Moving on

Ever since Facebook and Twitter came along, it's been harder to work up the notion to blog, and so you can see there's been very little activity on this site for some time. For those who know me well, you're already seeing what I'm up to on those pre-eminent social networks. All our photos are going to Facebook. Most of my snarkiest lines are going to my status feeds on both Facebook and Twitter. And so it goes, for most of us.

Which means I probably won't spend much more time updating this site. But I'll keep it going, at least until I come up with a better layout and design to incorporate more of what I'm doing now -- Facebook and Twitter (have I mentioned those enough already?)

Here's where you can find me most: my Facebook page and my Twitter page.

More to come!

Christmas in 2 minutes, 30 seconds

Enjoy this video of our fun this morning. Thanks for all the great gifts and cards. We're blessed to have wonderful friends and family.



We posted two more videos to Facebook, so find me there. And here's a link to several still photos, also posted on FB.

Our 2008 story in pictures

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays to everyone! For the second time in two years, we've picked up stakes and moved long-distance to a new home and a new job for me. Now we're in Cincinnati, and we're here to stay. I'm working for The E.W. Scripps Company (a 130-year-old media company), and I'm working full-time on leading content initiatives for the websites associated with our company's TV stations across the country.

For Susan, Andrew and Sarah, it's been another pack-up-and-move for us and the dogs. We miss Texas and Virginia, but now we get to explore Ohio and Kentucky.

So here's our 2008 story through several of our favorite photos.


Our 2008 story begins in Texas over the holidays and our newest family member, Molly. She came from the same family of spaniels as our 3-year-old dog Minnie.


Besides our many good friends in Virginia, the two things I'll miss the most about Richmond were 1) our neighborhood (all Colonial houses) and 2) the very agreeable weather there. Here's our Richmond home in springtime.


Here's Sarah posing in front of springtime flowers.


Another benefit of Richmond is its promiximity to the water. Here are Sarah and I on my WTVR boss's boat.


Andrew and I took a father-son trip to see baseball games in Cleveland and Pittsburgh over Memorial Day weekend.


One of the fun things about our neighborhood was the daily gathering of the kids at the bus stop. It was very much a neighborhood social event.


Sarah played on a YMCA soccer team, and enjoyed telling her dad that dads aren't allowed to play.


Even though the Richmond Braves AAA baseball team are no more, we enjoyed one of the last home games there, and it was "bring your dogs with you" night.


My last day at WTVR, September 11, was very difficult. I loved my work there. I had a terrific staff of journalists, and I'm very proud of what we accomplished in my (too short) 14 months there.


I got two big going-away gifts from my staff at WTVR. One was a Redskins jersey signed by several colleagues. Somehow I lost all photos of the jersey. The other gift is something I'll treasure forever. A bona fide fake degree from VCU. During my tenure at WTVR, our staff's biggest accomplishment was breaking a story about how Richmond's police chief was awarded a VCU degree even though he hadn't completed the residency-credit hours required. Raymond Hawkes deserves credit for making the fake degree look so real, but I promise not to put it on my resume.


The family and I were separated for two months while I got started at my new job in Cincinnati. I thoroughly enjoyed my family's visit to Cincinnati. This was taken at Cincinnati's iconic Fountain Square.


One of our last weekends in Richmond was Halloween. Here's Sarah the kitty cat.


That same weekend, we drove to Chincoteague and Assateague Islands on the eastern shore of Virginia for a last peek at the ocean before we moved inland.


We sold our house in 40 days (a miracle in this market). For the next year or so, we're renting a home in Anderson Township, Ohio, which is about 15 miles southeast of downtown Cincinnati. The house looks small from the outside, but it's one of the biggest houses we've ever owned. We're very fortunate to everything we need, and then some.


And now we're enjoying all the amenitites of Cincinnati, including skating on Fountain Square's winter ice rink.


Andrew and I enjoyed seeing the Cincinnati Bengals beating the Washington Redskins. It's nice to be back in a major league city again.


Just another pretty picture of Susan, on a winter day.


And we're getting used to all the cold and snow too, even Minnie and Molly. Molly's almost as big as Minnie.

