Friday, February 27, 2009

Final Edition of the Denver Rocky Mountain News

As most of you know, I work for E. W. Scripps, the parent company for over a dozen newspapers across the country. I am a project manager for the online department and help to manage and implement pieces of the dot com portions for each of their newspapers.

It is with a sad heart that I write this post. Many of my co-workers (though most I do not know personally) are losing their jobs after today. Back on December 4, 2008, Scripps announced that they would put the Rocky Mountain News up for sale. Unfortunately, a buyer never stepped up. Just yesterday in this press release, Scripps announced that the Rocky was going to publish its final edition today.

My heart goes out to all of these employees. I wanted to thank you all for the dedication to see it through and continue to bring the people of Denver (and the rest of the world through your website) amazing stories and integrity in your journalism. Thank you!

The following video is a beautiful piece put together by the staff at the Rocky Mountain News. I hope you enjoy it and realize the impact this has on SO many people. Not just the employees, but also the city of Denver and journalists across the country.


Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Comments From Garrison Keillor...

Garrison Keillor's comments on Obama's election...

Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves
a few more weeks of quiet exultation.
It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done.
He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial
but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes
from working out in the gym every morning.

He spoke in a genuine voice, not senatorial at all.
He relished campaigning. He accepted adulation gracefully.
He brandished his sword against his opponents
without mocking or belittling them.
He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American,
and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool.
Chicago is cool. Chicago !!!

We threw the dice and we won the jackpot
and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree,
the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor.
He said, "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac,
and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher."
The French junior minister for human rights said,
"On this morning, we all want to be American
so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding
before our eyes." When was the last time you heard
someone from France say they wanted to be American
and take a bite of something of ours?
Ponder that for a moment.

The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos,
and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince
from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and
when his opponents threw sand at him,
he just smiled back. He'll be the first president in history
to look really good making a jump shot.
He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters.
At the same time, he knows pop music,
American lit and constitutional law.
I just can't imagine anybody cooler.

It feels good to be cool, and all of us can share in that,
even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads.
Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport
to the man with the badge, he's going to see
" United States of America " and look up and grin.
Even if you worship in the church of Fox ,
everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama,
and you may as well say you voted for him because,
my friends, he is your line of credit over there.
No need anymore to try to look Canadian.

_____________________________________________

Mr. Keillor is great! To bad I couldn't find a clip of him saying this so you could just hit a "play" button and listen to his captivating voice. Unabashedly, I admit to looking forward to his variety radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, each weekend on NPR. I recently read a funny description of the mysterious appeal of Garrison Keillor, by Sam Anderson. Anderson describes Keillor's weekly News From Lake Wobegon: "Keillor delivers the news in a kind of whispery trance. When he speaks, blood pressures drop across the country, wild horses accept the saddle, family dogs that have been hanging on at the end of chronic illnesses close their eyes and drift away". Ha ha! Perfect description.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Knoxville Skateboarding


Today, I ventured out to the Knoxville Skate Park. The park is great and has a few bowls, some stairs, rails and hubbas. It's a perfect mix of street and vert! The temperature got up to 65 today and there were a TON of kids (and 2 old guys) rockin' it out. Check out my Flickr page for more!

After hitting up the skate park, I headed over to The Board Room in fabulous Knox-Vegas. Some good friends of ours opened the shop this past Fall and I'd be willing to put money on it being the best skate shop in Knoxville. Some of the kids that were at the skate park must have knew I was coming because they were playing on the Xbox 360 when I showed up. After teaching them a lesson in s.k.a.t.e, I had them give me lessons in kickflips. I was able to get my board to flip, but just couldn't land it. All in good time. Here are some pics of the kids hitting up a rail in front of The Board Room.

The rest of the photos from the skate session at The Board Room can also be found on my Flickr.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Why do we live this way?

Recently, I got to thinking..."a lot of the stuff we have is old and jankity". I voiced this thought to Sonya and we decided to make a list of all of things that we could categorize as such. If you know anything about the two of us, you should know that we both absolutely LOVE to make lists. It's one of our favorite things to do. Sometimes, we even make lists of lists that we want to make in the future!

And I digress. What I was getting at was the fact that we've got a lot of dated things in our collective life. Here's a short list of some of the things I'm talking about:
  1. We use a VCR to record television shows
  2. The VHS tape we use to record television has been fully copied over at least 4 times
  3. We have a tube television that weighs about 200 lbs
  4. My cell phone does not have a camera on it
  5. I have a drawer full of cassette tapes in my van to which I still listen
  6. In my closet, among many other similar shirts that I wear, you'll find one which says "1999 College Basketball Champions"
  7. Every pair of jeans that I own has at least 1 hole (and they're not "fashion" holes)
  8. I've been riding the same snowboard for over 13 years
  9. Sonya drives a '93 Volvo station wagon with ripped seats
  10. I drive a '96 "Mercur" Villager van with ripped seats (the letter 'y' fell off the word "Mercury")

So, after we made this list, we started thinking "why do we do this to ourselves"? And therein lies our question to you, our 2 readers. Respond to the poll on the right about why you think we live this way. Then, comment with your suggestions about which one of these things we should change/update and why.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Sick Longboarding Action

This blog has really been crawling along for the past few years. We usually only write about things that we do or places we go, but no more. There are tons of cool things that I come across on the web and lots of thoughts rolling around in my head, so I thought I'd try and dump some o' dat in you face erry now and then.

I came across this insane longboarding video on one of my Vimeo romps. Check out these two dudes rocking the blue suits and passing the video camera back and forth while they blaze down this hill at ridiculous speeds.


Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

If you're going to do something this crazy/awesome/stupid, you might as well look fresh while you do it!

Knoxville at Night

Sonya spent the weekend in Nashville with some of her friends, so I thought it would be the perfect excuse for me to head downtown and learn how to use my new Canon Digital Rebel XSi in low light settings. I got down there just as the sun had set, so it was practically dark. Thankfully, this camera is AWESOME and was up for the task!


I learned a lot about my camera, but what I really took away from my night out on the town was that I should never do this again without gloves and a heavier jacket if it's only going to be 28 degrees outside!!