Iraq. For about six weeks. Got the dates on April 21: I'll be there May 27 to July 7.

Not sure what I'll be doin' there. Facts on the ground will dictate our coverage. Seems this week a full-blown Shia uprising may be on the horizon. Could be a hot summer.

On the morning of April 19, 1995, I was standing outside the downtown L.A. courthouse where the O.J. Simpson trial was being held. I shared a seat in the courtroom with four other weekly magazines, and each morning after I spent my one day at the trial, CNN would interview me on its platform across the street. It was a live, two-minute deal with me answering questions from an invisible anchor. I tried to keep it light, commenting about Marcia Clark's new "do" or how certain jurors reacted to witnesses by nodding off.

Two minutes, 14 seconds left in the 2008 national championship college basketball game in San Antonio.

Kansas—where I went to journalism grad school—trails Memphis by 9 points.

“Hey, Q,” I say to my buddy Quang X. Pham, a UCLA grad sitting behind me. “You wanna bail early and beat the crowd?”

His reply is unprintable in a family blog, but basically he says we’re staying till the end.