Last Bittersweet Blog for J217

In the last six months I have realized a lot about myself as a journalism student. I feel that I may not be prepared for the path I've chosen. The J217 course has been the driving factor in my creating this judgment of myself as a writer.
I've realized that going down the path of an investigative reporter, or even a reporter at all, is not for me. This sad fact is even more grim, because the only reason is that I really don't care about investigative reporting. There's nothing wrong with this fact, but it does kind of bum me out. But, I just can't for the life of me imagine writing about money and people who are much less important in this world than they like to think for the rest of my life.

I attend, in my opinion, a fine scholastic institution. I feel that I didn't gain as much as I should've from this class, not because the course didn't offer anything, but because I simply wasn't that into spending weeks on end studying a budget and poking holes in an entirely functioning school foundation. I did, however learn a whole buttload of information on the history and function of journalism. Erin Foote Marlowe is a great teacher and without her guidance and enthusiasm I'm sure I would've dropped J217 the first day.
I do love journalism, but even as a child I wanted to write for National Geographic, or Rolling Stone, or Thrasher, not The New Yorker. I don't want to do the investigative reporting thing ever again, mainly because it offers me nothing intellectually. Or at least it's not very fun.
I would rather write about all the cool shit that will stoke people out than write about budgets and parking space at COCC. I want to care about at least one of my accomplishments in life, and I know that won't happen working in newspapers my entire life.

I thoroughly enjoyed the J217 class regardless of my feelings about where I want to go next with my writing. Thanks to Mrs. Erin Marlowe as well as Lisa Lovell and Sean P., you've all been great influences and I've enjoyed sharing this class experience with you.

Over Enrollment Update

At this point in the term I believe everyone's eyes are glazed over by the thoughts of floating the river and BBQing the days away. I know that after only two consecutive terms of school, I am so intensely ready for summer, it's kind of sickening in a way.

I can't wait to skateboard for 12 hours strait without worrying once about where I'm supposed to be. I can't wait for 2 for $4 summer deals on Big Macs even though I don't eat McDonalds unless said sale is going on. I especially can't wait for warm weather every day, and over all that; I can't wait to hopelessly complain because I'm sick of summer.

The over enrollment story is looking great! Lisa, Sean, and I sat down for a good three hours today hashing out all the details and filling in the holes.

We have a lot of graphs, some which we could find already made on the COCC website. Also, we've broken all our sections up into smaller, spaced out pieces that are both easy to read through and look great on a double truck.

I might not be able to wait for summer, but at least I'll know I did great in my Investigative Reporting class!

Oh, I also can't wait for the summer Mt. Dew contest! And fishing at East Lake! And rope swinging! And warm rainy days! I can't wait for camping trips and bonfires off Skyliner! And! And! And...well you get the point, I'm kind of excited.

OvErEnRoLlMeNt is an issue:)

Seeing as Mrs. Erin Foote Marlowe wants her already burnt out J217 students to keep on blogging about how their final projects are going, here I go again in a painful attempt to sound informational.

Now that I have read the budget and better understood where COCC's money goes in and out, my next job is to gather all my information in a cohesive format to hand my project partner Lisa tomorrow afternoon.

To be honest, I'm kind of nervous for her. Justin dropped our class, which leaves us down to Lisa, Shawn, and myself. I don't know if Shawn has given her any material, but I have 18 hours to gather all of my numbers and a significant amount of words to get down on paper so that Lisa will be much better prepared to write our final story to put in the paper.

We're on the right path, we just really have to get it all together and really bang out the issue of over-enrollment on our campus.

Putting The Pieces Together

At this point in the J217 Final Project, we have completed basically all of our research and now are looking forward to kicking into our super duper efficient writing mode. My partners; Lisa, Justin, and Sean are all extremely efficient so we're all feeling great about writing the story this week and filling up that truck like nobody's business.

Justin has taken care of BAT and all the parking issues on campus, which is turning out to be a really interesting piece of our story. Lisa has ended up finding some fire code violations that Rob McDilda failed to do anything about. Then Sean, our last teammate is heading up the "Big Wig" department, getting all the dirt from the heads of COCC on what's going on behind closed doors. All four of our sections are looking solid as shit, if I do say so myself. We're definitely on the right track to making a very compelling story about the over-enrollment issues in COCC.

