An actor with a reasonably distinguished career he is remembered for his roles as the German plant in “Stalag 17″ and the leader of the Impossible Mission Force in TV’s “Mission Impossible.” With a beautifully deep voice he was often used as a narrator including A&E’s signature Biography.

The part Peter Graves is probably best known for is one he played against type: Captain Clarence Oveur in the 1980 movie Airplane.

From Airplane: Captain Oveur and crew welcome a young visitor to the cockpit.

“No personalized pencils,” Helaine said.

Of all life’s heartbreaks Helaine and I share or have shared, personalized pencils is right up there! You Bobs and Ricks and Dennises don’t understand the disappointment of young Helaines and Geoffs and Stefanies. We vainly search tchotchke stores never finding that coffee cup, bicycle license plate or damned pencils that you probably have!

Sure Jeff, Helen and Stephanie are represented, but those are not our names–though we’ve all gotten mail addressed that way. It was probably addressed at the personalized pencil factory!

I expect to turn on MSNBC one weekend and see some sorry soul locked up in the SHU at a nondescript Midwest prison. Describing his life of crime he’ll say: “It all started because I was the only kid in the neighborhood without a bike license.”

Here’s our advice for parents to be: Eschew cute names. Go with the common. Go with the mundane. They want their pencils.

That is the glassless me on the left. Alas, I have my father’s tiny eyes and it always looks like I’m squinting.

The lenses have been on-and-off twice today. I am getting used to sticking my finger on my eyeball. That’s gross just to say. Both lenses stung for the first 30 seconds or so but were fine after that.

I had to work tonight, covering for a colleague whose furnace started a small fire that filled his downstairs with smoke. No injuries. Hopefully no lasting damage.

It is an awful night following an awful day with enough rain to bring flood warnings and enough wind to knock down power lines and trees.

On the drive in what was noticed at home became more obvious. My distance vision is not as good as it was with glasses. I can still see well enough to drive but signs and other objects aren’t nearly as clear.

The “Fitting Guide” for the lenses, instructions for my eye doctor, have instructions to work around this problem. I’d like to try.

My plan was to take the contacts out as soon as I got home which I did easily. Unfortunately when I looked in the little case where they ‘live’ the left lens had escaped! About ten minutes later I located it on the floor. If these things are going to last for three months holding onto them will be critical.

The real question will be how this looks at work and whether viewers accept it or even care.

¹ – Let’s just think of this guy as dentist number five. The dentist who doesn’t recommend Trident to his patients who chew gum.

I’d tried contacts before many years ago. The experience was awful enough that Stefanie made it part of her “Geoff” repertoire.

Did I really walk around the house asking everyone if the contacts were in or not? Guess so.

Mary, the optometrist, said she’d order a demo pair of a new more comfortable type made for people like me who usually wear bifocals. A pair of C-Vue Toric Multifocal lenses arrived a few days ago.

I attempted to put them in. Wisely, the last thing your eye wants is for you to stick your fingers in it! I couldn’t get the lenses in.

After Helaine asked today I decided to give it another try. First though I watched a video as a nice British woman and the world’s dweebiest opthamologist demonstrated the right way.

Maybe my problem is I wasn’t doing it with a British accent?

I went upstairs and after ten or fifteen shots I got the left lens in. Two tries later the right was in too.

Not bad. I can see! I am typing this sans glasses. That being said it’s not a perfect solution.

The reading prescription seems pretty close. My glasses corrected eyesight is 20/15. It’s not that good. Still, I haven’t found any type too small to read! That’s impressive.

The distance prescription is another story. I definitely don’t see as well as with my glasses. Distant objects are not sharply in focus. That’s as critical for distance–but it would be nice to have.

There’s one other strange artifact. My vision is spatially distorted. The top edge of my laptop screen no longer looks like a straight line. It’s a concave curve with the center appearing lower than the corners. Weird.

Meanwhile I’ll have to check and see how long these contacts can be worn and whether it’s possible to make the precription better. At the moment I’m cautiously optimistic.

We cried again. It was just as poignant, just as sweet as the first time.

The people of Gander showed the kindness you hope mankind is always capable of. In one scene, as the passengers were being shuttled from the airport on a school bus (driven by a striking driver who came back because of the emergency) a local official stood in the front and said,

“If there’s anything you need, anything at all, just ask and you will be taken care of.”

As a passenger later added,

“There’s not one person we’ve come across that hasn’t offered to help us. It’s overwhelming.”

Since my blog was one of the few places this program was originally mentioned I’ve heard from some of those involved including Bev Bass a stranded 777 pilot, Diane and Nick the transatlantic couple who met in Gander and Shirley Brooks-Jones.

Shirley has set up a scholarship fund for students at the Lewisporte Collegiate School where many passengers stayed. As soon as I get the proper contact info I’ll post it here.

Robert Feder, former Chicago Sun-Times media columnist and now professional blogger, wrote about the list and slammed Michaels.

Sure, you’d think the chief executive officer of a company struggling to emerge from bankruptcy and desperate to salvage an $8 billion buyout-gone-bad would have better things to do than pester his underlings with crazy proclamations. But in the case of Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels, you’d be wrong.

It pains me to side with Randy Michaels and not Robert Feder. I’ve been reading and enjoying Feder for years.

On the other hand there’s plenty not to like about Michaels. He was one of the enablers at Clear Channel as they removed live and local from most live and local radio stations. He is bombastic and over the top.

So much for me ever working for Tribune I suppose.

Michaels’ list is right on! Newscasts cover similar type of stories all-the-time: crimes, disasters, corruption. It’s too easy to fall back on jargon.

How many of these words and phrases have you heard twice too often?

