The blog returns, 12 days 'til Christmas

"Mountain Moonrise," 5 x 7 Christmas card

The blog is back, after almost three months of mishaps and adventures and plenty of painting.

Blame my computer which crashed just after Sept. 18, and was not reparable--after 13 years. I didn't want to replace it immediately because of the cost, and I'm very experienced at procrastinating. Even when I finally indebted myself for a new one, about a month ago, I still couldn't seem to move myself to the keyboard.

But today, as Christmas nears, I made myself return to my tradition of posting my Christmas card countdown. Our family list of cards to send approaches 100, and last year, instead of doing individual paintings for everyone, I bought a good printer, did about a dozen, printed them and mailed away. 

Today's post is one of about 11 originals this year, then printed to cover the lists that I and Susan keep. 

That's the story, the excuse, for bringing the blog back to life out of its hibernation.

The blog has obviously changed over the years as I have, and this will be the year with he fewest posts, although one year also had two months without publishing. 

I'll bring you up to date with photos and paintings before the year ends.

An opinionated journal of years of changes at UCO-Part 2

The W. Roger Webb Forensic Science Institute at entrance to campus

Harold Holden sculpture of Broncho

"building a student-conscious campus"

(An unsanctioned look back at UCO--personal opinion)

Everyone has pet peeves and pet projects, I believe. That is certainly true  of the journalists I've known. Certainly of my professor colleagues. And over the years I've realized it is true as well of university administrators, no matter the level.
There's no judgment in that, because pet peeves and pet projects are neither bad nor good on their face.
What I came to value in my years at the University of Central Oklahoma were colleagues and superiors who could be detached enough to view their personal opinions and interests in a fair manner...working to make sure that they could work for the overall benefit of students and the university as a whole.

Entrance to campus

 And I dreaded those who were so self-centered that they could not be fair, would put personal projects and beliefs before the common good. That destructive behavior can harm or destroy  every level of the university, from staff operations, to classrooms,  departments, colleges and the university as a whole. Such unethical existence is the very opposite of the standards of professionalism educated, or any others for that matter, people should exhibit.
Even more dreaded were those micro-managers who would take disagreement or differences personally, and hold grudges and seek vengeance against those who didn't kowtow to all their wishes.
I've known both kinds, and realize every profession have those opposites. We've been fortunate over the years at UCO to have more of the positive people than the negative.
Looking back at the changes at UCO,  in this top-down administrative world of Oklahoma, that is certainly true of the four people who have been president.
I began this journal series, documenting the visual, physical plant changes at UCO which were not here when I started. It's been a continuing process of building, for the most part,  a more student-conscious campus.
George Nigh's pet projects in his five years here served the university as a whole, taking it from a stuck-in-the-status quo world as a commuter college. I may poke fun at all the fake Greek columns and hodge-podge architecture around campus that is part of his heritage, but for the vast majority of his  projects immensely benefited the university.
When Roger Webb took over as president in 2007, serving until 2011, the university was starting to explode in  enrollment, but it lacked needed improvements you couldn't see--infrastructure.
When I arrived, we had one computer in the department. There were no computer labs on campus. Through the early years I cobbled together, missing funds, an early Mac lab. President Webb came to a campus with few if any computer labs on campus, and there was almost no coordination for fees to pay for coordinating and updating them. His hiring and focus on that need changed the way the university operated, and looks.

Nigh's addition that joined two department buildings

In addition, I'm forever grateful that he pushed, and then Provost Don Betz authorized, the merger of the Journalism Department and Oral Communication department that housed broadcast. Nigh's addition joined the building, but not the people inside. I'd been working on that needed change for almost five years, and it took a couple more before it happened. 
We were fighting against academic turf and tradition, plus years of ill will between the two and unequal distribution of resources to students, but it made no sense to have two separate departments, given the changes in communication. That was my pet peeve and project. We still have a neglected building--student study areas, computer labs, faculty bathrooms, etc.--but at least we're merged, and still working on it.
Thus was born today's Mass Communication Department. It wouldn't have happened if it had not been for Roger Webb and Don Betz.
Webb had his pet projects as well--from his background in law enforcement, and academic turf claims were overrode by presidential fiat (another word I've always wanted to use)--thus the School of Criminal Justice came to be, splitting from Sociology, and the building of the Forensic Science Building, now named after Webb.
When I first came, I was told we'd soon build a classroom building because we needed more space. We still need more space.  Twenty years later, the Transformative Learning Center was built, though not every department has access to its classrooms. "Transformative learning" is one of the principles now enshrined in UCO's mantra, knowing there's more to learning than lectures. Those of us somewhat old sarcastic types claim we've been doing this for years, and jibe at it as the "learning learning" center, since all learning is "transformative." But it's great to have a new building, with great technology and more space. It is really cool.
Other improvements included  a wellness center,  new student housing, and additions to the football stadium, a continuing pet project of administrators, but not of most faculty, nor most students who never attend games. There are many other atheltic facility improvements for other sports.
But sculptures and landscaping improved on campus with increasingly uniform signage.
So here are more photos of the physical changes taking place during Roger Webb's tenure. 

