Leaving Sutton

On November 17, 2008, I posted the following to Facebook: "have a big decision to make. unemployed in maine or employed in nebraska?"

At the time, not having a job where I was, was arguably a better situation than having a job in Nebraska.

I stewed over the offer. How and why was a paper in small town Nebraska the only one to get back to me, let alone offer me a job, out of the 100s of job applications I sent out? It seemed a cruel prank by the universe. "Yeah, you want a job? Here! You just have to go to a town of 1,500 people in nowhere Nebraska to claim it." I sought the advice of my professors and discussed it with friends and family.

Here's what one of my professors advised: "You have to think of yourself as a pioneer. Seriously; just think of when your people left Europe for the USA.  They had no idea what was coming but they needed work and opportunity presented itself in the New World.  You really are no different from those who came before you.  You actually have it much easier as airplanes, telephones etc. make this far less wrenching than anything our European forebearers experienced.  Just remember my old mantra when I went to North Dakota.  It is only for a year.  Like the Peace Corps or prison."

Another had a slew of mixed pros, cons and neutrals, like: Pros: "If you really can use your multimedia skills -- and improve them -- then this would be a fertile training ground"; "The economy is lousy and getting worse. A job is a job"; and "The one sector of the news industry that has weathered the digital storm the best is the weekly newspaper sector". Cons: "The culture shock will be remarkable. You'll arrive as winter hits. You won't know a soul -- and everyone else will be old friends" and "You'll have to start from scratch in building your living situation. Starting with finding a bed". and Neutrals: "It's the right moment in your life for a big adventure, but conventional wisdom suggests that it needs to last a year or so to look good on a resume" and "Every young woman in southern Nebraska -- especially if she wants to leave the state  -- is going to be interested in you. This is a 'neutral' because you may not be interested in all of them.  Proceed with caution unless you're in a hurry to get married. It's a red state."

This advice was oddly helpful. (And incredibly entertaining in hindsight). Best friend Sarah's contribution proved especially true. "And who knows", she said, "you might end up loving it!"

 I took the job, with every intention of putting in my one year. "Like the Peace Corps or prison." Get in, get experience, get the hell out.

But I had no idea what I was getting into. I figured my best plan was to just hit the ground running and completely dive into my new surroundings. Knowing not a single sole and having nothing to do outside work, I immersed myself into whatever I could. And, eventually, after getting through the inevitable cry-yourself-to-sleep nights, I, just as the prophetic Sarah claimed, ended up loving it.

I helped lift a newspaper to the top of its class two years running, contributed to numerous individual awards and received incredible honors, but far more importantly, I have become a part of a great community. I have acted, sung, volunteered, photographed, written, produced, directed, coached, hosted, golfed, bowled and loved, to the best of my ability, my way into the community. And that, to me, is the greatest joy, and the greatest sense of pride, of all.

One year turned into two years, which turned into three years, and now here I am, more than five-and-a-half years later, finally saying that goodbye.

Shea and I had come to the realization that we were ready for a change – of scenery, of opportunity and of adventure. We looked out-of-state for her first job and found one. Kenwood High School in Essex, Maryland offered her a job, and we accepted. We move her out tomorrow.

It has been, is, and will be incredibly hard to leave this job and this community. I'm sure that my leaving, to a degree, will make people think otherwise. But I hope that my leaving does not at all negate the time that I have spent here and my genuine appreciation and enjoyment of that time. I hope that this move will not be about the leaving, necessarily, but about the going. We are going for a first job for Shea. We are going for a new adventure. We are going to create something new and wholly ours as a newlywed couple. And we are going to discover what more there is for us to do, by expanding the things that we have been able to do here.

I do not have a job lined up yet. I wanted to lead with Shea's job search first. She has always been sort of one step behind me since we have known each other, always being seen as Moody's girlfriend, Moody's fiancé and Moody's wife. I am excited that now she has the opportunity to be one step in front of me and has the chance to have her own "Sutton".

I will be flying back to Nebraska on Sunday and will work through the last two issues of August and then drive Tammy out to Baltimore. I will hit the job trail hard once I settle and we will see just what kind of oyster the world will be for me now.

