I now work as the night cops reporter at the Omaha World-Herald. I started Aug. 2. It’s a good gig.

The next point, different spot – down the T on the deuce court – same result.

Three points later, Murray had beaten Federer in the final for the first time and in straight sets, 7-5, 7-5. It was the first time Murray had beaten Rafael Nadal and Federer in the same week, and Murray became the first man to defend his Rogers Cup title since Andre Agassi did it 15 years ago.

Maybe we all should go without formal coaches.

But as impressive as this week was for Murray, who played his best tennis of the year, what’s more astounding is how he dominated this week, how Murray pounced on the court, darting after balls and aggressively attacking instead of shrinking against the best in tennis.

Aggressive. The “a” word that always lingers by Murray. When he plays tentative, gets the ball in play and waits for his opponents to flop, they say, he should have tried more backhands down the line, been more aggressive. When he slaps approach shots deep into the corners, creates more angles and sneaks in more often, they say, maybe he should let his opponent hit a few more balls.

But with this week’s showing, has there ever been more reason to wonder why Murray doesn’t always take the swinging volley or why he doesn’t always string his opponent from side to side instead of waiting for his opponent to do the same to him?

Sure, Murray had fresher legs as Federer showed the effects of back-to-back three-set matches the last two nights. But these weren’t five-set marathons that took everything out of Federer, this wasn’t the U.S Open, where this summer will end.

Murray, 23, is still without a major championship. But, you wonder, after seeing what he did this week on the fast hard courts in Toronto, just two weeks before the lights shine on those quick, hard courts in New York, how long we’ll be able to introduce him as the best in the men’s game without a Grand Slam title.

I was a baby-faced 20-year-old with a white man’s afro. (I know; I haven’t changed much in the last four years.)

Every time I walked to class from my dorm room, 636 Schurz Hall, my eyes grew as I passed the leaves changing beautiful and the flowers staying gorgeous.

I saw thousands of students trampling across Speaker’s Circle, striding to Management 3000, chatting with friends on their cell phones or listening to Crazy by Gnarls Barkley on their iPod. They’d walk across the quad, doing similar things, engaging with gadgets rather than people, rarely looking up to even acknowledge the person passing them but always looking down, always staring into that four-inch square that somehow played music or produced a more-preferable voice.

And there was me, the new, friendly kid living away from home for the first time in a new city that was more than three times bigger than my old city, my hometown of Mason City, Iowa. There was me, somewhat disheartened.

This was a big school, yes – some 28,000 students at the time – and my old school, North Iowa Area Community College, was a small school, true – about 3,000 students back then. But at NIACC, we at least acknowledged, nodded or said hello to the person who sauntered past us in the opposite direction. I suppose it was the Iowa thing to do, or at least the right thing to do, the nice, courteous and friendly gesture.

Not here. Not then, at least. But I continued on, kept looking for moments to say hello, searching for times to offer at least a nod or a half smile to a fellow walker. I wondered why everyone was so hushed, why no one wanted to be polite.

I believed the smallest details in life make up the best moments of your day, such as when a person says hello and smiles when you’re having a rough day. It cheers you up, even if it’s just for a few hours. And that matters, those few hours help determine how your day went.

Then I thought some more, I wondered what all this meant, this keeping to yourself behavior. Why couldn’t people be more friendly? What did this say about us, the human race, that we weren’t into being kind to our neighbors?

Eventually, I slowly became one of them, because when people don’t raise their eyes from the iPod or set down the phone, it’s hard to say hello, even when you’re as idealistic as I was. I gradually stopped trying and became one of the non-friendly walkers who went to a big school and had so much on my mind I couldn’t stop being busy and start being friendly.

Then, in December 2008, I graduated from the University of Missouri, beaming proud of my school and my people. I loved it. Everything.

And now, I’ve left the place I loved, Mizzou, Columbia, Booche’s. And I’ve started again, heading down this path of friendliness and showing off my eagerness to be outgoing and happy. I don’t write this to prove my idealism; I know that I’m a dork. (Thanks, Gretchen.)

I write this to say I won’t stop this time when the guy down the street, sitting on his concrete stoop, smoking a cigarette before noon, just stares at me when I wave with my iPod buds in my ear. I’ll keep waving and nodding, saying hello and good morning to everyone I can, their reaction a non-factor. I’m happier that way, when I’m more outgoing and friendly to people.

I also do it to see people’s reactions. It’s as if no one has waved or said hello to them in the past 15 years. Some do a silent double take, thinking, Does he know me? Others say hello right back and quickly look away as if they don’t want to be caught being friendly in public, BFIP if you’re listening on the police scanner.

It’s been fun so far, this being outgoing and friendly thing. I hope you’ll join me.

If not, if you prefer the iPod instead of the hello, I know just the place for you to go.

On a muggy July afternoon in Columbia, Mo., George, a tall, slender man with gray hair, didn’t sit in his favorite brown, leather recliner – ALS had restricted his movement in his hips, making it tough for him to get out of comfortable recliners. Instead, George rolled across the living room’s wooden floors in a wheelchair. Marcia plopped down in the chair.

