OK… so I am sitting in the newsroom, and there’s a radio that monitors the local EMS dispatch frequency. On it, I hear they’ve reported a fire at the local college. So I think, “Oh crap. Maybe I should get out there.” Then I hear one fire engine is responding. I think. “Hmm, maybe they’ll get there and it will be out.” Then I hear two more are responding, and they’re looking for hydrants in the area and building access.
So I figure this is probably pretty serious. I go to the photo lab and grab a camera, then head out to the school. There’s plenty of smoke, but in the time it took for me to get there, they were able to put out the fire. Which means it had to be pretty well confined.
So that’s the photo. Smoke coming out as they extinguish the last remnants of the blaze from within the building. I think it was a good photo, showing how calm everyone outside was. A campus security officer and a firefighter are just standing, looking. Not being frantic. Everything’s under control.
OK, so it’s not exciting… At least it’s a photo of first responders doing their jobs well.
I had to work on Thanksgiving. For those of you that don’t know, I work at a newspaper, the Star-Gazette.
In the morning, I was the only one there. I was in charge of the newsroom, and nothing was going on. I tuned the TV to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and watched it end while I prepared my briefs for publication.
Briefs are really short news stories that could be turned into 20-inch behemoths, except they’re about things like births, promotions, graduations, dean’s lists, and stuff like that. It fuels the good gossip in the area (except maybe for the birth announcements, which may fuel bad gossip in the case of some mothers).
I will finish this story later because I am going to go shopping with my m0ther-in-law. In the meantime, you can see the end of the story by looking at my photo in the Star-Gazette, Friday, Nov. 26 edition. (This will disappear by Friday, Dec. 3.)
Apparently back in the 1960s and 70s, comics in the Superman universe were really stupid.
Well. I figured out why I can’t get to any of my old blog posts. Turns out I copied all the HTML and PHP files but didn’t copy the blog database, which is in usr/local/mysql/data/. Doh!
So all of my ramblings up until now are gone. That’s fine. They were only ramblings.
Anyway, because Erin wants to make sure the story of our honeymoon doesn’t get lost in some database, I decided to write this one in plain, unencrypted, undatabased HTML. If you’d like to see what a great time we had, go read the honeymoon narrative at our wedding website.
Also, many congratulations to Erin for Doing so well at the Harmony, Inc. International Contest and Convention in Rochester. I traveled there to see her perform, and watched her chorus take fifth place, and the prestigious L.A.B.B.S. Trophy. (I think it stands for Ladies’ Association of British Barbershop Singers).
I wish I had not left after dinner, because as I understand, the whole place was filled with music and fun. People blessing each other with their craft, spontaneously offering harmony to any takers. I think I’d have enjoyed it.
WordPress blog. Check 1, 2. Sibilance.