There is far too much to say about all of this, and I hope to someday turn "Leaving Sutton" into a memoir, which will be able to say it all. In short, thank you to everyone who has helped me so far and been a part of this journey. It's time to travel a new road.

on grrr

so i get a call from the sheriff yesterday morning saying that he came across what he thought would be a good photo opp. while cruising around, he happened across 8 bald eagles snacking on the remains of a deer. now this is cool, not so much for the deer being eaten, but because, c'mon.. 8 bald eagles in one place. awesome?!

so i took a cruise down to where he saw them and, by the time i got there, there were only two left. good enough, i thought. don't think i've even seen two in one place before. however, i may have closed my car door a little too loudly and they flew off into a tree in the distance. damn.

i'll be heading back toward that direction today, so i'll try to swing by again and see if they're still around. apparently they've been there the last couple days, so maybe there's a little bit of deer left to pick at.

went to a lion's club meeting last night. one of the foreign exchange students in sutton, jesse from new zealand (i've yet to ask him about 'flight of the conchords' but it's only a matter of time), presented a new zealand lion's club flag to the members because his dad is a lion there. kinda neat. we were also serenaded by the all-girls sutton show-choir. i think there was more of them performing than people they were performing for. which might have made it a little weird for them. they sounded good, though. they've got some good voices.

[sidenote: at lions club meetings.. when they take role call.. or have a vote.. they respond with a 'grrr.' which is kinda lame, but also pretty sweet.]

had bowling last night. cian returned from a broken hand that has kept him out for the past almost two months and still kicked my ass. i beat my average, though, so i pulled my weight.

minden tonight for girls conference basketball. evenings off are hard to come by. which is fine except when you have laundry and other around-the-house things to do. ah, well.

on hitting the "becaaame"

a quick les mis update:

i've been in rehearsing the last three days so towards the end of it last night, some notes got tough to hit. however, my 'empty chairs at empty tables' is actually sounding pretty good.

last night i worked with the guys playing enjolras and valjean, piecing together some of the scenes we're all in. and jason's (valjean) 'bring him home' sounds fantastic. so at least there will be a few songs that will be solid.

enjolras, on the other hand, i feel needs to change a bit. right now he's singing mid-high range. not saying it sounds bad, because it sounds alright, just a little too pretty for the character. he's supposed to be the leader of student revolutionaries, firing them up to fight. he should have a powerful, low voice. it just doesn't sound right singing a battle cry in near falsetto. it should sound like this. (the guy in the sweet vest who starts around 25 seconds.)

but who am i to judge. maybe this will all get sorted out when we hit the stage and start developing the actual plot and characters.

for now, a steady diet of oj, water and lozenges. so i can hit that damn "becaaame."

on ....

*frustrated sigh*

my mood just took a divebomb.

i had spent the better of the last at least hour-and-a-half writing and when i go to save it, it just disappears.

was really happy with what i had written, too.

no use in trying to re-do it right now.

....

fuck.

on two advils and some coffee

if this were still college.. i would not be getting out of bed until after 11 o'clock..

then i'd make the short trip to the couches of woodale and watch a terrible hbo movie, preferably an ernest one..

i would not be waking up at 7:30 and dragging myself to work..

an amber bock hangover feels similar to a franzia one. just slightly downplayed..

here's hoping two advils and some coffee can get me back to an even keel.

it might be worth it if i actually bowled well last night..

on "when the moral kicks in"

thanks to gleeson, i've discovered dirpy.com

dirpy.com allows you to convert videos from youtube into mp3 files to download. brilliant. and, with discovering this, i've also been able to check out some new music as recommended by friends. which is great, since i'm out of the loop of good music out here (maybe that wolf should come back.) and this place has awful music taste. if it isn't anybody-could-write-this, nostalgic-small-town-living country, it's the terrible bands like nickelback, shinedown, three days grace, breaking benjamin.. etc. only thing they've got going is the classic rock, which, let's be honest, who doesn't.

i was talking to an older guy at maury's one night about classic rock and some of the concerts he went to when he was younger, feeling incredibly jealous. guy even had a zz-top tattoo on his left arm. then he absolutely slaughtered my view of his music taste saying that he now listens to nickelback. really?! no, seriously.. really?! i'll never understand it.

anyway, though, this site has sparked some good music my way. i've been listening to the avett brothers (a little behind the eight ball with them, but better late than never) and, thanks too deloose, discovered a phenomenal right-now song. seven plus minutes of missing-friends-and-good-times-because-of-separation-and-gradually-falling-into-adult-life glory. lcd soundsystem - all my friends. examples of some great lyrics scattered throughout:

"it's the memory of our betters
that are keeping us on our feet.

you spent the first five years trying to get with the plan,
and the next five years trying to be with your friends again."


"it comes apart
the way it does in bad films
except in parts
when the moral kicks in"


"and if I'm sewn into submission
i can still come home to this."


