THE CZECH IS IN THE MAIL
One of my favorite songs from the early 2000s is “Act a Fool” by Ludacris.
The opening line is, “Drop too fast, drop too furious, I’m too fast for y’all.” The song was featured on the soundtrack of the 2003 film “2 Fast 2 Furious” of The Fast and The Furious movie franchise.
The last two weeks – particularly the first of the two – were fast and furious. They moved so fast that at times, I was furious.
I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I wonder if the chicken nuggets at Chick-fil-A feel that way before being devoured by customers?
During the week of Oct. 5-11, things seemed to calm down by Tuesday evening. I had the weekly grind of sending the Elgin Courier to press by 9 a.m. Tuesday after working on it Monday, then I got the Taylor Press Wednesday e-edition finished Tuesday evening before embarking on a trip to First United Methodist Church in Taylor for the annual National Night Out event.
I went to bed that evening thinking all was well. But Wednesday morning, things went a bit awry.
I received a text there was a stabbing death outside a Taylor residence, so I sprang into action and wrote a short story for the website. I spent much of the day gathering the information I needed to write a longer piece for the weekend print edition.
Wednesday, Oct. 8, also was the day the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an $8 million verdict against the city of Hutto in a discrimination case. The legal action involved a former city manager claiming racial bias played a factor in his termination in 2019.
On Thursday, Oct. 9, a Taylor man received a prison sentence that will likely keep him behind bars for the rest of his life. The defendant, who represented himself, was charged with driving while intoxicated. He also had multiple DWI offenses from years past.
He was handed an 80-year prison sentence.
Friday, Oct. 10, was the night of Taylor High School’s annual homecoming football game. We held the front page and the sports page to get that in.
After watching the Taylor Ducks seize a 49-0 lead at halftime and getting video of my 4-year-old performing cheers, I was able to take a photo of the homecoming king and queen and send it to the page designer to place on the front page.
Since the football game was a blowout, I wrote the game story on my phone in the stadium parking lot as I waited for traffic to clear. Thirty minutes later, the “check was in the mail” – my phrase for sending the paper in its entirety to the printing press.
Speaking of printing presses, almost each day this week I’ve had to put “the check in the mail.” It was the Elgin Courier Tuesday, the annual Williamson County Fair and Rodeo special section Wednesday, the Elgin Hogeye Festival special section Thursday and the Taylor Press Friday.
Next week, I’ll be preparing Veterans Day content for special sections, even though those sections don’t go to press until the following week.
They’ll be published Nov. 5 in Elgin and Nov. 9 in Taylor.
It’s going to be another fast and furious week, but I’ll try not to act a fool.
Chlapek is the area editor of the Elgin Courier and Taylor Press. He can be reached at jason.chlapek@ granitemediapartners. com.
