Covering local elections can be some of the most fun — and frustrating — of all newspaper writing. Head on over to my print stories page, and you’ll see.

When its down with little homework and no time (that is, most of the time), you get total conjecture and horse race analysis.

But, and here’s why it’s fun, when it all comes together, and you pick up on an important thread, and have the resources to follow it through to the end, you get top-notch, insightful public service.

Having just filled out an absentee ballot, I can attest to what Jessica Garrison is talking about in that piece. I have no idea who these people are!

So, at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, there is one main weeder class — called ‘RW1.’ As basic as you can get, right: ‘Reading and Writing 1.’

The idea of the class is you become a beat reporter…and are dropped in the middle of a New York neighborhood that you cover, as a cub reporter would, for 6 months or more. In my class were at least 10 incredible journalists who are now reporting for places like NPR, the Providence Journal, the AP (in Latvia), and the list goes on.

My professor talked about one student he taught in the years previous who is now a star reporter for the New York Times in Russia. That reporter, a former U.S. Marine, is none other than C.J. Chivers.

…who wrote the longest story — 18,000 words — published in Esquire in the past 20 years. And that’s saying something, because Esquire’s stories aren’t usually short.

Peter Carlson, a reporter for the Washington Post, begins his review of the story this way:

“It was the first day of school, and the returning students — the second- through 12th-graders — lined up and waited for the annual opening ceremony to begin. Soon the new first-graders would march in, then one of them would be hoisted on the shoulders of a senior and ring a bell to start the new year.”

Gripping, and incredible. It makes me want to read Chivers’ account of the Breslan school hostage situation.

And it also makes me think of some of the stories that could be available to a reporter willing to travel around eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics.

Remind me again why everyone doesn’t live in Portland?

This NYT article from Thursday (nevermind that its written by middle-name challenged Jennifer 8. Lee) and the release of MI:3, in which Tom Cruise plays a character named Ethan, has me thinking about my name.

I even remember the first Mission Impossible movie, because when it came out the fact that Cruise’s person was named Ethan was novel and even, well yeah, fun.

But now, Ethan has (in my best high school punk rocker sneer) sold-out. Its the third-most popular boy’s name some years, and I no longer feel like people only think of furniture when they hear my name.

The good news for the name Ethan is that at least its a name with historic and ancestral connections. The same can’t be said for Sedah or Lleh, or Nevaeh — which was inspired by MTV’s TRL.

Former war reporter Chris Hedges wrote a fantastically nuanced, and mostly navel-gazing, memoir about his time as a war reporter and foreign correspondent.

Now, those two things — war reporter, foreign correspondent — are not one and the same. And yet, because of the fact that foreign correspondents tend to move around, and war reporters don’t last very long, they end up at least dovetailing.

So with my time abroad fast approaching, any stories or, say, speeches, about reporting from outside the U.S. tend to catch my eye. Plus, reading friends’ experiences from abroad is jealous rage-inducing.

Recently at a dinner with colleagues, I mentioned that I would be very interested in going to Iraq — or any other war zone for that matter.

The response? I was reminded of former Marketplace-ian Adam Davidson’s Harper’s story on his time in Baghdad. All it did was make me envious.

Which makes a lot of sense, I guess. Germany, here I come!

So, I am slowly but surely building up podcasts and radio streams that I will make required listening while I am in Germany.

We’ll see what Berlin NPR is like when I get there, but I have to say I am not entirely convinced that the shows and hours will match up with my biorhythms.

Instead, I will most likely listen to OPB as my radio stream, with podcasts and downloadable versions of TAL, Studio 360, and KCRW’s music shows filling in the gaps.

But, like I mentioned there are a few shows that have now hit my regular rotation. KCRW’s The Business is one of them. It used to be hamstrung by its poor production value — but recently the show has really kicked into high gear, I think since Claude Brodesser left his full-time gig at Variety.

I mean, I’d like a MacBook Pro. And a Vespa scooter. But that’s not gonna happen, and it’s not really necessary.

But two things are as close to required as you can get: an Oade Brothers modified Marantz PMD-660. And a new, cheap and yet semi-pro quality digital camera. Without those two things, I’ll be a tourist. With them, hello journalista.

The only problem is thats a combined $990. In my best german accent, zehr teueren.

The good news: I am no longer on the midnight shift. So I get to go to work tomorrow at 7 am. Early, yes. But it ain’t midnight…and that’s a good thing.

The bad news: I have a few more features to report, and about 45 more work days before I am outta here.