Hanging out with a former American Idol contestant

Here's a photo our photographer Mike Randolph took of
former American Idol contestant and Michigan native
Matt Giraud

This week at work has been crazy. Our other main reporter has been on vacation and now she has strep throat, which has made my workload increase substantially.

But today turned out to be an awesome (and busy) day. I found out yesterday that former American Idol and Michigan-native Matt Giraud was coming to Bay City today to promote his concert in Bay City Oct. 14. I was really hyping the concert up in the office, so my editor thought it would be cool for me to tour Bay City with him and find out, not only what people can expect from his concert next month, but also what he has been up to, his opinions about American Idol and more.

He's a great guy, very down to earth — AND a great piano player and singer. We went to the local coffee shop, which has a baby grand inside, and he played a few songs for us. We captured great video:

Former American Idol contestant Matt Giraud

My full interview with him is coming (most likely tomorrow) and it should be really entertaining. Here is a short post I wrote up to pretty much put the video online. I'll be transcribing the interview tonight.

On a side note — tomorrow's front page features three stories by me — which makes me feel pretty good after a busy, busy day. After a good night' sleep, I'll be ready to do it all over again tomorrow!

This past weekend from Erin's shoes

As perfect of a weekend that we had... we didn't take any photos!
Here is one from Erin's birthday weekend.

This past weekend was definitely one to remember. After blogging about it, then talking with Erin about it, she said she agreed with lots of things, but saw other things from a different perspective. So, I gave her the opportunity to share that with me... and I even suggested that she write her own blog post about it. And she agreed!

So tonight, I have a guest blogger, which I'm pretty excited about. Erin e-mailed me her post this afternoon and I probably read it about five times throughout the day. It continues to remind me how lucky I am to have such an amazing person in my life.

Enjoy!

"I have a problem with living in the past. Or even the future for that matter. I am constantly trying to better myself as a person, and really work on improving some of my not-so-great character flaws. And this is one of them. I really want to learn to fully live in the present, and enjoy each moment exactly for what it is and be able to recognize all of it's beauty and uniqueness. Easier said than done though. But I truly think that this- living in the present- is a stepping stone to leading a full life, and living without regrets. Looking back on this past weekend, however, makes this very difficult. Right now, I wish more than anything that it was last Wednesday night, and tomorrow I was going to Bay City to visit Andrew. And I had not yet lived this wonderful weekend. Right now I am mourning the passing of this weekend, which I will never be able to live again. And this makes me so sad.

"I tried to think of one word to describe this weekend. 'Perfect' is the obvious one, but I'd like to be a little more descriptive. 'Cozy' gets pretty close, but doesn't quite cover every aspect of the weekend. And then I remembered a German word that I came across on Anna Leutheuser's Facebook page (just admitted to my facebook stalking- that's embarrassing), and is now actually the title of HER blog. The word is "Gemütlichkeit". It's closest English translation is coziness, however it connotes much more than that. It's meaning also carries with it the notion of belonging, social acceptance, cheerfulness & the absence of anything hectic. This word can probably describe almost any of our weekends together, but I think it is especially fitting for this particular one.

"Maybe it's the arrival of Fall that makes that word so fitting. Fall is by far my favorite season, and I am in love with everything about it- the change of the leaves, that feeling in the air, the drinks, the foods, the angle and intensity of the sun, the blue of the sky that only happens in the Fall, and the coziness that comes hand-in-hand with this time of year... I could go on and on.

"It seems like this weekend, in my mind at least, was the epitome of Fall. Maybe that is why I loved it so much. It began with a Pumpkin Spice Beer (anyone who shares my obsession with anything pumpkin would understand why this is significant) out on the patio on Thursday evening, followed by Grand Traverse Late Harvest Riesling, followed by making out by the river while a group of Wine Walkers most likely watched. It was such a wonderful, gorgeous evening and I tried to soak in every minute of it (especially the making out by the river part). The night ended with a "slightly inebriated" Maggie yelling that she was going to "punch Lyle in the throat". Doesn't get much better than that...

