Wednesday, May 24, 2006

2006 Oregon Kids Guide

Well the folks at the Statesman Journal posted the 2006 Oregon Kids Guide on their Web site.

Lately the sections I work on have been hit or miss when it comes to being online. For example, I am doing a weekly RV/Motorcycle/Boat page that never makes it online -- so I rarely see it.

Anyway, this is a project for the Oregon Travel Commission and is put in chambers, visitor centers and attractions throughout the state. I got the opportunity to write and take photos for six of the stories in the magazine.

It's a pretty cool project. A lot of the kids in the book have their lives together more than some of the adults I have interviewed. Here it is, enjoy!

2006 Oregon Kids Guide

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

RICHTFEST!!!

Well last week I covered a German Richtfest in Mount Angel. In Mount Angel they are all about Bavarian history and, well, drinking.

Each summer they have the Oktoberfest! and the entire downtown looks like a small Bavarian village. They are building a Edelweiss Village with a Glockenspiel (clock tower with carved wooden figures that dance on the hour, every hour) and decided they needed another reason to party.

Enter the Richtfest -- or Christmas in May. They put a tree at the top of the building and wreaths to indicate how good the builder is. One wreath, the builder stinks and has to pay for the party, two wreaths they are decent and three wreaths they rock is how it breaks down. The builder got three wreaths -- shocking I know.

Anyway, I took some photos and wrote two stories on the event. A short one for the Statesman Journal Business page which can be found here.

The other is a larger story with photos (the paper version had several photos and was a nice spread) which can be found here.

Hope all is going well with you.

Off to write about my coast trip...

Pat

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The weak, er week, in names

Well, this week has been challenging. I have had every strange and alternate spelling of names you can imagine. Here is the short list

Thena
Dane
Mohsen
Tibby
Tami

It's been challenging -- but a long time ago I learned that the FIRST question you ask is: "How do I spell your name?" Then you read it back to them. Nothing destroys your credibility as a newspaper writer faster than getting names wrong. OK, maybe adding a zero to a budget story would, but who likes budget stories?

Anyway, made the front page of the Silverton Appeal this week with a story about a developer and building that are going to be awarded a state-wide award for downtown revitalization. It was fun.

Wolf Building wins award

Stay safe,

Pat

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

More East Valley Stories

Sorry for the lack of updates last week. Cindy, Violet and I were at the Oregon Coast hanging out and playing in the sand. Violet discovered that sand doesn't taste good and that it's fun playing with bubbles.

I am contemplating putting up photos of the trip, but I haven't figured it out yet, so maybe I will put up a link to the Shutterfly album we are making.

Anway here are some other East Valley (Silverton and Stayton) stories I have done.

Covered Bridge Coffeehouse
This is a basic new business story and I also shot the photo.

Seniors Drive for Safety
This story was originally written for Senior Life, but they ran out of space and so the Silverton paper picked it up. I also shot the photo for this too.

I have a bunch of new assignments coming up, so I will be updating this as they come online. Over my "vacation" I did a bunch more interviews for Oregon.com and the Statesman is doing a new weekly RV page I am helping to put together.

Stay safe,

Pat