Author: Eric Brooks

Terror in the U.S.

Posted on by Eric Brooks
Photo: Associated Press/NBC
Dramatic footage captured by NBC’s “Chopper4”
Photo: Associated Press/NBC

Well, you can pretty much imagine what I did all day…

First was Attack on America, where I was given approximately 35 minutes to whip up a database script and pages to report ongoing events in New York City as it happened… and the newsroom wanted us going live by 10 AM.

Hey. You know me. Piece of cake.

Then, around 1PM, Our publisher announced on tv about our web coverage, and the paper is printing a special edition at 5PM.
entitled: “Terror in the U.S.

Talk about a mob scene. This paper is already a collector’s item.

Then they wanted a “web version”…

That’s okay. I didn’t mind throwing myself into my work today… even seeing pictures of places I hung out, worked, had lunch… now covered in 6 inches of debris. Or AP pictures that was deemed “sickening”, even by my standards.

As long as I don’t have to think about all of the friends and family I have, that work in the financial district.

That I may never hear from again…..

I throw myself into my work, and I don’t have to think about this very surrealistic day… which I know, things will never be the same no matter what.

Slaving away at Server-Space

Posted on by Eric Brooks

I decided to make a last-minute twist and go PHP at Server-Space. The site is still in the “Under Construction” stage, but it’s not stopping people from signing up for more information like crazy!

With me and Carole both working yesterday, we took turns keeping the kids at our jobs for a few hours… by 11:30, me and the kids were bored silly, so I took them down the block for the…

Brace yourself….

The GARLIC FESTIVAL…!

(I’m serious. Stop laughing… they really have stuff like that in Stroudsburg.)

Garlic popcorn, garlic artwork, even garlic wine that claims to be as powerful as viagra.

I shit you not.

We lasted about 10 minutes there with the smell. The Adorable BrooksKidz wouldn’t even let me stick around and check out the special musical guests: THE GARLIC-EATING TUBA TROUBADOURS.

First time I ever took the tribe to a festival, and not have to spend a dime… they wouldn’t even take the freebies the vendors offered.

Eventually, our appetites returned… and we ran around the corner for pizza.

Plain pizza. ;0)

Pocono People: Kitty Jones

Posted on by Eric Brooks

I had the honor of featuring my dear friend, Kitty Jones in Pocono
Life today. Every week, the Pocono Record picks someone, and features them in a section called “Pocono People”. (Last week featured one of the many constables that have tried to arrest Carole over the last few months, but let’s not open that can of worms, ok?)

When the Tribe called Brooks was stranded in Stroudsburg (as usual, thanks to the vehicle we lovingly refer to as “THE DEATHMOBILE”), Kitty was there for us, with her tour van, to get us home safe & sound.

Visit the Kit's Kaboodle Website for booking information, or to catch a show in your area.She puts on a phenomenal one-woman show called “Kit’s Kaboodle“, bringing in audience members to play various parts, and she does this all across the PA, N.J and N.Y area. (Click Here for her Show Dates)… it’s really incredible, you’ve gotta catch one of her shows.

The article is here, and her biography (bet you didn’t know she was in “As The World Turns“) is here.

I met Kitty when she hired us to redesign www.kitskaboodle.com at the Pocono Record, btw….

All moved in…

Posted on by Eric Brooks

I’m currently working out the kinks with all of the new CGI settings, but for all intents & purposes, EricBrooks.Com is back in business.

Back to school

  • The Adorable BrooksKidz are getting ready for the grueling task of getting up at 5am for the bus again…
  • Eastern Poconos Community News is running a special print (and online) edition about how the “Zero Tolerance” laws are affecting students across the country. 

    So what do *YOU* like/dislike about going back to school? 

    • Moving to a new server…

    Posted on by Eric Brooks

    Hey CyberPals!

    Expect intermittent service here, as I make the move to my new virtual home on Server-Space…

    $8.00 per month, full CGI support (since people have so much trouble with Greymatter) and they won’t block your friend’s email off the server unlike other webhosts (*COUGH*).

    Gotta re-write Perl locations, massive uploads… you know, all that fun stuff.

    Maybe even finish the Server-Space site while I’m at it… y’know?

    Anyone interested in a new webhost, let me know.