"Friday was windy and overcast and chilly and REALLY felt like Fall. I spent the day trying very hard to be extremely productive, but in reality checked the clock every five minutes, counting down the minutes until five o'clock when Andrew would be home from work. For dinner, I made one of my favorite soups that my mom makes, which I have to admit, came out better than I expected it to. It was perfect for a chilly Friday evening.

"Andrew's love for me was truly reflected in his surprise Friday night date. He took me to paint pottery, which in Carly's words was "the cutest thing ever". I know that painting pottery on a Friday night probably isn't Andrew's first choice of things to do, but I had mentioned a while back that I thought it would be a lot of fun, something he apparently tucked away in his memory. The place we went to advertised Friday night "date night" and encouraged bringing a bottle of wine to enjoy while you paint, which of course we did, and it made it that much better. Andrew painted a mug (with stripes which weren't perfectly straight, but there is perfection in imperfection, I say). I painted a plate. And mine WAS perfect. (Kidding, but not really...). Andrew and I have really never done anything like that together before, so it was fun to see each others' creativity and artistic abilities (or maybe lack thereof ;) ) come out. To be fair, I am my mother's daughter, and she is an incredible artist. Also, I am musically retarded, so Andrew has me there. After painting, Andrew took me to the candy store so I could have my chocolate-covered gummy bears. Again, so much love.

"Saturday morning was even chillier than Friday and felt So. Much. Like. Fall. I know I keep saying that, but I LOVE FALL. I had to do a quick and easy track workout. Andrew mostly watched, but did run a few with me. Definitely wasn't the highlight of my weekend, but I liked being able to beat- no, smoke- Andrew in 200s ;). I hate taking up our precious weekend time together so I can run a workout, but it did make me feel like I earned being lazy all of Saturday afternoon, which is basically what we did. We napped and drank wine and had cheese and crackers while we watched Avatar. Oh- and there was that one other thing- our "adventure". Which to be honest I didn't even want to do at the time- I felt drowsy from my nap and didn't want to go outside in the cold, even if it was just up and around the block. But I am SO GLAD Andrew made us do this- it was fate.

"On Saturday night we snuggled on the couch and drank 'Witches' Brew' wine (aka spiced red wine that is supposed to be drunken warm). It tasted like Fall in the form of a glass of warm red wine. Which meant I LOVED it because I LOVE FALL. Have I mentioned that yet? In my opinion, it was the perfect way to spend a Saturday night. It was cozy and wonderful and there was nowhere I would rather be and nothing I would rather be doing.

"Sunday was spent making pancakes for breakfast, enjoying the day and each others' company, and (on my part at least) dreading four o' clock when we had to say goodbye. It truly does get harder every time we have to say goodbye. I feel like I say that a lot, but I can honestly say that it does. I could not have asked for anything more from this weekend together. And it wasn't WHAT we did, but I think just the fact that we were TOGETHER. We could have watched college football all weekend and it would have still been perfect in my mind. "Long" distance relationships are hard- some days a little harder than others- but absence really does make the heart grow fonder. And even though I hate being back in Hillsdale right now, I have to thank this stupid place for one HUGE thing- bringing me to Andrew. Because without Hillsdale, weekends like this past one would have never happened."

A perfect weekend in Bay City

I had to get creative this weekend. Erin drove the long, two-and-a-half hours trip from Hillsdale to Bay City, and she deserved a fun weekend.

So on Friday night, We went to a local art gallery around the corner from my apartment for a night of pottery painting. The gallery has a Friday night date night special, and allows you to bring in a bottle of wine to enjoy while painting, which makes it all the more better. You get to pick out a piece of pottery from hundreds of choices, including coffee cups, goblets, plates, frogs, cats, ribbons, etc. Anything you can think of that would be fun to paint, heat and glaze — they probably have it. After a week, you can pick up your piece in its ceramic beauty.

