Andy Proffet

I write, for newspapers, for the web, for the hell of it.

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Turning points

My first story was about a fox.

(more…)

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The Friday News Dump (10.20.17)

Trying to put a positive spin on the phrase "Friday news dump."

There’s a tradition called the Friday news dump, in which politicians or companies or whomever have to release some information that they really don’t want getting a lot of attention. So they release it all on a Friday afternoon, knowing that A) journalists are going to have to wade through it; and B) nobody reads the Saturday paper so this stuff will get less eyeballs. I thought I would be…

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Sauntering treadmill blues

How cute, he's "running" again:

Here’s the thing about having a treadmill in the house–it’s great when you want to run but you don’t want anybody seeing you run. (more…)

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Europe trip epilogue

Hey, I might finally be done writing about our vacation!

Time to go home. With the new job this year, I’ve been through quite a few airports, and some (looking at you, Des Moines) have obviously been a bit more, shall we say, cozy than others. I really didn’t expect that at Orly, but that’s what we got. Once you pass through security, all the gates are right there together. You find a seat, you better hold on to it. Speaking of holding on to seats … I…

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The grand finale

Almost there...

Let’s talk about the Louvre. According to the museum’s website, there are over 35,000 pieces of artwork on exhibit there. Depending on how you calculate it, it could take years to look at everything that’s there, and that’s with just a quick glance at each piece of art. Or, you could be like us and just wander the grounds, which are a work of art on their own. Considering the sewer grates are…

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Normandy (Europe Days 6-7)

Back to the travel blog. Not sure I stuck the landing with this one.

It seems appropriate that I’m writing this entry from the airport in Baltimore, sleep-deprived after getting up at 3:30 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight and wishing I could have slept on the plane. This is about hitting the wall. So after our whirlwind tour of Frankfurt, Germany, a train ride to Paris, France, and two packed days around the City of Lights, our third full day there was one spent dealing…

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You want me to go up there? (Europe Day 5)

A little bit about overcoming fear, for love.

Far be it from me to toot my own horn, but I may just be the best husband ever. I’m afraid of heights—that’s not what makes me the best husband ever, of course. But I know that weakness, and I knew it was something I was going to have to deal with because we were going to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower on our anniversary. It wasn’t easy. When you see the Eiffel Tower in person, it seems…

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Chasing the bus (Europe Day 4)

Let's see if I can finish writing about the last vacation before the next vacation.

I didn’t run as much as I intended to in Paris. For one thing, it was really damn hot the whole time we were there, and for another, we were trying to cram as much experience into our time there as we could, and I didn’t want us losing an hour or more because I’m crazy enough to go run a half-marathon again. But boy did we run when we thought we were going to miss our bus. A little background: as…

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Europe by train, or Paris, here we come (Europe Day 3)

And then we got to Paris.

Turns out train travel is worlds more comfortable than plane travel. Who knew? So when we were planning this trip, we decided it would be neat to take the train from Frankfurt to Paris rather than boarding yet another flight. The chance to see the countryside, not having to worry about security checks … but even those pluses pale in comparison to the heavenly amount of legroom that comes on a…

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Walking Frankfurt (Europe Day 2)

Day 2 of our European vacation.

It probably shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to see how much American influence there is in Europe, even in countries like Germany and France. Sure, there’s the old churches and beautiful Gothic architecture, but often right across the street—even right next door—there’s a McDonald’s or a Burger King or an Express . No, we didn’t shop at any of those places. We did go to the outdoor…

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Jet lag is real, and it's spectacular (Europe Day 1-ish)

Figured I would write about our trip. Here's Day 1.

When I finally got up from what should have been the greatest nap ever, I wandered over to one side of the hotel room. Then I wandered back to the other side. Then back again, a couple more times, before my wife finally realized I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. She pointed me toward the shower. Yes. Shower. That will wake me up. It took another 30 seconds or so for me to grasp the concept…

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End of an era

I wrote about the end of my sportswriting career.

… or how I decided to write about a career change and went with the most pretentious title I could come up with. (more…)

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... and a month later, he was still running ...

Now that I’m five weeks into this, it feels safe to finally write about my return to running (well, let’s be honest, it’s really more jogging at this point, but why argue semantics?). So, anyway … I finally got my act together at the beginning of May and started training again. I’m using the same method Bessie and I used when we trained for the Monumental Half-Marathon back in 2011 and ’12: an…

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May the Fourth Be With You

Just a little something about Star Wars Day.

So I was going to write something profound or witty or tear-jerking for Star Wars Day, but nothing seemed quite right for the occasion. But I still wanted to post something here, since the website’s been a little … uh … dead for a few months. So here’s a video of R2-D2, shot by yours truly. Enjoy. http://andyproffet.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/20160504_201847.mp4

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Time to run again

I guess it's time to blog (and run) again

Moments before running my first half-marathon in 2011. No, that’s not fear in my eyes … as far as you know. The first steps are a challenge. Find your form. Find your pace. Don’t step too hard; it’s almost like you’re lightly ricocheting off the ground, step by step by step. Don’t go too fast either, or you’ll wear yourself out too quickly. And breathe, not too fast, not too deep, just enough to…

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The week in review (Nov. 15, 2015)

The week in review (Nov. 15, 2015)

Call it a way to keep track of my work. Call it an easy blog post. Whatever. I call it my week in review. THANK YOU, VETERANS On the news side of things, I covered a couple of Veterans Day events. On Tuesday, Capt. Holly Everette spoke at Shelbyville Middle School about her experiences while in Afghanistan, and on Wednesday, Shelbyville High School teacher Al Parsons was the keynote speaker for a…

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Welcome to 2015, finally

Welcome to 2015, finally

Wait a minute, is that a new link over on my Sportswriting page?

Yes, I’m back at it. For a variety of reasons, Saturday’s Rutgers-IU game was the first sporting event I covered this year. No need to delve into the reasons other than to say my schedule conflicted with IU’s home schedule pretty much all month. I’m counting on February and March working out a bit better.

So are the Hoosiers, I…

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