Every once in a while you get to write about something you know a lot about and about someone you know. Sometimes that can be great. Other times that can suck.

I didn’t put anything up about this story, I don’t think, but last week a man fell roughly 100 feet while rock climbing on Cathedral Ledge. I know about climbing, and I knew the man. Thankfully he lived, but he had to spend two nights in the hospital and was very shaken afterward.

The other day he came by the office and dropped off a card. That’s where I snapped the photo. He gave me and another reporter two scratch tickets each, a play on how lucky he was to survive the fall. His streak ended, however, before he bought the tickets, because neither Tom nor I won anything.

Somedays the news is impersonal, something abstract and in no way connected to you. Some days, however, it is the exact opposite. At least this time the news wasn’t all bad.