Homemade Alcohol Stove

Here you go with a photo of my homemade camping stove, as described in my column:
http://www.shelbystar.com/portal/ASP/article.asp?ID=15172 

Easter egg hunts… like a scene from “Braveheart”

I’ve got to say some of the most exciting and scariest things I photograph are Easter egg hunts.

I remember shooting one in Wake Forest, NC. I was waiting in an open field of thousands of eggs, ready to get the shot of kids running towards me.

Then they were off. A human wave coming directly at me like a scene from “Braveheart” – scores of children, motivated by candy, whipped into a wild frenzy by processed sugar.

Have you seen footage of great white sharks toothing through chummed waters?

Suddenly they were zooming all around me, forcing a retreat to safer ground. Fall back! Fall back!

And then came the most frustrating part – trying to get the name to match a picture of a young girl in a white Easter dress in a melee of dozens of girls in white Easter dresses.

This year I was shooting the hunts on the court square in Shelby. The mass of children was smaller because they were well divided by age group. So there was a reduced “charging legion” effect. But the speed at which a few dozen kids can lay waste to an egg filled lawn still makes piranhas on a cow look lazy.

And in Shelby the parents get into it. In Wake Forest it seemed like parents held back more. But in a couple of the hunts here the folks jumped right in. And the long sidewalk worth of happy families bottlenecked as they advanced up their triangular egg field towards the courthouse like a rolling swarm of locusts, concentrating and blotting out sight of the grass.

Truth is I think it’s great fun. I’m just bitter they don’t have an egg field cordoned off for 23-year-olds.

Swiss Fighting Cows on Steroids?

Because truth is stranger than fiction....

http://www.wral.com/news/4314560/detail.html

I've heard of similar tests for racing pigeons. Yes. Pigeons.

Thankfully, my ultimate defense against any allegations of performance enhancing drug is, "Hey, really, look at my performance. Does this seem enhanced?"

Tips for a Young Scout

Hey,
I hear you want to become an Eagle Scout. I’m a three-palm Eagle so I have some advice I can give you.
Advance early and fast. I was a life scout before I finished 7th grade. You can go through the first few ranks very quickly. Looking at the tenderfoot requirements, you can wipe all but a few of those out on one camping trip.
And I don’t remember any rule saying you couldn’t be working on requirements for further ranks at the same time. That same camping trip and a swim in a pool and you’ve just about got second class. First class doesn’t have to take long either.
If you need a pool, I’ve heard Shelby High School has open swim hours. You could get together a bunch of boys to go down there and get checked out together some time. There’s also the Shelby City Park pool when it opens.
I remember taking a notebook to scout meetings. It’s good to be organized. I’d have a list of the requirements I knew I could check off that night. I’d find an adult leader, rattle off some info and advance very quickly. I saw you doing that sort of thing at your meeting. Read you handbook, know your stuff, take advantage of the opportunities to get things checked off on camping trips and try to make it to camp.
Going to camp is a great way to rack up merit badges, and those are a trick to the star and life ranks. Finding a position of responsibility won’t be hard - there’s always an opening for a scribe, guide, instructor….
Also, you probably already have enough hobbies for six merit badges right now. Doing well in school? Get your scholarship merit badge. Like to read? There’s one for books, too. You’re in the drama club -- there’s a badge for theater.
My family spends a lot of time around the water. Using our skills and equipment, or those of family friends, I was able to rack up motor boating, rowing, sailing and water skiing outside of camp for things I already knew how to do anyway. At camp I earned canoeing, lifesaving, swimming and the mile swim award without any trouble. Take advantage of your opportunities.
Once you’ve got star and life, the big trick to getting Eagle is the service project. It’s best to have a year or so for this, so don’t save it to the last minute. Again, it’s good to get through the first ranks very quickly.
The older scouts will have plenty of ideas on good projects. I did my project making and putting up signs everywhere a 20-mile local trail around a lake crossed a road. I got the idea, and a lot of support, from a local state park.
If you look at a map, there are three state parks (South Mtns., Crowder’s Mtn. and South Carolina’s King’s Mtn.) and a national battlefield (King’s Mountain) all within easy reach. If you give any of them a call I’m sure they will have plenty of projects on their wish lists.
As far as leading and conducting the project, I didn’t have to buy anything for my project. Everything was donated or done for free. I’m sure if you call around you can arrange similar deals.
The tricky think I found about my Eagle project was transportation. I was always having to get rides to and from sites because I wasn’t old enough to drive yet. But once you start driving and are in high school with lots of extracurricular activities and other great things that compete for your time.
You may get picked on some at first by other boys. I had the same things happen to me. Don’t worry too much - a lot of those kids will drop out pretty quickly. The faster you earn rank and get away from those kids the less you’ll have to deal with them.
When you get a position of responsibility, don’t overdo it at first. I’ve seen kids get some authority and get out of control. Watch the older boys in the unit - how they do things. Don’t be like Cartman on South Park.
Speaking of older boys, you’ll be one of them before you know it. When I entered my troop I remember looking up to the more advanced scouts. Then one day I looked around and I was one of the older guys.
Remember when you get to that point that you can do a lot of good for the younger guys in your troop.
You have the opportunity and obligation to pass on and repay the goodwill shown to you by those who came before.


 

"... a dominatrix chicken?"

Thanks go out to our webmaster, Chad, for giving us new ideas on how to waste time – rattling off obscure websites in his column: Net Nut, http://www.shelbystar.com/NetNut/netnut.htm.

Here’s a recent newsroom favorite: http://www.subservientchicken.com/

You type in what you want the chicken to do and you get to watch it flap, lay an egg….

But the subservient chicken begs the question: is there a website featuring a dominatrix chicken?

Is this going to involve clothespins?

