Blitzed in a good way

As you may notice, I've been tardy on writing in the past week and a half. After all was said and done, it turned into a long long long stretch of highway that got me from Calgary out to Whitecourt and around the region. After I got back, I still feel like cat-napping in the summer sun after work is done.

A long weekend let me hang out with my Sharon for an extra couple days. However, I sure felt a squeeze of compressing the five day week in four though. Telephone tag for interviews and getting all my articles written? Barely... It worked out in the end though and I learned lots from it. Admitting I need more sleep too. Here's a link to a few articles from Drayton Valley:

Fallen soldiers honoured in mural - Drayton Valley Western Review
Keeping the hampers full at area food banks - Drayton Valley Western Review
Coach, board look forward to season ahead - Drayton Valley Western Review

Very busy town and I hated to go as they were just welcoming as the previous towns and it's been a real pleasant experience on my road-trip to cover other reporters' holidays. So I'm back in Whitecourt and sleeping in my own bed, cooking meals and cleaning my room up after returning home.

Total odometer reading from town to town? just shy of 800km in 25 days logged for work and about 1500 to see my Sharon in Camrose. Totally worth it for catching up on peace & quiet / quality time.

More on long haul driving in a little while -- and I admit, I'm not as speedy on 'to be continued' at times so just like everything else, make a task list and get'ter done when I can as ideas come up while I'm writing and I need to catch up on them on occasion.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a few of my stories were posted on the home newspaper that I had written before I left on the road:

Oilmen open clubhouse doors to the community - Whitecourt Star
Neighbours become friends at original block party - Whitecourt Star

So there you are with it being a bit compressed. As I originally started this blog to share stuff with my parents, friends and family and it's gotten a bit bigger than that now ^_^ I know I already posted that block party story. It's one of my favourites so far and it's a tiny bit exciting to see my articles on the Whitecourt Star website, a legit newspaper online ^_^

So you might notice a shift to less actual articles as I post them on the company website and would feel like I was doing it twice over. However, it'll be more of a journal of the journey taken to get those articles come together. I hope I don't bore people, but really there's all kinds of neat stuff and small miracles that happen when getting things done by deadline.

Still bound by FOIP and respecting privacy of people I interview. Yet some of the little stuff that happens can be really nifty and some of the theory put into practice would be good reflections as well. Thanks for bearing with me as I change the tempo. With journal writing, but for a journalist that's a paradox. It's both play on words and sometimes reality as I have so much happening, it'd be nice to be able to figure out what happened the past week a few weeks from now. Especially when I'm journal-ing other people's lives 98% of the time. Such is news-worthiness -- an eternal struggle of what to print since newspapers were born.

Much as I hate to say, oh read my blog if you want to know what I been up to lately. Much the same as my camera serves as a photo journal at times. It won't be overload of TMI and I still plan to have fun links, stories and opinion pieces -- Stuff I don't have enough space in my pages in the newspaper.

And there's so much paradox between natural beauty and reality of the economy up here so tons to write about. It's been an eye-opener of a road-trip.

Good times still to come but for now? Sleep time.

-- PLR -- 

$50 reward for apprehension of losers

Retired citizen Don Maxwell is declaring open season on pesky Friday night partiers who have knocked over and broken antlers off his lawn ornament Dogpatch late at night July 22.


PS that was the actual headline and I was pretty happy to write it.... people can be so stupid. What I didn't write was the elderly guy's more grumpy response that he'd hunt those party animals himself if he wasn't so old and shaky with a gun. And again I love the country-side feisty spirit.

Cops on trail of copper thieves

By Philip Rushton

Late last week, $1,000 of heavy gauge copper wiring was stolen from Open Energy Corporation's job site.

“There's on-going investigation with the operator's group and police,” said Brian Tweedy, Open Energy Corporation Superintendent.

World-wide copper prices have gone up in the past three months, rising to over $4 per pound.

“With a couple of big spools, you have to melt it down or scrap it,” said Marcel Preville, manager at Edson Home Hardware.

Thieves have stolen piping from air conditioning units and leaving electrical and telephone companies sub-stations in dangerous situations and customers without power.

“You have to be pretty ambitious to do all that work,” Preville said. “There has to be a easier way to make a living.”

RCMP have been working together with companies to help prevent theft so selling stolen goods will be harder.

“It's irritating to have to deal with this,” said Tweedy, “but it's not going unnoticed and won't be ignored.”


PS I wish I had copied the link to this brilliant cartoon blogger who had come to the same un-funny punny lame play on words that I tried to work into the headline. Thanks!