How fitting, then, that my smoke alarm, that industrial-strength banshee hanging from my ceiling, picked 10:00 a.m. sharp to open its mouth. As I and all the guys in my hall soon discovered, there’s no snooze button on this alarm, and no one had any idea how to shut it up. So after about ten minutes of being assaulted by the unrelenting shrill pitch, I pulled up a chair, lost five years of good hearing, and yanked the thing from its perch on the ceiling.

My ears will be ringing into next week.

My hall had a theme for move-in day - The Office. In an amazing coincidence, last night I bought a shirt on a whim. And wore it this morning on a similar whim.

Michael Scott would be proud.

—–

EDIT: It’s only 6:30 pm on my first day and I’ve already learned two things to never do again.

• Walk the length of campus to a friend’s dorm in 100 degree heat (No one else was out on the sidewalk. At all. Oops.)
• Pile unknown Chinese food on my plate without first checking to see if it’s spicy or not. (Iced lemonade? I owe you one.)

I can’t deny it. I have a soft spot for Google. My Gmail has been open almost non-stop on my computer for 3 years, Google Maps is the best (true that, double true), Google News keeps me apprised of the latest shenanigans of the likes of Lindsay and Britney and Dubya, and Google Documents makes it easy to procrastinate on school assignments. So it was only a matter of time before I tried out Google Reader.

Reader is a nifty online app from Google that takes your favorite RSS feeds and compiles them in a Gmail-like inbox interface. Neat idea, really, and something I thought I might use, but after only a half day, I’m not so sure it’s for me. And I don’t necessarily think it’s Google’s fault either. I just think the basic premise of Reader takes away from one of my favorite pastimes - surfing the web.

When I go to different websites and blogs, I enjoy the diversity. I like the different fonts, layouts, and all that stuff that makes a site unique. You strip that away (like Reader does) and I’m left bored. What I was going to look at just doesn’t seem as appetizing anymore. Everything runs together. And that’s not even touching on the inbox interface. After your second or third feed, those dozens of now-bland posts stack up and can be a bit overwhelming (or underwhelming) to sort through.

To anyone who was thinking about trying out Reader, you should still go ahead. It really is neat and you’ll probably find something you like. But for now, I think I’ll stay away from one of the almighty Google’s offerings, and browse the Internet like I always have…with style(sheets).

^ Forgive the pun, mouseover for the difference.

New camera!
New photos!
New computer!
New school!

New motivation to update website?
Only time will tell.

And you know it’s going to be a day where you have to send your school newspaper off to print when it all happens a half hour before your alarm is set to go off.

Deadline days are cruel like that.

Today’s was the ordinary mix of stress, junk food, and red ink splotches from a horribly maimed proofing pen. Of course, it also included the obligatory threats to and one-sided conversations with the uncooperative (and I swear, intentionally malicious) computers of room 307. Even with all of that, there was some reason besides YouTube clips of “MC Rove” bringing down the hizouse not to draw a lynched effigy of myself in Photoshop - today’s excitement culminated in a three-day weekend.

I think it’s God’s way of rewarding me for getting through the seventh of eight issues of this year’s Flyer. It’s a bittersweet thing to think about. Only one more cover to design. Only one more issue to proofread. Only one more time I’ll need to correct the mysterious volume number on page 4 that, every issue without fail, magically jumps ahead by a whole year. Only one more frantic day of packaging pages in InDesign, troubleshooting the most mundane of technical problems as I go.

Ahh. Can you smell it? That sweet smell of finality? That’s the smell of two-years-worth of hard work coming to a close. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved my time working on the paper. It’s been such a large part of my high school years that I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. It’s just…I can’t wait until I can wash my hands of it, pass it on to my junior friends and Mr. Photo-Editor-in-Training, the lone returning photographer next year, and say without any sort of reservation, “It’s not my problem anymore.”

It’ll be great.

Assuming I can make up that lost sleep…

Besides the extensive aesthetic makeover, you’ll notice a few new bells and whistles. A new gallery system, a modified version of SlideShowPro, replaces the old, a bare-bones version of SimpleViewer. The new system, besides being a hell of a lot easier to update, features direct permalinks to the photos within the albums (assuming you’re using Firefox or Safari or ANYTHING besides Internet Explorer). I also added the back button the masses (Mom) were crying out for. And of course, there are the photos. All of the ones I had before and quite a few new ones, completely updated right up to my last photos I shot on March 13.

Since the new design was put together rather hurriedly, I’m sure there are some bugs here and there. If you come across some or have any comments or suggestions as to what you’d like to see, just leave a comment here or send me an email at shutterspeeding [at] gmail [dot] com.

Oh, and one last thing. A warning actually. I’ve been having trouble with stupid spam comments, so don’t mention purses, handbags, or anything resembling a woman’s carrying thing. I’ve put those terms on a blacklist in order to try and stem the flow of bogus comments I have to wade through in a day. If you do use those terms, your comment will automatically be nuked and never be heard from again.

Really, any excuse to whoop up on man’s nemesis, woman’s designer handbag…

Spammers beware.

I’m back.

I really don’t know what to say or think at this point. Though it’s clichéd, this all feels like a bad dream. There are times today when I’ve just broken down and cried. Other times, I’ve just felt numb. I’ve known all of them for years. Ryan, Ryan, and John have always been very, very close friends. I can’t begin to imagine what the Sagesers, Ryan’s mom and two younger brothers, are going through. I can’t imagine what my friends went through.

The thing is, I was supposed to be on that plane.

We learned about a month ago that Ben Folds was coming to Lawrence, Kansas. All of us are big fans, and were sad when we found out it was on a school night. Then we discovered that he was playing the Saturday night before in Tulsa. Bingo. Ryan, a certified pilot, made plans to rent a four-seater plane for that night. He thought it would save time in getting there and back, since he had a debate tournament earlier in the day. Plans to purchase tickets were next.