Erin painted a plate and I painted a coffee mug. Hers looks very classy. Mine is elementary-art-class-esque. It reminded me of fourth grade art class when I painted a clay pizza that was designed to hang off a book shelf. I think my mom still has that art project. I'm looking forward to picking up our works of art this week!

Saturday was a very relaxing day that started with one of Erin's workouts. That proved two things to me: One) My girlfriend is in incredible shape and is going to have a great cross country season, and 2) I am in no shape at all.

I struggled to finish the first mile of a two-mile warm up. I ran a 200-200 in-and-out (I think that's what it's called) with Erin and stopped, then she did it seven more times. I joined in the fourth one and then the last one. I need to start doing something because I was really, really tired.

For the rest of the Saturday, we relaxed in my apartment. It was chilly, and rained during the day a little bit. Erin and I had a little adventure in the afternoon, which will remain between me and her for the time being.

As always, it's really sad when someone you care about so much as to leave after a perfect weekend. But what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. I'm pretty optimistic, maybe I put too much silver-lining into situations, but you have to be in a long-distance relationship.

Now it's time for another week of work. I have a full schedule this week — the news never stops!

Witches Brew and history

This weekend in Bay City is the annual River of Time. It takes place on the Saginaw River and features Civil War re-inactments. Cool for people that are into it — and entertaining for me. And Erin. Today, we saw some Civil War soldiers while walking downtown. They shot off their gun and frightened us. Read about the River of time, here.

But what is most entertaining is this email I received I today. Enjoy:

"iam a 29 yr old guy who loves history. i love the river of time down at the river i live to blocks from there one thing is that i would love to reenact in it just for the weekend but there isnt enought ifo out the on how to do that and on top of that me and a friend are collecters of ww2 german nazi stuff we are not nazi and dont belive in what they did but we do bleive that part of history need to be kept alive for the younger people and we were talking bout dressing up and going do there as ww2 german soilders but dont know what people would think of it or how to go about doing that any ifo would help and what ur take on reenacting as ww2 german soilders down at the river of time what do you think people would say or do it a part of history that should be showing there"

It's verbatim. More blogging coming tomorrow!

P.S. Erin came up here this weekend and we enjoyed Witches Brew wine tonight. It's spicy and they recommend heating it up before consuming. I. Love. Fall. Goodnight!

Remembering my Family at 172 Manning

Me: Dad, Shawn hit me.

Blake England: Now Shawn, what I did say about hitting you *%!$ing brother?

Shawn: I didn't hit him

Blake: Now, Andrew, what did I tell you about lying — go to your room and no dinner!

Me: But...

Blake: NO BUTS!

Me: Not fair

Blake: Well, when your mom left me; that wasn't fair either...

I could probably keep this dialogue going - it seemed like this was a common scene every day at 172 Manning during my junior year of Hillsdale. While senior year was a blast, I feel like I had some very, very good memories of junior year, especially with Blake, Joel and Shawn.

We made way too many "too soon" comments, over-analyzed too many sporting games and made fun of too many people. Great times.

Our landlords Don and Debby meant well, but we had our share of problems — including the great flood of 2009. I remember getting a text from Joel while in big band rehearsal: "Dude, what's don and debby's phone number, our house is leaking like a siv!" After spending a week and a half in Simpson, we moved back in. And probably inhaled lots of mold.

There isn't much more to this post. I am watching Modern Family (which is hilarious) and it jogged my memory about family about my Hillsdale family. I still receive hilarious "too soon" comments from Blake, and I'm sure I will for a long time. I wouldn't expect any different.

Welcome to Bay City (for those who haven't visited)

For the few who are reading, I thought you might like to know where I live: Beautiful Bay City, Michigan.

It's a city of about 35,000 people and is divided by the Saginaw River. I live downtown on the east side of the river (Erin says it's the nicer side... but maybe she just hasn't really seen the other side, yet). My loft apartment is on top of Fusion One — the town's only sushi restaurant. It's pretty popular, and the chef is a great guy. We've partied with him on a few occasions.

