Photo gallery fun!

Check out the photo gallery of the "Where I Begin" showing at 5 Points Theatre in Jacksonville. The film, by award-winning filmager Thomas L. Phillips, featured local actresses and included a meet and greet with the Phillips before the show.

Article in Print! Bark in the Park

There was no shortage of tail-wagging fun at the Safe Animal Shelter's Mardi Gras Bark in the Park!

Check out the full story and the photo gallery!

Article in Print! WeatherFest

Thunder, twisters and hail -- oh my!

The recent WeatherFest event at UNF, hosted by the National Weather Service of Jacksonville, helped educate the public about all kinds of weather-related issues. Check out the story!

Article in Print! Harlem Globetrotters

Not only did I have a chance to meet and interview a member of the Harlem Globetrotters, he also taught me how to spin a ball on my finger!!

Read more about him and the rest of the team here. Is that his picture that was included in the story? ... No. Why? ... I have no idea.

But I'm looking forward to checking out the moves of the whole team on the court tonight!

Article in Print! Matt Spears

This is a feature story that I wrote a while ago and was held until the editor could get it on the front page. It's an interesting look at a local eye doctor's use of special contact lenses to treat the effects of keratoconus, a protrusion of the cornea that results in loss of vision.

The patient, Matt Spears, went from taking a trip to sign up for disability and learning to read braille, to having normal vision in a matter of minutes after meeting with the eye doctor, Dr. Armitage.

Read the story here.

Article in (online) print: xomba.com

I had the opportunity this week to write my first post for a website called xomba.com. For those of you who aren't familiar with xomba (pronounced "zomba"), it's a site that allows contributors to post articles about a wide range of topics for others to read. It's kinda like a big blogging community. Just a bit more newsie.

I love that they have a wacky news tab, so I decided to go in that direction and address the yellow sac spider's recent infatuation with the Mazda6, resulting in a major recall by the manufacturer.

Yes, that's right. Even spiders want to go "zoom, zoom."

Check out the story on xomba. And don't forget to click on an ad or two -- that one's been monetized!

Feeling Special ...

I just ran across this on the Jacksonville Giants website: something cool

:-)

Article in Print! Amelia Island Film Festival

As promised, here is the story to go along with my earlier post about the Amelia Island Film Festival.

This was actually the same editor as the Supper Club story that I talked about in my last post, but in this case there were almost no cuts or edits what-so-ever.

Maybe that's just the difference between a feature story and an "evergreen" that just takes up space.

Article in Print! Supper Club

This is a fun little story that I covered about a local supper club. The club is made up of five couples who meet on a monthly basis to cook, drink and dine together.

Spending time with them was definitely entertaining. They're the kind of crowd that could easily spark a TV sitcom based on the their club.

Oh ... and the homemade cheesy olive bread I tasted was pretty darn good too!

What's not so good, in my opinion, is the edited version of the story that actually ran. I'm not crazy about the way that it was cut (for space). This is my first experience having a story cut so that entire lines are removed instead of just an edit here and there. I'm not sure all of the cuts did the story much justice. Especially at the end--just kind of awkward. Haven't seen the print version yet to know if that's just something to do with the online version, or if that's how it was actually printed.

To get an idea of the editing/cutting process that a story can go through, check out my original supper club story under the 'class' tab above.

Check out the jacksonville.com supper club story for more!