"if i could see all my friends tonight."

so that's that.

had another rehearsal last night and have now, almost, at least played/sung through most of the songs i'm in. i'm fairly confident with the ones i'm now familiar with, having played them over and over, but unfortunately, the cd i'm borrowing doesn't have all of the songs on it. so it's pretty obvious when i rehearse which ones i haven't heard, as i'm like "can i hear it once first?" or "yeah.. i'm gonna have to work on that one." maybe i'll dirpy all the songs i'm missing.

on ten o'clock news face-time

of course when i start writing again, the internet decides to stop working at my house. so i'm at the office saying, 'hold tight. he's not done yet.'

who got some face time on the ten o'clock news last night? this guy. as part of the previously mentioned murder mysteries i've been taking part in, we performed last night at the hastings museum. prior to this, i have been doing the same show all three times. scott has a number of different shows from like a christmas in london, an american idol theme, clue, which is what i have been doing, and a whole lot more. for this show, however, the museum wanted a new show, one to actually relate to the museum. so scott wrote the script, incorporating some historical facts about the museum's creation and some of the big names in hastings at that time. we had the car ride to hastings to learn the script and create a faint background for our characters, mine being the artist who painted a majority of the exhibit displays.

so, in that sense, it was tough. since it's all thinking on the spot, without time to discuss between characters any mutual story lines, a lot of the questions tables asked led to "oh but he said.." or "that's not what she said.." fortunately, it really doesn't matter a whole terrible lot what you say most of the time aside from the clues you give. which is good considering some of the questions they ask.

last night's performance was fun, though. everybody was into it, which makes it a much more enjoyable time for them and us. as for the news.. khas tv came to do a story on the performance and i was shown briefly in the b-roll.

and this afternoon, the les mis company meets again for rehearsal. i've been playing the crap out of the soundtrack in my car to get familiar with the pieces i'll be singing. it's sinking in more. i'm excited about it. might pop in the 10th anniversary dvd i'm borrowing when i get home to see how much more ass michael ball kicks as marius than i can expect to.

on wolves who like music

last night i had a dream where i went to let budders inside, but there was a wolf just a few feet behind him. fearing that the wolf would try to run inside if i opened the door for budders, i stood there with the door cracked slightly.

i tried to sneak the door open wide enough for just budders to shimmy through the opening, but saw that, upon noticing a slightly wider gap leading to the inside, the wolf flinched toward the house. i knew he would make a run for it if i opened the door any more. so i just kind of stood there trying to figure out what to do.

the wolf then asked me if he could come inside. yes, he spoke, and asked if he could come hang out. i see how little red riding hood was fooled by the big, bad wolf, for he spoke well and with only seemingly good intentions. but i was hesitant. he was a wolf. who knows what he'd do if i allowed him entrance to my house.

he then, further, asked if he could come inside so that we could listen to some music. he said he had some good music he wanted me to hear. while listening to good music with a wolf might be kind of cool, i still would have been listening to music with a wolf. and little red riding hood taught me that no matter how complimentary or friendly a wolf may seem, he's still a wolf.

sensing that i was not going to allow him inside my house, the wolf said goodbye and walked away. as he left, and i'm not sure what music listening contraption could do this, he played a song loudly at his departure. and it registered as one of my brother's songs, though i can't think of which one. and i thought: wolves know my brother's music? and i thought: damn. maybe he did just want to listen to music.

on performing

and on the (however many days has it been since my last entry) he rose!

i'm back.

for how long? only time will tell. for those of you who have already formed a "how many days before this current stretch of blogging ends" betting pool, put me down for 23.

i wanted to resurrect this for a few reasons:
a) it will allow me to write something besides clay county news stories on a (somewhat) consistent basis. something that i have been wanting to do for a while, but have failed miserably at.
b) have been told to resume posting updates by the few who, apparently, did keep tabs.
c) my life is, actually, kind of interesting, and, therefore, worth sharing with those who wish to be shared with.
and, most catalytically, d) i have been cast in the sutton community theater/sutton public schools production of 'les miserables,' giving me something to write about.

on that note..

prior to december, the only sort of performing that i had done in a long time was either a) on guitar hero/rock band, b) singing 'picture' by kid rock and sheryl crow with kate for allison, or c) for budders.
however, this past couple of months has presented new performance venues for me. (not saying that i have anything in particular to perform, but that when opportunities to have a little bit of fun here in town that don't involve closing down maury's [the bar] or watching tv on the internet at home, it's a welcome change.)

let me back up (i may have to do this a lot, considering much of what has happened lately in my life here has not been documented. i have myself to blame.) scott, who is the state farm agent in town, approached me about potentially taking part in these dinner theater murder mysteries that he does throughout the area, hearing that it may be something i'd be interested in. thank you, scott. yes, that sounds awesome, actually. so i performed in back-to-back shows one friday and saturday (probably november-decemberish) and returned to action for a performance in lincoln last night. i like it, and, as long as i have no conflicts, will try to go whenever i'm needed. because, as i say, it's a heck of a lot better than staying in by myself for the night or finding myself at maury's for four-five days out of the week, which has happened more often that you'd think. and again, it's another experience. something different, something new.

