Category Archives: Travel

So Journey

“What did I just walk into??”

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I walked into 1982 at 5 o’clock Friday without any idea what to expect (or mentally prepare for…). It was a press conference, I’d heard, for the variety show: The Reverend Angeldust’s Tabernacle of Hedonism with your Host, Tom Miller! which starts Monday, January 21 at 9 p.m.

People aren’t always thrilled to see folks with cameras around them, but at this -press conference- it was like I was something special! Appreciated, even! So I took that as welcome to snap as many photos in that dim-lit bar as possible, praying to that great Dumpster Goddess, Jamba, that one (Oh please, Jamba, one!) would maybe turn out bearable. See in the Tabernacle, Jamba is the pray-ee (the ..er…’being’ whom is prayed to).

The RATH is Gainesville’s newest religious institution as of Friday, January 19. The Tabernacle of Hedonism is the ONLY variety show which is also a recognized church (–that I know of), and also an incarnation of “The Tom Miller Show,” the longest running variety show in Gainesville.

I milled about as others milled in, and Tom Miller stepped up to the stage to introduce the other present Secret Council of Society Deacons, Daniel T. Ballard and Mike Garvin, they decide who performs. And then, the Reverend Angel Dust himself, the spiritual leader of the group, stepped up onto the stage to sermonize.

“Do only that which is RIGHT!”

The last member of the Secret Council of Society Deacons arrived and stepped up on the stage, only stopping brushing his hair to hold up the certificate which certifies that he, James Wesson, is an ordained minister. Each Society Deacon is, in fact, they signed one up right there in 1982 via the wonders of the internet.

It included a legit Q & A session like legit press conferences and all, the energy was up. I asked a few questions after the gig.

Tom Miller first met Reverend Angel Dust when Reverend Angel Dust knocked on his door in 1984 selling poems for a quarter in a self-made publication. They started attending each other’s shows and when Tom Miller established his variety show in 1985, Reverend Angel Dust opened the shows with his sermons.

And now, 28 years later, The Reverend Angeldust’s Tabernacle of Hedonism with your Host, Tom Miller! begins tonight.

Florida teachers disappointed in Supreme Court decision

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Published: http://www.wuft.org/news/2013/01/17/florida-teachers-disappointed-in-supreme-court-decision/

I started my first five-hour shift in Florida’s 89.1 WUFT-FM newsroom today as web producer in the Integrated News Facility at the University of Florida. This directly followed my editing lecture, so I skipped out on lunch to get to work.

I read the follow sheet as I awaited an assignment. This just in! The Florida Supreme Court rules to uphold a law which…just kidding, you’ll have to read the article linked above to get the full story.

So I had some vague details, a four graf article handed to me a little after 1 p.m. to get some hint at what was going on. I brainstormed with fellow INFers on whom I should contact as sources.

I called the Florida Education Association first, and was put in touch with spokesperson Mark Pudlow, who told me to call back a bit later, which was great ’cause that gave me time to actually figure out the recording studio.

I recorded my interview with him, and then called Janine Sikes to get UF’s take on the deal.

I talked with her, and then looked for a teacher to contact locally. I ended up with Karen McCann, president of Alachua County Education Association. I talked with her the longest, she was very passionate about the subject and wanted to make it clear what she thought and why, which made my job easier.

I left a message for the United Faculty of Florida, but didn’t hear back so I started. I emailed myself the recorded audio and began to form my story. Deadline of 6 p.m. was approaching, and my head was starting to feel the hunger. I had a meeting with the Fine Print in an hour, and still had to bike home and eat something. I didn’t want to let all this work go wasted, though.

So I closed up my laptop and took it home with me. Went to the meeting, returned home, pieced the rest of the story together, emailed Ethan that the draft was up, and viola! Now I can eat something.