This week we're starting to write and edit our stories, and piecing them together cohesively in one feature story to be put on the stands for the entire summer at COCC.

There is no denying that our team is on the right track to create a really great story, but I do have my reservations. The main one that comes up is the fact that we must create a solution to this over-enrollment issue at COCC. This is really tricky because we have to do so without forming too much of a bias that will damage our credibility as writers. So we must create a solution and present it in a methodical way enough so to at least not piss the majority of our readers off. We're all great writers and great journalists, so I'm sure after our meeting today we'll be in great shape.

Budgets Are My Friend...

So this is the re-post of the first up date on the J217 final project. Last week I spent many, many hours pouring over my new best friend, the COCC 2009-10 Butdget. Yes ,the entire budget... page for page. It was great.

Ron Paradis, COCC Director of Human Resources, personally lent me his copy of the budget for the weekend so that I could take my time reading it and copying it.

I spent the entire weekend reading it and before giving it back to Mr. Paradis, Mrs. Erin Foote Marlowe sent me over to the library copy room to make a copy of the entire budget. The copy assistant was rather irritated by my request for her to immediately get up off her extremely round... stool to do something. It took about twenty minutes for her to copy the budget and bind it for me, and then I was on my way.

After spending entire days wrapped in the budget, we finally successfully tore the budget a new a*$hole. It is a pretty well accounted for budget, and it only took a week for me to feel like an utmost expert of COCC's spending of their money.

Thank you Mr. Paradis for all your help during my research. Also thank you to Erin Foote Marlowe and Eric Ercanbrack for joining me to dig deep into COCC's real efforts to deal with over-enrollment in Central Oregon.

LIES

One Push at a Time

...and I realized for the briefest of moments, that skateboarding would be the thing to save my life in the end. some men have their booze and some men have there smokes, but for me; i'll have a skateboard, thank you.

Poets Unite!

The scene was as hip as you can imagine, tea-sipping teenagers and their chai-chugging elders stacked wall to wall inside of the Bend’s Townshends Teahouse. Awaiting local hip-hop icon and slam host Jason Graham a.k.a. Mosley Wotta to begin the fourth Third Thursday Poetry Slam held for all ages. Although Silver Moon Brewing Co. has been doing the +21 and up poetry slam for many years, Graham thought it was time to expand.

“A lot of kids are great writers and artists, they should have an opportunity to voice it,” says Graham after one of the slams.

Over a dozen participants entered the three round competition. The poets’ ages ranged from early teens who made the audience laugh with clever rymes about school, to old men who made everyone in the building cry with poetry about their animals who passed away.

Into the second round about half of the crowd had dissipated and only eight competitors remained. The poetry slam continued with many good and bad performances until the final four remained. Of these four, Terran Randolph shined with a bittersweet reflective poem about American society that completely captivated the audience and sent him into first place. All the competitors were more than cordial with eachother and really seemed stoked just to be able to read their art for the public.

Townshends Third Thursday Poetry Slam is not just another venue for Bend’s youth to spare their time once a month, it is an opportunity for everyone of all ages to express themselves in a unique and powerful way. The all ages poetry slam has sparked a cry from Bend’s youth for more of these opportunities and organizations are answering.

CADA|CASA is offering Social Commentary Through Hip-Hop and Slam Poetry through the Poet House. The organization hopes that public schools will catch on and eventually slam poetry will be an accessible art for every public school student.

For now, we will just have to settle for packing into the Teahouse for some chai and good poetry every third Thursday of the month. I suppose no one’s complaining…

Capture The Flag

Roughly thirty minutes after extras and friends started arriving, the band of fun-loving rockers known as Capture The Flag rolled up casually late in a cargo of cars filled with pizza and friends. Guitar/vocalists John Davis and Zach Nance both proudly sporting vintage 80’s Ratt tees and the whole band noticeably pumped for their very first music video shoot.

It’s been four months since the conception of the local pop/punk band Capture The Flag; they have already been in AMP magazine as a featured unsigned band and very recently shot their first music video.

