Those of you with a really good memory may recall I went on a several week long journalism fellowship to Pakistan in the  Spring of 2012.

I have been working on a radio documentary on that experience ever since–almost a year.

Finally, it’s done and I’m very pleased with the final product.

If you can, please check it out this Thursday. If you can’t make it, that’s fine–I’ll post the thing here afterward.

In the meantime, here’s a promo:

Thanks to those of you who kept urging me to finish this over the last months. I’ve never worked so long on any project in my life.

I recently turned 27. My friend Colt told me that on average a man reaches his mental and physical peak at this age. I’m sure he read it on the internet or whatever so who knows how true that is, but it piqued my interest.

I began thinking if this year truly does represent my peak, I need to start refining some skills for the slow decline. And one of the first that came to mind was my awful penmanship.

It’s embarrassing, really.

So, I decided the first step toward this goal shall be to try to write in cursive again, for probably the first sincere attempt since Junior High.

Cursive is harder than I remember, and I’m surprised at how many of the cursive letters I straight-up forgot how to write. I had to check some of them on the internet, so who knows if they’re the real ones.

The internet also told me the way I’m holding my pen is not the most technically correct way. I’m now flopping around like an idiot with the pen held between my thumb and middle finger, with the index just providing support. Wacko.

The funny thing is, after about a week, it does seem to be slowly working. My cursive is still pretty juvenile.

Compared to my print though.

 

Baby steps, folks.

 

 

 

The main advertising strategies in Montana’ U.S. Senate race have been set since the very beginning.

Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg has been trying to paint incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Tester as a rubber stamp for the policies of President Barack Obama.

Tester is putting himself across as a common-sense moderate that votes for the good of Montanans.

Most Montanan’s are very familiar with ads like this by now:

President Obama is not popular in Montana, nor are some of his landmark policies.

Tying Senator Tester to Obama has been a consistent strategy of  Rehberg’s campaign.

And Tester has been trying to distance himself in his ads:

But boy oh boy, could things be any more different in blue Hawaii:

The strategy seems to be the exact opposite in Hawaii’s Senate race between Democratic U.S. Representative Mazie Hirono and Republican Governor Linda Lingle.

Hirono tries to tie Lingle to Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney.

The Lingle campaign and supporting organizations try to put her across as a moderate who supports President Obama at times. Check out these two ads:

 

From what I hear, Hawaii is different from Montana in other ways too.

A little while back I had my station’s logo embroidered onto my gear bag.

It totally changes the way I think about it, and how I feel wearing it.

It doesn’t  hurt that having a windowless office in the basement of the capitol building already makes me feel like I have a batcave.

If the local police commissioner wants to make a microphone spotlight to shine on darkened clouds whenever help is needed, that’s fine by me.

He should know that I don’t typically work nights, though.

 

Blink and you miss it, I guess. I purchased this little black jellybean of a car early this year on a whim.

It seems nice, right?

Yeah, it’s the coolest car on the road, for about four total weeks of the year:

Two weeks in late spring after the snow is done falling, but before it gets so hot that you notice its lack of air conditioning and cruise control on Summer getaways.

And two weeks in early fall when it cools off enough to roll the windows back up, but before the streets ice up the slightest bit and I violently spin donuts trying to put it in first.

So, those two weeks are done.

Here’s looking at you, May 15th.

If you’re like everybody I know–you’ve never used Google+ other than to sign up for it and then say to yourself, “Wait, nobody’s using this–this is lame.”

Totally understandable and true.

However, I’ve been layed-up this past week with a knee surgery and in my free time I decided I really wanted to give G+ a solid try.

My conclusion–nobody uses it still and therefore it’s still lame. BUT, I am now a full and complete believer in ‘Google+ Hangouts’

If you’ve never done it, dust off your Google+ account and try it–RIGHT NOW!

It’s Google’s video call service and yes–it’s pretty much just like Skype. But, it is absolutely worth trying just for the effects.

In a stroke of pure Googality, you can do things like wear a pirate hat or a dog face that follows your face as you move in front of the webcam.

I’ve done probably five or six hangouts now and pretty much the only thing we do is mess with the effects–and it doesn’t seem to get old.

There is another pretty cool feature where you can watch YouTube videos together, which my old roommate Sean and I messed around with yesterday.

In conclusion, Hangouts are so cool that I may consider  using Google+ for some social networking just as a thank you.

Just kidding, that’s ridiculous.

 

P.S. If you ever wanna Hangout, just look me up. I’m quasi-obsessed.