September, 2009

Unofficial mascot Cowboy Ken wears a cardboard tube, cowboy boots and hat and nothing else.

Every Friday before University of Wyoming home games, we have a tailgate lunch at work. There’s hot dogs and hamburgers and people bring sides and desserts. They also give away a few pair of tickets to the game the next day. On Friday I brought chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. And I won a pair of tickets in the drawing.

Adam, the video guy from work, invited me to ride with him and a friend to the game. So I had weekend plans! We left in the morning, taking 220 and 487 through Medicine Bow instead of I-25. The scenery was incredible, a mix of salt creeks, hills with shrubbery and sandy ranches.

We met up with Adam’s friend’s girlfriend and her friend, grabbed some lunch at Jimmy John’s and headed into the game. What a beautiful day — 70 degrees and sunny, with a slight breeze. Just before halftime, Adam’s friend got into an argument with his girlfriend and they left. The friend came back after halftime and the rest of the game was good. Wyoming, 30. UNLV, 27.

The rest of the day had a snowball effect of everything that you’d never think would happen did happen. No details here to protect the mostly innocent, but here’s the highlights.

• dodged a beer can
• was chased down an alley by a 50-year-old cowboy walking Jason-style
• got “thrown out” of two bars
• broke up a fight in the street
• went to the Laramie police station to post bail
• nursed a kid who threw up for 2 hours straight

It goes in my list of top 5 worst nights of my life.

The next morning felt like the end of The Hangover minus the baby, tiger and lost teeth. We ate a big greasy breakfast at The Chuckwagon and headed back to Casper on Sunday morning. It felt good to be home.

ps- some of you have asked about the story I wrote for the Texas game. You can read it here.

Information on my retirement package came yesterday. The envelope screamed, “Hello! you have a real job now!” On the front cover of the folder was written, “The means to your dreams.”

“I hope not,” I said aloud (to myself).

I hope I don’t have to wait that long to live some of my dreams. Maybe it’s the Midwestern, protestant work ethic ingrained in me, but I’m happiest when I’m working, doing something useful or fruitful. One of my priorities is to enjoy the work I do. Right now, that’s reporting and writing and learning something new everyday — which is what I’ve been doing every day for the last few weeks. I’m reporting and writing every day. I make it a goal to get out of the office at least once a day. If I interview someone over the phone, I try to find a way to meet them in person soon after, either through a photo assignment or introduction at a meeting.

I probably can’t do what I’m doing forever for x number of reasons. But for right now, it’s pretty good. And it beats sitting in a cubicle.

(OK, so I do sit in a cubicle. But it’s more like 75 percent of a cubicle and there’s enough cross-cubicle conversation that I don’t feel trapped.)

My dad asked me the other day if I had been running. Eh… I ran a few miles on Labor Day but haven’t since. A few months ago I was looking forward to running another 10K on Sept. 26 but that’s not going to happen. I have lots of excuses: it’s too cold in the mornings, it’s too hot in the late afternoon, I have to be at a meeting at 8:30 so I can’t wake up early, it’s getting darker sooner — I’m too busy.

I did nothing active last week. I spent every day with politicians — in meetings and at two talks with the U.S. education secretary (highlight of my sedentary week.)

I hit the pavement today and it hit back. It’s amazing how out-of-shape I am after two weeks of not running. The conditions weren’t perfect either: just ate breakfast, 15 mph winds, forgot my knee brace, blisters from yesterday’s hike. I didn’t go as far/long as I had wanted, my stomach was in knots and my knee throbbed. It was a good run.

“We learn through running to take what the day gives us,
what our body will allow us, and what our will can tolerate…” – John Bingham

I shouldn’t have even tried after yesterday’s 4-mile hike in the sun. The Corolla has a hard time getting up Casper Mountain so this hike started low and went up to about 7000 feet above sea level. The main attraction is the Garden Creek waterfall.

The trail climbs and climbs, then winds around in a U shape and across the creek and back down. It took just over 2 hours and I was exhausted afterward. I can’t believe people run it. There were more than a few spots with steep incline and loose rock.

If you look straight across, I hiked past that ridge. At this point (1.5 hours in) I was ready to just stay up there.

I’ve been in legislative committee meetings for at least 24 hours in the last three days. (Currently on break in the middle of an additional four hours.) These meetings frustrate me because I hate sitting and I would much rather be out in the field.

At the beginning of Tuesday afternoon’s four-hour meeting, a local TV news reporter walked in a few minutes late, grabbed an agenda and set up her camera. She stayed for maybe 10 minutes of a budget report. The meat of the meeting happened later, when legislators talked about possibly drafting a tax bill. (which I wrote about, briefly)

I caught her two-minute segment on the 10 o’ clock news.
The script:
This afternoon the committee held their meeting in Casper. They discussed revenue options across the state of Wyoming.
Giving a brief update on the strategic plan, JR presented some changes to budget request.
[Cut to JR giving brief point.]
The board will decide on the request approval shortly.
The footage: wide angle of the meeting room, closeup of senator writing on paper.

I have so many problems with this “news item”: No context, no substance, no what-happens-next. I had spent two days in these meetings gathering that and TV news could walk in, piece together some video and run it as a “story.” Is this journalism? What purpose does this serve?

I remember reading a study in mass media seminar about news retention. I can’t find the article, but it concluded that people forget many details, rarely remember the context and barely grasp the topic from what they read and watch.

It reminded me of the ladder of customer service: whatever level you treat the customer, the customer will always be at least one rung below. The level of content journalists provide needs to be a rung or two degrees richer because people remember very little. The TV news incident reminded me of the importance of my work. If I don’t do it, no one else will.

The No. 2 Texas Longhorns travel to War Memorial Stadium in Laramie to battle the Wyoming Cowboys today.

And I will be there.

My editor asked me last week if I’d go to the game and write a feature or two for Sunday’s paper. Of course I said yes. I had to rearrange my schedule this week, which meant going to the office for three hours yesterday and three today. But I finished everything I needed to and somehow managed to get ahead.

I’m traveling with the photographer and videographer. We’re leaving in a few minutes. The day looks like this: 3 hours driving, 3 hours reporting, 4 hours of the game, post-game reporting, writing and filing stories/photos from Laramie, 3 hours driving.

Go Pokes!