along those lines, scott is also directing 'les miserables' this spring, in conjunction with the school. i thought: something to keep me busy, something different, something to get me back to the theater days of old. i'm in. this post is getting long, so i won't go into the whole audition process (that can actually be its own post.) so... yadda yadda yadda.. i'm marius.

as marius, i am a) the love interest in the play, b) the love interest of two high school actresses in the play and c) required to sing nine-ish songs, plus ensemble pieces. i've got my work cut out for me. (and more on the whole love-triangle-with-two-high-school-girls thing as the rehearsals develop. this could prove to be an entertaining storyline.)

so i'll be singing 'les mis' songs in and out of rehearsals until the shows on april 29, 30 and may 1. and trying, all that time, to find a falsetto that sounds (somewhat) natural. good luck, right?

check back, folks. these developments promise to be worth reporting on.

"who let the blogs out?" OR the sad part of the job

this blog is starting to become like a wierd al yankovich record in the sense that i'll write a post and then wait long enough for everyone to forget i still have a blog before writing another. unlike weird al, however, this is not an intentional publicity move. i'm largely just forgetful and lazy. (and the first post title is referencing the parody ways of said singer. which is why i don't really do parody..)

here goes..

this is actually kind of a sad "back to blogging" post. last week i heard that a couple of students from a local high school that i covered while working for the clay county news had been in an accident and that the passenger had died. the current managing editor of the paper had told me the news, but at the time, the names of the students had not been released.

yesterday, i went back into the ccn office and glanced at a copy of this week's issue, seeing the picture of a girl that was familiar, and, after reading the headline, realized that it was her who died in the accident. reading further, the driver of the car, who is in serious condition at the hospital, was also very familiar. covering the county schools for the entire spring semester, i had plenty of interaction with the students while on the ccn staff, but none as much as with these particular students. the high school they attend(ed) was always one of the more friendly to me in terms of the students, and if there were two students that i would find myself covering/saying hi to/casually conversing with, it was these two girls.

i had first met the driver at one of the first events i had covered since coming. i interviewed her and two other students from the school about their involvement in a wrapping party for needy families. from there, she was always someone i'd say hi to if i crossed paths, stopping for a brief conversation or the occasional interview. in showing my face at a lot of the school events, i had even spoken with her parents a couple of times.

the passenger, who was killed in the accident, i also met at an early event, a spaghetti feed to raise money for a trip to washington, d.c. that her and three other seniors were attending. again, she was involved and there were plenty of "hellos" and brief conversations, with me even running into her in a store in hastings after she graduated where we had talked about what she was doing for college. i even had a lot of interaction with her parents, too. he dad, a minister at a local church, held a fundraiser for a mission trip during which, and after which, i had spoken with him when i would see him. her mom was always around, helping at various events, and was always good to talk to.

so.. (and i suppose i would have been at whoever was involved) to see that it was these two girls involved in the accident, i was shocked and a little shaken. especially that the one girl, who just graduated in the spring, had died in the accident. that makes (as far as i know) three people that i have talked to out here who have died. i guess for what i do and the amount of people i meet through my job, that's bound to happen, but the fact that it was those two girls, out of anyone, hit me a little harder, combined with the fact, like i said, that i knew their parents.

so, kind of a downer to get back into it, but i wanted to share. you never like to see the bad news, especially when it's about someone you know. buckle up, be safe. you never do know.

first visitor

i guess i never fully understood just how little there is to do here until alex visited me the last couple days. being alone, i've been itching to have someone to do things with, but now i finally had a visitor and had no idea what to do for entertainment. i guess just being by myself i'm not aware of how boring this area is.

for instance: alex got in mid-afternoon on sunday. since the end of the week/weekend was extremely busy for me, i still had all my writing to do, so it wasn't a very exciting day. we took a walking tour of town, but, being sunday, nothing was open and nobody was around. we had dinner at the legion, as it was the only place open on a sunday night. if nothing else, it was the perfect example of the company i keep here. i don't think there was anyone, besides our waitress, under the age of 75. off to a great start. we ended up having some beers and watching arrested development until alex passed out and i slaved at my computer to finish my work.

monday we drove to hastings to get some food. we ate some sloppy mexican food at a place i hadn't noticed before and then walked around the downtown. realizing there was nothing to even do there, we came back to my house, started drinking and watched episodes of south park. at 9, my sand volleyball team played, so we took a cooler to the park to watch. i ended up rotating in for the last two games, refusing to let my knee keep me out/because there was a girl playing on our team this week. [side note: the best way to meet what very, very few girls are out here is not to punch them in the mouth while going for the volleyball. especially when she calls you off from the ball, but you swipe at it anyway. really not the best policy. hopeless doesn't even begin to say it.]

