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October 24, 2009

Let me float a few ideas by you

By STEVE OUELLETTE, You Had to Ask

Colorado man Richard Heene and his family captured the attention of a nation with their escaped balloon that didn't, after all, carry their youngest son on a treacherous two-hour flight to certain death.

To gain insight into the perpetrator of this elaborate and expensive hoax, we've obtained exclusive excerpts from Heene's subscription-only blog "Look at Me! Look at me Now!" (which has since been removed from the Internet).

April 2 — Hi ho, friends and fans. The cards and letters and positive reviews keep coming in from our "Wife Swap" appearance. The network said they wish I could swap out Mayumi every week; it would be ratings gold. Someone is bound to pick up my genius science show now! Talk to you later after me and the kids chase down this tsunami!

May 30 — Crud. NBC, ABC, Discovery, CNN, PBS, TLC, ESPN, the Weather Channel, C-SPAN, Playboy and Al Jazeera have turned down "Psyience Detectives." The fools, can't they see that this would totally crush anything Bill Nye the Science Guy ever did? Got a meeting set up with the Emergency Broadcasting Channel today ... and at least I still have you guys.

June 18 — Haven't been on TV in weeks. It's as if I don't even exist. People aren't even reading this !?%! blog anymore.

July 1 — I've got an idea. Don't know why I didn't think of this before. I'm going to carefully drop Ryo down a deep well — a deep, deep well — and then frantically try to "rescue" him with every resource and trick at my disposal. This is gonna be great. One of you guys call CNN in 10 minutes and the fire department in about 20. Hey, like I always say, if you can't use your children to get you attention, why have children at all?

July 2 — Mayumi wouldn't let me do it. Said Ryo has swimmer's ear, and if he was down there too long he might miss his baseball game. Women! I'll have to think of something else.

Aug. 10 — Anyone still there? I've got to think of something. Today, I ran around the mailbox naked and barely anyone noticed. No one even called the cops. I mean, what's going on?

Sept. 4 — This time for sure. I'm going to get Bradford to spontaneously combust on the school bus today. A little flash powder, some gasoline, a timer of some sort — I think we can pull this off. The amazing disappearing child will be on every network! Just got to work on my heartfelt tears and figure out a way to get him to reappear.

Sept. 5 — Stupid kid refused. Said there's some kind of rule against getting on a school bus with a fuse trailing down your leg. Then he kicked me in the shin. Never taking him on a UFO hunt again!

Sept. 30 — How about this? I'm going to tie, like, a gazillion helium balloons to grandpa's old house then float him away to some remote South American jungle. While we're waiting for the cameras to catch up to us, I can even work on my dog-to-human voice converter.

Oct. 2 — Are you serious?! The plot of "Up"? Never heard of it. You mean Ed Asner stole my stinking idea? Oh well, my buddy Rocko the Clown said he couldn't get me that much helium anyway.

Oct. 8 — OK, I've calmed down. There's still time. I think I can still do something with balloons. Maybe a bigger one this time. Or a giant kite? And if I can ever get little Falcon out of his box in the attic, I think I can talk him into anything. See you guys on TV. Hey, you there? Anyone there? You are reading this aren't you? You'd better be paying attention to me ...

E-mail Steve Ouellette at: ouellette1918@gmail.com

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    The best way to deal with fungus gnats is to try to avoid their build-up in the first place, expert Amy Ivy writes.

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Peter Black: Canadian Dispatch

Lois Clermont, Editor

Cornell Cooperative Extension

Richard Gast: Cornell Ag Extension

Bob Grady

Guest Columns

Peter Hagar: Cornell Ag Connection

Health Advice

Ray Johnson: Climate Science

Gordie Little: Small Talk

Terry Mattingly: On Religion

Steve Ouellette: You Had To Ask

Colin Read: Everybody's Business

Senior Thoughts