Our talk with George lasted about an hour. He chuckled about the year in which he was the one-man Fulton Sun sports department. He smiled about the new wheelchair ramp that had been installed in front of his home off N. Garth Ave. And he shook his head about all the stories he had been telling his visitors, including the one about the day that changed his life 16 years ago.

George was about 40 years old at the time, working as a cops reporter at the Columbia Daily Tribune. Jim Robertson, the paper’s managing editor, called George into his office. “Your attitude is poisoning the newsroom,” Robertson told him.

George admitted as much at his house. He always came up with a snarky response, but that’s what good reporters did, wasn’t it? Weren’t they always quick to respond? Or were they?

George thought about his life, about his attitude and about everything he had, such as his wonderful wife, his beautiful 1-year-old daughter and his great job. I’ve been blessed, George said he thought. It was time to count his blessings rather than tally his disappointments, he decided.

From that day on, George gave thanks to God for his family, for their ability to raise a child and for the home they could afford. “Count your blessings,” he told Marcia and I.

In this way, and in his life, George was old school. During the weekends I worked with him at the Tribune, he regretted the Internet’s affect on newspapers and the shortage of reporters in newsrooms everywhere. He favored the days of print products, of less video clips and more written words.

About two weeks ago, the best podmate ever and I had no idea we were seeing George for the last time. He, himself, expected to live another two years until the ripe age of 58. Age 29 is hardly middle-aged.

It’s strange seeing a man who is so close to death even though none of us knew it. George died on Saturday, a 56-year-old father of one and long-time newspaper reporter and editor.

His byline is above hundreds of stories and his editing pen marked up hundreds of others, but I will always remember George for the line that changed his life:

“Count your blessings.”

On a more depressing note, divorce (sometimes) and death might be the saddest things we have in society. Two sad endings that bring conclusion to something that began with so much joy. But, for whatever reason or reasons, the person’s life had to end and the couple was better off without one another, a thought unimaginable when they gazed into each other’s eyes however many years ago on their wedding day.

I didn’t write about weddings, divorce or babies being born last weekend. That leaves death.

CDT: Teens turn page on high school

In Sunday’s story, I tried to tackle the following question: How big of a deal is the number of kids in a classroom?

CDT: A matter of size

Andrew Astleford: How I wrote the story

Enjoy this wonderful weekend.

Columbia Daily Tribune: Hickman honors life taken too soon

- Jonathon

The stains of Calvin Trillin’s blood must have been washed and removed from the pages. His editors had to have grabbed cloths of microfibers and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until Trillin’s blood no longer remained on  “About Alice,” his tribute to his late wife, Alice, who died on Sept. 11, 2001, after lung cancer had weakened her heart 25 years earlier.

That is the only situation my mind can comprehend, because it is clear Trillin ripped out his heart and left it on the 96 pages of his book, never to be used in the way he used it with Alice ever again.

In his love story, Trillin recalled decades of moments to show the world, to show his family and to show himself how much he loved Alice.

In simple, crisp prose, Trillin describes what we all long for – someone to share our life with, someone we would die for and someone who loves us even as our hair grays and our skin wrinkles. With compelling details, Trillin introduces us to his wife, to her personality and to how much she cared for their children.

He shares the countless times Alice placed their children above everything else in their lives, as every parent should do. He tells us how she was not only a model human being, but also a caring parent and an ideal wife.

But what I find most intriguing about Trillin’s essay is why he wanted to pen these pages, why he wanted to bring up these joyful memories when there is no chance to create new, similar moments. Why stir the finally calmed pot of death with memories of a woman who’s gone forever?

I suppose the better question is, why not? Why not let the world know how lucky you were? Why not let her life live on for years in the form of a book? Why not tell others not only how a marriage survives, but how it prospers and how you fall more in love with your spouse every day?

Trillin did us a favor, yet this was not a project made solely for us. His tribute to Alice was something he needed to do as well.

He had to give words to his emotions of love, sadness and despair. He yearned to express his own feelings in the most personal of ways – writing.

The most telling part of “About Alice,” is the final paragraph. Here, Trillin is most honest, and because of that, we learn the most about him and his wife. He does not spin this story as a sad tale of death, nor does he conjure up an “everything is swell” fable that so many people do when dark moments unexpectedly shield the sunlight of life.

Throughout this tribute, Trillin is brief and honest, and no more so than with his final words:

“The doctors said that her heart had been destroyed by radiation. In other words, you could say that she died of the treatment rather than the disease. Presumably, though, it was also the treatment that, against horrifying odds, gave her twenty-five years of life. I know what Alice, the incorrigible and ridiculous optimist, would have said about a deal that allowed her to see her girls grow up: “Twenty-five years! I’m so lucky!” I try to think of it in those terms, too. Some days I can and some days I can’t.”

There will be no second marriage for Trillin. He will never touch a woman as he caressed Alice. And he will never long for a person the way he desires her today.

He will never love like he loved Alice.

Hopefully, you get to provide readers with a level of analysis and understanding in your stories that they can’t get many other places about your topic.

CDT: Winning schools candidates face committee duty