after the game, we walked to my boss' house for a couple of post-game beers with some of the team. we left after a bit hoping to get to the bar, but found it closed before midnight. lame, sutton, lame. back to the house for tv and bed.

tuesday we golfed. and quit halfway through because we sucked and weren't having much fun. then alex hit the road for his next stop at kansas state.

i make it sound so exciting, but we had an all right time. it was great to just have a friend around for a couple days, even if we didn't do anything terribly fun. point: sutton is boring, but company is good. now i have to figure out how to entertain my parents when they get here saturday night.

harry potter and the half-blood prince

so, the sixth installment of the hp series had been delayed to the point of finally opening on the exact night that the order of the phoenix did two years ago in 2007. needless to say, i have been anxious to see it. and apparently the wait did wonders for the movie, which grossed a record $22.2 million in midnight showings alone. yikes. i contributed $8.25 to this total, deciding to drive an hour to watch the movie by myself. you might think it's kind of sad and, well, i do too, but i wanted to see it. (and your opinions on said patheticness will only be intensified after reading this review/rant/blog-essay.)

(spoilers ahead. just forewarning. potentially for book 7, too..)

i'll start by saying that any fan of the series who wants the movies to be a page-by-page translation of the books will be disappointed by every movie in the series. books of this depth in story, character, background and fictional culture will never be able to perfectly adapt to the screen. it's an entirely different medium and things will have to be changed/left out.

that said, as a movie, the half-blood prince was pretty good. i felt that the flow of the movie was very fluid. director david yates kept the main story progressing along nicely, while sprinkling in visual reminders of everything else going on (ie. periodic scenes with malfoy trying to fix the vanishing cabinet thing and a very quick shot of the death eaters trying to penetrate the hogwarts boundaries.) some have expressed some exasperation toward the amount of attention given to the character's romatic interests in the film. i will admit that there could have been a scosh less emphasis on that aspect of the story, but at the same time, it was a very key element in the book. in one sense this book is about the characters coming closer together, as dumbledore encourages harry to keep ron and hermione in the loop at all times, as well as setting up the loyalties to be counted on. so yes, in talking about characters who are 16 years old, the story is about the hormones kicking in and about the characters dealing with them. and i think that yates' use of this subplot to add humor to the movie was a nice touch. the light-heartedness had been missing from the series since the first, maybe second installment. that initial 'wow, i'm a wizard and this world is friggin cool' sentiment was replaced by the forboding gloomyness that the series encompasses as it progresses. the wild world of diagon alley, first spells, quidditch!, changing staircases and flying cars gave way to dark arts and life-or-death situations. so it was nice to see some of that return in the form of awkward flirting and more humor than usual. (although, i did think it toed the line of inappropriateness when ginny got down on her knees to tie harry's sneaker..)

where the move missed, to me, was addressing the gravity of the impending situation. the opening shot was awesome. harry and dumbledore standing in front of a crowd of paparazzi, who are snapping photos frantically, assumedly following the battle that raged inside the minsitry at the end of the order of the phoenix. the lighting and look in the two characters' faces said it all: 'this is effing serious, now. you have no idea how bad things are going to get.' and apart from periodic exceptions, that level of seriousness was never achieved again for the rest of the film. for example, the story, in another sense, was about draco's struggle in completing a mission assigned directly to him by voldemort. imagine the pressure of someone his age in trying to accomplish such a feat as getting death eaters inside hogwarts and killing dumbledore. no shit he was frustrated at not being able to fix the vanishing box thing (the emotion of which did not appear as strongly in those scenes) and no shit he was terrified of what would happen if he failed, leading malfoy, the most sinister and looked-up-to leader, to literally break down into tears in the bathroom (another scene that lacked the impact it had in the book. the book almost makes you sympathize with a character you've grown to loathe, almost admiring his struggle to fully accept that what he is doing is right, and instead only working to the end of his mission out of fear that he will be killed if he fails. a serious miss by yates.)

but mostly, the story was about the terror that is now spreading about the magical (and somewhat into the muggle) world. voldemort is back in full force, gaining more and more followers than ever before, and at the same time dumbledore is finally figuring out why voldemort is able to keep coming back, and, more importantly, how to stop him. more time should have been spent hammering these notions home. a storm is brewing, and, yes, it will largely play out in 'deathly hallows,' but the set-up needed to be much more powerful. take, for instance, the entirely made-for-film scene where death eaters apparate to the burrow, create a chase and mini-battle, then send the weasley's house up in flames. this wasn't in the book, which would be fine if it served a valuable purpose, but it didn't. the intention behind the scene, i'd imagine, was to show how vulnerable the main characters are at all times now that voldemort is at large again, and to also revisit harry's desire to avenge sirius black's death (shown through his hot-headed pursuit of bellatrix.) while it accomplished these things, it chewed up about 10 minutes of the film - time that makes a huge difference in a project of this undertaking, and time that could have been spent to strengthen the most important scenes. like..

