My job at the Mail Tribune has mutated since I started. Think Spider Man, Ninja Turtles, X-Men; that kind of mutation. A complete 180, as far as cliches go. I was hired two years ago to do web stuff. Make videos. Make multimedia content. Make surveys. Cover breaking news. Tweet. Facebook. Etc. Then a few [...]
I think we’ve all needed a little Superman this week. Between the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three and injured hundreds and the almost-unreal explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant that killed 15, I wonder how many folks across the U.S. – comic readers and non-comic readers a like – wish he’d appeared in a [...]
If I’ve learned anything the past week, it’s this: Dreamworks Animation is to Medford as the large intestine is to the appendix. I wish I could see your face right now. Yes, I can explain my analogy. Cool it. I’ve written two stories in the past five days related to Dreamworks, the company that released [...]
To: Comic books CC: Their creators It’s time I stopped lying to myself, to you. We need to go our separate ways for awhile. We both know I deserve better. At some point you have to stop deluding yourself into thinking second-rate is OK, especially where my money is concerned. I guess to really understand [...]
Former Medford resident Matt Heverly starts his work day the same way many professionals do, by checking email. But the most important message, the one he looks forward to each day, isn’t your typical “remember-to-fill-out-your-timecard” request or “there-are-cookies-in-the-break-room” announcement. It’s not even from a human being. It’s from a robot, one that’s trundling slowly across [...]
Thursday’s story on Ashland High School’s 2013 FIRST Robotics Team is evidence that, no matter where this journalism journey takes me, robots are going to be part of the equation. It’s the fourth such story I’ve done on the innovative competition in the past four years, one that forces high school teams from around the [...]
We all have an old, suspender-wearing guy living inside us. He’s the one who’s lived in the same house his whole life and complains about how quiet and ordered it all used to be before his neighborhood got paved streets and a stop light; before all the damn fool kids got phones that can make [...]
Fact: While living in Klamath Falls, I interviewed a high school student who waited in line 16 hours for the sixth ‘Harry Potter’ film’s midnight premiere. That’s 8 a.m. to midnight in the same lawn chair. Nice kid. Steroid-strong passion for the young adult fantasy series that’s yielded millions of thick books that can double [...]
Did you see the lunar eclipse Nov. 28? I did, the beginning at least. My wife pulled me outside and pointed it out to me. Clouds crept across the silver-white glow as the temporary fade began; a mustache – or eyebrow, I suppose, depending on your position – that came and went. Those free Nature’s [...]
My family can’t seem to not have front-row seats to natural disasters this year. My sister, Mom and Dad endured the smoke-strangled skies of July’s 18,000-acre Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs. Now, not to be left out it would seem, my little brother watched oceans rise and cloudbursts fall while winds uprooted trees and [...]