http://www.areavoices.com It's Good to be in N.D. on AreaVoices en-us http://www.areavoices.com/images/avLogo_rss.gif http://www.areavoices.com ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26979 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26979 <font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Bill Hurlburt <a href="http://www.someyapping.com/WhyNoDak.aspx">sent me this link</a> to a talk he gave about why he moved to North Dakota to work. You can watch the video, but the audio is a bit sketchy. The text that comes with it, though, is rather interesting.</font> Tue, 13 May 2008 15:20:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26936 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26936 <em><font face="times new roman,times,serif">Here are some stories to expect in Wednesday's issue of The Jamestown Sun:</font></em><br /><br /><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><strong>Local:</strong> We've got coverage of more local meetings than I can remember.<br /><br /><strong>State/Region: </strong>Check out our feature of an interesting smoke-free bar in Minot.<br /><br /><strong>Opinion: </strong>Mayor Clarice Liechty responds to the column our Publisher Bruce Henke had in the weekend paper.</font><br /> Mon, 12 May 2008 20:10:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26922 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26922 <p><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The tree is still growing, and my cell phone still takes crappy, out-of-focus photos.</font></p><p><img src="/adams/images/thumbnail/05-12-08_1600.jpg" align="baseline" border="2" /></p> Mon, 12 May 2008 16:02:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26917 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26917 <p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="times new roman,times,serif"><em>Like I said, I got back from the convention Saturday. What I forgot to say was how well we did. Here is the story that was in today's paper about our awards:</em></font></span></p><blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="5"><strong>Sun wins 42 awards from NDNA</strong></font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The Jamestown Sun was awarded first place in the General Excellence category at the 2008 North Dakota Newspaper Association Convention this past weekend in Dickinson, N.D.</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Sun news, sports, advertising and photo staff received a total of 42 awards and competed in the division with other papers that have circulations of 12,000 or less. Other newspapers in that division are The Dickinson Press, Williston Herald, Devils Lake Journal, Wahpeton Daily News and the Valley City Times-Record.</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Sun staff also received 15 first-place awards in various individual categories in its division, including Overall Design Excellence. The Sun's news staff and advertising staff won first-place awards for Special News Section and Promotion of the Community, respectively, for the newspaper's 2007 Progress Edition, "Unsung Heroes."</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The news staff won several awards, including first place for editorial writing, and Managing Editor Kathy Steiner and Assistant Editor Logan C. Adams won the Editorial Page category. </font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Adams also won first place for Front Page Design Excellence, second place for Personal Column - Serious with his column "Emotion doesn't apply to Wal-Mart" and third place in the Headline category.</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Reporter Toni Pirkl won first place in the Government Reporting category with a story she wrote covering the City Council. She also took second place both in Business News Reporting with a story about GRE getting ready to break ground on its project at Spiritwood, N.D., and Feature Reporting with her story "Caring for children."</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Reporter Jackie Hyras story about convicted serial rapist Gero Mahto moving to Jamestown after his release from prison won her first place in the Feature Reporting category, and she also won third place in Spot News for her story about a worker accident that killed a Jamestown man.</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Reporter Keith Norman won two second-place awards; one in Government Reporting for his story "Boyd seeks 'Jets for Jamestown'" and one in Reporting for his story "Petitions circulate to recall sheriff." He also received an honorable mention in Personal Column - Humorous for his column "A Little Fire"</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Reporter Katie Ryan won a third-place prize in Feature Reporting for her story "Turtle Surprise, in a snap."</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The sports staff also brought home several awards. Sports Editor Scott Throlson and Reporters David Selvig and Kalen Ost received first place in the Sports Page/Section category for their work. Selvig also received a second-place award in the Sports Column category and an honorable mention in Sports Feature for "World Traveler." Throlson won third place in Sports Reporting for his story "Jackets sting JC."</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Photographer John M. Steiner won a total of 15 awards, including five first-place awards. He won the following categories: Feature Photo, Outdoor Recreational Photo, Pictorial Photo, Portrait Photo and Sports Photo.</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Steiner received second place in six photo categories, Agricultural, Feature, Picture Story, Portrait, News and Sports; third place in three photo categories, Feature, Pictorial and Spot News; and an honorable mention in Outdoor Recreational Photo.</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Sean Copeland, Web manager, won second place for Best Web Site for his work with www.jamestownsun. com.</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">In advertising, former Advertising Staff Manager Lisa Marchus won first place in the Outdoor/Sports Ad category with her ad "City-wide - Blue Jays Head to State." She also received third place in Promotion of the Community for "817th Engineer Co. going to Iraq."