Everyday Journalist

I don’t remember protesting the Internet but for all my Plurk buddies and Twitter followers knew, I could have been dead. Working “part-time” felt a lot more like full-time with the commute.

But now to another job. Unexpectedly, I got offered a job in Eureka at the Times-Standard. A real full-time at a daily. I don’t really believe in fate or that there’s a “plan” that I’m unknowingly following, but not making the cut for JET and taking the job in Willows seems to have worked out rather well.

For entertainment’s sake, here’s what I’ve been watching/listening to lately:

Answer Me This! podcast - A couple Brits answering listener questions and generally being funny. They’re on hiatus for the next couple weeks so you can catch up a bit

Phillip DeFranco - He’s a Youtuber that produces videos three times a week about news and Megan Fox (but mostly other stuff).

Nostalgia Critic and Nostalgia Chick- There’s a lot more on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com than these two series, but these are the ones that amuse me most. They review good and bad (mostly bad) nostalgic TV and movies. A couple of my favorites are reviews on North, Ferngully and Xanadu.

Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me - I like to put this on my iPod and listen to it on the commute to work (which I soon won’t have to make!). It almost always makes me, for realsies, laugh out loud.

Auto-Tune the News - I’ve been listening to each of these as they come out. Always make me smile because I hate television news.

All right. I’m back on track and ready to rumble so expect more activity!

The world is a series of unfortunate and fortunate events.

I did the walk at Chico State’s graduation ceremony Saturday, had a good night out with friends the evening before and a good day with family afterward. And then that night after both of us had graduated, my friend’s father died.

I always have the question of whether something is truly ruling the universe sitting in the back of my head with an eyebrow raised waiting for an answer. It’s times like these I really wonder.

Mostly because of my new job at Tri-County Newspapers, I haven’t been online much recently. My Twitter, Plurk and Facebook accounts have a thin layer of dust settling over them and I must say I’m beginning to feel guilty. So I’m back, as much as I can be.

But I have a friend who might need me. I only met her father a couple times but I enjoyed his sense of humor and his smarmy attitude towards life. He loved a good, old-fashioned argument and he was also a painter and a musician. And his daughter took a lot of his better traits with her so he won’t soon be forgotten. He’ll be missed, and if you’re reading this, feel free to call me if you need me (not unlike the end of Labyrinth).

I’ve had these uncomfortable dining room chairs for a few years now. They were a cheap solution for the obvious need for a dining space and have stuck ever since because I’m still poor. Today, one of them got a revamp with some fabric and a Rorschach pattern from Kittyzilla’s Handmade Stuff.

This projects sent me in to many “firsts.” My first real sewing project (the pillow back), my first reupholster and my first embroidery project. Joy!

Have a look at the old, hurts-your-back kind of chair:

Who thought a metal back would be comfortable?

So here’s the starting point. How glamorous, eh?

Here’s how it ended:

The finished project - Wha la!

I recovered the seat with a bit of fabric I bought at Wal-Mart that was pre-cut. Bad idea. I had to extend it with some white fabric to cover the chair because I underestimated how much it would need to go around the bottom to be lovingly stapled with normal staples and thumb tacks. I own no staple gun

The pillow was easy and this coming from a super novice at sewing. The backs were 13×15 inches so I measured out 15×17 inch panels, embroidered on one side and stiched them together. To hold them on to the chair, I sewed up some makeshift straps that are sewn on the back and use Velcro.

Here’s an upclose of the embroidery work:

Are the stiches perfect? No. But it’s a great project to start off with. I’m proud of it and will actually do the other two chairs with Totoro on one and possibly a bunny on the other.

I recently found a new job after searching and sending out my resume to any job I thought I might be remotely qualified to do. But as often happens, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

I had a shiny new degree, worth four years of college, and no job offer. I had clips and some experience. But what got me the job? Gmail. 

I e-mailed a friend to congratulate her on her new job, because she had updated her Gmail status. She later got back to me with a job opening within her newspaper group and thus I now have a regular job paying more.

So if you’re looking for a job, here’s my advice:

• Update your status on any and all social media outlets you’re involved with to say you’re job searching (Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, etc.)
• Tell friends and family you’re on the hunt
• Clean up your resume and send out three applications a day
• Look up newspaper corporations and check their human resources section
• If you don’t have any specific place in mind to work, check out JournalismJobs.com or local employment agencies
• Follow up after applying

It’s been ages since I’ve had a moment to sit in front of the computer and write out a blog post.

About two weeks ago, I switched jobs. I was sad to leave the Chico Enterprise-Record but I had topped out there. I was working two days a week, occasionally four. I needed more opportunity.

I now work for Tri-County Newspapers, specifically for the Willows Journal in my hometown. It’s interesting that I tried so hard to get away from that place when I was just getting out of high school but now I’m back there. And I like it a lot more now than I ever used to. 

One of the benefits of working for a smaller newspaper (it’s a twice-weekly) is there is more opportunity to get experience. I’m officially a “news assistant” but I not only handle the community stuff like wedding announcements and death notices, I also write stories, copyedit and have my own beat. I will be covering the Willows Unified School District, which may not sound like hot potatoes but with all the budget and layoff talk going on, I think it will be a good challenge. 

There’s been some other personal issues going on lately, which also accounts for the lack of blog posts.

Need help finding new recipes that have been tested? Food.com has a beta to help you out.

Delicious Internet recipe!

