The scene in Columbia at the Colonial Life Arena last night following the Gamecocks' 68-62 upset win over top-ranked Kentucky was a predictable one of pandemonium.

No one expected this.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day and he said he couldn't understand why everyone was so shocked that the most popular and recognizable athlete in the world might have a mistress (or three) on the side.

Athletes always have mistresses, he reasoned. They are the ones who have the financial means to pay off whomever they need to pay off (sometimes, the mistress, sometimes the wife) to keep things quiet.

So I thought about that for a moment and it made sense.

Hello everyone, I hope all is well.

The Philosophy class I am currently taking at USCA is doing my mind plenty of good. There's nothing to stoke the old cerebral fires like questions of being and morality and duty.

The downside to all this "edu-mi-cation" is that a semester's worth of information is being heaped upon myself and my fellow students in a mere month. And after 10 years have passed by since I last grabbed a pen in a classroom setting it was hurry up and read for me --  I had to acclimate quickly.

It's Saturday afternoon and I have just placed the "finishing" touches on the 2009 Graduation Edition, which will hit newsstands and paper racks this Wednesday.

I don't know about you, but I'm in a SLUMP.

No, not the baseball kind (which would be nice), but just the old fashioned grumpy, stay out of my way kind. My lovely wife says that I get this way each time I spend too much time alone away from she and the kids.

And I think she has a point.

With two small children and running a small newspaper, there are not many moments for silence. So I guess that when I get a few hours to myself I REALLY want to hold on to it.

This a really cool day for me. After laboring for months - and especially the last several weeks on getting this new website up and running, I can finally let someone else view it other than me. Bear with me, please, as there will likely be some kinks and glitches that will need to be worked out in the days ahead. Obviously, the site is a significant upgrade from our former home. The site is smoother and more contemporary, and it offers some pretty cool features (like Spotted) with which you will be able to place your own stamp on the site.

Right now I am having quite a time learning to circumnavigate the NEW and IMPROVED citizen-news.com. And trust me, Sir Francis Drake himself would find the journey no less perilious than any sea cruise on which he might have traveled.