“We think it’s great that we’ve only been playing together for a few months and we already have so many things going for us,” said guitarist John Davis during a break from filming their new video, “Take This Bottle Of Wine & Your Infidelities To Fifth Street”. The song hits close to home, as it

“If you want to know the reason why we do it, it’s about to walk into the room,” added bassist Tyler Dominy as a couple of very attractive women walk into the already crowded loft filled with the band and all the video’s extras.

In the days and weeks leading up to Capture The Flag ‘s music video shoot, the band called everyone they knew in hopes to fill the Rise Up warehouse full of young extras to create a real life house party for their video.

“We’ve been planning on doing this video for a few months now. We’ve run into a few snags; we changed the song we are doing and that was kind of stressful. Gus, our new drummer, just started playing with us a few days ago so we had to work with that too, but we got it all together and we’re really excited” said lead guitarist and vocalist Zach Nance.

Take after take, the band became more and more comfortable with the challenges of pretending to play their music in front of an overbearing lighting set up while cameras continuously invaded their personal space. The extras, which were almost completely compiled of close friends of the band, were great at being just as stoked about the song on their last take as the first. Which was definitely a task seeing as they did fifteen takes before beginning profile shots without the party crowd.

“We’re just hoping that doing this video is going to give us a lot more exposure, and we’re having a lot of fun doing it,” said Davis, “...our next goal is to put together a five-track EP which we think is going to be really good.”

The band has about ten or eleven tracks they’ve been working on for quite a while.

“John and I have been writing together since high school and we have enough songs that now that we want to start recording our best so we can really get them to sound just how we want in the studio,” adds Nance.

Capture The Flag has quickly progressed from a few friends trying to make some good music and get noticed, to a solid pop punk band with the opportunity to make it big. Due to their uncanny ability to get along with each other combined with their undeniable talent as musicians, John, Zach, Tyler, and Gus have a great band and a niche they believe they can be successful with.

“We think it would be the coolest thing to be the hometown heroes. I hope we get there, and we have a long way to go, but it’s an cool process and we’re having a lot of fun,” ends John Davis.

ASCOCC Meeting Entices Inquiries

On January 29, the seven members of COCC’s student government sat down for their weekly meeting to discuss campus issues and happenings. With four journalists and a concerned member of the staff body attending this meeting, it was kept very professional throughout the hour and a half meeting. To kick things off, Mrs. Erin Foote Marlowe spoke as a concerned member of COCC and had a list of fallacies and solutions for them that she presented to the ASCOCC staff. The members were very patient and respectful, allowing Mrs. Marlowe the floor before arguing each point seemingly for the sake of arguing. The most time was spent on unfair funding for The Broadside, COCC’s student run paper.

“There is no mechanism for disagreements within ASCOCC,” said Marlowe.

“We have to represent the people that are personally attacking us even if they don’t want us to,” responds GREYBEARD.

After almost an hour of discussion and debate, the committee dove into their other topics of discussion. This included an info fair wrap-up, plans for many student activities. The exciting plans included a student Country Night and a possible Battle of the Bands concert to raise money for “Pennies For Peace”.

There was also an approval to spend $2,625 on 750 custom made ASCOCC t-shirts and commercial requests that included solar water heaters, green energy fuel for COCC vehicles, and more recycle bins. Members also briefly discussed doubling the bandwidth for the entire COCC campus.

Next on the agenda, the ASCOCC board had to decide whether or not to spend over $2,000 to fund a trip for the Anime Club to travel to Seattle for a Japanese culture convention. Seeing as one of the ASCOCC members is also a member of the Anime Club, the proposal passed with only one member voting no.

After all this, the weary members of ASCOCC finished their meeting discussing the approval to pay video contractor Rob Walker $3,000 for the spring term for his work on ASCOCC’s website and other jobs and duties on campus.

All in all, the seven people sitting across from each other did their job in that hour and a half, as drudging as it might have been. Money was spent; decisions were made, and there was much left to ponder over a time to come.

Don Iler: Stone-faced Killer with a Soft Side For Scotch

Sitting down with the infamous Don Iler can sometimes be tense and even painful, but not today. No, today Don Iler was on top of the world for he had just spent the afternoon at The Broadside South, the Editor-In-Chiefs’ unofficial second office located quaintly inside of The Abbey Pub.

Diving right into serious topics of discussion, Don Iler immediately began speaking about what truly grinds his gears.