    The Legacy of Tocks Island Dam

    Posted on by Eric Brooks

    Looking for some riveting reading this weekend? Check out The Legacy of Tocks Island Dam. This story has it all: Natural disasters, death & destruction, our Government going to extremes: taking homes and land by any means necessary, land owners committing suicide as their land is taken away, hippie protests, and the origin of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

    It also features photos that never made it to print, courtesy of The Monroe County Historical Society and the U.S. Department of the Interior.

    It was a three day series, that ran in the Pocono Record last week, and now it’s online. I’ve gotta admit that I really didn’t get a chance to read this until I put it together online this weekend… and it is MIND-BLOWING! Full of history that us New Yorkers moving in never knew. Go check it out, I’ll wait.

    Newly-revamped Guestbooks

    Posted on by Eric Brooks
  • Check out the newly-revamped Guestbook from Heaven… it’s now database driven, and it has the customary email notifications/thank you’s that you all simply expect from me. (Is there anything you *can’t* do with DBMan??!!??)
  • The same goes for the Adorable BrooksKidz Guestbook… C’mon… sign their book, they love it!
  • Speaking of… I just found the missing piece to my scanner, so expect some pictures posted from our trip to the Circus last week.
  • I’m putting Christina, Ashley & Erika through an extensive training course in Dreamweaver, Fireworks & Photoshop… so expect a whole new look to their site real soon. Christina starts High School a week from today, and will be taking courses in Graphic Arts… thus the reason for giving her a head start.
  • For those of you who were kind enough to contribute to the Adorable BrooksKidz Defense Fund, expect a little surprise from them in the mail reeeeeal soon. They’d like to announce that their little hands are cramped, and they’re going to bed now….

    • Newz & Gossip

    Posted on by Eric Brooks
    • Reports are in that BOBTHECORGI’s mom and her open-heart surgery went well, and she’s doing fine
    • The Other Cheek – Here is another gem via BOBTHECORGI.Fellow Pennsylvanian Tina is hilarious! She offers guidelines for those visiting an Intensive Care Unit that I’m sure several medical professionals would wholeheartedly agree with.
    • I was just informed, in my absence, that a dear friend lost her son in a motorcycle accident. Madeline Jacobs offers a thank you and a tribute to her 21 year old son, Jason, cut down in the prime of his life….This is the second time tragedy has struck, as she lost another son, Jordan, in an accident on her ranch recently. My thoughts and deepest sympathies are with her and her family right now. I can’t even imagine that type of pain.
    • BrooksKidz Update: – Yeah, things are slowly coming back to normal. (I posted a “readers digest version” of the whole thing on Kare’s Discussion Board, as so many people felt there was more to the story.)On Wednesday, the house got a last-minute inspection by a very attractive, very shapely, social worker named Stacy. Of course, I kept forgetting her name (I kept calling her “the one with the body”)….So all night, when her name eluded me, the girls would remind me by going “Staaaaaaaaacyyyyyy” (doing the “girl shape” thing with their hands). I come up here to check my mail to find a few love notes (in kids handwriting) that Staaaaaacyyyy left behind for me on my desk.Yeah… we’re gonna be back to normal in no time. :0)

    Pocono Record: Under Siege!

    Posted on by Eric Brooks

    Yup… that’s your CyberPal, right there with the Editor, Publisher, and Editorial Editor… um, well, basically laughing at the buffoons picketing the Pocono Record. (Story at the Pocono Record site).

    David Kidwell/Pocono Record
    At the Pocono Record offices, staffers (from left) Web page designer Eric Brooks, Editor Kim DeBourbon, Publisher Carolynn Allen-Evans, Editorial page Editor Paula Heeschen.
    David Kidwell /Pocono Record

    Actually, we were *all* at the window chuckling at this makeshift parade… supposedly an unknown group of contractors protesting the way the Pocono Record has portrayed the home-building industry in Matt Birkbeck’s Special Report.

    Out of the 200 people there (I still say 130-150) there were, maybe, 30 men there, that could pass as contractors. The rest were women, children and dogs (with posterboards taped on their back).

    We’re all lined up against the windows, yelling “Hey pal, what’s under the kilt??!!??”, “What? no eggs or tomatoes?”. Photographers David Kidwell and Jason Farmer snapping up pics of the protesters outside.

    Well, that’s the front page of today’s Pocono Record. If you can get up here and grab a copy, hurry up, because it’s selling like hotcakes, and the same people holding up signs that say “BOYCOTT POCONO RECORD” are buying up 5 or 6 copies for their friends and family because their names & pictures are in the paper…

    Am I the only one who sees the irony in that? :0)

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