SUMMER OF '09 ARCHIVES: Yoga influences local painter's work

All right, this was the last article I contributed to the Herald during my internship. It's an interview with local artist Susan Summerfield Kozak about a new exhibit she had at the library. After this, it was a weeklong road trip up to Oregon, then I started DVC and I'd be happy to fill in the gaps to anyone else who wants to know. Needless to say, when I had my last day at the Herald, I really thought that was going to be it. I didn't think I'd ever be returning to the paper, and I certainly didn't think I'd be returning on a much bigger level. However, that's a story for another day.

SUMMER OF '09 ARCHIVES: Published standalone pictures

I have exactly one article left to post, but I'll hold off on it for now. Today, I'd like to post some of the pictures I took that weren't part of any articles but rather were used to fill space.

The "Everybody loves a carnival" package has an interesting story behind it. On my way to work, I noticed what looked like a mini-carnival. I told Marc about it, and he had me go back out and grab some pictures of it. It was part of a summer camp put on by Benicia's Parks Department, and I got information on it from the coordinator.

The other three pictures came from a day when I wasn't really doing much, so Marc sent me out to shoot as many pictures of First Street as I could, and he'd publish them whenever he needed to fill space. I think the "Views of Benicia" pictures were actually published after I'd left. (By the way, the offer to take pictures and send them to beniciaherald@gmail.com is still valid. We do like having visuals on the front page.)

SUMMER OF '09 ARCHIVES: Oh, those skateboarding rascals!

First of all, that is a terrible picture of me. I don't think there are any good pictures of me from this period, but I have to wonder what trick they were pulling to make my eyes do that.

Anyway, one of the requirements of my internship was to write an opinion piece on a city-related issue. I didn't have quite as much knowledge of city-related issues at that point, so I decided to do mine on the strict skateboarding laws. I'm quite happy with how this turned out, especially the research that went into it (I even talked to then-Councilmember Mike Ioakimedes, but it doesn't look like he made it into the article.) I should point out, however, that with a lot of my opinion pieces, my views evolve over time or I no longer feel the way I used to feel. This is one of those instances. Anybody nowadays trying to accuse me of encouraging reckless youth can relax. I don't feel as strongly about this now as I did back then (and I'm not sure how strongly I felt about it back then.) Still a good read.

SUMMER OF '09 ARCHIVES: High-speed chase leads to arrest

This was a crime story, and I don't remember a thing about writing it. Not a thing. I think it might have been a fleshed-out Police Blotter item, but covering this story left no impact on me.

Also, "frelonies"? Really, Nick?

SUMMER OF '09 ARCHIVES: View from over there

You know how every election, somebody says "If the candidate I don't like wins, I'm moving to Canada/England/etc."? It's mostly a bunch of empty talk, and few people actually do it. This guy, however, did. Chris Reed, a Benicia High School graduate and resident of Davis at the time (probably still is. I don't know), actually moved to France after George W. Bush won the 2000 election. What's more: he stayed there until Bush's second term ended in 2009. However you feel about his reasoning, you have to admire him for his commitment.

Upon returning to California, he wrote a book about his experiences in France, and I got to interview him. It was quite interesting.

SUMMER OF '09 ARCHIVES: Police Blotter, Week of July 2, 2009

One of the ongoing features of the Herald has been the Police Blotter. This provides a summary of the more interesting bits of police activity from the past week, and it is always published on Sundays. In the summer of '09, I was in charge of this. It involved a lot of combing through the police log, looking up criminal codes, and putting the information into easy-to-understand sentences.

I'm not going to post all of these, but I will post one chosen at random to provide an idea of the kind of work I was doing as well as the kinds of crimes Benicians were committing that week. Eggs were thrown, people complained about an annual bike festival...it was quite a week.

"Apparently, it was some kind of scam."

SUMMER OF '09 ARCHIVES: Passion for People

This was an article about a Benicia High School student who got to go to a nursing camp. I don't have a whole lot to say on this one except I later got a very nice letter from North Bay Healthcare thanking me for writing the article. I think this was written during my first week, but I can't confirm the dates for any of these articles.