Ryan, Ryan, and John all got the ok’s from their parents. I didn’t. My mom and dad didn’t like the idea of 1) no adult supervision, 2) it being so late at night, and 3) it being a plane. Needless to say, I wasn’t too happy about it, but my seat didn’t go to waste. Mr. Sageser, who quite possibly was the oldest man at the concert, took it.

Fast forward to last night.

I called Sageser’s cell phone around 6:30 and found them standing in line for the 8:00 concert. They were all excited and couldn’t wait to get in. Ryan bragged about his flawless landing at the Tulsa airport and I made sure he knew how jealous I was at not being there.

I called him back about an hour later and they were in the front row. Front. Row. At Ben Folds. I made him promise to call me back during the concert and to take as many pictures as they could with their camera phones. The crowd behind him drowned out his response as Ben Folds peeked his head out of the curtain.

Around an hour and a half later, I get a blurry picture message showing just how close they are to my all-time favorite musician. Jealous didn’t quite cut it. I would have given anything to be there with them.

A short while later, I get one last call from Ryan. The last call of the night was also the longest. An hour and a half long, it consisted of a mix of static and feedback, whoops and hollers from my friends, and some of Ben Folds’ best tunes. I didn’t really know why I did it at the time, but I grabbed my broken point-and-shoot off of the shelf, switched it to movie mode and popped in a memory card. I recorded the sound from the entire hour and a half call.

Once the last song was over and the cheering went down to a manageable level, Ryan got back on the phone and said that was that. He was so ecstatic, telling me about how much the entire concert, especially the song “Army,” rocked. Then he said they were leaving the concert hall, and he was going to try to find himself some caffeine before they headed back home. That was the last I heard from them.

I woke up early this morning to edit some photos before Mass. Around 9:00, someone calls our house, a rarity on Sunday mornings. A few minutes later, my mom calls up in a frantic voice for me to come downstairs. As I stand at the top of the stairs, she tells me the news. After I get over my initial shock, I go back upstairs and grab my old, beaten-up camera and turn on some of the clips from last night. The very last clip on the card was a jubilant Ryan seeing if I was still on the line.

“Nick, you there?”

Yeah, Ryan.

I’m here.

Someone go find me some free time…

Or check out my latest photos.

I’ll love you either way.

September 01, 2006 - First pep rally of the year
September 02, 2006 - Bishop Carroll XC Invitational
September 04, 2006 - Labor Day Pancake Run
September 07, 2006 - Heston XC Invitational
September 08, 2006 - First home football game of the year (BC v. North)

My free time usually isn’t spent wasting away on the living room couch, basking in the warm glare of the small screen. That’s what the Internet is for. I don’t go for repetitive crime drama. I’m not a fan of shows about fake reality. And I can’t stand laugh tracks. Which leaves me with very few shows left to watch. Even less if you consider that I don’t have cable. So naturally, it makes me more than a little happy when a prestigious organization of highfalutin voters backs me up.

I get a kick out of awards shows like the Oscars and the Emmys. It’s fun to see the things you like get honored and rewarded for a job well done. And it always helps when there’s a good host.

Enter Conan O’Brien and last night’s Primetime Emmy Awards.

The opening sketch went wonderfully (despite what others say) and the presenter banter was up to par (Colbert’s “I lost to Barry Manilow!” being a definite highlight) and the awards…

Let’s just say I’m as happy as these guys-

I got into “The Office” last spring, about halfway through the US version’s second season. It quickly took its place among my other favorite shows, “Arrested Development” and “The Daily Show.” “The Office” is a great show with amazing characters and hilarious dialogue. In other words, more than deserving of an Emmy. If you haven’t checked it out, iTunes or the DVD sets will be your new friends for the foreseeable future. And if you’re like me and anxiously awaiting season three, check out the webisodes at NBC.com.

…after you check out my new photos, that is. Fall sports scrimmages, the back to school dance, and XC time trials…all after the jump.

“It was really hard getting a good picture of 15 people. He would not give me a discount, and eight tries added up. But I’m sorta an expert at Photoshop, so it turned out fine in the end.”

edit: due to the increasing numbers of spam comments on this post, i am shutting down comments for this post only.

I got a little surprise on Friday during third hour. None other than Mr. Tom Gorman showed up to tell me that I needed to take a photo for CNN. You see, my good friend, Jake Voboril, just recieved perfect scores on both the ACT and the SAT. This week, the local paper, The Wichita Eagle, did a nice little story on him which was later distributed on the AP wire. That’s when things started to get interesting. Friday morning, after the story went out to the AP, the school and Jake’s parents started fielding calls from CNN, NPR, CBS, ABC, Paul Harvey and others. Apparently, CNN was going to do an on-air interview with Jake via phone and needed some sort of graphic to run on screen. That’s where I came in. I popped a new card in my camera, pulled Jake out of class and went outside to take a photo. The sun was a bit bright, but the picture turned out well enough. After letting Jake get back to his publicity circus, I rushed around school trying to offload the picture onto finicky computers. Easier said than done, but it all eventually came together, and I sent the photo off to the principal, who in turn sent the photo off to CNN. I was even given a pass to get out of class and watch the live interview, but it didn’t go according to plan. The administration said that the interview would take place at 1 PM. They just forgot to add that wonderful “EST” modifier on the end.

Oh well.

It makes for a good story, even if I don’t have a photo of the photo on TV.

I do have some others though. All from Wednesday the 16th. Some from Freshmen StuCo elections in the morning and the rest from an NHS “meeting” that night.

No animals were harmed in the taking of these photos…just skinny StuCo presidents.

^ Click to view gallery