1) hammer home the horcruxes. it was merely mentioned after slughorn's memory was revealed and about 30 seconds of dialogue ensued. this was minor, and, hopefully, most people understood.
2) the climax was desperately weak (that's what she said.)
a) for one, the battle between the death eaters and the order of the phoenix members and students was removed. this i don't understand. why include a burrow scene when that time could have been used to show how the death eaters have INFILTRATED HOGWARTS. you're telling me that after all that time draco spent getting them access to the impenetrable school that all they're going to do is stand around, watch dumbledore get killed and then run away?! no. they're going to fight people. kill people. like j.k. rowling said they did.
b) while i loved the acting for the most part, dumbledore, you needed to hammer home those lines about 'you must do whatever i say. if i say hide, you hide. if i say run, you run. and if i tell you to leave and save yourself, you do it.' for fuck's sake, this suddenly just got a violent shove from, 'hey, have a look in my pensive of an innocent memory' to 'hey, we could easily die where we're going.' and then again.. fuckin-a, yates! that potion that dumbledore has to drink is fucking killing him! and harry has to keep forcing it on him. he has to keep making his friend, his headmaster, the greatest wizard of all time suffer. where was the pain, yates? where was the gravity?
c) yates, i'm not sure as though you got this: dumbledore dies. he gets fucking murdered by snape. the man whose magical ability rivals only voldemort. the man who ran hogwarts, taught harry everything important, the one hope for defense, was thrown off the astronomy tower by the killing curse at the hands of 'is he good, is he bad' snape. (which, yates, you really helped everyone who doesn't already know get a very good idea of which side that is by your brilliantly free licensed use of him in the final sequences.) dumbledore's death seemed, to me, to be treated like the death of just any old character. look, time fucking stopped when i read that sentence. the book closed. i took a deep breath, thought to my self, 'holy shit, you can't be serious,' and felt thoroughly heart-broken. during the film, a slight gasp.. maybe..?

as a fan of the books, i will say that i enjoyed the movie as a movie. but while the humor and light-hearted scenes were nice to see return to the franchise, the notes that needed serious drama and emotion were not given the gravity they required to contribute as much meaning to the series or to set up the shit-storm that is the final installment. i needed more punch. i needed to know that while teenage "feelings" are aflutter inside hogwarts, the world is in serious danger and hopes to conquer the strengthening enemy are taking huge hits. this is what i needed, yates. please don't let me down on the key scenes in deathly hallows. let the characters flirt and joke away during the filler scenes, but please, don't miss the mark when it comes to the dramatic moments.

[no, i was not wearing a wizard robe or holding a broomstick while writing this. i just really enjoy the books and think the series is brilliant.]

welcome back

wow, it's been a while.

i have some things to write about that will be backdated severely. i say that i will write about them soon, but you now know how much my word means when it comes to blogging.

so, i'll shake off the dust with my review of harry potter and the half-blood prince.

jihad on the trib

i decided to stay on with darren and cassie at the doniphan and blue hill papers. had myself real worked up about it the day i had to decide and literally could have put heads on one and tails on the another and been satisfied with the result of a coin flip. but now i'm extremely glad i made this decision.

reasons:
-they're just plain horrible to darren and cassie. stubborn over a portion of the contract, won't talk to them face to face, demand that certain things should be their's. plus, they brought back people who hate darren and cassie (for really no good reason.)
-they're horrible to erica. so she quit. they made her cry so she walked out the first day on the job. very good employee relations.
-i think it will be clear soon how much better our product was with a staff of 3 than their's will be with a staff of a dozen.

bygones be bygones. it is kind of weird not having a clay county news association anymore, though. there's been a few times already where i've been like "oh, i should take a picture of that.' or 'that'd be nice to follow up on.' new prospects make it much better.