The really cool Transformative Learning Center...

Wellness center

 The Commons--new student housing north of the library, south of Wellness Center

New student housing

Ditto

Wantland Stadium has been spiffed up, with help of fees assessed every UCO student

And private support, including a great community bank

 The athletic program makes a concerted effort to attract crowds, but we're not OU or OSU.

Plunkett Park is a field where the Industrial Arts Building was when I started.

Breathe was one of first new sculptures on campus

Outside Wellness Center, UCO is an Olympic training center

Don't know when this Broncho was erected

This corner was dedicated before I came, but landscaping has been improved.

Took years to get the student darkroom out of the unsafe basement, but we named it after our colleague, the photo program founder, Woody Gaddis, one of just five journalism faculty when I arrived.

(Next,  changes under current President Don Betz) 
Click here to read Part 1

Twitter questions for a sports journalist

One of my  favorite classes--certainly the one I have the most fun in, is my twitter for media class, #clarkclass. Blog is http://clarkclassuco.blogspot.com/.

I know I'm a  dinosaur and a geezer, but  I know that journalism is a child of technology, always has been, from the pen and paper of town criers, to the handset type of Gutenberg, to Linotypes, to photo-composition of early offset, to the arrival of computers. (Hint--I have handset type, run Linotypes, Compugraphics and the early and current computers, have run small offset and letter presses). Doesn't matter--challenges to the craft and profession continually change and remain constant--the only objection I make is that newspapers are not dying--those who claim so are ignorant or narrowly focused.
But, that brings me back to twitter, and to what view as another death of journalism. Balderdash.
This class proves the opposite...in fact, it is enlivening print and broadcast journalism, public relations, advertising, photography, almost every profession.
In that spirit, Oklahoman Sports Editor Mike Sherman @MikeSherman, comes to talk to my class tomorrow, as he had three previous times. He's an enthusiastic, positive professional about journalism and twitter. By the way, he's a UCO alum (We have great students). You can read his previous points on this blog by searching his name.
And my current class is pumped and primed--today, they came up with questions for him to consider. By the way--these are great students--all about the graduate, from many majors, some already with their own businesses. Here they are. Stay tuned for comments.
    •    If he was the one responsible for the Mr. Unreliable article, and if he was how he went about clearing it up.
    •    How does he think twitter has helped him in his career?
    •    What advantages he thinks he has having a twitter over other writers who don’t have a twitter.
    •    What does twitter do for the world of sports?
    •    What form of media does he find most beneficial for his line of work?
    •    What sports do you like to cover most?
    •    If a bad article comes out how do you handle it?
    •    Biggest influences
    •    Does he see twitter as a critical resource?
    •    Does he use social media to find any of his stories?
    •    How does he use social media to promote himself?
    •    Is his favorite comedian Steve Martin?
    •    Where does he make the distinction of what is worth tweeting, such as if it doesn’t involve sports, what is important enough and what catches his eye?
    •    What’s the best way to network through twitter?
    •    If twitter is a new resume, then how do you know if someone is qualified for the job?
    •    At what age he thought was appropriate for someone to have a twitter
    •    What’s the first think you notice when you look at someone’s profile
    •    What makes you turn away or keep looking at a persons twitter?
    •    When did networking for twitter start taking off for his career?
    •    What made him move from Maryland to OKC?
    •    Should I merge business or personal life, or have two different accounts?
    •    Does he use his poll tweets or are the just for fun?
    •    Anything specific to sports news that has improved for twitter
    •    Examples: Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Tyreke Hill. Do you believe there is a double standard for Professional athletes and professional entrepreneurs when obstructing the law?

