My downtown Detroit - pretty, ain't it?

This is downtown Detroit! See the building with the American flag flying above it? That's the Detroit Free Press/Detroit News building. Click on the picture to zoom in for a closer look. I have had a blast in Detroit. I've got two more days at work, and then it's back to Mizzou-rah!

Welcome to my latest blog entry!

Hey, everyone! I'm playing around with HTML this afternoon, and I just discovered that I can plug it into Blogger. So I'm including a link to Freep.com, where I've been working this summer. If you're reading this on Saturday, Aug. 4, you might still be able to catch the story I posted yesterday on the 'Radioactive Boy Scout,' at one point the most popular story on the site. Enjoy!

Click here to go to Freep.com!

A piece of frozen time

You might be surprised to learn that downtown Detroit, in the early morning sun, looks like a picture on a postcard. A lime green steeple climbs above Fort Street near the building where I work, and potholes gut the road, swallowing tires and giving drivers a nasty jolt that doesn't require any caffeine. Flags fly high on skyscrapers, and the man who runs the parking lot across the street from the newspaper motions me on with his hands. He finds the perfect spot - as the owner, he has the spacing down to an art - and directs me to come closer to him, back up, readjust and move closer to the car beside me. I'm afraid every morning that I'm going to hit him, because he stands so close to the truck as he is motioning, and every morning I park just fine, with his help, and he is fine.
This morning, he asked me about the newspaper, what I do there. I told him that I work on the Web site.
Full-time, or part-time? he asked. Part-time, I responded. It's an internship.
Do they pay well? he asked. Yes, I responded. They pay well. I'm very thankful for that.
He sits on a folding chair near a white booth just inside the wire gate and continues asking questions. I respond with answers, trying as best I can to explain what I do. It's not always easy. People often wonder whether I'm writing (as I matter of fact, I got to do a little today, and loved it), or if I'm going to be on TV one day.
It might be fun, I usually say, and I'd like to try it. But I like my newspaper, and I like the Web site.
When we are done talking, I tell the owner of the lot to have a good day, and I wave, and then I see that the 'Walk' sign is lit. I cross the street, and walk along a second parking lot, to the end of the one-way street. I look for traffic, step across the pool of water that is forming on the asphalt against the edge of the sidewalk (it rained on Thursday) and walk toward the shadow of the Detroit Free Press/Detroit News building. Generally, there are a few employees outside smoking and talking, and today is no different.
I enter through the sliding glass doors, my bright, yellow-and-blue badge with grinning mug pinned to the upper-right corner of my shirt. I motion to the security guard, and take a right, through the linoleum tiles and then the carpet that will lead me to the Web desk. I pass the copy editors and the graphics department.
Situated somewhere in the middle is the Web desk. I have arrived.

11 months!

Seeing as it's been far too long since I posted last, I thought I'd update everyone briefly on my life.
Julie and I celebrated 11 months together on Wednesday, June 20, and I can't tell you how blessed I am to have her in my life. I am so excited to see her again, but I know she's having a blast in Germany this summer, and I know the time will fly by.
Work has been busy and exciting. I worked on the page this afternoon and early evening, posting stories, updating old ones and updating photo captions. We had breaking news about an apparent double homicide, so I was getting things ready for that story.
I've gradually been meeting the interns and staffers, and I'm learning more names every day (I'm just hoping I can retain some of them!).
More to come....

Along 8 Mile

Just a note to say I've made it to Detroit! I've officially driven down 8 Mile (if you've ever visited Denver, think Colfax Avenue, only with a whole lot of restaurants boasting Coney dogs and cuisine. Dad and I ate at a Lebanese restaurant tonight, large portions of food and very flavorful, highly recommended. Tomorrow, we're planning to attend church services in Royal Oak, as I recall, and then I'll move in sometime on Sunday afternoon. In case I haven't made a plug yet, you should definitely check out the Web site of the Detroit Free Press at Freep.com. That's where I'll be working. Sweet!

Ain't it something? I'm in Kentucky!

