2011. My year...in pictures

 

Started the year with Reno Friends.  Sharon Spangler and Denise Clodjeaux.

I love these two kids.  A lot.

And here we are with the Bests.  Debi was Carly's babysitter back when I was a single parent.

Family Reunion in Las Vegas.  Here are sisters Penny and Paula

Papa-Daughter Moment

My Dad and his Nephew Tom Wiechmann, son of my Uncle Earl Wiechmann.  

Just a couple of years separate them; they grew up as brothers.

Trying to rally folks for a group photo

Our children are beautiful

This was a bad idea.

Dad initially didn't think he could climb the hill to the bridge.

But he did.

Attending "O"

My crazy cousin Doug and equally crazy Uncle Wilbur

Dad scared us a bit in February.  He was in ICU for awhile and then rehab.

Summit League Tournament Hijinks in March

Overtime.  Lady Jacks.

Dad was feeling good enough to supervise in April.

That Bob is a brute

Pat, also.

Typical cutthroat card game at Easter.

Spoons.

We vowed to always take pictures, whenever we gather

Even if we are dressed in traveling clothes.

The Twins were a disappointment but we still enjoyed lots of Royals games starting in April

I think the Royals won this game.

In June we bought a house.  And started looking carefully at every receipt

The kids came to help us move and to celebrate...

John's Birthday!  (Also in June)

We splurged on a tailgating canopy

Team colors.

Carly helped paint the kitchen

In tight spaces

And managed to paint herself too.

The Missouri River flooded, hampering our trips to South Dakota all summer long

Dad and Mom came to Kansas City to visit and see the WWI Museum in July

Two of the three most important men in my life.

Pat's 50th Birthday was an opportunity for us to wear our fancy hats in late July

He was surprised!

My sibs

John and I went to Joplin in August.  This is tornado damage a little more than two months later.

Also in August, I walked in the Komen Race for the Cure in honor of my mother-in-law Bernice Phillip.

And Cynthia Newsome

Here's Carly after a mountain biking mishap. 

She rehabbed in KC for few days and we took in a Sporting KC match.

So cute, that Jimmy!

Carly had a birthday

Charlie met friends in The Cauldron

Small Class of '75 reunion at Two Spurs in September

BFF!  Cheryl (Broz) Deibert is the person outside my family who has known me the LONGEST.  And she still tolerates me.  We had fun catching up (again)

The Chiefs season soon went south.

September conference in New Orleans

Two incredible women.

John hit a jackpot!

Attended a wedding in Memphis in October.

Rekindled a friendship with Miami pals in November

Charlie at a bouldering competition in November

Charlie helped decorate the tree in December

Dottie ornament.

Best. Game. Ever.  Chiefs stun the Packers at Arrowhead

Christmas number one in South Dakota

Christmas number two in Kansas City

NBC Action News in 2011

This made me cry. Ron? Love ya man

3 reasons why journalists could make good entrepreneurs

A few months back, I went full time with AdYapper, an early stage startup in the ad space. Since around that time, I’ve been thinking of reasons why I think journalists could make good entrepreneurs.

Why is this important? Newsrooms continue to lay off reporters, and starting a business could be a great alternative to a path in the communications field, which is where many journalists go once they’re done in the news business.

Read more here:
3 reasons why journalists could make good entrepreneurs:

Desperate move.

Sick holiday movie that always amuses me.

How to cover the death of a popular meteorologist

Here is Aaron Barnhart's take. I can assure you that although the decisions were most difficult at WDAF, we also struggled with how to tell and how much to tell about how Don Harman died.

Fox 4 struggles with death of meteorologist Don Harman - KansasCity.com

WCCO’s Chinatown Dog Meat Story

IRE and RTDNA need to do seminars on this incident at the next conventions.  Best case scenario is that the news director, reporter, producer (anyone who had their hands on it) participates in a panel discussion on what happened.  We can all learn from this.

Here’s WCCO’s Chinatown Dog Meat Story

48 years ago

I still remember the day when my president was killed. I was in the first grade. We were sent home early from school. I was wearing red boots and there were slippery patches of ice on the road. When I got home, both parents were watching TV.

They watched TV for three days.

We all did.

Modern Dallas coming to grips with Kennedy assassination

Powerful.

I hate it when this happens...watch all the way to the end.

This guy cracks me up.

Viewfinder BLUES: Some Kind of Monster: In an industry that keeps hiring younger and cheaper, it's almost impossible to age gracefully. And while I'm no longer the Velociphotog I ...

I love this.

A story of old-school entrepreneurial journalism:

When was the last time you received a personal letter in the mail? I received one recently from a woman I met at the Society of Professional Journalists conference in New Orleans in September and it totally made my day.

Becky Dickerson is the editor and publisher of The Community Current in tiny St. John, Wash. We “met” when Dickerson spoke up in the first of two sessions I did about entrepreneurial journalism at the conference and offered a quick version of her story: She started a community newspaper 17 years ago and serves 1,000 homes with a 24-page tabloid that prints every six weeks. (She was kind enough to include a copy of the paper with her letter.)

The town had been without a newspaper for 20 years when Dickerson decided to go into the business of news armed with a journalism degree and an affection for the town of St. John, which she calls “amazing.” (Her husband Todd runs the family farm.) She started the business with a simple letter to businesses asking them to advertise and a credit card to charge her printing expenses.