Here you go (if this program will let me) with a photo from a fire last week on Zeb Cline Road. Anyone interested in contributing to relief efforts may contact the local Red Cross at 704-487-9594.

Here Frank Morrow, 11, covers his mouth at the smokey fire scene. He is the son of Glenn Morrow of the Waco Volunteer Fire Dept., and was actively helping out other emergency response personnel by carrying belongings from the burning building and doing other good deeds. Behind him you can see firefighters working. Behind them is the silhouette of the burned building.
 

"... their lucky photographer..."

I’m sorry the Crest basketball team lost the state final game last
Saturday.
It’s because they didn’t have their lucky photographer with them.
I’d shot their previous two victories. I don’t know if anyone noticed,
but in the semifinal I had the play of the game.
As the halftime buzzer went off in the earlier, quarterfinal game, one of
the Crest players put up a long shot. It bounced off one of the backboard
supports…
And came down in my outstretched left hand.
I thought that was pretty good, especially given my other hand was busy
with a camera.
But that was nothing.
During the next game’s second half I spotted the ball bounding towards
me. I extended my right foot, the sole of my running shoe angled towards
the ceiling.
The ball struck it, ricocheted upwards…
And came down in my left hand.
Dad says this shows both my soccer and basketball skills.
He also notes that my combination hand-and-foot technique would be
illegal in both sports.

"Choked with poison internet"

Tale of the poison internet

What can go wrong, will go wrong.
And when it's this photojournalist trying to get internet access at Wake
Forest University, I'm done in even before tipoff.
So I gave myself plenty of time last Tuesday to get to the basketball
coliseum for the Crest finals game. I got there early because I like to
have time to look around, check an arena out and make sure that my
computer will connect to the internet so I can email pictures back to the
paper after the game.
So, with almost two hours before game time, I tried to connect to their
wireless internet.
Nothing happened.
So I tried rebooting.
I got 'the blue screen of death', or at least that's what our IT guy,
Mark, calls it. The computer wouldn't start. I called Jeff, our photo
editor, and he suggested taking the battery out, unplugging it, nothing
worked.
Alan, our sports editor who was there, suggested my corner of the room
might have bad karma.
After the better part of an hour messing with the thing I was ready to
try anything. So I crossed the room.
The computer didn't start, but it showed more screens than the last time,
which I counted as progress.
So then I got the idea to just give up on the coliseum altogether. I went
out in the parking lot to my car. I laid the computer on my trunk.
And it started perfectly.
Now don't think I've never connected to wireless internet before. We've
had it here at the Star. I used it at school. Over at GWU's gym it's
stupidly easy. Just turn on the computer, click on Internet Explorer and
log in as a guest.
And don't think this computer is an antique. It was brand new when I got
to The Star seven months ago.
And I'm no techno-neophyte, either. Check out my sprawling personal
website from my college days: http://jderrick.bravepages.com/.
I took the laptop back to the press room and it screwed up as soon as the
wireless internet twisted its claws in again, against my best efforts, and
preventing any attempt to connect with a telephone or Ethernet cable.
THE AIR IN THERE IS CHOKED WITH POISON INTERNET. The best explanation
anyone's been able to give me is that their wireless internet is encrypted
so not just anyone can use it. Well, in that case, I'm not just anyone. I
was a member of the press using the press room. I get to do that.
I was pretty fed up. The good news is I had an out - 4th Street.
Positively.
The City of Winston-Salem has turned on wireless internet for an entire
street downtown. And I knew my computer would connect because of the last
time I'd gotten screwed over trying to cover a game at Wake Forest.
I was covering the Crest championship football game last fall. The
stadium had vendors, security, announcers. The press box had drinks,
desks, bathrooms.
But they hadn't turned their wireless internet on.
After a game journalists have to move fast to get their stories written,
photos processed and emails sent back to their faraway papers -not as
much fun with the press box's slow dial-up internet connections. But I had
a dial-up program on my computer and could make do without too much
trouble.
But about a half hour after the game some young guy came in and
said they were closing the press box. And kicking us out.
Now it' not very nice to screw over a press box full of journalists by
not even turning on the fast internet access. But then kicking us out
before we'e had time to work and send our stuff through the slow
connections is just wrong. KICKING THE PRESS OUT OF THE PRESSBOX ON
DEADLINE IS NOT A WAY TO MAKE FRIENDS.
And some of the journalists told the kid they needed more time.
So he told them he was acting on the authority of someone big and
important.
So the journalists educated him that they were in the press box. They
were the press. And they were doing their jobs.
I think I was pretty close to seeing the kid taken apart. I' not
admitting I would have helped, but I would have gotten some really good
pictures. Darn.
So the guy, who looked like one of those college-age kids who get hired
to work at a game, even if they'e never been on campus before in their
life, and really have no idea what they'e doing, said he' call security
and lock the stadium.
Boy, you think I can' handle a little barbed wire? Read my outdoors
column from last week the one about the cows.
Anyway, Alan Jenkins, one of our reporters, and I thought it might be
good to leave before the cops showed up.
So we got in his car, drove to 4th Street and filed out photos and
stories without any problem. Bless the City of Winston Salem.
So this past Tuesday after I finished covering the basketball game I
didn' even waste my time with their pressroom. My computer automatically
linked to the internet as I drove down 4th Street, I parked, processed and
emailed my photos and started back to Shelby.
So a big, fancy, expensive university can' give me internet access, but
a city street can?

Shall we Blog?

John - "Hey Ian, what should we write?"

"It's Friday, what do we blog about on Friday?" - Ian

John - "OK, now it's my turn to say something.... What will we do today,
Ian?"

"The same thing we do every day, John, TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" - Ian

John - "How many folks will get it."

"None. Skip will look at us like we're morons. The rest won't understand"
- Ian