Well, almost…the audio I recorded from the interviews may be used on the radio in the morning. How cool! I had such a productive day going from class, to the newsroom, to the Fine Print meeting, to finishing up a story. And then, to see it published on the WUFT website was quite refreshing and warmed me with such a sense of accomplishment that I almost forgot how tired and hungry I am.

Time for an Adventure: Canoeing the French Broad

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I strapped my canoe to my jeep and packed up Thursday night. I went to Sports Academy to buy under layers for the cold and Friday morning headed north on I-295, I-95 and then took I-26 West toward Asheville.

I arrived in Hot Springs about two hours after I’d started wishing I was there already. It was dark and cold. I put on more layers, glimpsed at the instructions for my new GoPro camera and Kototat drysuit and went to sleep.

The next morning was also cold. North Carolina in December. I put on more layers, met Corey and Wade for breakfast, and then we strapped Corey’s kayak to my jeep and headed up-river to the put-in at Barnard. I canoed Wade’s Spanish Fly on the French Broad a year and a half ago, but hadn’t yet tried out my canoe.

Going white-water canoeing is a process. Getting into the drysuit itself is something to think about. Then there’s blowing up the airbags — not as bad. Then there’s checking the pump — it came with the canoe for me, but I wasn’t noticing it pumping any water out on the river. All new batteries, too, maybe it just wasn’t wired right.

Getting in a canoe again was weird. It was a distant memory of a warm summer as a raft guide on the French Broad River. Much less layers then, but more leaves on the trees. More green, more sweat, more laughter — its hard not to return to a summer like that. But this is December. And the boat is a Prelude. And every slight shift in weight that went to my knees tilted the boat. Tilt too much and it’ll tip.

It didn’t though, not through Beginner’s and the Maze, Turtle Rapid and S-Turn(…well, the slot next to S-turn, what is it called for rafts – Clam?). All the way up to Big Pillow, and then my boat bumped Wade’s and over I went. I did a deep-water reentry downstream and then floated over to dump my boat. Boy was that refreshing — but I was dry. (Thanks to my Kokotat dry suit.)

Wade says that one doesn’t count, ‘cause our boats bumped. Well if it doesn’t, then I got all the way through Sandy Bottoms and the Ledges and Pinball, Rebar and Stackhouse without flipping. But alas, I successfully went over Kayaker’s Ledge, but relaxed before I was free of it’s hold, and to the left I went, plunging into that green bubbly water.

(Good thing I tethered the GoPro strap to the inside of my helmet — it was hanging by my shoulder after that one.)

I dumped out the boat and on we went. The Windy Flats had taken ages — 850 cfs — and the drift ahead led to the impending Frank Bell’s rapid. Eek!

Well, Corey went down first. We were running horseshoe. I saw Wade get stuck on some rocks and twist around a bit at the entrance where Corey had just kayaked. I decided to go to the right of that, which turned out to be a good decision. It was pushy, but I made it through! We eventually made it down to the take-out just as Matt was pulling up to give us a lift back up to our vehicles. He brought one of the little boxer puppies along with, and it was just so cute! I was almost convinced. But then I think of travel, and how would I get back to Germany with a puppy? Or China?

We made it back and went to the Smokey Mountain Diner. I had a Hungry Hiker burger — a satisfying 12 ounces of meat to follow 9 miles of paddling in 43 degrees.

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Sunday, I tried to sleep till the rain stopped. Except it didn’t. Going paddling in the cold and wet just didn’t seem as swell a deal as going paddling in the cold and dry. Plus, we were racing daylight and didn’t have a set ride back yet. So we made brownies and watched a movie.

_____________________________________________________________

I was much more confident in my boat the second time around. The water was up to about 1500 cfs Monday, so we ate some eggs and headed up to Stackhouse to set shuttle. We met Matt there and loaded up our boats for Barnard.

I figured out my GoPro a bit more at the put-in — the button on the front switches between video and camera mode, along with turning it off and on. The button on the top records, or takes a photo, depending on the mode. Can’t exactly switch modes while in a rapid, as the camera’s strapped to my helmet. Before it was kind of guess-and-check, or rather, push the buttons and hope the red light flashes continuously.

