As 2012 is coming to a close, today marks my four-month anniversary as your Grayslake Patch local editor. It's a relatively short time, but it feels as though I've been here much longer. That's because I enjoy this job so much, and I hope you, the readers, have enjoyed what you've seen and read on the Grayslake Patch this year. My goal is to provide you with coverage that is interesting, informative and relevant to your lives as Grayslake residents. I can't say I wasn't kept busy. We've had a lot to talk about in my first four months, from the home invasion and the 2012 elections to the …

If you work a retail job, try not to choke on your turkey leg as you hurriedly finish eating to race back to the store for the "Black Friday Creep," also known as "Gray Thursday." I can't decide what's creepier, the stores for putting employees in this position or the "sheeple" who salivate at the prospect of saving an extra 10 percent on some gadget they don't need but know they want because their friend has one. I thought Black Friday was supposed to be on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, not on Thanksgiving. Sears, Walmart and Target are just a few of the big box stores having …

I've been a community journalist for more than 11 years, but that was print--and this is definitely not. I'm a "Patcher" now and I'm learning, day by day, how to make our Grayslake Patch grow. But I can't do it alone. This literally takes a village. As a new hire, I traveled to Patch headquarters in New York City last week for a crash course in what it means to be a local editor of a Patch Web site. The biggest lesson I took away from our training was that although I have a solid print journalism foundation, Patch is a new concept for reporters like myself. As a new media company, Patch is …

For those of us who can't, don't or just won't pay their annual property tax bills in one horrific lump sum when it arrives in the spring, the deadline for getting that dreaded second installment to the county collector looms large. I just paid, less than three months ago, and it was a lot. But they want more. They all want more---governments, schools, pensions. So many taxing bodies that want a piece of the pie. And while I fully recognize and understand why we need to pay property taxes, each time I pay them I can't stop thinking how I could have used that money for something tangible, like…