Search your own computer — Office documents, e-mail and more — using Google. It works!

Note: This post was written using my Logitech io Personal Digital Pen. Originally, the underlined words were hyperlinked in HTML but I’m letting that slide this time around.

Congratulations to Ozzie and Jesse on their wedding! Click for a few more photos.

You looked so fine
You were locked in time
By the ring that binds you
On your wedding day

May your candle burn brightly — for as long as you both shall live.

A couple of weeks ago I was breaking in the baseball glove I bought for Karen — and, I admit, having a little fun myself — in the best way I knew how. I took the glove and a new rubber ball out to the alley and played catch with myself by bouncing the ball off the brick wall of an adjacent building.

For generations, I believe, this has been a refuge for solitary children in the city who had no park nearby and no friend handy to play catch with. Do kids even do this anymore? I’ve no idea. They’re likely not allowed to play alone outside anymore. Play mustn’t be disorganized, you know. You’ve got to be in a league or have a date to play, chaperoned at all times.

And God forbid you toss a ball against some neighbor’s wall. You might break a window, after all. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? You might.

Anyway, it was a weekday afternoon I had chosen for my solitary play/glove breaking-in session. An overweight 27-year-old playing catch by himself tends to get looks. Curious looks. But mostly, indifferent looks, thank goodness for the anonymizing tendencies of the city.

I threw grounders. I threw pop-ups. I threw missiles to first to get a blazing runner just in time. My mind drew back to the last time I’d done this, probably when I was 12 or 13. Greg Maddux was in his first go-round with the Cubs. I pretended to be Maddux, pitching a perfect game on 27 straight ground balls to win the World Series.

So I played and worked up a sweat and the squeeze on the glove got a little easier. My glove hand smelled of sweat and oil and leather. Then, I spotted a very nice-looking black lady walking by. She had on slacks, high heels, a long-sleeve blouse and … a faux-fur vest.

As she walked the 15 paces between when she first saw me and where I disappeared behind the building that formed the other half of the alley, her look went from surprise to confusion to recognition to joy. She gave me a big smile. I tipped my cap and threw the ball, and she disappeared.

Then she stepped back into view.

“Hey,” she said. I looked in her direction.

“Yeah?” I said, fearing she’d give me a hard time about bothering the neighbors or something similarly adultish.

“Do you mind if I throw a couple?” she asked sheepishly.

“Not at all,” I said, simultaneously relieved and amazed. “Not at all! Please, go ahead. Be my guest.”

I slipped off my glove and handed it to her as she put down her cute little purse.

“I haven’t done this since I was 10 years old,” she said, as she rared back to throw one off the wall. She missed it on the rebound and went chasing after the ball as it skipped underneath a nearby car.

She threw another and this time she caught it.

“Not bad for a 45-year-old, huh?”

“No, not bad at all,” I said.

“Just a couple more,” she said, as if I’d ever dream of taking the glove out of her hands.

“Go head. Take your time.”

She kept throwing and catching, throwing and catching, missing and skipping and chasing, getting a little short of breath. Periodically she’d promise “just a couple more” as I looked on with arms folded and a big smile, the way a father looks at a daughter who’s just mastered the jump rope.

After a few minutes, she reluctantly handed over the glove.

“Sure you don’t want to throw a few more?” I offered.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said, catching her breath. “So you don’t think they mind?” she said, pointing to indicate the occupants of the building.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” I said. “Now if I came out here at three in the morning it might be different. I figure it’s OK as long as I don’t break a window. If somebody complains, I’ll stop.” How long ago did I learn that etiquette?

“That was fun,” she said. “I don’t have a glove anymore.”

“Well, you ought to buy one,” I said. “I just bought this one. Not too expensive. Get a ball and a glove, and I’ll see you out here.”

“Maybe I will,” she said in a way that indicated the idea was both entirely new yet not totally childish.

We introduced ourselves and I yelled a hopeful “See ya!” as she disappeared behind the building. I haven’t been out for another solitary catch since then. Haven’t had much time, and the weather’s been lousy. So I haven’t seen her since. And I don’t remember her name.

But I do like to think that later that evening, as she drew her glove hand up to her face and smelled the oil and the sweat and the leather, that she recalled the day when she was 10 and threw 27 straight grounders to win the World Series.

In a transparent attempt to stave off further litigation, McDonald’s is now offering what it calls the Go Active Happy Meal, which includes a bottle of water, a salad and a stepometer. You’ve probably heard about it. What does it say about American journalism that a slight change in McDonald’s menu is big news?

Anyhow, when I visited McDonald’s recently to purchase precisely the type of food that a jury will inevitably conclude I had no idea might be bad for me, I saw an ad on the cash register for this new happy meal.

It featured an average-sized woman in capri pants walking up a flight of cartoon stairs. The copy read: “Have you ever wondered about how many steps there are between here … and there?”

I thought to myself, “No, I haven’t.”

To my surprise, the lady who was apparently the narrator of this little ad agreed: “I’ve never wondered either …”

But, but, BUT: the copy continued: “… but now I’m curious!”

Why would she suddenly be curious? Just because McDonald’s is including a stepometer to go along with a crappy salad? And why would the McDonald’s copywriter behind the ad admit that nobody who wasn’t brain dead has ever really wondered how many steps there are “between here … and there”?

I guess when folks trying to bilk millions out of you argue in court that they’re too stupid to know your greasy, fatty food does not constitute a healthy diet, you tend to treat them like the idiots they claim to be.

I recall that, way back in 1997 or so, one of the reasons I began to regularly use my middle initial in my writings online and for my published journalism pieces was so that it would be easier to find my stuff online.

There are a lot of Kevin O’Reillys out there, but not so many Kevin B. O’Reillys. But now, thanks to this blog, I’m pretty easy to be found. While Googling for “Kevin B. O’Reilly” is still your best bet, a number of different combinations — with middle initial and without, with quotation marks and without — give you this blog as the number one search result in Google.

Go ahead. Type in Kevin O’Reilly, click the I’m Feeling Lucky button and see where you wind up.

Pretty cool, huh?

Could Tom Brokaw be anymore unctuous and obnoxious than he’s being during his moderation of this presidential debate in South Carolina?

See what happens to best-selling authors?

So says Steve Chapman in a very nice column today about public figures whoss less than credible apologies shouldn’t earn our forgiveness.

Aside from Pete Rose, obviously, the list includes Stephen Glass, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, Dan Rostenkowski and Arnold Schwarznegger.

Chapman’s model for penance “is the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, who, after being excommunicated for defying the pope, stood outside the papal castle for three days, barefoot in the snow, before he was granted clemency.”

He concludes: “Rose, Glass and the others may have won mercy from the Almighty. If they want it from the rest of us, though, I’d say: Take off your shoes and go stand in the snow. When your 72 hours is up, we’ll forgive you. Maybe.”

Check out these cool collages of Chicago scenes (and others) by artist Phineas X. Jones.

Some favorites:

• Batting Practice
• 151 Bus
• Duke of Perth

Thanks to Gapers’ Block for the link.