Ode to a business reporter

I heard this story on NPR on the way home from work today about a little-known but accomplished business reporter for Bloomberg News who passed away recently.

The writer's name was Mark Pittman. I had never heard of him, but he's being described as "Bloomberg's Bull Dog." I did a Google search for his stories and came up with this result.

It's sad Mr. Pittman passed away, but it's inspiring to hear of his effort to go beyond the jargon and find the real business stories.

If you had asked me when I graduated from college if I would be a business reporter, I would have said, "No way." In fact, I didn't trust all those go-getter business majors. They all seemed like naive over-achievers. The journalists, on the other hand, were cynical over-achievers. Much cooler.

But here I am, the editor of a business publication enrolled in a part-time MBA program. The truth is business is fascinating and it makes the world go 'round (or stop, as we found out last fall). And we need good reporting to cut through all the bull sh*t PR spin.

That's it for this blog post. Short and sweet.

Today's Fit Count: Zero (But I really wasn't paying attention. I'll try harder tomorrow.)

What's for dinner?

If there's one topic that causes stress in the Davis household, it's what's for dinner. Bobby would be happy with any side of a cow bleeding on a plate, but I have much more refined tastes. Okay, not so much refined as picky. And I'm fundamentally lazy, which means I don't like to cook.

For the first couple years of living together we tended to leave planning for dinner to the last minute, which left both of us annoyed and unhappy. Typically, we would talk on the way home from work and stressfully inquire: Hey, what's for dinner? Then we'd argue about what we should have and opt for dining out. But ITE (in this economy), going out is a little pricey, especially if you do it five days per week.

We were faced with three options:
1 - Get a divorce (not desirable)
2 - Stop eating (less desirable)
3 - Start planning

We selected the option behind door number three, and that's worked out pretty well. We generally plan our meals out on Sunday before we go to Stop & Shop for our weekly supermarket stroll. And we split the cooking down the middle (unless you ask Bobby and he'll claim that he makes all the meals. Whatevs!).

Anyway, here's what's for dinner this week:
Sunday - Cod cakes (pictured in process above) with brussel sprouts
Monday - Pasta dish with tuna that we saw on the Food Network
Tuesday - Dinner in a bag (one of those handy frozen meals that taste really good because they have a tremendous amount of fat and salt in them. Not the healthiest option, but we're both in class until 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, so it has to be easy and quick).
Wednesday - Cheesy tortellini
Thursday - Grilled chicken and salad
Friday - Angel hair pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese
Saturday - Out to dinner

That's it for this blog post. Today's Fit Count? Two

And now I'm updating

And now I'm updating my blog from Hellotxt.

From iGoogle

I'm updating my blog from my iGoogle page...

My first blog post

Well, I was reading this article in the New Yorker (more on my love for the New Yorker later) and discovered this 13-year-old girl who has an amazing blog... And I thought to myself, "How does a 13-year-old girl have a fashion blog and you don't?"

This won't be a fashion blog. It'll be a blog about me, what I do, what I like and what I think. I call it Virtual Stina because it's like me, but not really. If you can't have me in person, you can at least have me in the blogosphere...

Hope I'm as good as the 13-year-old.

Enjoy.