If you haven't joined Facebook yet, we'd love to keep in touch with you there. It's so easy to stay connected there. I've enjoyed connecting and reconnecting with hundreds of friends and family members (even my dad!) day by day. It's also the reason why I haven't blogged much this year. If you're not on Facebook, you can always e-mail us at chipmahaney@gmail.com or susanmahaney@yahoo.com.

Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks for a great 2008, and Happy 2009!

Breaking news ... the 2008 way

If it seems like we just moved to Richmond, it's because we just moved to Richmond. And now we're moving again.


Today in both Richmond and Cincinnati, there was the announcement that I will become Director of Digital Content for the E.W. Scripps Company. For those of you not in the media, Scripps has been in the journalism business for well over 100 years. It owns newspapers and television stations around the country. If you don't live in a Scripps market, you'll recognize Scripps as the sponsor of the National Spelling Bee or perhaps as the creator of a small obscure cable network called HGTV. (The cable networks are now part of another Scripps-named company, Scripps Networks.)

As much as I've loved being a television news director, and as much as I've loved living and working in Richmond, I've discovered over the past 3 years that my real passion is in digital media. And now there's a job that's perfectly suited for my 25 years' experience in news, weather, sports, technology and training. I'll be working very closely with all of Scripps' television newsrooms, to grow their online products and audiences. It's a tremendous opportunity for me.

Susan, Andrew and Sarah are all on board, even though a second move in two years is not going to be fun. We're excited about this new adventure.

I'm very grateful to all my friends and family for their support in all our journeys. I'm very grateful to my WTVR and Raycom friends and family, and particularly my boss Peter Maroney, for support and friendship and hard work together these past 14 months. I'm grateful to my new friends at Scripps for their confidence in my ability to grow their business.

More to come! I'm here in Richmond through the second week of September, and I start at Scripps on September 15.

And by the way, to reference the title of this post, I did break this news electronically in a very 2008 way -- first by Twitter, second on Facebook, and third here on this blog. FWIW. I guess I could have texted it too, but that would be copying a certain Democratic Party candidate's plans this week with his VP announcement.

More to come!

Sarah's 7 today!

Happy birthday to our darling daughter, who's come a long way since July 18, 2001. She had surgery 12 hours after she was born, and she spent her first three weeks in ICU. Look at her now -- just beautiful.



Oh yeah, she was pretty excited - all day long. As she should be.

Where the heck have I been?

Ever since I started this blog (back in 1968, I think), I don't think I've let it go six months without an update. It's not like I've not been living. Rather it's just a function of my new job of being a news director. What I do 5-7 days (60-75 hours a week) saps the blogging energy out of me.

What little I've written so far this year has been on my Twitter feed (you can follow my short pithy mini-updates on my life here) and on Facebook. Those of you on Facebook know I spend some time there. If you haven't got your own Facebook account, do it now. It's free, it's fun, and we'll see a lot more of each other there.

But I won't forget to write here either. Or post photos, like this one of Andrew and me in Cleveland for a Rangers-Indians game over Memorial Day weekend.

Wanna see a bunch more photos? Friend me on Facebook.

2007 - Out with a bang, and a (new puppy's) whimper

Our year ended with a five-day trip back to Texas, our first since the summer. We had high hopes for seeing old friends, eating some can't-find-it-in-Virginia decent Mexican food, and letting the kids see the cousins and best friends. So much for plans.



Sarah spent the week in the hospital, four days in the "hole" for strep-pneumonia. One of the few highlights was a visit from the tooth fairy after she lost one of our front-teeth. She's doing better now, but her illness cost her half her holiday break.

Andrew had a better week, spending time with his aunts/uncles/cousins and grandparents, and then a two-day visit to his best friend Patrick. And then earlier today, we picked up our new puppy, Molly!



More photos have been posted to Facebook -- check it out here!

Best photos of 2007, now online

I've posted the best photos we took in 2007 to a pair of Facebook photo albums. There's about 100 of them there -- too big for one album, so they're split into two albums. I'll be adding the captions in a couple of days.

Here's one of my favorites, taken during our March vacation to California.



Click here and here to see the two albums. You don't have to be a Facebook member to see our photos, but feel free to sign up for your own free Facebook while you're there. Then we can be friends (woo hoo!). Facebook is my new favorite online toy, and it's going to be quite useful for my work too.

