Thank you gifts from sources

I wrote a column once about my first hole-in-one. The caveat was i made it playing by myself early one morning. The gist of the column was "crap, I finally make an ace and nobody was around to see it."
A guy who owned a local gas station sent me a gift certificate for $10 worth of free gas. Said nobody should be that unlucky.
yeah, i used it.

 

I got a rock!

 

Here 'tis -- the guidelines I go by.

 

Stay away from homemade baked goods. The baker may be a smoker or someone who keeps a lot of pets.

That's the rule you need to follow.

 

I was talking explicitly about regular sources, and I meant more on the news side than sports. I'm thinking that city council member who your paper endorsed and you wrote a feature on during the election who wins the spot and brings you some baked goods. Then, yeah, you should reject it if you're the city council reporter.

 

I'd prefer Red Robin over Chili's.lol

 

A polite 'no' to everything.

 

Covering the Texas Rangers?

 

I got a bottle of Crown Royal one year when I was a NASCAR beat writer. I gave it to my dad for Christmas. Got the OK from my boss, first.

 

I'll bet it completely changed how you covered Crown Royal in the future. You did a big feature right afterwards didn't you?

 

I got free ice cream with my then-girl friend (now wife) from a place I wrote a new business story on – but it was after I quit that job.

Otherwise, a summer basketball shootout T-shirt that is too small and a general athletics T-shirt that is too big. Oh, and lots of team banquet food...haha