We don't see JN in these parts (read:Oklahoma) much these days.

From the Class of 1988 in Henryetta, Okla., JN went on to become a hot-shot Washington, D.C., reporter. He works on The Hill and hobknobs with the Hoi Palloi of federal politics.

That's the way we see it, but I suspect his life as a reporter is a tad less glamorous than that to him. I think for all of us who chose journalism as our life's work, we soon realize that the word "work" is much more in operation than the descriptive term "glamorous," even if others see it differently.

However, that doesn't keep us from trading shop stories when he comes down. On the other hand, we don't get to talk all that often, so JN and I typically spend most of our time, when he visits, telling old war stories of old friends, parties, women and embarrassing moments.

We have plenty.

Rooftop wailing and parlez-vous Francais?

Impromptu fights among a pair of strangers looking for a quick score on our young Vietnamese vixen friend.

Moving a certain Orange Chicken from a Homeland parking lot to a neighborhood up the street upon Kansas' 83-79 win over OU in 1988.

I won't say who's who in each of these stories to spare reputation and, possibly, a criminal charge.

Kidding, of course.

Within the chart I created for myself outlining the path for my 36th year, one of my primary goals was to spend quality time with good friends more often. Thanks to the flexibility allowed for me at work, I was able to have dinner with JN tonight.

Nothing fancy. We had a little Golden Corral, which is among my favorit-o guilty pleasures in the whole world although my waistline hates it. JN's mom was there, and we basically yapped like we just picked up from the last conversation some two years ago.

The amazing thing about JN is that he knew what he wanted to do when he was 15. Be a journalist. I remember working on our high-school newspaper staff and having him chide me for goofing off ... and, I was. More than likely, I was talking music with somebody or flirting with a dame.

I don't actually talk like that: "flirting with a dame."

However, over the years, his passion became mine as well. We always talked that in a perfect world, one in which we had millions of dollars to spare, we'd start a progressive newspaper in rural Oklahoma with the goal of bridging what they call the "digital divide," in hopes of bringing real-time information to people of few means.

In this twosome, he's by far the more intellectual. The guy can talk Goethe one second and then invoke an obscure pop-culture reference the next. Lucky for me, he likes baseball and beer. That's more my speed, but as one of his colleagues once said, "I'm just a good-ol-boy."

I always hated that.