A Christmas weekend trip with Andrew and the Dallas Cowboys - Part 1

Christmas is always fun. The kids are jumping up and down, totally excited about the next couple of days. For Andrew and me, the big present came a couple of days early. We had the chance to drive from Richmond to Charlotte to watch our Dallas Cowboys play the Carolina Panthers on Saturday night. Here's a journal of our trip, and there are some photos to match here on Facebook, including this one:



10am Saturday: A pre-departure present from mom. She instructed both Andrew and me to open a present, and both of us found brand-new Cowboys hoodie sweatshirts. Awesome gift, and as it turns out, quite necessary too, given the weather we would face.

11am: We're in the car, and on the way. Quick poll -- how many unplanned bathroom stops would we have to make for the round-trip? My personal "over-under" mark is 6. (I've travelled with Andrew before!)

12noon: We're almost to Petersburg, and about to leave I-95 for I-85, which will take us the rest of the way.

1:30pm: Moments after a lunchtime stop in South Hill VA (KFC if you're scoring at home), we cross the stateline into NC. The roads immediately get worse -- very old pavement and quite bumpy. We pull into the North Carolina Welcome Center, where the cheerful lady manning the desk offers us a full packet of state propoganda, and then asks me to complete a survey. Sure. 5 minutes later, and I'm still filling out the survey, but I don't want to disappoint the cheerful lady.

2:15pm: Just outside Durham, no time to check out the Bulls stadium or Duke University, we're making great time along I-85 when Andrew says he's really got to go. The first exit we find has nothing advertised, but we take it anyway. Four miles later, we find a somewhat-icky convenience store. I get gas; Andrew gets relief.

3:45pm: The North Carolina Piedmont landscape is rather non-descript. There's nowhere near the trees we have in Central Virginia's Piedmont.

4:00pm: Only 30 miles away from our destination in downtown Charlotte. We're in the northern suburb of Kannapolis, and all of a sudden, traffic comes to a halt. We spend the next 30 minutes in stop and go traffic. We get about 10 miles down the road, and finally the congestion breaks free. No apparent reason for the backup. It's in this mess that we see of our batch of Panthers flags flying out of the nearby vehicles. Oh yeah, and a couple of Cowboys fans honked at the flag flying outside my car.

4:45pm: About 30 minutes behind our target time (not because of unscheduled bathroom stops - we had only the one in Durham), we arrive downtown Charlotte, which is actually Uptown Charlotte in the local vernacular. Charlotte has a very modern skyline, and we can see the lights of the football stadium a few blocks away. We check into The Blake Hotel, courtesy of a $55 bid on Priceline. Worth every penny, because I know other people were paying $120 or more for the same room I was getting. (You can read my review of The Blake on my favorite travel site:TripAdvisor

6:00pm: Tickets, check. Camera, check. Wallet, cell phone, room key. I'm wearing two shirts beneath my Cowboys jersey, and I'm wearing the hoodie around my waist. Andrew says he'll be fine with a t-shirt, his Romo jersey and his new hoodie. We'll see. Off we go.

6:05pm: It's a mile from the hotel to the stadium. The shuttle bus has a line. Don't want to take a cab, because I can see the traffic already backing up. What's the point? We decided to hoof it. It's 45-degrees with a very gentle breeze. Downtown looks gorgeous. We pass by a dozen or more guys all trying to buy or sell tickets. Thought to self: Why don't the ticket-seller-hustlers simply sell their tickets to the ticket-buyer-hustlers? I considered pointing that out to the hustlers, but decided to keep my mouth shut.

6:15pm: At the stadium, a good-sized crowd is already there. Half or more of them are Cowboys fans -- a very good sight. We check out the "Catwalk" -- a small fair outside the stadium. The TopCat cheerleaders are cheering "Go Panthers". To my son's horror, I'm the loudest guy in the crowd. No worry, there are some very big Cowboys fans standing around me, so I feel safe.

6:30pm: We go inside the stadium. It's cold and breezy in our seats. We're the first one in our sections, and my son is wondering why we're here 90 minutes before kickoff. "It's football, son. You gotta show up early."

