Almost Famous

Guess who was front and center in the newspaper today! I was, I was! I've had two articles in the paper now: one about a court TV show and one about a high school play. You can check them online at www.enquirerjournal.com. I'll have two coming out on Sunday.

I'm going to be covering most of the court stuff for the county, but I told the editor that I love doing features, too; hence the story about the high school play. Here's a run-down of what I've been up to:

Monday, I got to work at 8:30 (which means waking up at 6:00 cuz it takes me a long time to get to work) and as soon as I got there, the editor and I walked up the street to the courthouse. She introduced me to a lot of people and when we got back to the office, I started writing an article.

Tuesday was long. 11 hours of work. Again, I got to work at 8:15, put my lunch in the fridge and walked up the street to the...well I forgot what the building is called, but it's by the courthouse. I got to sit in on the first taping of the court TV show, which is going to be on the local station in the county. Basically, it's to educate people on the court system...I promise it's not as boring as it sounds. Then I had lunch with a Superior Court judge and felt a little out of my element in his white Lexus, but he was really nice and answered a lot of questions for me.

Wednesday and Thursday I worked on a couple different stories. Wednesday is when I went to the high school. It's an artsy school, so they have big productions. I walked in wearing my heels and carrying my laptop bag because that's what I take to hold my notepads, pens, etc. and I felt really old. When I walked around to the auditorium, I didn't see the drama teacher I was going to interview, but a bunch of students were sitting at tables across the room. I walked over to one table and asked if they knew where the teacher was. They didn't, so I told them what I was doing.

Their reaction: "We're going to be in the paper?!" It was great. I sat down to interview a few of them and the first guy told me I look "kinda young to be a reporter."

But it went really well and I got to sit through some of the dress rehearsal. One of the photographers came while I was there and took some great shots.

Today, I finished up a few things and drove down the street to the senior center to interview someone on financial planning for retirees. The center is right next to my favorite house on the street. It's a huge white house with bay windows and I think a porch. One of the photographers lives 2 houses down and told me today that the Belk family used to live there...Belk department store. The photographer almost bought it in the 80s because he's in real estate, but ended up not getting it. He said it's two stories, plus a huge attic where they had a "skating parlor." Like a skating rink, but smaller. I plan to put the house on wheels someday and plant it somewhere else so I can live in it.

I told him to kick out the people living there now and let me rent it for $400 a month. He said the house has had several owners because after people buy it, they decide it's overwhelming. Too bad the Brady Bunch isn't still around.

Anyway, right now I'm getting ready to meet some of my coworkers and Sara in No-Da for the gallery crawl. No-Da stands for North Davidson and on the weekends they open the art galleries and some places have live music. Then off to the airport to pick up Pete! I hope he has better luck with his luggage than I did.

Adios!