Dean Ruppelt is a patriot.

He served in the Army Reserves from 1982-1987. He served another stint in the Navy from 1987-1991. In September of 2007, he joined the National Guard.

In August of 2008 he got married (on 08/08/08, in fact - a brilliant stratagem to make the date itself memorable.)

And on January 2009, he got called up.

At Fort Hood he got two months training. He left for Kuwait at the end of June, where he got two more week's training, this time in dealing with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices).

On July 12, 2009, he arrived in Iraq.

Former county commissioner Melanie Worley told me recently about her first job.  She was a fairy princess.

A local movie theater hired her, gave her a gown, cape, and wand, and instructed her to supervise the frequent hordes of children. Sometimes, she said, she had to bonk them with her wand.

It was excellent training.

I went to library school at the end of the 1970s. A big change was taking place in the world of book publishing.

Almost everybody uses Google, even librarians.

And it gets easier all the time. It used to be, if you wanted to find the location of the nearest chain restaurant, you would type in the restaurant name, then look for locations.

That still works. But now, on that golden first page of hits, you'll also find a map of the Denver or Douglas County area.

How does that happen?