Author: RTOlson

After much effort, I relaunched my professional site earlier today. Take a look at my professional journalism experience and let me know what you think. My address is ryan -at- rtomedia.com.

Also this week, I will be at the UNITY 2004 convention in Washington DC. It’s my first trip to DC and I’m excited to visit the nation’s capital while meeting hundreds of journalists and media professionals. I also hope to hear presidential candidates John Kerry and George Bush address convention members on Thursday and Friday.

I’ve established a special UNITY blog. I will be posting updates from the convention floor when time permits. Stay tuned to this page as well — I’ll be posting here too.

… my freezer box. Nothing like a warm summer day to defrost my freezer. That and the fact that I haven’t been able to open the freezer door for the past 3 months.

I’ve got a classic fridge that’s got to be from the ?60s. It’s pretty nice, but the freezer box is in the same compartment as the fridge itself. The result is that the freezer doesn’t freeze well, but stuff in the fridge freezes.

The freezer also tends to just freeze the water that builds up. When I started on Friday night there was four inches of ice around the edge. I took out at least two gallons of water just a few minutes ago.

So with the whole defrosting and cutting my way through three years of newspapers, my life is totally on track. 😉

Got a new tool to help my writing on the road.

It’s an old Apple eMate 300, based on the Newton. It’s got all the functionality of a PDA with a built-in keyboard. The keyboard sealed the deal — that and the 24-hour battery life.

So if you don’t see me posting on this blog very much lately, it’s probably because I’m down at the waterfront writing under the shadow of the bridge.

Before anyone asks, I purchased this at a price significantly less than the original $800 retail price. And I also completed the purchased before July 14.

Observed on the Detroit Free Press Web site:

Apparently, they’re not looking for exciting mill operators. …

My run of good luck came to an abrupt end this morning. Nothing left to do but dust off and try again.

I don’t know what it is, but something about me just likes fairs and festivals. It’s a good thing too because I went to two of them over the weekend — the Copper Country Strawberry Festival on Friday and Saturday and the Ironwood Ren Faire on Sunday.

The strawberry festival was a blast just because it’s always nice to see so many people out and about. Chassell apparently had a big reputation as a berry producer back in the day. There are still farms, but it’s not as big a business venture as it once was.

Still there’s a lot of room for fun. I enjoyed talking with people and browsing the items the vendors were offering. The strawberry shortcake was definitely a highlight — the light sweetness of the freshly cut berries atop the baked dense shortcake. Simply delightful.

The weekend marked a now-welcome break in the so-far chilly summer that we’ve been experiencing. I say it’s welcome now because I didn’t mind the cool temps until last week.

Summer in the Copper Country has been like a fussy fire. It’s hard to get started, it flares up for a little bit and then dies right back down.

The weather has been cool all through the spring and into the early part of the summer. I personally don’t mind all the cool weather because sweating profusely in a long-sleeved shirt and dress tie isn’t something that I like a lot. It was a different story last week when it was both cold and extremely rainy.

Also, the rain and cool temps seem to cut down on the bug population, although August is typically the best month if you want to catch the buggers in action.

Not doing much aside form cleaning around the house.

I’m excited that my luck continues — at today’s PastyFest I put down $5 for the Main Street Calumet raffle. My lucky number comes up for a free stay at the AmericInn in Calumet. Woohoo!

Just having a kind of lazy weekend (there’s nothing new there). I’ve started to take the scanner home in case something happens.

Usually there’s a bunch of random chatter — grease fire at a restaurant that gets quickly extinguished, a fender-bender, stuff like that. However, it’s something else entirely when _my_ building comes up on the list.

Just a couple of minutes ago, I hear dispatch send cops and an ambulance to my building (not my apartment however). Apparently, based on radio info, that someone may have been hit by a baseball bat and the suspected assailant took off on foot.

Thankfully there aren’t any reported injuries, but geez. I had heard some heated words earlier (about an hour previous), but I didn’t think anything of it. Well, I hope cooler heads prevail.

Just reloaded my professional page RTOmedia.com with a new layout (the same one teased earlier on my personal blog) and some new content (a delicious story about pasties).

It’s just an appetizer, there’s still a lot more work to be done. However, I hope it’s enough to get me started and keep me going.

(Not-so-)Quick note: I don’t know how many people get SpikeTV, but I wholeheartedly recommend Joe Schmo 2. It’s a reality show for two people — for everyone else, it’s a fake set up to mock reality programming.

I caught the first series last year and the second series with a Joe and Jane Schmo on a mock dating show has successfully raised the stakes. In short, the Jane thinks the show is rigged (which of course it is, but she’s not supposed to know).

Lots of humor, lots of mockery of reality TV and it’s just really well done. Check it out, and visit the TiVo Community Forum to chat with fans (sometimes the producers stop by).

Bought a few DVDs in the past two weeks including Season 4 of The Simpsons today. Although the bargain bin at Wal-Mart can be a drought of cinema, there were two good buys that I snapped up — The Complete Adventures of Wallace and Grommit and The Godfather.

While I was gladly paying my $5.50 for The Godfather, I thought about the fact that the special edition for the whole trilogy was around $70. Why would I pay so much considering the fact that the first movie is the best of the lot?

I know a lot of people say the second film is the best of the series. I don’t. The second film seemed way too derivative of historical events for me. It’s still a great movie, but not as good as the first.

And they actually should pay people to watch Godfather III, which is a pale shadow of the first flick.

So, I’ve got a lot of great movie watching ahead of me while I move through a pile of newspaper clippings tomorrow.