7:45pm: After sharing a Baconator burger at the Wendy's concession stand, we met our game neighbor, Gary. We're sitting in very-good seats that can only be bought with a personal-seat-license (PSL). Gary bought a PSL when the team was born in 1995, and he's held season tickets ever since. He's missed only three Panther games in those 13 seasons. Gary knows everything about the Panthers. He turns out to be a great neighbor for the evening -- a hardcore Panther fan with a great spirit.

8:15pm: Kickoff is finally here! About five minutes to the game, the security guards are escorting a Cowboy fan out of his seat about three rows in front of us. I didn't see him do anything, so I'm wondering why he got yanked. Is this part of the Panthers' strategy to pick off the Cowboy fans one-by-one. We're about 20,000 strong in the stadium, so good luck with that. (The fan was allowed to return to his seat about 30 minutes later.)

9:00pm: The Cowboys score two quick touchdowns, and already I'm mouthing off. That didn't last for long, because I lost my yelling voice in the 2nd quarter.

9:15pm: It comes to my realization that I've been standing for the past 30 minutes, even while the neighbors sit down. Panther fans do a lot of sitting. It's a football game -- you're supposed to stand.

10:30pm: In the second half, two drunk guys behind me were getting noticeably irritated with the referees' calls and with the Cowboys in general -- perhaps they're mad at having to stand the whole game, because of me.

11:30pm: The Cowboys line up in the "victory" formation to run out the clock. Panther fans, including the drunks, are still upset over the blown refs' calls. Some of us in the stands are calling for "We want Green Bay!", except I'm having to mouth that cheer because I have no voice.

Midnight: We spill out of the stadium, and Andrew and I decide we want pizza. We head into Uptown with a map in hand, and 8 long blocks later, we're at Brixx, a wood-fired pizza place. I'm surprised there aren't more people out late partying. Perhaps if the Panthers had won. On our walk, we hear lots of Cowboys cheering, and Panthers fussing. It was a great scene outside the stadium.

1:30am: Back in the hotel, it's finally lights out. Andrew's had the time of his life, and so have I.

More to come. Day 2 is next.

A Christmas weekend trip with Andrew and the Dallas Cowboys - Part 2

For your reading convenience, I'll post this entry below Part 1, opposite to traditional blog style.

8:30am Sunday: Andrew's still sacked out, so I decide to head downstairs to find a paper. The front desk clerk at The Blake instructed me to go outside to find the rack. I asked for quarters in change, but the front desk clerk told me he couldn't make change. (Huh?) He told me to ask the guy at the snack shop across the way. I ask for two dollars in quarters, which turn out to be the only quarters the guy has in his drawer. He gave them to me though, and I went outside. I found an empty newspaper rack and a doorman who told me it hadn't been filled this day. He says the nearest newspaper is 5 blocks away. In my pajamas, that wasn't an option. More on the newspaper story later, but keep in mind, what I really wanted was another souvenir for our trip.

9:30am: We check out of the hotel, with a promise to go search for a great breakfast. Last night, we asked our stadium neighbors for their advice on the best breakfast in Charlotte. One lady recommends a place called "Knife and Fork", which she says is off Albemarle, near Independence. I remember Independence - a big street in Charlotte - from my last journey here in 1990. So this morning, we set off in search of breakfast. Twenty minutes later, we've searched the neighborhood, and even my PDA-phone can't help me locate this joint or any other breakfast joint. The neighborhood's gone downhill from what I recall 17 years ago. So we decide to head toward home and find something along the way.

10:00am: Nothing wrong with Bob Evans. Their cinnamon pancakes are a once-a-year treat. They're too filling and sweat to eat them more often. They've got a newspaper rack there, so I drop my quarters and pull out a Sunday edition of the Charlotte Observer. As we get seated, I open up the paper and WHAT?!? - I see it's the early edition, and it only has pregame coverage of the Cowboys big win last night. This sucks. We're only 12 miles north of downtown in a busy hotel/restaurant area, and these folks get the Bulldog paper? What a ripoff.

10:10am: After we place our order, I call the Charlotte Observer circulation area to find out if there's a nearby newspaper seller with the late edition, with all the game coverage. The first person I speak with says she doesn't know, but that a newspaper operator can help me with my request. She transfers me to that operator, who turns out of an automated attendant. Thanks lady - geez! :( I call back and this time ask to speak to a supervisor. He tells me he has no idea where I could find a late-edition newspaper, and he won't even hazard a guess to help an out-of-towner out. He suggests I call the Observer's "single-copy" office (closed on weekends), but they wouldn't be able to get out a paper until after Christmas.

