Friday, we finally saw the permits that Kohl's is seeking space at the mall.

I'm a fan of Kohl's, and go ahead, call me wimpy about driving, but I don't like to fight the traffic to get over to the east end of York to shop at Kohl's. The possibility of a store on the west end of town is welcome news to many.

But it begs another question? Will we have duplicates of so many stores that we no longer have to venture to "the other end of town?" And, is that really a good thing?

Meanwhile, we will keep you posted on the latest department store developments.

I stopped at a Redbox in Dover Township this afternoon and was not pleased to discover that the popular DVD rental kiosk had raised its price from $1 to $2 per night.

What's up with that?

Redbox made its name by renting DVD's for $1 per night, a good and inexpensive form of entertainment during this time of recession.

My first inclination, as if I was personally slighted, is to stop renting from Redbox. What do you think?

But is the recession really over? It depends who you ask.

An economist might put up numbers and charts to support that the recession has ended.

But, what about the 8.6 percent of unemployed residents living in York County? What do you think their answer might be?

When I read that the government had started to tout nation's economic recovery, an image of a frazzled police officer with arms held high yelling into a riot that "there's nothing to see here" popped into my head.

What do you think? Is the recession really over?

The same can't be said for York County.

Nine years after moving here, I'm still struggling to pick up on all the sayings.

Last week, I ordered breakfast in a local diner and the waitress asked my if I wanted by eggs dippy. I looked at my wife, hoping to snag a marital lifeline. She's from New York too, and I had no idea what dippy meant in relation to eggs.

I asked the waitress what she meant. She frowned and explained that dippy meant that the yolk would remain soft.

But I'm not totally lost in the maze of York County lingo. I have figured out that when a waitress asks me if I would like my drink a while, the answer is not: "No, I would like it right now."

What she means is if I would like my drink in the meantime, while I read the menu. But you already knew that.

I have to believe that residents are doing double takes as they cruise past local gas stations.

In the past week, the average price of regular gas has jumped 17 cents from $2.416 to $2.59 per gallon, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Driving to work this morning, I spotted a few stations that had bumped prices to $2.65 per gallon.

What's up with that? I have a theory.

The value of the dollar, thanks to stimulus money and bailouts, has tanked and remains at its lowest point in more than a year. To make up for that shortfall, investors have turned to oil and gold for their monetary ventures.

That leaves the rest of us pump poor. I wonder how high gas prices will go this time? Are we looking at $4 a gallon, again?

Well, it's what my calendar says for today, Oct. 16.

It looks like one department here in the newsroom is having fun with the sports editor's cubicle.

Voith has seen its fair share of news lately. After some negotiations, the company and union reached a contract agreement in September.

And it was only a short year ago, that then, Senator Barack Obama visited the plant on a campaign stop.

Office life on your lunch break.

I have two dogs and, while they're fun to be around, they can destructive.

My Cocker Spaniel, Luke, has taken to clawing the door frame that leads into my mudroom. I assume he's under the impression that, by digging into wood, he'll get to me faster when I pull into the garage.

My question is, how do fix the frame? Like most people, I don't have a bunch of cash to dump on a project like this. I just don't like looking at deep claw marks in a door frame.

My brother-in-law suggested I use white wood filler/putty. A friend said I should replace the frame.

Any suggestions? Let me know.

On Wednesday, two 510-ton steam generators arrived at Three Mile Island after roughly two months on land and sea travel.

And hundreds of people were planted on the side of Route 441 to witness the big show.

What struck me odd was the number of people who had dragged out lawn chairs to ensure themselves a spot among an audience in awe of transporters that moved at a blistering 3 mph.

I'm of the belief that area residents store lawn chairs in their trunks, much like Batman keeps a grappling hook on his utility belt.

Picture a family of three driving west on Route 30 in West Manchester Township. The dad catches site of a 1932 Ford. Moments later, the mom glimpses a 1957 Chevrolet.

The couple look at each other and realize that it's National Street Rod weekend. After brief moment of fear, the couple calms down.

They nearly forgot the lawn chairs in the trunk, right next to the jumper cables and bottled water.

A quick turn and the family pulls into the Burger King on Loucks Road. Within minutes, the chairs are set up and the family is ready to watch the street rods pass, just like they did last year.

And they would butcher pigs. Dad used to tell me that everything except the pig's squeal was used in the butchering processs. He wasn't the first to share that saying, but its meaning certainly holds true: Nothing goes to waste.

Thankfully, I've taken that "nothing goes to waste" philosophy to my cooking. And it saved me in both time and money this week.

One wave of job-seekers after another peppered recruiters with greetings, handshakes and questions.

The job fair ran for five hours, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. That's a pretty long day, meaning that each recruiter undoubtedly fielded scores of visits.

With all those people walking around, I asked one recruiter what a job-seeker might do to stand out.

His response: The job-seeker must possess "the drive to achieve and succeed."

Want to save money? Try running your car on pure gas rather than fuel mixed with ethanol.

Last week, I took a road trip to Roanoke, Va.

Before I left York County, I filled up on gasoline that contains no ethanol. Only about three stations in the area sell pure gas. The rest peddle fuel that contains 10 percent ethanol.

I made the trip and still had a half tank left from my original fill-up some 300 miles back.

A week later, before I hit the road back to York, I filled up on gas that contained ethanol.

I took the same route and made the same one stop. When I arrived home, I had burned through three-quarters of a tank of gas.

Ethanol may have environmental benefits, but you're not saving any money behind the wheel.

Get in line early, folks.

Parking is a fickle phenomenon that mostly divides us.

Neighbors' relationships can sour over cars parked in front of each other's houses. Sometimes over-zealous enforcement officers pass out parking tickets by the fistful, inciting anger among commuters.

Two "Seinfeld" characters, George Costanza and Mike Moffit, famously missed a televised boxing match to debate whether one can parallel park by entering head-first, a question that defies a clear-cut answer.

But parking's heated history is flying out the window this week in West York.

Residents who live within a few blocks of the York Fairgrounds are teaming up to offer their lawns to fair visitors who need places to park.

Visitors pay $6 to park inside the fairgrounds, as advertised on the fair's Web site. Most neighbors charge $5 or less.

A mother and son whose properties adjoin on the 400 block of North Highland Avenue, Lois Arvin and Jeff Klinedinst, are teaming up this week to offer dozens of cars $5 lawn parking.

They sit alongside their driveway with other family members, enjoying the sunny weather together, waving cars in until the lawns fill up.

A husband and wife, Jason and Jennifer Jacobs, volunteered to help park cars for Zion United Methodist Church Sunday in an Orange Street lot that a church member owns.

The neighbors whose backyards border an alley off North Highland Avenue even fostered a parking alliance, waving cars into one yard at a time, all charging $5 so as not to undercut one another.

That way, everybody works together and everybody wins.

Keep that in mind the next time you're paying a parking ticket or fighting with your neighbor over a space.