additional reasons why this was the best decision:
-opportunity for expansion. this one's loaded. first, both are 8 page papers. obviously, advertising determines number of pages, but community/school expansion is looking good. the hastings tribune, a daily in 25,000 pop. city about 12 mi. south of doniphan, 35 mi. west of sutton, has been creeping into out territory. this encroaching will not be tolerated.
-over a few beers following the completion of our final CCN issue, darren and i discussed ways to improve the doniphan and blue hill papers. video and an increased internal focus on our main communities is priority number one (pay attention hastings tribune [from here on out referred to as 'the trib'] you might learn something.) the trib, despite having the entire hastings community/schools/college to itself, sees it beneficial to encroach into our communities rather than focus on its own.
**trib background - on any given day, the trib's front page will have half or more AP content. they cover enough hastings to get by. any other stories are stolen from us and summarized, as confirmed by goofy reporter tony, who said he gets most of his ideas from reading our paper. tip: find news in your own town. OR ELSE WE WILL.. (see next point)**
-while you're busy dicking around in our small communities, stealing our stories, we'll be quietly, yet aggressively, doing what you are not. there are towns/schools that have the trib as their legal newspaper that claim to cover the communities, but will really only show their face during a festival, big game or some other huge event. they're lucky to get a picture or mention twice a month. they show up just enough to keep people's interest or, as they did a few weeks ago, will advertise on our town's flashing sign for a free lunch in the park, and host said event to sway our readership. but good luck getting mentioned more than once or twice a month. soo...

jihad on the trib!

war strategy available as the conflict develops..

the battle with budders

budders likes to jump up on my kitchen counter. he knows that his food is in the kitchen, so every time i walk into it, he stops whatever he is doing and follows me, meowing. even if his bowl has plenty of food in it. he also knows that the kitchen is where i make my food, so by being there, he thinks that he will get some.

so.. he hopes that by jumping on the counter after i have been in there getting food, that he will find something to eat, in the form of dirty dishes or anything else. and he knows that he's not supposed to jump up there. i've used the spray bottle, scolded him severely, still he likes to jump up. and because he knows he's not supposed to, he does it when i'm not watching. when i head to bed, i hear him jump up. when i come home, i can tell he's been on the counter.

so, i've started a war on counter jumping. since i don't care what my house looks like, nobody besides me has seen it, i've found a system to deter his jumping habits. i've taken all my empty boxes (vaccuum, appliances, beer, etc.) and lined the kitchen counter with them. i've built a counter-top box wall. i figure, if he can't jump high enough, he can't jump on. plus, i'd know if he tried because shit would be knocked over.

apparently he found a way up, conquring my first wall. i came home and found boxes knocked over and cat hair on the counter. so, i brought in reinforcements. strengthening weak portions and stacking more boxes for a higher wall. i've even baracaded the counter in half, so that if he does get up, he's stuck on one side. take that, cat. i'm sure he'll still find a way up. and if that's the case, drastic measures will be taken. i will not be beaten. 1-2-3-4, this is how we start a war.

moms need a photography lesson

seriously. so many of the submitted photos we get are terrible. and tonight i sat behind a mom at an honors banquet and had the pleasure/misery of watching her snap terribly framed/timed/all-around-composed pictures allllll night. i'm not a great photographer, but i know what a terrible photo is.

first, head room. don't put their face in the center of the screen. that leaves half the picture with nothing but a boring background.

second, your camera has a zoom for a reason. use it. get in tight. don't have wasted space.

three, you have a digital camera. snap away, you can always delete. don't take your sweet time to frame a terrible picture and wait so long that someone walks in front of them or the subject moves.

the best part was that she knew every photo was bad. she kept showing them to the mom next to her, who was also taking bad pictures.

big news

of either the 27th or the 20th this month, the clay county news will officially be under new ownership.

my bosses, darren and cassie, are selling the paper. they informed me of this today, though recently there have been signs and word that something big was about to happen. i really wasn't sure how to take the news, but apparently darren and cassie are having a tough time with it, and understandably so. they really did not want to sell the paper, but have kind of had their hand forced on the issue. suffice it to say that the business and personal ethics of outside parties (soon to be inside parties), combined with other issues that have caught up, have made operations difficult and stressful, and have made the sale necessary.

so where does this put me? well, they will still own the doniphan herald and the blue hill leader. when they talked with me this afternoon, they told me that they would love to have me stay and work for those two papers with them. so that's an option. another is to remain at the clay county news under the new ownership. or still a third, if those don't end up feeling like a good fit.. i can seek something else.

the breakdown:
option a) work under darren and cassie for the doniphan and blue hill papers.
goods: i know their style. i already work for the two papers. taking ccn out of the mix would free up a lot of time and allow me to focus on improving the other papers, both of which are smaller than ccn. things would be less stressful overall, and therefore probably more enjoyable.
bads: doniphan is 45 minutes away, blue hill is an hour; not bad when i only make the trip a couple times a week, but if it's my main job, will be quite the daily travel. i don't want to move closer, either. there's drama in both towns. i've established a good rapport in town and in clay county.

