12/52 'Feets' of strength

                                               "Katie, what should I say in our blogpost?"

"What?"                                                                     

                                               "About the picture for today? Of the feet?
                                                I'm just gonna write down everything we say.
                                                Starting now."

" . . . "                                                                    

(scowls)                                                                 

(shakes head)                                                         

"Stop."                                                                   

"Geoff, don't.."                                                      

"Don't. You're being annoying.."                         

                                               "No, seriously, what do you want to say?"

" . . . "                                                                    

"I have blue toes."                                                  

Thanks, Mysterious Stranger!

As most of you know (especially if you read our "About Us" page) I work as a reporter for a local small town newspaper.

Long hours, no pay, lots of blame for corrupting America.

You know, the usual.

But once a year the Society of Professional Journalists get together to celebrate the best we in our thankless job have done. Reporters and newspapers from across the state submit their best and bask in the glow of 15 minutes of fame.

"I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal"

Awards are something that newspapers love. Something about the phrase "voted world's greatest newspaper" seems to ring nicely in publishers' ears.

They are also something that I've never felt too comfortable with. We don't really do it for recognition (clearly, given the state of my bank account) and it seems weird to win awards off of other people's misfortune --- "Headless corpse thrown in river"!?! FIRST PLACE!

But I did have something that I did want to show off: my videos.

Longtime L.a.a.R.pers (hmm... better suggestions?) know that I've been making short 2 minute vignette videos to accompany some of the stories we run online.

I submitted two of our videos, with my cinematographer/producer Jaime Valdez (well, I say producer)  and then forgot all about it.

Videos are not a newspapers forte and I'm about 86 percent sure Jaime and I were the only people who entered the category, so I hadn't taken a pity win all that seriously.

Until Monday.

That rather spiffy looking placque is for a video we did last Halloween (you remember, of course) but there were also two additional awards. Another video win and --- to my surprise --- an award for feature writing.

Someone (not me) had taken one of my stories and submitted it on my behalf.

The Fight for Emmett was the story, in all its printable glory from last September.

I wasn't particularly proud of the story, so many things I wish I had done.

But it's nice to know that there are people out there who do enjoy my writing, because although I write for a living, I've never considered my writing to be that strong.

Anyway, this is long winded (and bordering on tl;dr) but I just wanted to share the good news and say thank you, mysterious stranger, for submitting my story. Thank you for believing in my work even when I didn't, and thank you for forcing me to think that there was something of mine that was not only readable, but actually noteworthy.

Third place ain't got nuthin' on me.

Interesting headline goes here

Katie and I made the long trek from Hillsboro to Sellwood the other day (for those not Portland-centric it's, like, half-an-hour away but I like to complain) for a bit of family time.

We had expected a quiet dinner with Katie's cousin. What we got was an impromptu picnic in the park with a couple of cousins and some good friends.

As always, cameras were brought. Faces were made. Pictures are posted.

Katie's cousin Caitlin immediately strikes this pose when she sees a camera. True story.

This is, of course, when she's not striking THIS pose.

When you catch her off guard you get this face.

(I'm half kidding. Caitlin made this face on purpose).

(But seriously, the girl likes to pose)

Speaking of posing for the camera.

Family. It's a beautiful thing.

Want to see the funniest/saddest thing of all time?

You're all familiar with Roxy, Katie's dog.

It's been a tough few months for the Roxinator. First this happened, then this happened. Then, after all of that, we found out that she had an infected toe that needed to be removed.

The surgery was months ago, but over the last several weeks while she was healing we haven't been able to get her hair cut.

Roxy normally gets a trim every few months, and she was do well before her surgery.

It didn't start out to be much of a problem:

 

Because, let's face it, Shaggy Roxy is pretty adorable.

But the doc said she couldn't get her hair cut while she was healing. So her hair just kept on growing, and as her recovery turned from weeks turned to months, things got a bit out of hand.

Kinda super-duper out of hand.

Well the groomer took one look at her and said "oh, we're going to have to go short."

"That's fine," I said. "Do what you need to do."

Haha.

Haha.

Sorry. I'm done now.

haha

She looks like a completely different dog. When she got home even The Bruce wasn't sure who she was.

 

She took the haircut pretty seriously, and I'm pretty sure she hates all of us.

Hahaha.

Peep Show

I've been pretty absent from here for a while, letting Geoff do most of the blog posts. So I decided to give you a glimpse of what's been going on with me lately. :)

My work had it's first annual "Peep Show" this week. The concept: Create a diorama out of peeps (yes, peeps. Those stupid sugary things from Easter) with a Pacific Northwest theme. 

My Goal: to be the funniest one there...........

And I succeeded!

I chose to go with the Twilight theme since it was filmed in the Pacific Northwest :)

aaaannnnndddd........a close up!

Edward and Bella

(just in case you didn't instantly get it, but if that's the case then we are no longer friends)

The competition was intense! The people I work with are crazy! I had no idea that they would get so creative... but alas they did. 

There was 14 (I think?) submissions and I thought I would show them to you, or at least the best ones. 

"Mt Hood Jazz Festival" 

(all the peeps have instruments! So cute!)

"The Legend of Peepfoot" 

(I love their expressions)

"Multnomah Falls" 

(the hikers have backpacks and what not, too!)

"The Goonies"

(There is treasure in the corner behind the tree. Everything is so detailed!)

These are the type of people I work with. Lousy creative types! Ugh! :)

Keep a look out for future posts in the weeks to come. I'm attempting to wade through my photos and edit some of them (which is a painstaking process since my computer is one bad day away from death! :( )

On a side note, I will be taking donations for a new computer. Just kidding. Kinda.

