Week of August 6-10

A diver flips off the diving board into the water at the Sidney Municipal Pool against the late afternoon sun Tuesday. Temperatures reached 94 degrees Tuesday and look to stay the same for the next two days. The heat index for Wednesday and Thursday are slated to reach 100, according to the National Weather Service forecast. Anna Norris/The Sidney Daily News


The photo above was the only photo I liked from the week. It was a last minute photo I needed to get for Wednesday's front page. All the other ideas I had for hot weather features just did not fall into place like I wanted them to. It was hard to find what I wanted among running around like a chicken with its head cut off with all the other assignments this week. It also didn't help that I had to spend several hours at Lehman Catholic to take pictures of all the varisty sports for our Fall Sports preview. It was during that time that I may have had a chance at getting the type of hot weather photo I wanted, but by the time I left the high school tired, a little annoyed and drenched with sweat from the humid temperatures, I resorted to the pool to get my hot weather feature.

I really wasn't looking forward to taking pictures of all the high school varsity sports at the respective schools I was given, but after getting through Lehman without any major catastropies, the other schools weren't as bad as I thought. Not only do we have to take team varsity photos, we have to take individual pictures of each varsity player so we have them if the sports editor needs to use them for head shots. I thought the most challenging part would be identifying all of players in the group photos since we do not have rosters yet, and not all teams have numbers. However, thanks to Erin suggesting using wipe-off boards in the individual pictures, that made the whole process of identifying players much easier. And after I got into the flow of my system, along with the great assistance from faculty members at the high schools, the process was easy and painless. Friday was not the day from hell I imagined it to be--it was in fact the best day of the whole week. I don't know why it was, but I was not grouchy at all and my attitude remained positive throughout the day (even when I made stops into the office between some assignments). The funniest moment of the day is when I drove out to Clear Creek Farm for their annual picnic and there was no one there. After I looked again at the assignment sheet, I saw that the date for the picnic was the 26th and not the 10th. All I could do was laugh out loud. For some odd reason, that assignment sheet had gotten placed on the 10th and I even wrote it down on the clipboard during the respective time obviously without looking at the date. I could not get mad because I made the mistake. I know if I was in a grouchy mood I would have gotten so mad and bitched about it--good thing I was not in a bad mood. Not having that assignment gave me time to go back to the office and edit my work from the day before going home and getting dinner before going to my last assignment later that night.

After having a not-so-good week last week, I am determinted to make this week a whole lot better. Only 14 days left working at the Sidney Daily News, so I have to make every day count.