Across from our building is Old City Hall, probably the nicest restaurant and bar in town. Back in the day, it's where all the important decisions were made. Today, "new" City Hall is located about 3 minutes south, in a much bigger building.

The Bay City Times is a two minute walk north. Unless I know I have a morning assignment where I need to drive somewhere, I typically walk to work. I can put my coffee in a normal coffee cup and carry it to work. Not too many people can do that. I've only spilled a few times and that's only because I filled up the cup too high.

Speaking of the Bay City Times, check out what I wrote today: It's Glee-tastic.

If you're still interested in the city, check out its Wikipedia page. I have to admit, I was tempted to just copy and paste some paragraphs of it into here and act like I really did my research. But come on! This isn't a college term paper.

Bay City is attracting more young professionals who really want the best for the city. There are many art galleries, old theatres, professional networking meetings, festivals, parties and more. There's lots of potential for this city, and its pretty exciting to be apart of it all. This Thursday is the wine walk. There will be more than 500 people hitting up about 12 restaurants to sample wine. Near the end of the walk, my part of town gets a little crazy. If you decide to come here for it on Thursday, just know that there is a secret wine stop at 813 1/2 Saginaw Street.

Now! I want to show you my apartment. It's similar to the Wedge at Hillsdale. Definitely has a larger kitchen, but in total size, probably smaller than the Wedge. My bedroom was pretty messy when I decided to take photos, so that will come in another post. Here's my kitchen and living room:

This is the living room, and the front of the kitchen. I love the brick walls and old wood floors.

This is the kitchen. It's huge. And slowly, but surely, I'm starting to use it more extensively. I can grill a mean steak.

When I started my job in June 2009, I lived at home that summer, which gave me an opportunity to save some money. My first purchase, naturally, a 50-inch plasma. I think TVs are a pretty normal purchase for after landing that first job out of college.

I hope you enjoyed the mini tour. I want to take some photos during the day of the city. The river isn't the cleanest, but it's really, really cool when a giant freighter chugs on through and the city's four bridges have to open up and stop traffic. If you're in your car, trying to get in our out of town, it can get annoying, but when I'm on my deck (which I will have to show you, also) it's pretty impressive looking.

New media: Is running as fast as we can the solution?

"Post it." I hear those two words probably more than 100 times a week and I'm not exaggerating.

It refers to writing a story/blog post quickly and publishing it onto our website for our thousands of readers to consume. If we have pieces of a bigger story, we publish what we have and update as the day goes on. When it's all said and done (I guess I should say, written and done), stories are connected through hyperlinks and a reader that hasn't been following the story all day can click back and follow the coverage.

It's a process that allows us to get the first scoop (hopefully) and lure readers in (hopefully) to find out what happened. Here's a recent example:

•Post 1: "Standish-Sterling principal injured after car drove into Pinconning deli" This is the initial report I put together after talking with the school district's superintendent, the owner of the deli and the local police department.

•Post 2: Rotary Club president on Pinconning crash: 'It sounded like a huge explosion, like a bomb going off' This post went up about 40 minutes later. It features a couple eye-witnesses to give the story some depth and perspective.

•Post 3: Standish-Sterling principal released from hospital after Pinconning deli crash. This post came in a few hours after Post 2. It's a simple follow up to let everyone know that this guy is ok.

AND....

•Post 4: Standish-Sterling Principal Roger Fritz describes Pinconning deli crash. This is our day two story. It's the guy actually talking about the incident, which by the way was quite the freak accident.

So there you have it — one story, four posts. It's pretty detailed and the posts are quick reads. Some like it, other complain that we don't have the whole story after reading, say Post 1.

It's a new era of journalism. I read a recent story from the Columbia Journalism Review titled "The Hamster Wheel: Why running as fast as we can is getting us nowhere". The piece is quite interesting. It provides statistics such as, "Newsrooms have shrunk by 25 percent in three years," and quotes from respected journalists that say, "The scoop has never had more significance to our professional users, for whom a few minutes, or even seconds, are a crucial advantage who value has increased exponentially." (That last quote is Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.)

