I am writing this blog from a special guest location: the newsroom at KOMU-TV. It's 12:30 am and I am hanging out and talking to Rod and the morning producer. Amazing how that seems like an odd statement to make now considering I spent most of 2001-2003 hanging out at KOMU and talking to Rod.

I really don't want to go into too much detail right now, but I'm doing a personal video type project that has me shooting, editing, and even writing (!) a story. Keep in mind I haven't written a script for a story since um... 2003. I think. 

It seems only fitting that I would do it in the same newsroom where I started this whole TV news journey. I remember when it began, too. August 17, 1999, my 19th birthday. Just before the start of my sophomore year, I came out to ask if there were any odd jobs I could do out at the station. Lots of students do it, it's still the best way to get involved. And they gave me something to do... 5 minutes after I walked through the door. I was standing in the newsroom when one of the reporters, Raquel... I can't think of her last name... said she needed to shoot a standup nearby and needed someone to help her. She saw me, asked if i was doing anything, then we headed out to the standup. With next to no experience with a camera, I shot her standup that afternoon. And as far as I can remember, it looked ok.  

Whirlwind to 10 years later, and I'm here again. It feels no different now than it did then.

Got to go edit now. I'm a lot faster at that now, I know that for certain. I can't believe I would stress out over 3 hours to edit a story. I would give my left eye for three hours to edit a story these days.

So for the first new blog here on the site, let me reveal a deep dark secret about myself. (See, I know how to get attention.)

I have a problem where in I buy books more than I read them. There's nothing I like more than to wander the aisles at my nearest bookstore, be it Borders, Barnes and Noble, or the many great local bookstores here in St. Louis, which I need to check out a lot more in days to come. Of course, I come out of the aisles with a stack of new volumes to add to my collection. Or, which I am doing more of these days: I will see the book, pick it up, read a little of it, note the title and go home and buy it on Amazon. (Advantage, me.)
 
The issue comes up when I actually get the books home. I like books, I like the concept, it's just that the reading... with time committments and such, it's a challenge. So this acquisition without comprehension has left me with a rather sizable surplus of books. I've got 'em, but I haven't read 'em.

So, as part of the New Year's Plan to tell a better story, I figure I need to read some better stories. I took all of my unread books and put them into what I now refer to as the Book Box.

It's just an old milk crate with 25 books I've never read in it. The topics vary from God to Pistol Pete Maravich, as evidenced by the two books on top there. It includes authors like Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Krakauer and Feinstein.

There's also two out of the box and on my nightstand which I'm plodding through now, The Long Snapper by Jeffrey Marx (So far, so good) and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genuis by Dave Eggers (OK, kinda plodding and self-aggrandizing, but he warned me in the prologue of that).

So the grand total is 27 books, probably closer to 26 because I'm partway through the two on my stand, so that leaves 26 books in 52 weeks, or 2 weeks a book to finish them all by the end of 2010. I will review them as I see fit here if you care about what I think about what I read.

Oh, and there will be other blogs here too. Maybe more dark secrets. See, I can keep you coming back, too!