My analog memory, my type, a letter at a time

Analog world--typewriter, paper, book, wood table

I pulled  my uncle Mike's old Smith Corona electric typewriter  out of the garage this morning, where it's been gathering dust since he died almost two years ago.
Plugging it in, I searched for the on button, found it, heard it start humming. Rolled some paper into the carriage, and started typing the first thing that came to mind--
"These are the times that try men's souls...."
When the keys struck the paper, a mechanical snapping, the cats ran for the other room. Susan came down the hall, thinking I was making popcorn.
It's all Tom Hanks' fault. His article in the New York Times today, "I Am TOM, I Like to Type..." grabbed my attention. Tom Hanks collects old manual typewriters, and I don't have one of those, but the Smith-Corona comes as close as I can get, before I buy one on e-bay. They're cheap, most listed under $50, though shipping the heavy things will cost more.
This from a guy who can't type well at all. I was afraid I couldn't get into journalism school because I can't type fast and accurately, and have to look at the keys. But then, when I tried to  take it, it was called "typing," and was for business majors, or teenage girls training how to be secretaries and type correct business form letters. Today, it's called "keyboarding," and an essential for everyone, I guess--until voice recognition on computers does away with it. 
But, oh, this is so much fun...as long as I don't have to hand in whatever I'm typing, with all the errors. And now I am  tippy tapping on a computer keyboard to write this.
Apparently the article struck a chord with many others in love with the analog world. New Mexico photog Craig Varjabedian and friend Billye Johnson "liked" it almost immediately. I told Craig it was sorta like watching a black and white print come up in the developing tray, instead of digital photography. This follows a comment to him earlier about missing Tri-X, the 400 ASA speed film that saved me numerous times as a newspaper photographer. It's not by accident that there are several heavy old analog film cameras in our house. Not as heavy as that Smith Corona typewriter, but all with real substance, compared to this plastic cameras, and keyboard and computer.
This comes a week after I read poet Benjamin Myer's poem, "Sometimes I dream of the analog world," where he writes about playing records, paying cash, and rolling down the car window.

I saw this for sale a few years ago in Paris.

Now that I think about it, the weight of the analog machines says something about their permanence, their importance, compared to this ephemeral digital existence. I don't mean we need to go back  to living in the stone age, because we can't. Digital invades every aspect of our existence these days, except for farmer's markets, I expect.  I like digital cameras, and love computer typing because it is so effortless, and so easy to correct. But there is quality and value in the other.
It's one reason I make my writing students take notes on paper, and write freehand. There is some real sensory connection between paper and pencil and brain that happens, even if you can't read my handwriting. Of course, now they're ceasing to teaching cursive writing in schools. They have no idea what they're depriving people of.
The next thing I typed were my favorite lines of poetry, the line I think is the most powerful in America, from Whitman. One key at a  time, pushing down on the keys, hearing the key strike the paper, embedding the letters and words into my analog memory--
"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed..."

The agony, and pleasure, of writing

Multiple versions, notes, pens, paper, computer

Writing is hard work. Remember when  experts said computers would make paper obsolete? Hmph. If I can't run the notes out, run the first draft out, and mark it up and scribble ideas, I'd be stuck. Sure it wasn't a news story, which can be much simpler in structure than a magazine non-fiction piece, but...What was supposed to be a simple little 700 word story, with two weeks to write, for some reason caused me all kinds of agony--I think because there was so much interesting anecdotes, description and more that I had to pare down.

Still, right before I hit "send" to the editor, I read the piece one more time, ran spell check one more time, and found errors I would have missed if I'd just been looking at the screen.

I know, the shorter version is leaner and probably better--I'm happy with it, but wistful. I'll tell you what and where it's about when it goes to press in a few months.

I'm not complaining, because every story is a discovery of new stories and people and interesting places.
It all started with "I wonder." Then I accumulated more than 2,500 words of scribbled notes from in-person interviews and visits, email and phone interviews, email follow up with more questions, checking web pages, transcribing the notes, checking the AP style book.. Then there was lots of stewing and thinking, running phrases and sentences over in my head.

First done was the "lead," about 100 words in three paragraphs itself, written  and revised and polished, and changed again even today. Usually that makes the rest of the story easier, but this one got down to essentials. I finally decided on the concluding paragraphs Friday, and spent the weekend cutting and pasting and rearranging and making it flow.

I ended with three versions of it--from 100 words to long, to acceptable. Now it's the editor's job. Whew.