</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Zenithe Mayer, ad representative, won second place in Small Space Ad for "Martinizing Dry Cleaners - December Special."</font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Rob Keller, ad representative, won third place in Entertainment/Liquor Ad for "County Bottle - Spring Sell-a-bration." </font></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The awards were all given for work published in the 2007 calendar year. The next NDNA convention will be next year in Bismarck. </font></span></p></blockquote> Mon, 12 May 2008 15:39:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26877 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26877 <font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">According to some of the data I've seen, many of my blog's readers live outside this state and have actually never been here. That means none of them have ever experienced what it is like to drive in this state, so I put together a little video during the trip back from Dickinson, N.D., Saturday to show the whole what it is like to drive in this state.<br /><br />Note the beautiful sky, the slightly bumpy road (sorry about the shaking) and Metallica's rendition of the Irish classic "Whiskey in the Jar," which had been playing over my car stereo at the time. There is only one minute of audio, and only four of the lines of one verse (plus a bit of howling), so I believe it to be covered by fair use doctrine. If any intellectual-property lawyers want to stand up and help me out, now would be a good time.<br /></font><div align="center"><br /></div><br /><div align="center"> <object width="425" height="355"><param value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Oaeb8QzIRIk&hl=en" name="movie" /><param value="transparent" name="wmode" /><embed width="425" height="355" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Oaeb8QzIRIk&hl=en" /></object></div> Mon, 12 May 2008 06:49:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26873 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26873 <p><font face="times new roman,times,serif"><em>I'm a little late with this, I apologize for that, but here are some things to expect in Monday's issue of The Jamestown Sun:</em></font></p><p><font face="verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="4"><strong>Local:</strong></font> <font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Find out what's going to be new at the National Buffalo Museum and Frontier Village.</font></p><p><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font face="verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="4"><strong>State/Region:</strong></font> Rural North Dakota gas stations are having trouble with high-priced gas because many have mechanical pumps that can't compute gas at more $4-per-gallon and get worn down by all the extra work.</font></p><p><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font face="verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="4"><strong>World:</strong></font> Myanmar's goverment is run by bunch of worthless thugs. That's all I have to say about that.</font></p> Sun, 11 May 2008 21:56:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26865 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26865 <p><font face="times new roman,times,serif"><em>But I'm saying it anyway:</em></font></p><p align="center"><strong><font face="georgia,times new roman,times,serif" size="6">Mom, you're great. </font></strong></p><p align="center"><strong><font face="georgia,times new roman,times,serif" size="6">Love, Logan</font></strong></p> Sun, 11 May 2008 15:56:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26847 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26847 <font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Here is the first video I've been able to edit successfully. It's a speech by V.J. Smith at the NDNA Convention, followed by a brief interview we had after the speech. I thought his message was great, so I'm posting some of it here (His whole presentation was an hour long). He mentions a man named Marty in the course of this video, a friend of his who was a cashier at Wal-Mart who earned honors for going above and beyond the call of duty in his job on a daily basis. <br /><br /> During the interview, I tried to get him to provide some advice for bosses out there who want their employees to care more about the customers. It's not the best video out there, but hey, I'm pretty new with this stuff. There will be more of this sort of thing to come.<br /></font> <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4PFTBZxyk0c" /><embed width="425" height="350" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4PFTBZxyk0c" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /></object> Sat, 10 May 2008 22:00:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26839 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26839 I just got back from Dickinson, N.D., about an hour ago. I've loaded the videos from my camcorder onto my computer, but things aren't working so well yet. It turns out the video editing software that came with my desktop is about as stable as a fridge balanced on its corner in the North Dakota wind. <br /><br />That is to say, it crashes very easily.<br /><br />I'll keep at it.<br /> Sat, 10 May 2008 19:51:00 CST ---> http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26688 http://www.areavoices.com/adams/index.cfm?blog=26688 <p><font face="times new roman,times,serif"><em>Here are some stories to expect in The Jamestown Sun's Thursday issue.</em></font></p><p><font face="verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="4"><strong>Local:</strong></font> <font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Stutsman County is officially classified as being in a drought, but it's not as bad as it could be. Also, local education officials defend a reading program that is in place nationwide and we've got coverage of today's Park board meeting.</font></p><p><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font face="verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="4"><strong>Nation:</strong></font> Negotiators say they have reached an agreement in getting the farm bill passed.</font></p> Wed, 07 May 2008 19:51:00 CST