The article's thesis touches on the battle of quantity versus quality and newsworthiness in today's world of online journalism. Today's journalists that work for a web-first product, myself included, need to be as accurate and thorough as possible, but also fast. And first. Because if you ain't first, you're last. The better we get at it, the more web traffic we draw. Our incentive is web traffic and that means turning pieces around quickly. The posts we write, for the most part, aren't huge, investigative pieces, although we are always working on bigger projects on the side.

The writer called this journalism a hamster wheel. He doesn't call this journalism speed, he calls it motion for motion's sake. I'm still trying to figure out if I agree with that notion. I've never worked for a seven-day print product, but I've always worked for a daily. Journalists that work for papers that still print seven days a week (we print three days a week) think we're closer to "the end of journalism," when really, I believe we are ahead of the curve. It's simple fact that majority of people consume their news from the Internet, be it from their office computer, home laptop or from their smartphone while on the go. So why not give your readers lots of content? If they can consume it quickly, we should be able to produce it quickly.

Don't confuse online journalism for fast food. And don't consume fast food quickly, that's dangerous.

I'm not sure what my friends, the people of my generation, feel about today's news. I assume most of them read more news online than in a print newspaper or on television. Some of the work that I'm most proud of was turned around quite quickly before any other media picked it up. That makes me feel good. But on the opposite side of the coin, I also love some of the work that I took a lot of time on.

Examples: 

• (Est. time to prepare about 25 minutes) A followup story about the governor's suggestion to lengthen the school year
• (Est. time to prepare about 15 minutes) This garnered 92 comments - which is a lot for a news story (Detroit Lions stories get hundreds of comments) It's a quick blog post about a study from the Mackinac Center on Michigan's teacher salaries.
• (Est. time to prepare about 3 days) A package of stories and videos on school consolidation that ran in conjunction with a statewide newspaper study on the same topic. 

This turned out to be quite a long blog post (This would never fly on MLive because it's way too long) but I am curious to hear what you think about new journalism. Quick and punchy or longer and more analysis? Is there a balanced required? Weigh in by leaving a comment.

A goal to write more

BAY CITY — As I enter my second post-college year, I'm finally starting to feel more like an adult.


I have to admit, the first year out of college was tough. I missed my girlfriend Erin, my best friends Shawn and Joel. I missed Saturday afternoon football games. I missed jumping over a bar. I missed playing in a band. The girlfriend part is most difficult, still today. The other things, you learn to appreciate the memories.


I feel blessed being able to land a job at a newspaper, telling stories about the community around me. When I came to Hillsdale College, I loved reading, watching and analyzing the news. I loved creating the news... especially gossiping.


Like I said — I feel more like an adult now.


With only four paragraphs in so far, I know my editor would be grilling me. What's the point of this story? Well, as time goes on, friends move away and many of us become disconnected. My friends from college have motivated me to take my writing a step further, into my own personalized blog. Thank you Derek, Cvengros, Amy Luke and Marion. 


I love reading the writing of people I know. There's emotion, humor, intellect and most importantly — a connection.


So, this is my first post. Welcome. I want to make a goal to at least write once a day. The editor of MLive.com told our newsroom this past year that a good blog needs at least 12-15 posts a week. I don't see that happening, here, but I will do everything I can to provide some quality thoughts.


Just to allow everyone to catch up: I'm a few months into my second year at the Bay City Times. I'm still covering education, heavily, but with a small newsroom, there's plenty of general assignment. On the job, I helped a nonprofit find a home, pondered about a longer school year and picked the brain of a successful businessman. And a politician. It's something new everyday.


I'll try to keep the blog interactive. Feel free to click the links.


I love my job and the city I live in, and I hope to continue to grow as a reporter, photographer and blogger. And I think writing here can help me do all three.


More to come! And in 12 pt. Verdana (That's the font — is it easy on the eyes?)