Change of Pace

I was gently chided by a friend for not having updated my blog of late, so I wrote her back to let her know what I've been up to. Wise pal that she is, she suggested I simply paste my letter to her into the blog which is roughly what I'm about to do.

I was in St Louis last weekend with Jack and the kids, then drove back to Columbia for my newspaper shift on Monday to cover the Boone County fair (a horde of South Africans setting up carnival rides in Mid-Missouri, who woulda thunk it) and then drove back to St Louis to take the kids to Six Flags amusement park Tuesday, then BACK to Columbia Wednesday morning to do a piece about a couple that raises goats. I'm actually kind of proud of that one, it's the first time I've done a multimedia piece using video.
I picked up a few shifts over the rest of the week then shockingly got paid actual money to help out a photographer friend with a fun photo booth she set up as part of an art fair on Friday night. She's a woman that a college friend of mine went to high school and we got to meet up with that college friend and her twin sister, who was also a former roommate of mine, when we went out for pizza with them (and their 4.25 kids) this afternoon since they were in the area for their parents' 50th anniversary.

I got to take the governor's picture twice this week, once when he competed in a basketball free throw competition and then again this morning when he announced some grant awards for the police here. I don't think he recognized me the second time though. Saturday night Jack came with me while I photographed a truck and tractor pull at the county fair. I'd never been to a tractor pull before...very Missouri!

Yesterday Jack and I biked to a cute little town about 20 miles west of here on the Katy trail to have lunch on the river, which was really nice, but I crashed my bike on the trip home so I'm pretty scraped up and whip-lashed today. I'm just taking it easy and hoping I'll feel better tomorrow when possibly, hopefully, ideally and maybe unrealistically, I plan on getting up early to run with the 5:30 running group that I did a story about last month.