sports, music, math and more

whoa...i am sorely behind...time to play catch-up again.

last weekend was pretty much consumed with the state wrestling championship - we had only one team going this year, but they were expected to likely win the whole shebang - every year they get close - usually make it to the final round and then lose, but this year was gonna be their year, according to those in the sports know - which i guess includes me, by proxy

friday afternoon was the quarterfinals, which they won, not a lot of reaction there, and some nice action, but if i posted action from all 3 matches, i'd probably exceed my blogspot allowance, so i'm only posting stuff from the finals...

anyhoo, after they won friday, we transmitted story/fotos from the arena before heading home, which was good, because it took us a while to get back in the snowstorm that apparently started at some point during the match...

next morning, met the reporter at the paper super early so we could get there on time for the semi-finals start at 9 am, which they also won, so then it was waiting til 4pm for the final match...in the meantime, i sent fresh fotos back to the paper, posted up the foto gallery from the match - which took about 2 hours - did i mention the 4gb card that i bought before the weekend - i have teeny cards, which on the D3 don't go very far, and knowing how much i'd probably shoot, i needed something bigger - the smallest i could find was the 4gig - i really never want to have to edit 750 fotos down to 5 to transmit again! needless to ay, thats why the upload to our foto galleries took such a long time....not much time left before the start of the finals by that point...just enough to go find a pre-match feature to send back - needed to get fresh fotos to post on the web throughout the event - so we were sending stuff before the matches as well as right after -

so, finally the fans turned out in better number, were a lot louder, and the finals were the proverbial nail-biter - they weren't doing as well as expected, and essentially it came down to the last match, which they could only win if the kid got a pin, which he came damn close to a few times, causing the emotion to swing from sad and resigned to anxious and excited, then back to sad, then excited again, and then, well, he didn't get the pin, and it was all sad sad sad, crying, upset, angry - not the most fun time to be there on the sidelines taking pictures...and to lose by only one point - pretty rough...

anyway, that was the state finals - then we just edited and sent our stuff, and then drove back to monroe - long friggin day, to say the least

had a day off sunday, then was back in monday - had a portrait of a bus driver who'd helped a man who rolled his car off an icy road as she was doing her morning route, then business story portrait on a local guy marketing electronic cigarettes, then hoops that night

next day, more hoops

wednesday morning, i headed straight out to one of the elementary schools where kids were taking part in World Math Day, where they answered math questions online, playing for speed and accuracy against kids around the world...pretty cool, because they all got to have an avatar and could see that of other kids, as well as what country they were in...these 2 boys were such a trip - they're best friends - two peas in a pod according to their teacher - and they were really into the event, which always makes for better pictures...mostly they were just funny and cute, and i had a really good time shooting this.....

thursday, had a portrait of a man who's fighting stage 4 colon cancer - he wants to speak out to urge others to get a colonoscopy by age 50, cos if he'd done that, he probably would have caught his cancer before it got so dire, and this is colorectal awareness month, so, there you have it....

after that, off to, yes, more hoops...one of the teams was going into the game with an undefeated season, and if they won would set a school record for having an undefeated season...so, kind of a big deal, but they were supposed to win it wthout too much threat, acording to the sports folks....but, this would be the same folks who predicted a fairly certain win of a state wrestling champion....

they did, eventually win it, after double overtime, that is - craziness!

tried to shoot a couple featurey things for our weekly foto page at half-time and near the end, as well
up super early (well, pre-7 am is super early to me) next morning to shoot a custodian at the middle school for a sunday 1a piece on how the district is considering privatizing their custodial services in order to save money...we talked to 2 custodians - this guy, who has decided to retire at year's end and avoid all the stress of worrying about losing his job if they do privatize - the other was a woman at a pre-k school who quit her position as union rep, because she was sick of all the stress, especially now with this issue on the table....it was a half day in the district, and neither had much going on, so i figured, not knowing what i'd get either doing, i better try to do both, just to be safe - maybe one could be a working shot andthe other a portrait to help support the package, if the work part is kind of lame - cos he told me it'd just be cleaning the cafeteria after breakfast, then taking out trash, replacing a soap dispenser, and office work - didn't sound too promising visually, which is why i shot both to be safe...

worked out okay, you never know what things will come up in the day, like a leak in the bathroom - i liked this moment when he was waiting to get through the hallway during class change, tried to drag the shutter to get the motion of the kids and add some interest - the best moment visually was kind of ruined as the kids had to turn and mug for the camera - goofy small town kids throwing "gang" signs for the camera - can someone just tell them how really stupid they make themselves look - like they would last 2 seconds doing that around real gang members....whatever....

then i went to check out the other lady - she was doing some work - dusting the walls of the school (i really want one of the extendable dusters, by the way), and then i made a portrait while we were in her office talking - she just happened to stand in this pose, and i was like, hey, can you just not move for a minute - paper ended up using both of these, and i think they kind of play off each other, so i suppose it worked.

that day there was also a band festival of music - the orchestral kind of bands from high schools and middle schools competing in stage performance and sight reading at the college theater...had planned to go straight there after the custodians, but i wanted to dump off my card, so i swung back into the paper - ended up toning the fotos for that day's paper and some other desk work, so i ended up getting to the band thing later than planned - still, it was supposed to last all afternoon, so i wasn't too worried....of course i get there and the place is dead - everyone just went to lunch for an hour, and it won't last as long as planned either - in fact, there are only 2 groups left to perform - WHAAAAAT?! and i know this is slated to run as a package - which could mean 2 fotos, or could mean 4, and now out of the 10 schools that were supposed to be there, i'm only goin to end up getting pictures of like 2 - lame! not that i'd try and shoot all of them, but just one more would have been nice...oh well, so i leave for a bit, come back, and one of the bands has started, so this lady's like - oh, you can;t go in, you have to wait til they're done...really, well, that's just not gonna work so good, now is it?! but, i've been in the theater enough times to know the back way to the stage - foil me if you can lady!

so i shoot a feature of the other band waiting in the wings, so to speak, which i kind of liked

and then get to the stage and get some pix of the band - nothing great, pretty standard stuff - while waiting for the last one to come on, some guys working the program say - hey you should go shoot from the catwalk - the very not so good with heights me looks up, waaaay up - yeah, that'd probably look pretty cool, but i dunno - but i keep eyeing it - she's thinking about it, they joke to each other - okay, so, i'm not gonna be a wimp, and up and up and up i go - it really wasn't so bad, because it was pretty wide, and once you start shooting, you can kind of forget about things, except for the fact that it's about 1000 degrees up there, and i keep worrying that something stupid will happen, like a pen will fall out of my pocket and land straight in the opening of the tuba

thankfully, no silly drama, and the package ended up working out okay

so, that was the week, which seemed interminably long, and now, it's back in for the start of another, after a longer weekend that feels like it was only about a day - boo!