Alas, poor mouse

Today we remember our dear friend laquatious, who passed away this morning.

I'll be brief. He was a good little boy.

The Backyard Diner

What a strange decoration to have in a restaurant.

Today I went to Fairmount to take pictures for the paper. One of the questions I had been giving was about the change in the hours at the BMV (you know, where you get your driver's license) in that town. So I went there.

The place was pretty packed. First, I saw a guy playing a PSP. I started to talk to him, but when I asked him if he wanted to be in the newspaper, he quickly said, "no thanks." Then two ladies who had been waiting left. One who had come in just before me said something about not wanting to spend her entire Friday waiting. So I went outside and caught up with them. They said they certainly had an opinion to share, but they didn't want their pictures taken. Crap. So I went back inside and talked to a young guy who said he was there waiting for his friend. I got a quote and he agreed to let me take his picture. Success! Then I went across the street to a nice little smoky diner and ate some delicious chili and grilled cheese and drank Coke and watched Gunsmoke.

I'm certain I'd never seen Gunsmoke before, but for some reason I heard the theme song and I instantly new what show it was. Weird.

Then I got in my car and started driving toward Marion. I felt really tired, so I put some gas in the car and went home and watched some episodes of the Twilight Zone.

So it kind of sucks that I only got one picture out of four or five that I should have got for that town. Man, if it turns out to be out of focus or messed up or something I think I'll cry. I'll just have to go out tomorrow and work harder to hit the other three towns.

Shoot his face

I just got my first newspaper assignment. I have to go to the various small towns around the county and ask people their opinions on various topics. Then I have to shoot them in the face. With my camera. I get $5 for each one published. I hope they publish lots of them. This job doesn't pay much.

This presents a huge challenge for me because I'm not an outgoing person. Striking up a conversation with a stranger is not an easy thing for me. Hopefully, "I'm from the Chronicle-Tribune" will serve as a good opening line. Another problem: where am I going to find these people? It's kind of cold outside, so they'll probably all be inside. I'll have to hunt them out.

I must choose to be optimistic. This is not something I can't do. It will be valuable experience.

I'll just keep saying that until the weird feeling in my stomach goes away. Yeah.

Cool news and stuff

I just signed a contract to be a photo correspondent for the Chronicle-Tribune. If, as a consequence, interesting things happen to me, I will blog about them. Though I don't suppose anyone is still watching this space.

Their photo editor seemed to be rather impressed with the previous work I showed him, which is really cool.