Oh by the way

From time to time I've been updating my other blog, beckyrother.blogspot.com, with some things I've been working on. Sooo in case you're interested in what I'm doing at work or whatever, ch-ch-check it out.

Back to the features

Hello! It's my first week back in features and I am happy about it. Today the first of a few of the things I've been working on ran in the paper, and I'm actually proud of what I made.
Not much has been happening besides that. I've been making friends here, going out with other interns and their friends. Last weekend Stephanie's friend came to visit from Madison, WI, and we had a lot of fun going to the farmer's market and driving to Wisconsin. Summer is a wonderful time.
Finally got my bike fixed (mostly - now the gears are weird, but it works) and eventually, maybe tomorrow, I'm going to ride it to work. It's not very far, and a really nice ride. This will be good.

/stream of consciousness

Well I've got about an hour before I have to go to work, so I decided to write some stuff. Nothing important has really happened since my last post, but it's one of those days when I feel like writing.

I'm sitting outside on my porch. It's a beautiful day - sunny and warm but not overwhelmingly hot. I think it's funny that I get better internet reception outside the house than in my room. I'll take what I can get, though.

Today I met Hayley at a restaurant in Northeast called the Bulldog. I rode my bike, hoping to offset the hamburger I ate. I'm not sure it worked... halfway home I my bike tire went flat and I ended up walking home. It looks like the tires are the original ones from when the bike was new in like 1985, so I'm pretty impressed they lasted this long. Still mad about it, though. I've really enjoyed having a bike up here. There are a lot of places in my neighborhood and surrounding areas that I can ride my bike to... especially around Dinkytown, where I feel bad driving to a place so close, and parking is hard to come by.

When I got home, there was a giant beetle on my front walk. I poked it with a stick and watched it crawl around for a while. Things that I do when I'm bored.

Today at work I'm designing more news pages. I'm starting to really like the whole deadline process. I just wish we could do it in the daytime so we'd have normal hours instead of this 4 - midnight deal.

A guy drove by talking (I'd assume) on a Bluetooth. I could still hear him – from his car, on the street – a block later. This is a fun neighborhood.

I was so proud of the food i cooked that i took a picture

As part of my weird news design schedule, my weekend was today and yesterday, which really meant I had most of a three-day weekend to do what I wanted. So what did I do?
Today I felt bad just sitting around all day, so I got up (relatively) early and rode my bike into Dinkytown – the Village of the Cities – and found a local coffeeshop. It's something I've been meaning to do, and since now I have all my mornings free, it seemed like a good idea. I had a delicious cranberry muffin and an iced latte in a coffee mug. I've always thought that things are better out of a coffee mug, and I was really glad to see this place felt the same way. After that, I read for a while before going grocery shopping and cleaning the apartment. Fascinating, I know, but I really felt independent. Then I came home and cooked, which I love. I would do it more, but I hate having a lot of leftovers, and most of the things I cook tend to be a lot more than I can eat by myself. So Steph helped me eat what I made – tomato-basil fettuccini with zucchini, green pepper and tomatoes sautéed with garlic, and French bread. It was delicious. I took a picture.

Oh yeah, and it was the Fourth of July Saturday. Some friends came over to my apartment and we walked a few blocks to the Stone Arch Bridge to watch fireworks over the Mississippi. It was a lot of fun.

What else has happened... I went with Karlee, another intern, to a show by the White Rabbits at a little bar close to where we both live. Minneapolis has so many good bands come play, it's crazy. White Rabbits was a great show - they have a lot of drums in their music, so it was a loud show, but crazy good. Here's a video of my favorite song they played.



And I switched from features to news design. Not by choice, but I'm starting to like it more and more. It's a challenge to get all the stories to fit on the pages and make them look nice, as well as to work with the news and photo editors to decide which stories go where and the best presentation. Right now I've been working on the inside of the A section, which is the first part you look at when you get the newspaper. It's mostly nation/world articles, and most of the stuff comes from the Associated Press. This is good, they tell me, because we don't have to wait for our local writers to finish their stories, and we don't have to worry about house fires or car crashes happening late at night. I think eventually I work on the B section, where those local things go, but lately it's just been A: six to eight pages of content staff writers don't work on. I like it.