It searches many mainstream recipe Web sites and let’s you put the tasty-looking ones into a “recipe box” where you can save them for later. The site is owned by Scripps, who owns Food Network, so most of the searches first show you Food Network recipes. But on the side of your search you can pick which source you’d like to see the results for.

There are some usability issues, but it is still in beta. The one downside I’ve found is that the full recipe is at the original site, not in your recipe box. Food.com does, however, list the ingredients so you know if you have the stuff to make it, so it’s not a huge hassle. You also have to register to use the site.

 Trying to find good recipes online normally is a crap shoot at best. There are some really good blogs and other places to find great recipes but they aren’t always very well written or delicious. Probably my favorite Google-find so far is this Sweet and Sour Chicken recipe, but you have to scour the comment section for insight into the cryptic instructions.

I’ve been trying to cook more at home lately because: 1) it’s generally cheaper, 2) I don’t have to deal with customer service and 3) I increase my cooking skill (grinding!).

My main question about Food.com is how it chooses the sites to search through. Is it sites and companies Scripps owns? Or have they just made deals with them? Also, Food Network has the majority of recipes in the default search for an item. Coincidence?

On another note, if you want to see what recipes I’ve saved you can see my saved recipes on del.icio.us. There doesn’t seem to be a way you share your recipe box on Food.com yet.

John Stewart recently “shook his fist” at Twitter usage by media and politicians, criticizing it for posts being too mundane and unimportant. This can be true. But the media is currently treating it like it first treated blogs: Saying it has ordinary people discussing the unimportant aspects of their lives, as in what they had for lunch. Now they say blogging is relevant. Maybe they’ll say this about Twitter later.

I prefer Plurk because it encourages conversation, as opposed to Twitter that sometimes feels like yelling into a void. But that’s a whole other ball of wax.

Honestly though, I’m sick of blog posts about Twitter. Just use it and let’s never speak about it again.

Here’s the John Stewart bit in an article because it won’t embed right on my site for some reason.

Sometimes I write a story that I’m really excited about. That I think is important and will do the community good to know it and read it. This last Sunday, I finally got one of these sweet blossom stories published on the front page about the new lead regulations in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. But how did the story do online?

For stories like this, I judge some of its success by the comment section. Is it well-balanced? There were some who said the laws were moronic, some who thought they didn’t go far enough and one who thought we did the story for the ad revenue by talking to businesses. This was a good mix and I was pleased. People were talking about the content of the story mostly, not the story itself (which has happened before).

I don’t know if you’ve heard about the CPSIA that brings new lead regulations to children’s products and will soon require testing. It’s affecting businesses and manufacturers nationwide because it affects products you wouldn’t even think about (books, ATVs, etc.). The crafting scene like those on Etsy were freaked out about it when it first passed but I didn’t hear much from that community when it went into affect.

My story was how the legislation had affected our community and its businesses. It’s also a good example of bouncing ideas off your co-workers and others - I discussed my story with one person who later gave me a tip that made the story.

I also realized I need to start thinking more about art with my stories. I have slipped out of the habit but this story made me realize I need to be considering art and possible multimedia functions, too. But the Chico E-R is not huge into multimedia at this point.

On a side note, the home-made beer is coming along … slowly. It’s been too cold in the apartment so the fermentation is taking longer than usual but I’m hoping we can bottle it by tomorrow.

Chocolate and candy are always nice for Valentine’s Day but Robert and I decided to do something more interesting. We started brewing our own beer. We both enjoy a good amber brew so this seemed like a perfect fit.

It’s our first batch, so we bought one of the pre-packaged ingredient kits, Muntons Premium Pilsner, at Chico Home Brew Shop. There’s a soft spot in our hearts for Pilsners after coming back from Prague and having possibly one of the best beers on the planet - Pilsner Urquell.

Mostly because we don’t know what we’re doing, the process has been difficult. We have about three different sources of information (the label from the ingredients, Brewing Made Easy and Alton Brown) all have different instructions. I have no idea if we’ve done this the right way but if the beer comes out tasting somewhat good I’ll say job well done. I’m going to be disappointed if our first batch isn’t drinkable but we’ll just have to try again.

The equipment wasn’t too pricey for starting a new hobby. It cost us about $80 but we could have done it for about $60 if we had opted for the plastic fermenter. But the glass Carboy was too tempting to pass up. Plus we bought a few extras like a Carboy brush.

I’m eager to try out some recipes the next time we brew a batch.

After working years in customer/food service jobs, it’s hard to remember that as a journalist, the customer is not always right. If someone calls or e-mails me to complain, I don’t have to agree with them. 

This is an interesting revelation but I see how my co-workers handle what people say about their stories. Someone doesn’t like their story - so what? Not their problem. That is awesome. I definitely got into the right profession. 

I think it is especially hard for me to feel the same way because I worked in circulation, where you beg and plead customers to not cancel their subsciptions.

Of course, there’s the other side of that. You have to please customers in the sense of reporting relevant news, getting the facts straight, providing multimedia and other such expectations. But if somebody calls you saying you’re a jerk because you did a story on so-and-so’s DUI crash that injured four people and they didn’t deserve that coverage, it’s not your problem. I think this is where many journalists learn their self-assurance (which can also be their undoing, but that’s another post). Not everyone is going to like your stories because they think you were unfair or it wasn’t newsworthy. But if the facts are behind you and it is relevant, then the angry reader can shove it.

Somwhat related: NotAlwaysRight.com. One of my favorite sites to cheer me up.