With all due respect to myself, making a reference to the South by using the word "ain't" probably isn't completely fair. To be honest, my experience here has been good so far. I've met a lot of great people from across the country who are incredibly talented. We've been taking grammar, ethics and libel quizzes in the morning, following them up with beat reports that we must present in both print and verbal formats and listening to lectures about the state of online media. We've been eating primarily in Western Kentucky's cafeteria (may I recommend the toasted subs?), and then returning in the afternoon and into the evening for more presentations, and to work on the projects we are developing. We've been split into three groups. There are 10 of us. I'm in the group of four, and there are two groups with three people. My group will be taking a look at a public relations/advertising firm run out of the school and staffed by students who work for businesses locally, in Nashville and, perhaps in the future, in other countries.
I had forgotten about lightning bugs until I was riding in a car with some of my peers on Sunday night and saw one light up outside the window. It's too great to comprehend, but unless you're from a mountainous region as I am, you probably don't appreciate fully the beauty of the lightning bug. I'm assuming Colorado doesn't have them because of its elevation, but feel free to correct me if there is another, more scientific explanation. For all I know, they're magical beings filled with the glowing rays of the sun. More likely than not, they're simply phosphorescent.
On Wednesday, we're scheduled to have a fancy dinner with Rich Holden, of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, at a swank local restaurant. Dimmed lights. White table cloths. Oh, yeah. We're going out on the town.

48 and under

There is only so much one can do when one has only two days to prepare for the adventure of a lifetime:

First: One must bust out an iron and ironing board, six crumpled shirts and a sweet set of tunes blasting from a Boulder radio station. The shirts must be ironed, hung and, later, folded. The shirts must be piled with the other shirts and pants and shorts and books and papers and cameras and computers and pillows and shoved methodically into the following: two (2) suitcases, one (1) backpack and, finally, a rectangular (1) laptop case. The latter two will be carried onto the plane; the former two will be checked in to meet said one (me) in Nashville. I may not have been everywhere, man, but Johnny Cash would be proud of the spitfire, it's-now-or-never approach I take when collecting my goods for the trip across the country.

Second: One must panic about money. How much does one have? How much does one need? How much will one be making? To what extent will one be indebted to dozens of kind family and friends putting up with one by graciously providing travel funds, housing and the like?

Third: Realizing that money cannot buy happiness (though it comes in very handy), one ceases worrying about it, appreciates the kindnesses and says thank you.

Fourth: Again, panic. This time, about whether one has remembered everything one should have packed. Have all stones been overturned? If not, why not? Overturn them immediately!

Fifth: Relief. And anxiety. How will everything go? Will one be successful, or fail miserably? One hasn't studied enough. One has studied sufficiently. One will learn. One should have learned more before going. One will be fine.

Sixth: (Breathe)

Seventh: One packs the car and drives to the airport. It is early in the morning, but not too much so. It should be enough to see the sun make its slow ascent toward its zenith in the sky.

Eighth: One checks into the airport and flies away to Kentucky, where the grass really is greener on the other side. It's probably green on the side where one is standing, too.

The adventure begins.

Strait ahead: Motown

In just over a week, I'll be leaving for Bowling Green, Ky., to begin training for my online editing internship at the Detroit Free Press. I'm seriously getting excited, because the fact that I will be working for one of the largest metropolitan communities in the country has, for a long time, been a big aspect of my career aspirations.
People have tried to scare me, albeit unintentionally. They've highlighted outlandish crime statistics. They've offered a negative experience, or at least an experience that's sufficiently unsettling, the kind that makes you say, "I think I'll lock my doors this evening," or, "Let's not go outside tonight. It's too risky." I've been asked on multiple occasions if I've purchased a gun.
I haven't. I'm not "packing heat." That dire verbology has been repeated to me so often it's scary.
Most recently, I've been reading a book called "The Gift of Fear." My dad, who works part-time at Borders, happened upon the book and suggested I read it. He said he didn't want to frighten me. He just wants me to be aware of my surroundings, and have some tips for fighting back in case something bad goes down.
Surprisingly, it's a fascinating read. If you're going to be a crime reporter, it's got the goods on what you shouldn't waste your time covering. If you're ill at ease in your surroundings, it's got tips on how to prevent someone from befriending you and then throwing bad stuff your way.
I don't think I'll have to use any of the techniques mentioned, but you can bet I'll have my eyes open. I'm prepared to walk the streets of Detroit with confidence, and with a mind for where I'm going.
Detroit appears to be incredibly diverse, and that's exciting. It's a dream internship come to life, and I know I'll be busy at work, and busy in my time off exploring the city and its surroundings. I have friends who live nearby, and professors who either grew up in the area or will be moving there this summer to, I hope, spend some time with.
I've started gathering all of my maps and informational guides into a pile. City streets are a prominent feature of many of them (I'll be living due north of 8 Mile, which also doubled as the title of a fairly recent movie starring rapper Eminem). Others boast local parks. I've got a guide to Michigan's freedom of information laws, which fascinate me but would likely bore others to tears. I've got the goods on the best places to eat, sleep, walk, drive, visit, gawk at, ad infinitum.
Now, it's just a matter of figuring out where to go first, and how to jam it all into roughly two months of work time.
Frankly, I'm anxious to get the lowdown on Motown.

