Monday Mumbles

It’s Monday afternoon and I have plenty of information to mumble about, some good, some frustrating.
Let’s start with the good first.

1. My girlfriend officially moved in yesterday. So, yep it’s official and it’s going well so far :) We both know it’s a big step, but we are both ready and both want to do this.

2. To celebrate (not really a celebration) we went to dinner at Applebees and shopped at the (devil) Walmart.

3. She had an interview at the local hardware store, which will be opening soon, this afternoon. It was a quick interview and she was offered a full-time job with good pay, woot! She goes in tomorrow morning for some training.

4. My dad and younger sisters might be coming to visit on Memorial Day weekend. I can tell my dad really wants to come visit, but can’t find a time to get anyone else to come with him. But Memorial Day weekend looks promising. I hope they visit :)

5. I start my summer league ultimate frisbee on Wednesday evening. Should be fun. I played a pick-up game last Wednesday and played well. I even “skied” a guy for a score. Short white boys can jump!!

6. Ok, the frustrating news. I had 2 emails today from people complaining about the sports coverage I do. Neither had valid complaint, but it urgs me!!

7. The first one — I assume from a parent or maybe grandparent of a boy golfer — mad about how I supposedly cover the best boy golfer too much. I run a lot of photos of him and the stories are all about him. The truth — I’ve run 2 photos of him in almost 2 months on the job and I’ve interviewed him once - a month ago. Last week’s story was about him because he was the league runner-up and the team finished 7th of 8 schools. I mentioned all of the varsity kids’ names and scores and it was a short article, so not all about the best kid.

8. Time to rant: I’m sorry to all parents or relatives that think their kid is the greatest athlete and should get more playing time or more coverage from the newspaper. Wake up people! I wasn’t that good at many sports. I became decent at running and had my name in the paper a few times, but I wasn’t the best kid so I didn’t get covered a lot - that’s life. My parents didn't complain - that I know about — and they wouldn’t. If you’re kid is the 3rd or 4th best on a bad team, feel good they got mentioned in the article at all, especially during a busy sports season. He or she may have played well, but if they aren’t producing results that people look for - the top 1 or 2 or 3 - then it’s not a big deal to the press. Sorry! The top kids get most of that coverage - people wanna read about who won or who came close, not the guy who placed 30th out of 40. Just be glad your kid got mentioned in the paper and if he or she is enjoying the sport, then be glad. Stop worrying about if a newspaper article is about him. Let me do my job and I won’t come down and tell you how to do your job better. I wish I could do that to many people, but it’s not my place.

9. Whew! That stuff fires me up, especially since I’ve been on the job 6 weeks. I had another email about the state youth bowling tourney that was in town the past 5 or 6 weekends. I went out and took pics, but it’s hard to get good ones in bowling and the kids never seemed excited to be there. Plus, it was kinda boring, but I did a bit of coverage. I haven’t had space to run the stuff yet, b/c I have 4 sports (boys and girls both, so 8 teams) playing at the high school,  plus 4 jr. high teams right now. The bowling alley owner writes me asking why there was no article last week. I got the email a day after we finished our paper, but I’m going to do an article this week. I’m sorry but school district sports take precedence over youth bowling, any sports writer would agree.

10. Enough ranting, I feel better. I got a busy night of work and a busy week and weekend. Wish me luck!