But I felt much better in my boat this time. Better balance, stronger strokes. More deliberate. Still could be a bit more aggressive. We went through to Stackhouse and I didn’t flip at all! There were a few close calls, but I caught them all. It boosted my confidence a bit. If only I could paddle up here every weekend — I need to find another open-boater who lives in Florida to come up, carpool and paddle with.

Jags, NAACP, CoRK Arts District & Courthouse Weddings

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http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODE/FloridaTimesUnion/Default.aspx?href=TFTU%2F2012%2F12%2F14&pageno=18&view=document

[It's another photo published in the Times-Union!]

On Tuesday, I shadowed another Florida Times-Union photographer, Will Dickey. We went to an event at an elementary school which three Jacksonville Jaguars and two ROAR cheerleaders attended. The Jaguars donated over $1 million to help the kids.

There were billiards, ping pong, jumping gyms, face painting and more in a loud afternoon of children running everywhere and eating pizza. The tough part of this assignment came with the concern that one of the kids would run away before I could get their name. I had to be aware of the shots I got — anything good enough and I would need to act quickly to record it. The lighting inside was fluorescent or sunlight from the sides — always bring a flash.

Later we went to a NAACP meeting over at the Legends Center. The talk was of getting rid of the ‘school to prison’ track so many students seemed to be on. I held the flash from the back of the audience while Will got some shots of the newly-elected superintendent. None of the shots ended up running in the next day’s paper.

On Wednesday, I was supposed to meet up with Bob Mack in Ponte Vedra to shoot golf. But I awoke to rain, and the golf was canceled. So I went in and hung out with Bob Self instead.

We drove around 5 points looking for a  girl who dances there. It was a bit damp and gray out, so we didn’t see her. We drove around looking for features. We drove by CoRK, a complex on King Street where artists have their studios. There were two people painting on the outside. We parked and walked across the street.

One was Jon Graham, from Asheville, and the other was Danielle Brutto, from Atlanta.  They were adding to the artwork on the outer walls of the building. Both were on their way back from Art Basel Miami Beach, and stopped in CoRK to stay and paint before traveling onward northerly.

Brutto stood on a ladder painting a sleeping girl. When asked why, she said she slept a lot because she had narcolepsy, so it had to happen at some point.

Graham thought of a few different titles for his piece, but said he didn’t want to influence the onlookers’ perception by naming it, so he just let it be. It was a photo of him painting that was published in Friday’s paper.

We drove on to the new courthouse, the most intimidating building I’ve seen in Jacksonville. The story was a local take on the national story of lots of people getting married since the date was 12/12/12. Once we got smoothly through security, we escalated up to the room of the weddings. A party stood in the hallway changing a baby’s diaper, they’d just finished. We walked in and sat waiting for couples to come in deciding to take the plunge. The chapel was nice, lots of red and white flowers, clean-looking, courthouse-efficient-looking. An aisle, rows of chairs, a podium for a judge to stand behind. Or the clerk.

We caught one wedding that ended up being the front page story. First the parents entered wearing Santa Claus hats, they’d come from South Carolina to surprise their daughter for her wedding – it was also her birthday. By the time we’d watched a whole other wedding in the chapel, in which the bride and groom were each from different countries in South America, the rest of the group had arrived in the waiting area, including the bride and groom. Bob asked the bride if it would be alright to attend and take pictures and she said it was.

And yet again, I am reminded of the importance of carrying a flash. I don’t know what to compare the lighting in that chapel to. This was the first time I ever photographed a wedding, and I’m not going to sugarcoat anything, it was tough. For one, the bride and groom are facing upstage toward the judge during the good parts. The bride smiled, the groom looked serious. Their daughter was running around and then everybody’s taking pictures. There isn’t really room in the aisle for more than one photographer.

