Favorite moments at The Observer

I've been a columnist at The Observer since 2002, and Friday is my last day as I move on to pursue social media entrepreneurship. I've had many great experiences, from making friends with a hitman to meeting a president and Nobel Prize winner. Mostly, I've enjoyed connecting with all of you, which I will do now even more than ever in person and on social media. With great gratitude to Charlotte and The Observer, here are some of my favorite times.

• Almost being kissed by movie and TV star Bonnie Hunt, who misunderstood her handlers' instructions in posing for a photo with me for my column. "How's your breath?" she asked me. "Oh, you're fine." Then she put her arms around me. That was fun.
• Making friends with Michael Fitzsimmon, who was hired by a drug gang to kill crusading pastor Barbara Cameron, but heard her preach, found God, did his time, and went straight. "How many people did you kill?" I asked him. To which he ominously replied, "Let's put it this way: I could take care of anything you needed done."
• Meeting Bill Clinton, Toni Morrison, Michael Jordan. Jeff Gordon, Steve Smith, Tony Bennett, Elvis Costello, Pete Sampras, Ken Lewis and Ric Flair.
• Surviving for a week on nothing but Christmas party food. 
• Performing in Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as a clown, and walking backstage next to unicyclists juggling and enormous, swaying elephants. Circus women are the sexiest women on the planet. Bar none.
• Having "the Dog Whisperer," Cesar Millan, tell me: Every dog needs to know its job. People, too.
• Having Andie McDowell tell me: Beautiful women should never sell themselves short and trade on their looks, even if they sacrifice their careers.
• Walking down the street with former hoops star Muggsy Bogues, who is so beloved in Charlotte that everyone greets him by name.

• Living in Concord Mills mall for four days without leaving over the Thanksgiving weekend, and telling Sheri Lynch on the air: To quote the name of one of these stores, I need a Bed, Bath & Beyond.
• Having a Harlequin Romance villain based on me, and giving the author a tour of my apartment, where she asked the details of my sex life.
• Driving the 500-horsepower Ford Shelby Mustang.
• Going 115 mph around a NASCAR track.
• Writing with Tommy Tomlinson, Tom Sorensen, Sarah Aarthun, Jim Morrill, Karen Garloch, Eric Frazier, Ames Alexander, Scott Fowler, Peter St. Onge, Liz Chandler, and many other scribes.
• Sneaking backstage at the Rolling Stones. An arena executive told me: "That's the door to backstage. Under no circumstances do I want you to go back there. ... I'll be over here."
• Testing the new super-sticky Post-It note by putting it on the belly of an exotic dancer and having her undulate.
• Blowing my bit part in the Broadway show "The Wedding Singer."
• Listening to Tony Bennett sing "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" a capella with no microphone in the McGlohon Theater from five feet away.
• Talking female body parts with "Vagina Monologues" author Eve Ensler.
• Having Hugh McColl point out the changes he made to uptown Charlotte looking out the windows of his offices in the sky at the BofA tower.
• Watching NASCAR team owner Felix Sabates bid $2 million at a charity auction for Super Bowl tickets, and then, when I asked him who was taking, saying: "I'm not going. I hate the Super Bowl!"
• Breaking a story from the National Institutes of Health on how stress is reconfiguring American brains to be more prone to depression, which has devastated the lives of people I love.

• Watching my coworkers at The Charlotte Observer file faithfully in, one after another to work on the morning after the ice storm in December of 2002. As much of the state huddled in their dark homes, waiting for conditions to improve, our staff suited up and showed up to get people news they badly needed. Every Election Day, every Christmas eve, every rainy Sunday night in February when most people are at home, the people of my paper come through, 365, year after year. Of that I am fiercely proud, forever respectful, and profoundly moved.

Foxx vs. Lassiter on Facebook

It's a Facebook election, with pictures and enthusiastic encouragement posted for the mayoral candidates' friends to see and comment on. This lends a bit of a smalltown feel to the mayoral race online, as if Republican John Lassiter and Democrat Anthony Foxx were running for high school class president, not for the mayor's seat of the nation's 19th largest city.

I just did a TV spot with Stuart Watson of WCNC NewsChannel 36 on social media and the mayoral race. It will be on tonight's newscast at 5:45. Here's what we talked about, primarily how the mayoral race breaks down on Facebook, the platform each uses the most.

Foxx has a bigger following, and a younger, more active approach. The Democrat has more than 3,300 friends, contrasted with Lassiter's nearly 1,200. The Democrat also has a "group" of more than 1,200, while Lassiter's only group is just 154. In what could be an age difference, Foxx plays more on Facebook: He's a fan of Stephen Curry, who starred at basketball at Foxx's alma mater of Davidson. And he's a fan of jazz musician Wynton Marsalis. He's more active, and relaxed.

This participation seems to pay off for Foxx: Fifty friends responded on Facebook to get get-out-the-vote post this morning. Just 10 of Lassiter's did. That community spreads out to each of that person's friends. And that can add up.

One interesting note about Lassiter on Facebook: He lists his cell phone number. So friends get access to that. When WCNC's Watson called it, Lassiter picked up.

As a Facebook friend of both, I created a friends list with just them on it, which allows me to isolate and compare their posts. Politicians often want friends during a campaign, so friending two opponents and checking them out this way can be illuminating.

Will these guys bail on Facebook tomorrow? Something tells me they'll be a little less active after the election. (Just a hunch.) But Foxx is invested there. And win or lose, a populist candidate benefits from the personal touch. As a more corporate guy, Lassiter might indeed back off some.

Also, I created a mayoral race list on Twitter, so you can compare the candidates' tweets. You don't have to be friends or be followed by them to see that.