News-Record.com

You know the drill. What's this?

One hint: You can see it from the intersection of two major Greensboro streets.

"LOST OR STOLEN CAT!" screams the flier on the bulletin board in the Harris-Teeter on Friendly Avenue. "Max has been missing from the Guilford College area since Thanksgiving Day. He is black with a white chest. He is wearing a blue collar and a red X-mas sweater w/ tiny paw prints on it. If found, pease call...."

I'm guessing Max is neither lost nor stolen. I'm guessing he ran away. And wherever he is, that Christmas sweater ain't with him.

This one was a little obscure, just the way I like it.

Monday's WITW is a piece of public art called "Planet Earth." It's at the corner of East Lee and South Elm in downtown Greensboro. And here it is:

True and actual fact: It's not actually a sea mine, but an air compressor from a U.S. Navy ship.

So who in the world is this?

This week's WITW is a mermaid:

Specifically, it's this mermaid. Look familiar?

Normally I like to post the weekly WITW picture on Monday. But while I was on the phone with a local police chief for this story, this other story broke out. I was the relief shift for the first two N&R reporters who worked on the story. During my stint at Friendly Center (from about noon to 3 p.m.), I did a lot of things not related to WITW:

* Chatted with a couple of the local teevee reporters and camera folks
* Walked over to Barnes & Noble for some coffee
* Interviewed a mom and son who were inside the Old Navy store when the shooting happened, then filed a few inches of copy from the mall parking lot
* Told a woman that she needed to talk to the police (and not me) to get her car from the Wachovia parking lot
* Watched the cops mill around and later gather up much of the yellow crime scene tape
* Saw the fire truck roll up to clean up the blood
* Watched the Brinks truck drive away.

You'll note that (except for the random interview -- they walked up to me and started talking) there wasn't actually much journalism going on. I was there to make sure we didn't miss a police briefing, but there wasn't any. So it goes.

Here's a tip for anyone ever stuck at Friendly (and maybe any other large parking lots): The light poles have electrical outlets in them. That's something I didn't realize until about 2:45, and I wasn't going to risk my life (again) to fetch my laptop from the car.

That's the not-so-short story for the one-day delay in WITW. Speaking of ...

Well, whaddya know: This week's WITW is the World's Largest Highboy:

The things you see in and around High Point ...

Quick, quick: What's this?

If you know who it is and where it lives, e-mail me at john.newsom@news-record.com. And please put "WITW" in the subject line.

I'll give you the details on Wednesday.

This week's What in the World is the Friendly Center Santa: