Hello Laporte Report subscribers. Happy Derby Day!

I realized that it's been too long since I've posted here when my
mom complained. OK, mom, and the rest of you, here's what's up with
me.

Mostly I haven't posted here because I've been working on the book.
The first 25% was due on Wednesday and I'm far from done. We have a
hard deadline of July 15 to get the book into stores in time for the
big back to school selling season.

Also I'm just plain lazy.

Lots of things have happened since my last entry. TechTV laid off
another 50 people. We must be down to under 400 employees now. Still
huge, but a lot smaller than our peak. Most of the layoffs were on
the TechLive side, but The Screen Savers suffered, too. We lost
Starr and Fatty Matty, our jibcam operator, a wonderful production
assistant, Allison Pickard, and our director, Miriam. Layoffs suck.
But I understand the need to save money in the aftermath of the tech
crash. I know the people who lost their jobs will do just fine, but
I'm going to miss them.

Fortunately, The Screen Savers is as successful as ever. We haven't
received the ratings from April, yet, but rumor has it they're even
stronger than we had hoped. We're still looking at building a new
set in the next few months - it's about time - and Cat is moving to
Call for Help, but otherwise the show won't change much.

On the home front we're planning a summer vacation in August in
Wyoming's Grand Tetons. I'm taking a week off now and two weeks in
June, but it's not really vacation. It's for the book. That and
Abby's Peter Pan performance next week. I need to be around to
chauffeur her to the long tech rehearsals between now and then.

I've had a good break from all the travelling I did late last year,
but it's about to pick up again. ABC has asked me to do monthly
appearances on World News Now, their overnight newscast. I'll
probably go to New York City every other month and tape two at once.
Since I can tape on Sunday night for a Monday AM airing, I won't
miss any Screen Savers episodes. I'll try to squeeze in a Regis
appearance while I'm out there, too. That will probably start in
early June.

Patrick and I are going to St Louis in a couple of weeks, then we're
booked for Baltimore and Prince Georges sometime in September, and
Lousiville and Birmingham in November. Dates and locations still to
be determined.

Let's see, what else. The goats and lambs are doing great, but
they're not eating the grass on the farm and it's starting to look
like a jungle here, so I'm going to have to break out the weed
whacker, high weed mower, and other power tools to duel to the death
with the tall green stuff. Abby says we should get a horse, because
they eat great quantities of grass. I can't say neigh, so we'll
probably get one sooner or later.

Well, enough procrastinating. Back to the book. Hope you're
satisfied mom... and everyone else. I'll blog again soon. Promise.