10:45am: After breakfast (thanks Bob Evans!), I tell Andrew I'm on a quest for a late newspaper. He senses time-wasting trouble. Fortunately we drive only about 4 miles to the next-nearest hub of commercial activity and find a paper in a Walgreens.

11:15am: On the road again, and once again, we're stuck in the same inexplicable "for no apparent reason" bizarre traffic jam just north of Charlotte. I call North Carolina's "511" traffic information service, but the recorded information there has only construction information. Apparently this miles-long traffic tie-up is not of importance to them.

11:45am: Heading north free and clear, only now it's pouring rain. It would pour the rest of the way home.

12:00noon: Andrew's listening to his iPod. I'm listening to an audiobook on mine.

2:00pm: Two hours later, and Andrew's yet to go to the bathroom. I figure we're living on borrowed time here. But we decide to pull over to a Sonic Drive-In north of Durham. We love Sonic, but the problem for us in Virginia is that you have to drive 30-40 miles to get to the one nearest our house. So a Sonic trip is a special trip indeed, and worth a photo.



3:00pm: We get in range of a Richmond radio station that's carrying the Packers-Bears game, and we're cheering every Bears touchdown, because it puts the Cowboys closer to the coveted home-field advantage. (Final: Bears 35, Pack 7!)

3:10pm: Back in Virginia with better roads and prettier landscape. This state also has the nicest Welcome Centers. They're huge, and very fancy. It's good to be back in The Old Dominion, our home.

4:30pm: Home in Short Pump, finally! Safe and sound. Smiles on our faces. A newspaper to remember it by. The good feeling of knowing you got a steal of a deal at a hotel. The great feeling of seeing the Cowboys win in enemy territory. The fun of spending 30 straight hours with my son. As they say in the commercial world, "priceless".

4:40pm: Daughter Sarah asks if she and I can go on our own trip next weekend. Well let's see, the Cowboys are playing in Washington ....

Yeah, I'm too old for Facebook, but not for long

I'm totally enamored with Facebook, the social-networking website that was first built for college students, but is now open to the world. Susan rolls her eyes at my last-chance grasp for being hip and youthful, but I've convinced her that she'll do well to have her own Facebook account to keep up with her new college proteges. (She's teaching Broadcast News Writing at VCU this spring -- pretty cool!)

Many of my aged (over 30) friends are on Facebook, and I'm trying to recruit coworkers too. I think there's tremendous value in using this tool for our journalistic purposes. Most of my Facebook friends are my age or older, so I don't feel like I'm robbing the social-networking cradle. As word spreads, Facebook will get "older". If you use e-mail, share photos, keep up with friends and business contacts, Facebook is too dang useful not to be in your world.

I love the group aspect of Facebook. I've joined groups for journalists, groups for Cowboys fans, and I'm in the Richmond area "network". One of my favorite groups is " Wait, You're A Mahaney?!? So Am I! " It's a bunch of folks (most 30 or under) whose last name is Mahaney. Lots of Mahaneys there - who knew? We're going to start a WTVR page on Facebook, but we haven't yet figured out all we're going to do with it.

I'm now going to paste this Facebook link (and personal status update at the top of my blog, so now you never have to wonder what I'm doing.

The newest Mahaney - coming for Christmas!

Say hello to Molly! She's just a few weeks old now -- too young for her to come home with us. She's currently in Texas, at Bremer Kennels near Fort Worth. We'll be bringing her home to our home in Virginia after Christmas. Watch out Minnie -- you've got a new sister.

Am I really that stressed?

This is me at work, caught slightly off-guard by one of my colleagues.

New city, a new local blog

It had to happen. I move to a new city, and I see all sorts of stuff I want to write about. So here's my fourth blog: ShortPumpCowboy.com.

Even though our mailing address is Richmond, VA, we technically live in an unincorporated part of Henrico County, Virginia. We're hardly out in the sticks; it's more of a suburban feel. We're very close to an old village called "Short Pump", which has more than 150 years of history. Short Pump as a political entity has long been absorbed by the suburban outgrowth from Richmond, but everyone still knows what and where it is.