I spend most of my time talking about shiny new digital startups and the transformation of news in the digital age. But the basic principles that decide whether those businesses work or not are the same that Dickerson used. She met a need in the market and has been rewarded with a career as editor and publisher. While I’ve never visited St. John, I have to believe the community is stronger and much better informed because of her efforts. I wish I had met her in time to include her story in my new book.

Congratulations, Becky. And thanks for the letter.

Tip of the hat to the Pitch!

It's sweeps month. We give you a different reason to yell at your TV during the local news:

The days of KCTV Channel 5 busting dudes who have set out to bang underage kids? They’re likely over.…

[ Read more ]

This could be as close as we get to an NBA season.

Somebody has an NBA-themed washroom floor because it’s completely appropriate:
We don't know who built, uses or abuses this particular basketball court, but it is worth posting with the abject lack of basketball source material floating around the World Wide Web these days.

It's a bathroom floor painted like an NBA frontcourt. Complete with charge line under the, uh, rim.




As relayed to SB Matt Ryan earlier Wednesday, most of us would have Steve Kerr-type range for most of the day, but that dissipates into Joel Anthony-type range at certain points following a ride home from our local public house early on Sunday morning.

(Seriously, though ... a charge half-circle?)

(Via Midwest Sports Fans.)

Wow. Terrible timing or perfect orchestration by police?

Gil Scott-Heron Was Right:
The revolution is definitely not going to be televised












That ought to win them a local Emmy. The only thing it was missing was “A-bidi A-bidi A-bidi… That’s all folks!” and some Looney Tunes outro music…

Addictive website

Talk about short stories, here's a blog by a guy who wanted to write 101 words of fiction five days a week.  Read my one of my favorites and then click the random entry tab.

Again and again.

Excellent advice on protecting credibility

How to Manage Corrections, Clarifications & Retractions

One (correct) response to why the media should not turn over raw tape

I want!

Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera:

We present the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera which captures a full spherical panorama when thrown into the air. At the peak of its flight, which is determined using an accelerometer, a full panoramic image is captured by 36 mobile phone camera modules.

[Via @Johl; Images courtesy of Jonas Pfeil, CC]

Here we go again

Kansas City Stations Refuse to Share Raw Footage with Investigators in Lisa Irwin Case - TVSpy

A Profound Workday

The 5 Principles of a Profound Workday:

‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’ ~Laozi

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Let us toss out all we know for a moment.

Toss notions of productivity, time management, efficiency, and the bottom line.

Empty our workdays of all we’ve packed them with, and sit still with an empty room.

What should we put in this room? Do we want to spend our limited space on busy-ness, on making money, on quick transactions and calculated meetings?

What if we put into it only that which matters? What if we left everything else out?

We would be left with a workday that was poetry, profoundly beautiful.

(click the link above to read the rest!)

Parenthood

Parenthood.  Funny thing.  This morning on my walk, my iPod on "shuffle," this Enya song came on and I started thinking about a part of the lyrics:

One by one my leaves fall.
One by one my tales are told.

At 54, I'm staring mortality right in the face.  My children, at 29 and 24 years, respectively, no longer need me (except for cash, sometimes).

Jacquelyn Mitchard wrote a book entitled "Deep End of the Ocean" that I read even before it got onto Oprah's hit parade.  And because of that book, I bought another written by her.  "The Rest of Us" is a compilation of her columns and on our recent trip to New Orleans, I re-read it on the plane.

Her description of parenthood goes like this:

"...our sons and daughters are only passing through.  At first, they are of you, born to come to your arms.  Rapidly, they are with you, pausing only long enough for you to dab a few hurried strokes of paint on the canvas they are becoming--they are on their way to belonging to themselves, and then to the world.  If we are lucky, they always will consider our home their harbor, but they are headed out to the open sea, almost from the first."

I still consider the farm six miles north of Wagner, SD my harbor.  But which home, of the many we've had, will my children consider their harbor?  Germantown?  Kansas City?  Somewhere else?

I wonder.

More on the assault of a Milwaukee photojournalist

Your Right to Know: Photojournalist’s arrest is troubling incident

MICHELLE VETTERKIND | president and CEO of Wisconsin Broadcasters Association | Posted: Friday, October 7, 2011 6:00 am
On Sept. 19, Clinton Fillinger was arrested while doing his job — perhaps because he was doing it.
The 68-year-old veteran photojournalist, employed by Milwaukee’s WITI Fox6, was filming a house fire from behind yellow police tape.
A Milwaukee police sergeant approached and ordered Fillinger to move back, “all the way back.” Fillinger’s video appears to show him moving backward as he challenges the order: “If the public is out here, I’m allowed to be out here.”
Read more on Madison.com

This is getting ridiculous

Occupy Wall Street Arrests; Fox 5 Crew and Protesters Hit by Pepper Spray, Batons

Giant.

Steven Jobs on June 12, 2005

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Wah wah wah in the Big Apple.

 This made me laugh:

"If you are not a Yankees or Red Sox fan — and rumor has it, the behemoths have not swallowed everyone — there is nothing quite like watching this two-for-one panic special. And Yankees panic is like no other kind. It’s like watching the guy in the brand-new Mercedes cursing out traffic on the George Washington Bridge with his forehead veins bulging. It’s a personal affront. Why doesn’t this traffic just move aside for us?! Why didn’t we buy better pitchers?! Somehow, it’s all A-Rod’s fault!"

Read more from the NY Times.

How the time do fly.

35 Years Ago Today, Barbara Walters Became the Nation’s Highest Paid Journalist - TVNewser