Birthday fun
I've been in journalism for almost 20 years (including in New York on 9/11) and last night was one of the craziest. I was running the paper because our chief editor is out of town. The big stories of the night were the Va. Tech shooting and -- in something we've followed for a while -- the selection of the host of the Asian Games in 2014, for which the Korean city of Incheon had a strong chance to win.

We expected a news conference about 6:30 p.m. to announce the winner of the Asian Games, and we had a strong story out of Virginia with vivid quotes from a Korean student who'd been shot, but not seriously injured. So, as the night went along, our page 1 was in good shape.

Then, came news about the Asian Games, which is a major event in these parts. The ceremony was dragging on, and the delegates were going to have dinner before announcing the results. That meant the decision was due about 10 p.m. That's our deadline.

Then, about 9:15 p.m., we started getting word that -- it was possible -- a Korean was the shooter in Va. Our original story quoted the Chicago Sun Times as saying the guy was a Chinese national. About 9:45 p.m. -- 15 mins. before deadline -- we learned that it was pretty sure a Korean was the shooter, but it wasn't confirmed.

We got an extension to about 10:20 to close page 1. At 10 p.m., I was standing in the middle of the newsroom watching 2 TVs (both with clusters of editors around them). One had the Incheon result. The envelope was on a pillow. Someone carried it over. More words. More speeches. "Just say it!!" I was yelling, with a smile.

The other TV carried the Virginia press conference. It didn't start until 10:05, of course. Come on, come on ... Slowly, the news trickled out with details about the shooter.

Then the frantic rush. We'd prepared several stories with the possibilities about Incheon, so that was an easy swap when Incheon won the games.

However, the updates to the Korean shooter story (now the lede of the paper) kept coming. We were updating and polishing and rewriting and redoing the headline until the last possible second. But we got it all in. Whew.

During the whole process, I felt amazingly calm. When it was over, I sat back and actually started to sweat and maybe tremble a little bit. Quite a 37th birthday ...