Why "Short Pump Cowboy?" Because I love being a Cowboy fan here in Redskins territory. My blog's another reason to stick it to the Redskins.

"Short Pump Cowboy" will be a lot like FlowerMoundRoad.com -- all the little news in my little corner of the world. Check it out!

Like I need another social network

I work in the media business, mostly in TV but with a growing foothold on the web. Some of my friends and colleagues in this business are really into the social networking scene online. I feel like I'm way too old, but yet, it's fun to play around and see who's doing what.



It's a no-brainer I'm on LinkedIn -- it's the most grown-up of all the online social nets. Many of my well-connected pals are here. LinkedIn is kinda stuffy, more like you're seeing all your friends at a board meeting, rather than a party.

I've also got a MySpace page, though it's very lame I have only 6 friends, and three of them are TV shows. Yeah, I'm way too old to be hanging out here. I signed up for MySpace when I worked for FOX, so I considered it company business (FOX owns MySpace). I tell you what, though. I've found two good people to hire based on their MySpace pages.

Like MySpace, I'm way too old for Facebook, at least the Facebook that was conceived to link college students. But now they've opened it up, and I signed up to see what was going on there. Thanks to my much-better-connected friend Steve Safran, I now have one friend on Facebook. Look me up here too!

I need to get blogging again

I've been in Richmond for three months now. The new job is very difficult and time-consuming, but I'm learning quickly and I love the work.

Even though I have nothing to contribute to my most popular blog FlowerMoundRoad.com, it's still getting lots of traffic, and people are still posting comments to old posts there.

I'm feeling the need to blog again, and there's all sorts of material here to talk about here in Virginia. When I get the new domain name and the new blog started, I'l let you know. Soon.

Greatness! Pony up, everyone!

SMU hosts Texas Tech Monday at 3pm Dallas time. I'll be watching on ESPN!

It's hard to say goodbye, but it's easier with party photos

My friends at FOX 4 were kind enough to throw not one but two parties for my departure. (Geez, I guess they were really glad to see me go!) But seriously, my friends couldn't have been more gracious and generous in their well-wishes. Here are two headline photos, and there are more party pix via the link.

First up, it's me and two pretty ladies -- my dear friend Heather Hays and the joy of her life, baby Emmy (two months old)!



Next, it's Susan and two of her closest workmates at Channel 8 - Jackie and the soon-to-be-a-mom Alexa.



Once again, click here for more photos from my final days at FOX 4. There's a page with thumbnail pictures. Click on any thumbnail and you'll see the full-sized unretouched original.

... then 400 years later, the Mahaneys arrived!

Big news! We're moving to Richmond Virginia. I'm the new news director at WTVR CBS 6. It's a step up for me career-wise, and we're going to love our new home. We'll miss our Flower Mound/DFW home and our friends, for sure. But since my parents still live here, we'll be back frequently.

Richmond is only a few miles away from the historic Jamestown settlement, which was first established in 1607, 400 hundred years ago. There's a lot of history in that part of the world, and we can't wait to explore it all.

More to come! My last day at FOX 4 is July 3rd. My first day at WTVR is July 9th.

A near perfect game!

Took the family out to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington this Sunday afternoon, and it was a near perfect outing. Here are three reasons why:



First, we had nearly all of Section 15 to ourselves. This photo was taken in the second inning. There were plenty of people seated in the sections to either side of us, but we were all alone.



Second, the emptiness of our section helped Andrew capture his first-ever foul ball. Actually one of our section neighbors grabbed it and gave it to him. Another foul ball - a line drive - struck the empty seat two rows in front of us, but it caromed back toward the front rows. For the record, Andrew's foul ball came off the Blue Jays' second batter, Adam Lind, in the first inning.



Third, whaddya know? The Rangers won again to sweep the series. Great game. Rangers get three home runs, including an 8th-inning go-ahead-for-good blast from Michael Young. Kameron Loe pitched 6+ quality innings, gave up only 3 hits. Benoit gave up a tying run in the 8th, but Young's reply in the bottom of the inning put the Rangers back up on top. As usual, Otsuka closed the game out, but needed a nifty defensive gem from Young to throw out the final batter in a close play at first.