Thursday Will and I went to the Bolles School to shoot a Sportrait of a swimmer – Kasey Schmidt, I believe. He set up a blue-gelled flash across the pool and an-umbrella diffused flash in front of her on the ladder out of the pool. I held it so it wouldn’t fall in the water (first thing to do if a strobe gets wet – turn it off, he said. Then take out the batteries and take it all apart and blow it dry. It’s worked.). We went back to the newsroom and that was it. I saw the changes in his photos as he adjusted the flash.

The week went by so quickly. It was such a insightful experience to work closely with the photographers of the Florida Times-Union, people who take photos every day as a way of life.

 

Boxing Team to compete in Tallahassee! (article in the Alligator)

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Members of the University of Florida Boxing/Kickboxing Club will compete this weekend against six other Florida schools. See full article here:

http://www.alligator.org/news/campus/article_c6d73a20-3aa2-11e2-9e45-0019bb2963f4.html

Facebook Article in the Alligator

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Article published in the Independent Florida Alligator:

http://www.alligator.org/news/local/article_d12e86ec-391f-11e2-842a-0019bb2963f4.html

Original Article here:

If you haven’t already reposted the status update attempting to regain control of everything you’ve ever shared on Facebook – don’t. It won’t work. Accepting the terms of service upon signing up for the social networking site cannot be undone.

The status updates claim users’ copyright over the contents they’ve shared on Facebook and requires written consent from the individual user before Facebook can use the material. It has been copied and pasted so many times it’s like a newsfeed chain letter. But it is false.

The status update cites international law – the Berne Convention, though misspelled as ‘Berner,’ – and Uniform Commercial Code as protections against violating user’s privacy. But Clay Calvert, a University of Florida journalism professor and director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, and who holds a both a law degree and a doctorate in communication, said it’s not a matter of either of those, it’s a matter of contract law.

“This is much more of a symbolic protest than one that has any legal effect, despite what people would like to believe or think they know,” Calvert said.

When setting up an account with Facebook, soon-to-be users must accept the terms of service. If they actually read them, they’d know that Facebook has the right to use the information shared on the site. Facebook claims a “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license” to use any intellectual property content when the user chooses certain settings.

This doesn’t mean Facebook “owns” what’s shared – but it can disclose the information, which may include users’ GPS locations, to advertisers to more effectively direct ads their way. Information associated with an account may be kept even after it is deleted.

The Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities “is our terms of service that governs our relationship with users.” A status update cannot trump the terms of service that each user agreed to when signing up for site, Calvert said. It was a choice to sign up and it is a choice to continue to use Facebook – but only under their terms.

It’s like leasing a car, Calvert said, you can’t negotiate the terms by putting a sticker on it claiming your rights after you’ve signed the contract. You’re bound to that lease.

“The big picture is that Facebook users did not realize that they were giving away their rights,” Calvert said.

Now that they’re realizing this they’re trying to get them back. But the sheer number of people who repost that status doesn’t make it enforceable. Facebook also maintains the right to update their terms of service, and to continue using Facebook is to accept the changes, according to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. But who actually reads the terms of service?

“I know that I don’t read them, ever,” said Moriah Geier, an 18-year-old UF dance freshman, not only referring to Facebook’s terms, but iTunes and any other terms

and conditions one has to accept by ‘clicking the box’ on the internet. She reads them more on paper. She saw her friends posting the copied status, but didn’t believe her rights could be changed by a status update.

This wave of statuses followed a revision this month to the data use policy, which includes the information Facebook collects and how it may use that data. A similar message spread earlier this year following Facebook becoming a publicly traded company, but that has nothing to do with users’ privacy. Facebook can change the terms if notice is provided, which is done by posting the change on the Facebook Site Governance Page, and providing an opportunity to comment.

Adjusting your privacy and application settings controls how some content and information is shared, but some information like your name, profile picture and networks will always be public.

“It’s just become our everyday way of communicating,” said Kayla Marcus, 19-year-old UF dance freshman. “We don’t realize it’s so public.”