I am outside my comfort zone this week and loving it at the 2009 AT&T U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

From hard news to TV columns to business to sports of all sorts, no two days are the same. One of the best features of this job is the variety of assignments that come my way.

That's why I didn't blink when News-Herald sports editor Mark Podolski asked me to take care of business when the best U.S. figure skaters pulled into Quicken Loans Arena.

Because I covered the event when it was here in 2000, I'm not a total newcomer to the world of figure skating. But it's been a while, so it was almost like starting from scratch when I started filing stories on Monday.

For the most part, I've concentrated on the best feature stories I can find or competition stories that tell stories about the 268 talented young men and women who are competing in the Novice, Junior and Senior divisions.

When I do need to brush up on the technical aspects of a performance or behind-the-scenes information about the skaters, I've often turned to Linda Przygodski of www.icenetwork.com, one of my "neighbors'' in the media workroom.

Linda has been a life-saver, and www.icenetwork.com is to figure skating what the Food Network is to food.

David S. Glasier