11/52 Son of a beach.

As you read the other day, Katie and I went to the beach last week, for some saltwater taffy goodness. It was a fun day, and Katie and I took turns taking slightly embarrassing photos of each other. 

And, because I'm a cruel person, I'm sharing them with the world.

I actually dig this week's 52 Weeks submission. It's different, it's quirky, it makes us look like crazy people....

I like it.

Today is Geoff's birthday.

So here are some very old and slightly embarrassing photos of him that his family found a little while ago.

Mwahahaha.

The Candy Man can. Repeatedly.

Last weekend Katie and I tagged along with some friends on a quick day trip to the beach, where this happened:

But enough about that.

The purpose of the trip was to locate the Greatest Salt Water Taffy Place in the World, which Katie and I had found on a previous trip (if you're wondering, it's right here).

Our friends Megan and Alex were planning a similar expedition and so --- Ocean's 11-like team assembled --- we headed for glory and delicious saltwater goodness.

What is it that makes it the Greatest Salt Water Taffy Place in the World?

I'm glad you asked.

Yes, we've hit triple-digit flavor combinations. 

See that? That's all taffy. 

Sweet delicious taffy.

There is, however, a slight problem with the Greatest Salt Water Taffy Place in the World, and it's the fact that they have a theme song. 

A theme song that plays on a loop every 2 minutes, over and over and over again. 

This theme song, to be specific: 

Now I'm a fan of Sammy as much as the next guy, but that song repeated, every day? I'd go crazy.

But needless to say I now own my own weight in saltwater taffy of every variety.

 And it's not just regular delicious taffy. It's taffy that makes you say "what the WHAT?"

 

And my personal favorite:

Seriously, these guys are like the Bernie Bott's of taffy.

...actually, disregard that last caption. That was awful.

Sorry about that.

I'm going to eat some candy now.

O HAI!

Oh, hey, Internet, it's me. Bruce Campbell.

Geoff and Katie are hanging out being lazy good-for-nothing's today. So I thought I'd upload some of their photos that have been left on their camera. 

If Geoff were here, he'd probably have something witty to say about each of them, but I'm just a cat.

I don't really care that much about pithiness.

 

  

According to Geoff this is a guy named Mac Carruth. He's a goalie for the Portland Winterhawks hockey team, who are in the playoffs or something. Geoff went to Winterhawks practice a few weeks ago and hung out with the players for a story he wrote. There were some TV news people there, too, who had a quick interview with Carruth about the playoffs as he was on his way out the door.  Geoff snapped a quick pic.

Katie and Geoff spent some time with little baby Max a few weeks ago, and Katie (as usual) took a billion photos. This was my favorite, so I put it up. Geoff and Katie had others they liked but, you know, they're good-for-nothings so it was up to the ol' BC to pick the photos.

This week Geoff wrote a story about a Chinese food restaurant that's closing after almost 60 years in business. The woman on the left is one of the owners, and daughter of the restaurant's founder. The woman on the right is Greta Helmer, a waitress at the restaurant who has worked there for 46 years. 

They looked over some old newspaper clippings about the restaurant and talked about the good ol' days, including a fire that burned the restaurant to the ground in the '60s.

This is a fish. Geoff brought him home the other day. I want him. Oooooh how I want him.

Geoff calls him Robert, or something. But I call him Dinner.

Geoff sprays me with a water bottle when I try to eat him, but Geoff goes back to work tomorrow.

He will be mine, oh yes, he will be mine.

10/52 On pencilfish, mollies and pearl gouramis

 

 In case you couldn't tell by the picture, we bought a fish tank.

There's something about fish that I find incredibly calming.

Fish tanks and Pursingers just sort of go together. Growing up, having a fish tank (or two) were as common in a room as a TV (in fact, I had a fish tank in my room loooong before I ever had my own television.)

As such I have an impressive amount of information about zebra danios, neon tetras and tiger barbs swimming around in my brain.

(20 points if you recognized any of those names without clicking the links.)

I haven't had any fish since Katie and I got married, until a few months ago.

For Christmas this year my sister bought me a fish tank for my office. It was tiny, only a few gallons, but it was the perfect size for work.

It even had a little castle!

The small little fish I had were a nice quiet edition to my crazy workplace. Fish don't have problems, they don't have bad days. They just swim, and enjoy themselves, and thank you when you pour a few flakes in the bowl.

But when I came to work last week they did had a problem. A fairly major one:

All the water had drained from their fish tank.

Cleaning crews had discovered over the weekend that my tank had a leak in it, and that water was pouring all over my desk. We managed to save the fish before the entire tank was dry, and I carried them home on my lap in a bucket with no place to put them.

But after a quick conversation with The Misses we were off to buy a new tank.

And voilà:

But we had a problem. I had myself a big-boy 10 gallon aquarium. But I still had my teeny-tiny little castle and teeny-tiny little fish.

There was only one thing to do. 

TO THE FISH STORE!!!

Now our tank is home to a smattering of little swimmers.

    There's B.A. Baracus

 Cory Feldman        

    Bert

 Ernie

The Fantastic Four (yes, there are only three here)

And, my personal favorite...

Bobby Brown.

They seem pretty happy. Their tank is bigger, cleaner and not leaking. All are improvements over their previous home, and their new roommates seem to be adjusting. 

B.A. has taken the "Katie's favorite fish" award. Impressive, considering she doesn't like fish and wasn't too crazy when I said "oh hey, honey, want to go run an errand with me?"

BAM! Fish store.