So it turns out Grumpy Old Man isn't so grumpy after all.

I went out this morning when I woke up to shovel more of the driveway so that we could fit two cars tonight, and GOM was out clearing more of his sidewalk and driveway. I greeted him "Good morning" and commenced shoveling, and he commenced making suggestions. One of which made sense: He told me to move Casey's car over to his side of the driveway (which was clear) while I shoveled more of ours, because the part of ours I had to shovel was up against the house, there was nowhere to throw the snow and the car was parked along the lawn, so I would've had to throw the snow over the car to get it onto the grass. After I did that, he asked if I wanted to use his shovel, but the one from the porch was fine.

He's still a Grumpy Old Man, but not so much to us. Just to the annoying people on our block. I think he really just wants to have a purpose and to matter. When one of the neighbors across the street began backing down her driveway onto the narrow street made narrower by the snow, GOM guided her out and told her to pull back into his driveway if she needed.

When I got to work today, Garry asked if I saw the cover of the New York Times today. Thinking he meant the Mets' signing of Tom Glavine (Garry's a Phillies fan and we'd talked about where Glavine would end up, and should the Phillies throw money at him), I said I hadn't, but I did see SportsCenter. He throws the Times on my desk and there, on the front page, is my small hometown, Little Silver. For their weather shot of the snow along the East Coast, they used a picture of school children boarding the busses as they got out early. I can't figure out how to get the scan from the Times' website into a JPEG file, but if you're reading this today, you can see the cover here, although you can't read anything but the headlines. But trust me, that photo is my little hometown.

I'm just curious: Am I that interesting lately? Through yesterday, I've had 18 straight days of double-digit pageviews AND double-digit unique hosts, with a low of 11 on Nov. 23, a Saturday. But, since my 20 pageviews on Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving), I've gone up every day: 21, 26, 56, 60, 84, 109, 113 yesterday. I can't figure it out. I haven't been keeping an eye on the "refers" section of the stats page, which I suppose would explain some of it. But looking at it today, here's what I deduced:

� I'm drawing the Captain and Tenille fans (with "picture of Tenille".)

� "You're the man now, dog!" continues to be a big hit.

� The crime spree of Michael Schwartz and his two portly cats continues to draw attention.

� I let another last name of a friend/family member slip into my online diary when transferring journal entries from disk. I've fixed the latest, though.

��The Rascals and "It's a Beautiful Morning" are still hits.

� Crappy kids' drawings is quite popular right now. (You'll have to click on my link to get the real link ;)

� The Simpsons are as popular as ever, as is Duff Man!! Oh yeah!

� There will always be a market for people who look like Kenny Rogers.

� The holiday shopping season is drawing people to my diary as they look for Jersey Gardens mall and pullover windbreakers.

� I'm picking up readers of Miss-Edith, Mister Zero and Dancing Brave.

� Using the words "Lance Bass" and "shirtless" will get hits.

� And there will always be high school girls interested in learning about duct taping their boobs for cleavage.

� I'm drawing readers from Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Georgia Tech, the College of New Jersey (Trenton State), Ole Miss (U. of Mississippi), Princeton, Pittsburgh, Franklin, Pa., Italy, Ireland and the UK.

� People are reading me at work from Key Bank and Royal Bank.

� People use AOL, Verizon, Comcast, RoadRunner, Bell South, Pac Bell, Southwestern Bell, Cloud 9.net, Optonline, Cox, Adelphia and Earthlink.

Workflow must be slow in offices all over America lately.