Tim's blog - Journalism

Security guards

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:17:35 -0400

I'm collating various senior surveys for the newspaper, and of the 43 entries I've received so far, 30 of them have mentioned security in general or Bonnie in particular as the worst part of senior year.

I just thought that was funny.

Anaheim, Day 4

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:44:36 -0400

And so our sojourn to California comes to an end. We landed today at around 7pm Chicago time, on a flight that was only delayed about a half hour.

The major concern I had with the flight was the seating. Originally, I was in a seat by myself, six rows from anyone else I knew. This was obviously not a maintainable state of affairs, so we tracked down a ticketing agent and I got myself switched next to Joe, Hayleigh, Linda, and Wagner.

Speaking of Hayleigh, she and her disreputable friends got ahold of my laptop when I graciously let them watch an episode of The Office that we had missed on Thursday. They, in the most rude of actions, went through my Trash and found some old blog entries, which led them here (you can see Hayleigh's comment on the previous entry). However, I've forgiven them for the sole reason that I now have some more readers. And the episode of The Office was excellent, so I'm in a good mood.

Continue reading "Anaheim, Day 4"

Anaheim, Day 3

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:12:51 -0400

People are funny when they're panicked to finish ten sessions.

I got up early and did the 8am session, followed closely by four more at 9, 11, 12, and 1. On my way out of the 1pm session, I ran into no fewer than four staffers who had gone out to lunch (I suspect more were involved) and were now desperate to get back for the 2:30 sessions and anything in the way of notes they could scrape from the 1 sessions (which were still going on). One asked me, a tinge of desperation in her voice, "Do you know where Wagner is this session?" so as to avoid any accidental contact.

In any event, I have a leisurely afternoon ahead of me before we meet as a staff at 3:30 to discuss the evening. I've done some souvenir shopping already, and I intend to do some more soon, once I've had a chance to relax a bit.

Today's sessions weren't as exciting as yesterday's, but there were a few good tidbits I picked up. Turns out Photoshop has some cool batch/automated editing procedures built in, so you can (for example) scan multiple printed photos in one go, then have Photoshop detect the individual images, separate them, straighten them to the closest 90-degree increment, then save them in separate files. It's pretty neat.

There's also these things called Actions, which are basically macros in Photoshop form. What you do is record a sequence of events on a photo (rotate, adjust colors, crop, apply filters, change levels/channels, whatever you want) and save it as an Action, which you can then apply to any other photo or series of photos automatically. Photoshop even comes with some of these built in, like "Water Reflection," which is supposed to create that cool effect at the bottom of your photo where it looks like it's being reflected in a calm body of water. I burned a massive chunk of battery trying to make it work on a photo I had, but apparently it wasn't the right format or I was doing it wrong or something, because it would choke and die every time. I eventually stopped trying because I was in session and needed some battery left for note-taking.
Continue reading "Anaheim, Day 3"

Anaheim, Day 2 1/2

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:38:00 -0400

I should really be making these entries in parts (e.g. Anaheim, Part III) rather than days. It'd make more sense and be less weird. But I've started it this way, so I'll finish it this way.

This is my first actual post that I'm writing directly into the administration window of my blog online rather than into a TextEdit window. I paid for the Internet access, and have now gotten caught up on my email, the technology world, and everything else important in life.

Speaking of which, there was an earthquake in southern Illinois today, reportedly a 5.2 in magnitude, that some people near the high school reported feeling. It took place at about 4:40 this morning Chicago time. How ironic is that, that I'm in California and an earthquake hits Illinois?

I'm growing more and more attached to my MacBook by the hour. My last session today was one about InDesign and crazy stuff you can do with it, and I had InDesign on my laptop. Moreover, the presenter was also using a MacBook Pro, so I was able to mirror a lot of his movements and keystrokes and so on, while taking notes simultaneously.

The session itself was phenomenal. Most of the "learn about InDesign" sessions are something on the order of "yay, let's apply text wrap to this box." I almost didn't go to this one, just because my past experience has been truly terrible with these kinds of sessions, but something made me check it out. It was right after lunch, and we were done early, so I showed up for the session (which was at 2:30pm Anaheim time) about a half hour early.

Was I right to do so. I got the last available seat, right next to a guy with a regular MacBook who also had his copy of Word popped and was taking notes. He didn't have InDesign, though, so I felt special. After that, the floor started filling up, and I think we hit fire-department capacity almost twenty minutes before the session was even supposed to begin. The doors closed and the presenter started way early, and for the next two hours we designed crazy, maniacal things. Among them: the word "LOREM" in Rockwell Ultra Bold with an image of a lime placed into it, and a box with multiple curvy sides that at various times contained text, a four-swatch radial gradient, and a massive photo of a palm tree. This may not sound like much, but it's a big deal to InDesign wizards.
Continue reading "Anaheim, Day 2 1/2"

Anaheim, Day 2

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:17:00 -0400

Conventions rule.

I'm in the middle of the first day of sessions, and the ones I've been to so far have, while not all excellent, have at least all been acceptably decent. The convention center is nice, and I always enjoy the atmosphere of way too many journalism geeks running around. Hayleigh told an InDesign joke, and people actually laughed. That never happens.

I started the day off with a delicious breakfast at IHOP with Stephanie, who was the only one awake enough to go. She actually texted me ten minutes before I made the hotel room rounds asking if we were still going. Everybody else was either asleep and didn't answer their door or, in the case of Lynn, opened the door bleary-eyed, hit herself with it, and stumbled backwards into the bathroom wall before asking me what the hell I wanted. I apologized and got out of there before I lost an eye.

