Anyone who has lived in Tallahassee knows that it is much more of a town than a city. Those terms are generally differentiated by the perception of their size, even if the numbers don't always back it up. These perceptions are informed by anecdotal experiences more than anything else. And yesterday I had one that ranks right up there in "Small Town Moments."

I have to first preface this by saying that my all time "Life in Tallahassee" / "Maybe I've lived here too long" experience was when I was looking at the house I would ultimately buy. I was walking around, looking at the kitchen, bedrooms, walls, etc. when I noticed a picture of the couple who presumably lived there, and it was a gentleman I had previously worked with at Atlanta Bread Company. Then later I was telling a guy on my soccer team about the house I was interested in, he asked for the address and replied "I built that house." So it turns out I know both previous owners of the house I currently occupy.

Last night I was at dinner at a friend's house, my first time visiting his house, when I noticed one of the many pictures on his refrigerator. At first I noticed the mom, because I thought she looked like someone I knew. Upon further inspection though I realized it wasn't the mom in the photo I recognized, nor the several small children. But the dog in the picture looked real familiar. It was my dog.

My dog, an occasional subject of discussion on this page, has been my dog since I adopted her from the pound in August of 2010. The date on the photo on the fridge said "January 2010", so the timing seemed to work. After asking several other people to compare the photo on the fridge with a photo on my phone, the consensus was clear: I had found my dog's first family.

I excitedly relayed the news to my dog when I got home that evening. She was clearly conflicted, having a tough time dealing with the mixture of emotional turmoil that comes with confronting the abandonment of her youth, but also appreciating the sense of stability her new home affforded her. At least I think that's what she was feeling. She might also have just had to go pee. Sometimes I get the two confused.

This past Saturday, my wife and I went over to my parents' house to water plants, eat dinner and watch the FSU-Duke basketball game. My parents have been out of town, and so I have been tasked with tending to some of the duties commonly associated with housesitting. Also my stepfather's well equipped wine racks were calling my name, and I looked forward to responding in kind.

So I get over to the house and am getting all set up for the afternoon when I turn on the TV and discover, horrifically, that in addition to cancelling the newspaper, my parents also let the old cable get turned off while they were away. This, during one of the most anticipated FSU games of the season. De-va-state-ing.

So the radio got turned on, wine was opened, and my temper subsided, thanks to an incredibly captivating 2nd half that featured FSU scoring 50 points on 66% shooting, the last basket now famously coming on a buzzer beating three pointer by Michael Snaer.

How exciting. Many of you know my affections for the FSU basketball team. What many of you don't know is that, after most games, I text or call my coworker, Jeff Cameron, to celebrate, bemoan, ride the wave of ecstasy or wallow in the abyss of athletically irrelevant despair.

During the week he would walk down to my office, or I would walk down to his studio and we would compare notes on the team, or some other team, or anything else. He was a friend. And he resigned from Clear Channel today to pursue other opportunities. As his friend, I'm really excited for him. As his coworker, I'm kind of bummed that the building will have that much less life in it.

So good luck, Jeff Cameron. You will be missed.

Besides scrapbooking and trying to control my life, another of my mother's hobbies is reminding me of the many ways in which she has assisted, aided, or otherwise contributed to my development and success in life. As it turns out, there are a few of these moments in life that come up more than others.

One such moment is from the last week of my senior year in high school. when, in typical fashion, I needed my mom to go get like five different things done in order for me to be able to graduate. One of these things was for her to turn in a missing History book, or maybe to pay for my missing History book. I honestly don't remember, which is odd, considering how often my mom brings it up.

Anyways, I thought of that when reading this story about how Apple is going to start introducing the iPad as a replacement for textbooks. On the one hand, how much more relevant, engaging and instructional can interactive curriculum be when delivered from modern technologies. Plus maybe it will save schools money from not having to replace so many textbooks each year.

On the other hand, I think my History book was like $50. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking an iPad will run a bit more than that. So maybe my mom got off easy. Good luck trying to tell her that, though.

So one of my primary responsibilities on the show is  answering the phones, and fielding any calls, questions or comments the listeners have. on Friday, I was talking to a caller who was trying to correct me about one of the stories we had covered in Loose Ends segment. After the Loose Ends segment, we were supposed to get Sue Semrau on the show. So during the commercial break I had Coach Semrau on the phone, only we were having some signal issues, and ultimately we got disconnected. This caused me some momentary stress, and also caused me to have to clear all the phone lines, which meant I accidentally hung up on the caller. Who took the time to email me his concerns a little while later:

"Brian,

So sorry to have hung up on you Friday. I was trying to get Sue Semrau on the phone and we kept having issues keeping her on the line. So in order to make sure the problem wasn't on our end, I cleared all our lines, which meant ending our conversation. I do sincerely apologize.

I don't know how often you call the show, but I am not in the habit of hanging up on people who take the time to call in, especially when they are calling about something we have been discussing, as you were.

So please accept my apologies. I would hate for people who ride in your car to judge you because you don't have 100.7 WFLA as one of your presets! I mean, why else would someone ride in someone else's car if not to judge their listening habits?

Anyways-- thanks for the email, and the phone call. Love to see that Laker pride.

Eric"

This is the title of a Nirvana song, and though this post has nothing to do with grunge rock, the pun proved too good to pass up. I got this email this morning from a listener in reaction to the outrage over the photo of some Marine's urinating on the body of some taliban fighters. As you might imagine, the photos didn't go over particularly well in the Arab community. That's what the emailer was responding to:

Eric

I always like when we get emails from listeners, usually on some topic we are discussing that morning on the show. This morning I got another good email, though we hadn't discussed the subject of the Champion family lawsuit. But that didn't deter the emailer:

Okay, I know this doesn't have to do with anything that you all are talking about today, but I just heard the news about Robert Champion at the bottom of the 8am hour.  Where the family is planning on suing the bus line that runs the bus on which he was killed?

This is totally out of the "what the f---?" file.  Talk about a frivolous lawsuit and/or a reason for reforms.

Did the driver of the bus hang a big flashing sign saying you're welcome to kick peoples butts in this bus?

What in the hell does the bus line have to do with anything? This seems to be just a money grab by the Champion family. Any amount of sympathy I had for their family regarding this incident has now gone out the window.

Hearing news like this first thing in the morning really gets my boxers in a wad.

Got to bitch at somebody right?