Great Day

So today I got out a four page section 45 minutes before deadline, including some great photos and a solid feature, multiple gamers and a column that might even spark some debate in the community (all done by myself). In my spare time I helped fix a design mess on A1. And to top it all off, got a holiday bonus. I'll probably go in tomorrow to find out I totally mangled someone's name or put in a score wrong and have irate parents calling me, But for the moment, I'm feeling pretty damn good.
So, jumping off the disaster thread, what are some f the days you feel proud about what you've accomplished?

 

Every second Friday.

 

I remember vividly the first time my boss, the ME at a small, thrice weekly, left me to fend for myself while he went on vacation. I ran the ship like the well-oiled machine it wasn't. I managed the reporters well, met deadlines and designed the paper a helluva lot better than him. When he got back, I got my first raise -- to $525 a week from $400. "You must've impressed somebody," he said.

And the legend was born. The best fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants effin' stud between Birmingham and Montgomery.

Ryan Sonner phoned me that week to apologize ... for being born.

 

I can vouch for you.

But you, of all people, should give that nice young Mr. Sonner a break.

 

Your boss must be dumb. I'd have sabotaged your ass for making me look bad.

 

I've had a pretty good week so far. Beat everybody on one story that got pretty viral, beat some people on the second phase of another story, got a nice thumbs up from the publisher. And I realize this is like talking about a no-hitter. Like the first poster said, I'll probably be accused of libel by the end of the week. But for now, I don't feel too bad.

 

Many of my great nights were in Bennington, during championship hoops, when I'd cover a game at the Aud, race back 90 miles knowing I could slide off the icy roads yet never did, get back at 11 and start banging out a story, then go to the darkroom and start processing my film (the spooling process in the dark could be maddening at times), then drop the film in the developer, go back to my desk and start banging away more, take a call or two, go switch the film into the fixer, go back and bang away at the story and take another call or two, go back into the darkroom and start drying the film and making prints, go back to my desk and keep banging away at the story, go get the negatives and scan the suckers in ... sweet chaos, all of it. And usually the colleague and I made deadline, or if we didn't, weren't more than a few minutes past it.

Other great nights include covering 6 games in one night, though this was at a weekly. But the journey from one venue to the next, hockey rink to ski jump to hoops games back to the hockey rink, was a rush. That was one of my favorite days in the biz. As was covering 5 hoops games in one night. I could go on and on.

 

i love every day of this

early early early in the business

i had to cover a JUCO tournament hoops game somewhere out on Long Island at like 8 p.m. and then an NCAA first-round game in Hartford at noon the next day

probably didn't get out of the JUCO gym till 12:30, got to hartford around 3 a.m., hotel had lost my reservation, finally got to my room at 3:30 -- was so wound up, got to sleep around 4:30 ... was up early and at the arena by 10 studying my press notes and eating shitty eggs

loved it. that day i knew I'd have the newspaper bug forever. great times.

 

congrats, statrat. days like these are to be treasured and what's kept me lovin' the biz dor 29 years.

and great to hear you received a holiday bonus to cap it off. enjoy. ;D ;D

 

What's a holiday bonus?

 

Today I didn't even have to use my AK.