* “Flee” meaning “run away”
* “Good” or “bad” news
* “Laud” meaning “praise”
* “Seek” meaning “look for”
* “Some” meaning “about”
* “Two to one margin” . . . “Two to one” is a ratio, not a margin. A margin is measured in points. It’s not a ratio.
* “Yesterday” in a lead sentence
* “Youth” meaning “child”
* 5 a.m. in the morning
* After the break
* After these commercial messages
* Aftermath
* All of you
* Allegations
* Alleged
* Area residents
* As expected
* At risk
* At this point in time
* Authorities
* Auto accident
* Bare naked
* Behind bars
* Behind closed doors
* Behind the podium (you mean lecturn) [sic]
* Best kept secret
* Campaign trail
* Clash with police
* Close proximity
* Complete surprise
* Completely destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished or any other completely redundant use
* Death toll
* Definitely possible
* Diva
* Down in (location)
* Down there
* Dubbaya when you mean double you
* Everybody (when referring to the audience)
* Eye Rack or Eye Ran
* False pretenses
* Famed
* Fatal death
* Fled on foot
* Folks
* Giving 110%
* Going forward
* Gunman, especially lone gunman
* Guys
* Hunnert when you mean hundred
* Icon
* In a surprise move
* In harm’s way
* In other news
* In the wake of (unless it’s a boating story)
* Incarcerated
* Informed sources say . . .
* Killing spree
* Legendary
* Lend a helping hand
* Literally
* Lucky to be alive
* Manhunt
* Marred
* Medical hospital
* Mother of all (anything)
* Motorist
* Mute point. (It’s moot point, but don’t say that either)
* Near miss
* No brainer
* Officials
* Our top story tonight
* Out in (location)
* Out there
* Over in
* Pedestrian
* Perfect storm
* Perished
* Perpetrator
* Plagued
* Really
* Reeling
* Reportedly
* Seek
* Senseless murder
* Shots rang out
* Shower activity
* Sketchy details
* Some (meaning about)
* Some of you
* Sources say . . .
* Speaking out
* Stay tuned
* The fact of the matter
* Those of you
* Thus
* Time for a break
* To be fair
* Torrential rain
* Touch base
* Under fire
* Under siege
* Underwent surgery
* Undisclosed
* Undocumented alien
* Unrest
* Untimely death
* Up in (location)
* Up there
* Utilize (you mean use)
* Vehicle
* We’ll be right back
* Welcome back
* Welcome back everybody
* We’ll be back
* Went terribly wrong
* We’re back
* White stuff
* World class
* You folks

All my commenters were touched by the outpouring of love and graciousness from these residents of an isolated community in a thinly populated province. Everyone wanted to know when the story would air again? NBC was silent until Thursday.

MSNBC will telecast “Operation Yellow Ribbon” this Saturday, 12-1 p.m. ET and Sunday, 1-2 p.m. ET, hosted by NBC News’ Tom Brokaw. Originally broadcast during NBC’s coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, “Operation Yellow Ribbon” is the story of the town of Gander, Newfoundland where, on September 11, 2001, 38 jumbo jets carrying nearly 7,000 passengers were diverted.

I cannot recommend this beautifully shot and produced documentary more highly. If you can’t be around this weekend, make sure you record it–it’s that good.

After you watch it, please come back and let me know what you think. I suspect you’ll be as deeply affected as Helaine and I were.

Joey was having a party in the studio and I was invited night-after-night. As good as Dan Ingram, Cousin Brucie and Gary Stevens were they were never as approachable as Joey seemed. I sent my self addressed stamped envelope off to Buffalo to get my purple membership card in the Royal Order of the Night People. I wanted in!

I remember hearing about Joey at other stations as his career bounced up-and-down after ‘KB. At one point he was selling jingles (or so I remember) made to be sung over the intro to records. There are some songs I can’t hear today without hearing some now defunct station’s call letters sung over the front!

A few years ago Joey went to WOR New York where he held down the free form all-night talk show. He’s still that party guy I remember with an infectious laugh that’s instantly recognizable.

Even in the best of times you don’t make money keeping a radio station on-the-air 24/7. Nowadays all-nights are a liability in an otherwise awful economic time for radio. Joey was replaced by a syndicated show–one host for scores of stations across the entire country.

Among the things I remember most about Joey is a jingle from his show. Whereas most radio stations and disk jockeys had jingles cut in Dallas by Pams or TM (or now by my friend Jon Wolfert at Jam) Joey had a jingle sung by the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons!

I’ll bet you I haven’t heard this in 40+ years–until now.

The potato chips were there when I walked into the newsroom this afternoon. This kind of stuff happens. There’s a guest on the noon show or a reporter is in the right place at the right time and all of a sudden treats appear. Newsies are selfless that way.

And these weren’t run-of-the-mill chips. These were Cape Cod Potato Chips–The Halle Berry of chipdom!

Oh yeah. Halle Berry–beautiful and alluring and yet the relationship never ends well!

I walked by again-and-again unconsciously thrusting my arm deep into one of the open bags. I had some this afternoon. I had more tonight.

“Aren’t you worried about germs?” Darren Kramer, a man of unwavering willpower and impeccable hygiene asked.

No, no. Chips trump all health concerns. After all, they’re chips!

Hopefully by tomorrow other newsroom leeches will have emptied the bags. I’ll be able to return to my carrots and Diet Pepsi.

Tonight I’m a broken man. Please, don’t tell the scale.

This is the funniest video I’ve seen this year. The Onion’s take on TV news.

All of a sudden I feel like I’m selling used cars for a living!

Meredith has noted the Onion piece might be based on this piece from the BBC. I’m an internationalist. It’s now included.