This year has really started off with a bang in Little Rock, as far as the crime beat is concerned. One full week into 2012 and the city has already seen three homicides, a bank robbery and a few shootings.
The first two homicides came on the same night, Tuesday, and the third was early Friday morning. Needless to say, work has been busy.
But even with more going on at work, I’ve been keeping up with my New Year’s resolutions of blogging (right here), Tweeting more and striving to be a better reporter. I’ve also been eating a lot better than I have in a really long time.
This week I’ll try to keep up with Twitter, try to keep writing stories every day and try to have more of a life outside of work. Maybe.
Standing outside a Mad Men-themed New Year’s party last night, I was somehow not prepared for the inevitable question of what my resolution would be for 2012. After giving it some thought, I’ve come up with a few.
First off, I’ve decided I need to be spending more time blogging in 2012, something I’ve been doing for 11 years, but for some reason I stopped doing in 2011. I was surprised when I opened WordPress and its design was completely foreign to me. I’ll also be spending more time on Tumblr, and replying to and keeping up with other blogs.
I also want to be more social (media) in 2012. I was a lot better about it in 2011: meeting new people, Tweeting more, not ignoring Facebook. But I feel 2012 should go even further/farther/whatever. I also feel I should be keeping up with my friends and family better than I have, so that goal will fall under the social umbrella.
Professionally, I want to strive to be a better reporter. In 2011, I started my first real job after graduating from UT, and I want to keep improving. This past week has been especially busy, with a homicide Wednesday night, and another Friday morning. I managed to be the first to report on the arrest of a suspect in the Friday homicide, but I want 2012 to be full of those instances. In whatever beat I find myself in, I want to “own it,” just like I told my reporters at The Daily Texan.
I suppose eating better, exercising more and taking better care of myself in general would be good resolutions, too, but let’s not get too crazy.
Since we wouldn’t be able to see each other on Valentine’s Day, Katherine came down to Austin for the weekend. It ended up being a lot of fun, even with a car accident.
The weekend
I had been thinking about different things to do over the Valentine’s Day weekend for quite some time and in earnest when Katherine confirmed that she’d be able to come down to Austin. We decided to go to the Skank Family Art Show, put on by Bobby and the crew over at Skanky Possum on Friday night.
It was a lot of fun and there was a lot of interesting stuff. Frankie, Caleb and a over a dozen other artists had their stuff on display. Still not sure about the performance piece though.
On Saturday, Katherine and I went on a winery crawl along Highway 290. We made stops at 8 places and tried more than 20 wines. We also made a stop at Hondo’s in Fredericksburg for lunch, surrounded by signs about picking peaches in the summer.
On the way back to Austin, Katherine and I were rear-ended on the I-35 access road. I had stopped for the driver in front of me, but a pickup truck two cars behind me hit the car behind me and caused a four-car accident.
I felt terrible about Katherine being in the car when it happened and must have asked her at least 30 times how she was feeling. We got the car back to my apartment that night before it breathed its last breath.
Dealing with all of the insurance and towing companies since the accident has been one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I’ve made or received at least 50 phone calls since Sunday morning, including about 10 when I was sick for most of the day on Tuesday.
Movie Count
Not much of a movie week. I’ve been busy with projects and preparations before Katherine’s visit. Just two more to add:
26.) Winter’s Bone (Couldn’t tell that a lot of the cast had never acted before. Pretty intense.)
27.) State of Play (If only journalism could be sexy all the time.)
Quick note: We have internet again. Our pipes didn’t explode. I don’t have class on Fridays anyway.
Charity successfully completed basic training and is a real soldier right now. I’m proud as hell.
She's SPC Marsh in this photo. I've been studying ranks.
In other military news, Richard will tie the knot on March 23. Get your tuxes ready. I will soon. Hopefully Katdawg will be here for that.
Similarly, after a 4 1/2 week stint, I get to see Katherine this weekend. Much art and wine tasting will be had. Not to mention chocolates and nice dinners and movie-watching.
Be jealous.
The list continues. We’ll watch better ones than these:
21.) Revanche (Some sketchiness, but it makes up for it.)
22.) A History of Violence (In the words of Dennis: “Viggoooooo! You’re a wildman!”)
It’s been a good week. School is good. Friends are good. The weather is good. Everything’s good.
Via emdot and Creative Commons and the Internet.
I’m on Day 30 of January and I’m up to 20 movies. I don’t know if I’ll keep this up through the year, but it’s been an interesting month. The list:
17.) “La Moustache” (I watched this about a year ago and didn’t understand any of it. I now understand some.)
18.) “Monster” (2003) (So intense. And Charlize Theron looks exactly like the woman she portrays.)
19.) “Blue Valentine” (As Frankie said, it “will rip your heart to shreds.” Read the rest of his comments, which were spot-on. See it.)
20.) “Patton” (Another classic that I had never seen in full. Also very good.)
I’m also looking forward to seeing some of these as they become available. Between these and the movies picked up at Sundance, it should be a good year.
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In other news, I’ve been glued to the events in Egypt this past week. There were only a couple of journalists there when the protests started, but now the country is flooded with them. Here’s one of the most comprehensive break-d0wns (scroll down for the breaking news).
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On a completely different note, I’ve started a new blog, which I’ll link to once I have stuff on it. I’ll use it as a place to put journalism-related posts that don’t get blended into my personal life like this blog.