Sessions started bright and early at 9am, which of course means that everybody else showed up at the center at 8:50 still tired and hungry. Several staffers who shall remain nameless skipped two sessions to go to IHOP a full three hours later than my original breakfast, and according to them, it was jam-packed and way too slow. I definitely played that one right.

Continue reading "Anaheim, Day 2"

Anaheim, Day 1 1/2

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:12:00 -0400

Last night I was more focused on getting everything down that had happened en route to and in Anaheim so far. I realized I completely forgot to talk about what it's like.

The hotel was about fifteen minutes by shuttle from the airport. It's on Harbor Boulevard, a road that seems to stretch on quite a ways in both directions. Harbor is populated quite densely in our stretch by hotels, but it's kind of sparse on restaurants and other attractions, and it has its seedy moments - there's a run-down "T-Shirt Outlet" and other similar shady buildings in a little strip mall that I wouldn't go to on a dark night about a block from our hotel.

The actual hotel is pretty nice. It's a Sheraton with 13 stories (numbered L, 2-12, and 14, naturally) and a pretty expansive gated-in pool area. There is a little cafe inside the hotel, but it's more of a convenience store than anything else, and there's really nothing that good there, nor is there a place to eat your food.

Thanks to Marchand, we're not actually in the hotel with the convention. Oh no. The convention itself is in the Marriott across the street, which is a much nicer building with multiple actual cafes, a Starbucks, and more ballrooms and meeting rooms than you can shake a stick at. The schedule says there are, at any given time, up to fifteen different sessions going on, plus write-offs, the expo floor, the bookstore, adviser hospitality, and so on. It's awesome.

Continue reading "Anaheim, Day 1 1/2"

Anaheim, Day 1

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:11:00 -0400

We begin our tale with the intrepid story of eight young journalists from a small Chicago suburb who set out to join six thousand peers and coworkers from across the globe in a mission of teaching, learning, and spreading journalism.

Actually, it's nothing like that. I just wanted to sound whimsical.

We took off for Anaheim about 9:40 this morning (Chicago time, or GMT-6) and landed about four hours later (11:40 Anaheim time, or GMT-8). I wound up in a seat pair with Stephanie, who is a lot of fun when she decides to speak. We had a good intense 3-hour conversation touching on just about everything going on in both our lives. It has been, so far, the high point of my trip.

Our day after landing consisted of navigating the airport and getting to our hotel, which took us until about 2pm. We officially checked in to the convention close to 2:30 and hung around until staff dinner at 6pm. I hit the expo floor and got my obligatory first round of free stuff; more will be forthcoming tomorrow, I hope.
Continue reading "Anaheim, Day 1"

Goodbye journalism

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:05:26 -0400

The empty lab at the end of late night. How sad.

Tonight was the last late night for us as a staff. I feel like waxing nostalgic.

We concluded April issue (number 8 of 9) tonight, in a late night I can only describe as downright bipolar. On one hand, you have the Anaheim people, who are leaving tomorrow (including myself) and have to get out of there to go pack. On another hand, you have the seniors who are technically no longer on staff as of two hours ago (also myself) and, although they still have senior issue and calendar and all that gunk ahead of them, are basically done with the J-program. Teary hugs all around. On a mythical third hand, you have the added craziness of positions being announced tonight, and all the excitement and heartbreak inherent in the transfer of power from the old guard to the new.

It didn't really hit me until everyone had already gone and I was texting back and forth with Amanda - this is my last issue as managing editor. You don't quite know how much of yourself you put into something until you don't have it anymore, and I'm done. Truly done. As in, I trained my replacement tonight. And while it's great to know I'll be graduating and getting out of here and off to college, it's hard not to miss it just a little bit. This is, after all, my fourth year in the J-program, and my 35th of 36 late nights (the last being senior issue, which doesn't really count).

Anyway. Enough of that. Anaheim tomorrow - I'm just waiting for some laundry to finish and my various electronic devices to be done charging, and I'll be off! I'm chugging Snapple right now, so I'll probably be up until we get on the plane, then I'm out like a light. You'll see. I don't pity Joe, though - he has to finish our MTV app tonight. Sucks to be him.

The Paper

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:14:39 -0400

A shot from MTV's new show The Paper

It all started in late March, when Wagner got an email from MTV (yes, that MTV) detailing a new show called The Paper. The basic idea is to follow a high school newspaper through a publication cycle and make a TV show about it. The show is handled by MTV's News and Docs section. For the first season, MTV chose a paper in Florida - The Circuit from Cypress Bay High School.

Would we, the email asked, like to be considered for an appearance in upcoming episodes of the show?
Continue reading "The Paper"

Journalism social night

nospam@example.com (Tim) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:35:37 -0500

Amanda, Jenna, and Stephanie play Catchphrase.

Yesterday was the first journalism social night/dinner/game day at the high school. And I sound like a tremendous nerd saying this, but it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

We started around six with a potluck-style dinner (thanks again to Lilia and Kelly for organizing) plus ordered-out pizza from Domino's. The food was good; the dinner conversation was better. We touched on, at various times, class, the food, drugs, turnabout, celebrities, and staff relationships. And that was all before dessert.

Around seven we broke up into two groups - an Apples to Apples group and a Catchphrase group (kudos to Lilia and Wagner, respectively, for the games). Having played Apples to Apples often enough in the last month or so, I chose Catchphrase. It was ridiculously addictive, and we made it through a good five or six word discs before giving up. When I finally wandered out of the classroom, I found that other people had already left - it was pushing 8:30!

In any event, it was a nice counterpoint to the horror that will be next Thursday - I6 late night. Plus, it gave me the motivation to hack around inside the blog enough to get photo uploads working (I have a dozen Firefox tabs and three shells open right now, with everything from PHP syntax to s9y FAQs to MySQL references and prompts contained therein).