option b) stay at clay county news under new ownership.
goods: it's in town, same old beat. change can be good. i like what i've done here and where i'm going with the paper.
bads: new ownership, new style, new staff? bad blood.
*goods/bads can't accurately be determined until i meet with the new owner, which will hopefully happen soon*

option c) new adventure completely.
goods: i probably have enough experience from working here in just five months to find another job. i do miss friends and family. what's next?
bads: i'd like to stay here a little longer, see some things through. hassle of job searching and moving. plus, i have a golf membership and our league starts tomorrow. i can't just bail!

interesting times. i guess i can't say i haven't gotten enough experience in the working world. things haven't been boring, that's for sure. i'll keep you posted on updates, but for now, business as usual. chamber meeting, elementary art show, elementary concert tomorrow; four graduations this weekend. ta-ta.

officially no posts in april.. sorry?

alright, i'll try to get back into the groove of regular updates here. you'd think it'd either have to be crazy for me to have no time to write or so boring there'd be nothing to report on. truth is, i've just become too lazy. and since my job revolves around writing, it's not something i rush to do in my spare time. unfortunately. this type of writing is all but killing my love for it. kind of. i guess. i dunno..

i won't bother catching you up, it'd take far too long. well, actually, suffice this april in a nutshell to do the trick: amazing race host came to sutton; attended the nebraska press association convention; easter with my boss's wife's family; lots of golf. wow, that was a weak recap. my short term memory has become even worse out here. as soon as i finish something it's instantly on to the next item, so i forget about it almost immediately. soo, i should write daily blogs to remember such things? let's try. and give up after a week like usual..

tonight i went back to doniphan, for like the 4th time in five days. [i'll be there tomorrow, too, for a lift-a-thon. fingers crossed they don't call on the 'newspaper guy' to try his luck at benching because i'm sure a freshman girl could outbench me right now.]

the event tonight was an athletic banquet. typical coach recognizes the team and recaps the season type deal. made me miss organized sports a little. and made me think about how i should have worked as hard as i goofed off. if i am able to keep this blog regular again, i'll start doing such cheesy things like 'small town moment of the day' or 'awesome thing about life today' sorts of things. today would be this:

at the end of the banquet, the booster club played a powerpoint with music and pictures of all the teams. the first sport featured was football and the song played with it was journey's "don't stop believing." what was awesome about this was that usually everyone is completely silent during these videos, unless there's an awkward photo or the like. not here. when steve perry belted out "she's just a small town girl, living in a lonely world," some students sang along. even if quietly, they still sang out loud. i found this awesome because so often people would not even think to sing along during a slideshow. especially at a banquet, with parents, with faculty, with other students who find it "uncool." but these kids decided it both appropriate and entertaining to sing along with perhaps one of the best sing-a-long songs. i'm not explaining it well right now, but hopefully you get me. im finding more and more that my least favorite quality in someone is when they act too cool for something or that they are above something. sometimes, you need to check that thought and do something because it's fun. and if you can't stop and sing along each and every time "don't stop believing" pumps through the speakers of your car, a store or an athletic banquet, you're either in need of a too-cool-for-school attitude check or are seriously underestimating the awesomeness of the song.

if you get what i'm getting at.

budders!

i got a cat.

don't tell my landlord, though. i haven't told him yet. not that it will matter, but i just haven't let him know.

carolyn, who i worked with for the first month or so i was here, lives on a farm with a handful of cats, several dogs, four horses, two miniature horses, bunnies, cows, etc. she friended me on facebook just recently and told me that somone dropped a cat off to her and that he was mine if i wanted him. impulsively, i went to her house, met all her other animals and then was handed a litterbox, some cat food and the cat. unlike flip, my cat from home, he sat in my lap the whole ride back to my house.

i'd guesstimate his age to be about two years old or so. he's still pretty thin, but not kitten small or cat big. is that "kitty" territory? or something like a catten? it's weird having him, though. i went from just little, old me in my house to a little bugger that will not leave my side (or my feet or my face) for a second. but i like his company, except when he makes a whole bunch of noise or tries to attack me when i'm sleeping. apparently night time is when he gets playful.

i've been calling him "budders" so i guess that's what his name will be. kind of inspired by one of my favorite south park characters leopold "butters" scotch. though he's a squirmer and never sits still, so i briefly considered a name change to "sqworms," which would double as a personality trait and my favorite candy. but i like budders.

we're goin digital baaaaaabyyyy

(subject to be read while singing)

just finished editing and posting video from the girls state basketball tournament last weekend, where one of the teams we cover for one of our papers finished in second.

find it here: http://bluehillleader.com/photo.php?article=20090308200117

hey, aurora paper. what do you think about your "sound slides" now? bitch, we got video. uhhh.

haha. we're trying to do one each week. maybe if we start getting more traffic on the sites and good feedback, we may try to do a game of the week and have sponsors for each. who knows. but it's fun to play around with final cut again.