My final semester of college has begun with a course load composed of multimedia journalism, web publishing, consumer discrimination in the marketplace, reporting on public health, and family relationships. Surprisingly all of them are interesting in one way or another.
I’m taking 15 hours but have a lot of time on my hands, which I’ve spent running errands mostly and seeing friends. Also watched some more movies:
14.) “American Gangster” (good stuff)
15.) “American Zombie” (a ridiculous mockumentary about zombies trying to make it in the world)
16.) “Zombi 2″ (underwater zombie vs. shark scene was the best)
I also forced myself to watch the first bit of “I’m Still Here,” but couldn’t make it all the way through. I think it misses whatever point it tries to make and really just seems like a real-life version of “The Hangover” in some parts.
Next up is whatever Netflix is sending me and probably going to see Blue Valentine while it’s still in theaters. I’ve had at least four people tell me I should see it, and I like what I’ve read about it, even though it’s supposed to be heartbreaking.
In other news, I realized I hadn’t made any sort of overarching statements about 2010 in my first posts of 2011. I don’t think I’ll write anything extensive about it, other than the fact that “Deal with it” was a pretty good slogan for the first half of it, given how it was just an extension of 2009′s wackness. But the second half really made up for the first.
Austen assigned the phrase “Living the high life” to 2011, which I think is appropriate. This year I’ll graduate and move on with my life, maybe in a different city and hopefully accompanied by Katherine in said city. insha’a Allah, I’ll also have a lot of time to spend with my friends and family and be successful at whatever I end up doing.
It’s been raining all day. Katherine left for Little Rock, so the weather seems appropriate. I wish I could be outside running errands, but the torrential downpour is keeping me from that.
It’s been four days since my last post and I’ve watched four more movies, including:
10.) “The Social Network”
11.) “Fight Club”
12.) “The Town”
13.) and a grisly French horror movie that shall remain nameless.
But I haven’t just been watching movies. I made a trip to Waco with Katherine last night to see some of her old friends, I’ve applied for some jobs, ordered my books for all of my classes and finished the two books I was reading.
Katherine and I are both sitting around on our computers having a LAN party, so I’m back to blogging. I’ve been watching an absurd amount of movies recently, so I feel like I should comment on or at least chronicle some of what I’ve seen. Between my Netflix account and weekly stops at I Luv, 2010 was filled up with movies and 2011 will be even more.
What I’ve seen in 2011:
The Hills Have Eyes (1977), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, The Godfather: Part III, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, Stranger Than Paradise, To Catch a Thief
What I saw just before the New Year:
True Grit, Black Swan, The Cool School, Z, Aftermath: The Remnants of War, Fido, Let the Right One In, Eyes Without a Face, Black Christmas, City of God, Restrepo, Inception
I told Katherine that I might watch a movie for every day in 2011, but that will probably end up just being one for every week once school starts up again. Any suggestions on what else to watch? I’ve also been working my way through a lot of the classics and some of the Criterion Collection.
It’s been a great past few weeks. Christmas with my family, including Charity back from basic training; ski trip with Katherine and family; and now back in Austin for a week, chilling with Katdawg before classes start.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about things over these past few weeks. I’ve been using computers less, talking more with people I care about, reading books I haven’t had time for and considering possible options for the future. The only thing I regret has been a disconnect from a lot of my Austin friends, which will hopefully be made up for in the near future.
I recently finished The Night of the Gun by New York Times reporter David Carr and have moved on to Where Men Win Glory, a book Katherine got me about the late football player Pat Tillman. The Carr book was really good, dealing with his struggle with addiction and how he overcame it. I’ve flown through the Tillman book, almost finishing it in a few days.
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Hanging out with Richard and my sister was bittersweet this break. Our conflicting schedules have kept me and Richard from hanging out since he enlisted, but we got to spend several weeks catching up over the break. He’s back in Virginia now and will move to North Carolina in March. Charity got a break to come visit for Christmas, which was really nice, and now she’s back and I’m back to writing her snail mail.
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I’ve got a week left to enjoy Katherine’s company, so I’ll focus on hanging out with her instead of blogging. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of me learning how to ski:
The first week of my winter break has been one of the most relaxing times of my young life. For the first time in a very long time I have no immediate duties or responsibilities and I’m focused on friends, family and having fun.
I’m still being productive. I made a road trip, interviewed for something down the road, looked for jobs, watched some movies, did some reading and bought Christmas presents.
But the best part of this week has been the lack of strict scheduling that was so prevalent during the course of the semester. In a lot of ways I’m more productive when I’m doing things on my own time.
I’ve completed my last duties as managing editor of The Daily Texan and have handed the reins over to Claire. Note: reins, not reigns. What a semester.
Since I finished my last final last Thursday, I’ve met up with old Texan people, hung out with friends in Austin, ran with the Leander crew, saw Katherine and family in Little Rock and saw folks from the Dem-Gaz. Charity got leave today for a couple of weeks and I’ll see her for Christmas.
Katherine is in New York now, making me all kinds of jealous, and sent me a photo today of “The Starry Night” at the MoMA. Someday I’ll live there (the city, not MoMA) and hopefully a good job will come with it.
I hope to do some time in New York at some point in my life. Photo cred to caruba via Flickr.