Pomp up the jam (and let the lights shine on)

The shrine to my youngest brother is filled with track medals, running shoes and pieces of his artwork. The color scheme is decidedly blue, though he's not exactly upset about leaving Longmont for the plains that roll in Seward, Nebraska.
A few short months, and Adam will be headed for Concordia University. He'll be getting paid to run track, and pursue his art. He wants to be a graphic designer. He wants to rake in cash like blades of grass after mowing's done.
My bet is, he'll do it.
Adam is graduating from high school on Saturday, and Friday is his graduation party, that rite of passage when many you know (or don't) and love (or don't again - that's up to you) come to eat your food, tread on your lawn and congratulate you on a job well done. Of course, it's all in good fun, and no one is upset about the food, because it's there for everyone, and the company is pleasant, and people mingle as the dusk gathers, and then they go home and the night settles in and that chapter of your life is ended.
Just think of all the dusting you did, all for that one chapter of your life. But this is how history operates, and the dusting wasn't bad, and the food was really quite good, and it was wonderful to see everyone again, and how the world is spinning, and it is getting late, and we should all really go to bed and wake up to live again tomorrow and repeat the process.
Graduations are snapshots of pleasant moments in our lives when we breathe and cherish the bounty of being alive. They are an organized chaos in a larger dance.
We cannot predict how that dance will end, and how the dance began can only be half-remembered.
Here in the present, though, we are called to glow and thrive, if only momentarily. We have lived another day, and we are stronger for it.
As we go to sleep, the remainder of the world is waking up. It is a cycle that inevitably repeats itself. If you did not like today's cycle, rest your eyes; you may enjoy the next.
Strands of day link strains of night, and sunlight falls to the moon. And if nothing else links us - though it is preposterous to think that nothing else links us - there is always the light that shines upon the ones we love.
No matter how far apart we will find ourselves, we can rest assured that light forges a bond in our hearts and in our minds. At times, we may find ourselves wandering like terrestrial balloons linked to a common orb in space.
But there is a hope that has withstood time itself, and I wish to leave it with you now:
Reunions are, thankfully, inevitable, if only in the mind.

This Buddy of mine...

In case you're wondering, I'm not yet in Detroit. Instead, I'm back home in Longmont, Colo., for roughly three-and-a-half weeks, shooting the breeze with the fam and eating hamburger sandwiches.

On Wednesday, I was in the backyard playing fetch with Buddy, our Boston terrier. Buddy is a feisty, smoosh-nosed energy hound. He'd put a greyhound to shame in a race, but he's also rather short, meaning he stops well shy of where the stick lands in the grass because he can't see it. I had to walk to the stick, pick it up and wave it in his face to regain his attention before throwing the stick over his head again. If you're lucky, Buddy will find the stick and return it to you.

He just won't let you have it. Try to pull it from his pudgy jowls, and he'll burble like an angry Jawa. Try to extend the stick above your head, and he'll jump like he were born bouncing on a trampoline.

Buddy is as nimble as a goat and oftentimes as ornery. He can jump from floor to footstool to couch in the blink of an eye. He will turn and attack you in a moment and, in the next, snuggle beside you beneath the covers on your bed. He is an angel and a demon, the fleshly extension of the yin-yang coloring fixed, by nature, in his coarse hair.

But I digress. Buddy is a dog, and a faithful one at that. Just don't bug him after 10 p.m. He gets angry when he's awoken.