Predictable Outcome: Another Blown Winter Weather Forecast in Maryland

I’ve stocked up on milk, bread and toilet paper. I have gasoline in the generator. I’ve backed the truck onto to the driveway and brought the snow shovel in from the shed. I’m ready for the winter storm that will be “dumping 2-4 inches of snow across the area beginning after midnight tonight.”

I’m watching TV and am somewhat distracted by the weather alert broadcast by the local networks and moving across the bottom of my screen. If that weren’t enough, I notice the snowflake icon in the upper left hand corner of the picture with the word “Warning” underneath it. For the last 12 hours I’ve heard from the local meteorologists about the coming winter storm. The National Weather Service has issued a “Winter Storm Warning” for most of Maryland. Wow! This must be it! The Big One!

Heading home from work, I notice the Maryland State Highway dump trucks, plows attached and salt spilling out of their beds, sitting, waiting, in the median of I-95 - a good 9 hours before the first flake was due to fall. Pick-up trucks, more than I can count, pass me by, also with plows attached and salt spreaders in their beds, hoping for that big snow that Chief Meteorologist Tom Tasselmyer says is on its way. Continue reading Predictable Outcome: Another Blown Winter Weather Forecast in Maryland

Of Civil Unions and Civil Rights: Gay Fathers Testify in Annapolis

A cold wind whips through Annapolis on a Monday night, but the crowd is untouched. Several hundred people gather next to the Governor’s Mansion for a demonstration. Every ten feet or so someone holds up a sign with a district number. Police orbit the crowd waiting for trouble, but mostly giving directions.

It looks like any rally you’d see during legislative session in Maryland, until you notice the two young men in business attire clutching each other close to get warm. And the signs that read, “I Love My Two Gay Dads.”

It’s the movement for same sex marriage and tonight they are going to see their representatives in Annapolis. What only a few years ago seemed a wild dream has become a movement. And it’s a movement that appears to be getting stronger by the day.

Continue reading Of Civil Unions and Civil Rights: Gay Fathers Testify in Annapolis

Saying Goodbye to the Year of the Pig

2007, year of the pig. Lest we forget, in this time of times, these things that may well be forgotten, and in no particular order:

1. America woke up and noticed that its infrastructure was collapsing - in July during a New York City steam explosion and then again in August when a highway bridge in Minneapolis disintegrated into the Mississippi during rush hour, leaving 12 dead. America thought that was too bad, then rolled over and went back to sleep. No word on how the nation’s little things like, say, the power grid, suspension bridges, or tunnels feel on the matter.

2. Can’t forget the Great Boston Aqua Teen Hunger ForceTerror Bombing Campaign in January, where stupid Lite-Brite signs of stupid 10 pixel robots placed around the city as a movie promotion brought the Homeland Security Dept to it’s knees. Continue reading Saying Goodbye to the Year of the Pig

2008: The Merciful End of The State Quarter

In 1999, I was traipsing somewhat aimlessly through my early college years, playing in rock and roll bands, working the register at a music store, and writing heartfelt vignettes about my blissful suburban childhood. And, I was excited about quarters.

The 50 State Quarters Program had just launched – nay, galloped – into the American consciousness with the Paul Revere-esque Delaware edition, which depicted the brave, ailing Caesar Rodney, blazing through the night en route to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to declare the nation’s independence.

My dad had long since bequeathed to me his collection of bicentennial quarters, which are forever locked in a square, glass-block coin bank. Now, instead of keeping an eye out for the rarely-passed-on 1976 favorite, I would have nine years’ worth of new quarters to collect. At first I carefully dropped the new state quarters into the glass bank, letting the Massachusetts Minuteman and the Statue of Liberty mingle with the stoic Continental drummer of the 1976 edition.

Back then I would trade my own regular quarters for the new State quarters. Now, on the cusp of 2008, the grand finale year for the State Quarter project, I’m sick of the whole thing. Continue reading 2008: The Merciful End of The State Quarter

Camera Obscura: A Smalltown Photographer’s Guide to Covering International Politics

I am a photojournalist for a smallish daily newspaper in the Baltimore/DC area. NO, NOT that one.

To apply for credentials to cover the Annapolis Peace Conference, hereby known as the APC, because I’m so tired of typing the word ‘conference,’ required filling out an application with the standard personal info and numbers over a secure email program you had to download.

You also had to send in a photograph of yourself, sized at the odd 1- and-3/8th inches. After asking around the newsroom, I had to call my wife who figured out that meant 1.377 in computer talk.

All was diligently completed before the holiday and a confirmation email was received. Things were looking good. Let me add, I was really looking forward to this. The eyes of the world on my town; my coverage area. I don’t care what it is, if it happens in my town, I shoot it. So it’s especially great when something actually happens. Continue reading Camera Obscura: A Smalltown Photographer’s Guide to Covering International Politics

I is for International Imbroglio

Starting this is hard. I promised to have this done by Sunday night, and here it is Saturday night and 20 words down. I needed a deadline to actually produce, so I told Matt Sunday night. So here I am, the wife and baby asleep, trying to produce.Matt asked me what I was going to write about. “Something geopolitical,” I said. Smart sounding way a of saying I’m not sure. “Something geopolitica,l” it can really cover an endless body of blathering, as I hope we will soon find.

Maybe an introduction first, I’ve been on the boards but this is my first story. My name’s Joshua. 34, married 7 years, one daughter. Professional journalist, photojournalist in detail. Been in “the business” 8 years, now working at a daily newspaper in the Baltimore/DC area. No, not that one. Not that one either. The plan was to slowly move up the ladder and land at one of the big guys, then sit back and work for thirty years. It seems, however, that when I wasn’t looking the ladder had caught fire and maybe it wasn’t going as high as we were led to believe in the first place.

Continue reading I is for International Imbroglio

« Previous Page