“I’m really just feeling over the whole college thing, writing worthless papers about gender roles in today’s society. I don’t give a shit about gender roles honestly,” Iler admits.

In attempt to veer Don Iler away from hulking out over whether he or his future wife should bring home the bacon every day, the topic was quickly adverted to dragon slaying. When asked whether or not he would be willing to slay a dragon if the opportunity arose, Don Iler responded quickly with assurance in his voice.

“ Yes. Absolutely, because there would be proof that there really are dragons in our existence. I would slay it and bring it to the Smithsonian where it could be preserved forever,” Iler presents.

Don Iler is seemingly ruthless when it comes to dragon humanity.

“ Even if it was pink! In fact, if it were a pink dragon I would definitely slay it. Plus, then I could make pink dragon scale boots and sell them to dragon enthusiasts,” Iler explains.

Don Iler then, in the flash of an eye, drifted off into a far away land where you could only barely see it in the glint of his glossy eyes. He began talking about flying, first on a dragon and through his twisted train of thought then on an Osprey, which is a military tiltrotor aircraft. He began telling story after story about his experiences and memories of his journeys through a war many of us have never seen the true face of. All this he did without being asked a single question. Unlike most young vets, Don Iler is proud of what he did and no one could’ve explained a soldier’s point of view better than he did.

“ It was like a very long, extended, and fucked up camping trip,” he again drifts off into some far away place where his eyes seem to do nothing but replay whatever he saw over and over again, “I remember best the days with laughter. The days when we’d go out back behind the mess hall and steal a bunch of pallets for a fire. And we’d go out and find some old Israeli guy with a cheap, disgusting bottle of whiskey and pay him way to much money for it. We’d go take our pallets and our over priced, foul tasting scotch and go build a bonfire and just relax, try to forget all the fucked up shit around us. It sounds dumb, like a bunch of dude-bros hanging out in the desert getting shit-faced, but there was just something special and sacred about that camaraderie and fun dispersed in between so much violence,” he finishes, only glancing over solemnly at his conclusion.

There is pain and wisdom in Don Iler’s eyes. He has witnessed life and death first hand and along the way learned that the most precious things in life may just be those simple joys that keep us all sane.

bio, yo.

Zachary Hunt was born into a very caring family that loved him so much, their hearts actually exploded with joy when he was born. His parents lived in little Ocean Beach, California and happened to be rescuing sea turtles on the beach when Zachary's mother went into labor. So as it happens, nature had it's way and little Zachary was taken out to sea.

While floating with the baby sea turtles for the first three weeks of his life, infant Zachary was already a majestic swimmer and very keen to how the savage nature of life has no mercy, especially for little babies.

After his time with the seas turtles, savage baby Zachary found a pod of beautiful Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins who took him in as one of their own, promising to get him all the way to Alaska, where he would be taken better care of by the Gray Wolves. In his journey with the dolphins, he learned not only the ways of the water but he bacame Baby King of the Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins and was given a crown made of pure gold found by the pod in their travels through Atlantis. This crown gave small and wise baby Zacahary the power to know every answer to every question in the entire universe.

With this new found knowledge and power, little baby Zachary took all of his goodness away from the ocean to be with the Gray Wolves, where he could once again be one with earth, wind, and fire. Standing on the shore of Valdez, Alaska, little and wise baby Zachary said goodbye to the Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins in their native tounge, they did backflips and yelled day and night night in delight and thanks for being blessed to have young Zachary in their lives.

By sundown, the Gray Wolves met baby Zachary with warm smiles and clothing with promises of a feast when they arrived at the colony. As baby Zachary rose over the hilly crest leaving the beach he saw thousands and thousands of Gray Wolves playing and yelping and screaming for joy in the glory of the Alaskan Wilderness. For years, Zachary lived with the Gray Wolves, learning their mysterious ways of life. By the time he was 18, Zachary had conquered Valdez and all the surrounding area. This was not by force, but through passion and love.

Because Zachary had experienced and learned so much through mother nature, he decided to take his plethura of knowledge and beauty to SOCIETY. There he found that with the facts of life he'd gathered in his journey, he could change the world with his great knowledge and outstanding compassion. Now he is a journalism student in hopes to CHANGE THE WORLD, or at least scrounge up enough money to see the family back in Valdez.