Sitting on the beach in Destin, Florida. I’m held hostage by the white sand, blue water, orange juice and sparkling wine.

I did a phone interview for a story my first day here.  Since then the beautiful weather and steamed shrimp has stifled any motivation to do more than dig my toes deeper into the refined grains of rock and minerals of the Gulf of Mexico.

I intend to finish three stories while I’m here, but you know what they say about good intentions.

This time last year there was a black hole bleeding approximately 798,000 gallons of toxic Texas tea into the gulf daily. One year later many victims are still waiting for compensation.

Their lawyers say BP has failed to comply with “the letter and spirit” of the U.S. Oil Pollution Act by using “coercive tactics” to force people to accept inadequate payments. They convince the victims that they are only eligible for a small amount of money and they have to sign a full release to receive it. Many have accepted the terms because they can’t afford to wait anymore.

BP set up a $20 billion account to pay victims and damages last year.  To date, the company has paid more than 20,000 claimants for a total of $250 million, fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg said. Altogether BP has paid about $4.3 billion in damages.

But the company is doing extremely well financially.  They reported a $5.3 billion profit for the second quarter of 2011. It’s a shame the property owners, businesses, and people that live in the Gulf aren’t doing as well as BP is one year after the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Like the hole that spewed 205 million gallons of oil into the gulf, there is a hole in our system that allows the elite to abuse it.  They have the financial means to jockey the courts, destroy environments and ruin lives while making ridiculous profits.

We should slash the red tape of our legal system and use it to bind the hands of giant corporations that use it to exploit the country’s middle and working-classes.  Some of these bloated companies would inevitably get tangled and asphyxiate trying to get free. Like animals in an oil spill.  But capitalism is survival of the fittest.

This 90 degree heat and cool ocean breeze must be getting to me. I’ll just listen to the waves crash, go back to burying my toes in the sand and consider doing the same with my head. After this mimosa.

Since this got removed from my actual story in print, I will say it here.

Noodling is basically one big ‘That’s What She Said” Joke.

Ah! Ok, I can breathe now.

Seriously though, when I got a hold of the noodlers that fellow intern Zach Gray and I would be following around, I couldn’t even imagine what would be in store for us for the weekend. I’ve  been to the Okie Noodling Tournament in Paul’s Valley before, but to now be in cahoots with two guys who are allowing us to go watch the process of catching these river (and lake) monsters, I was more than just your average excited.

Zach and I met Tell and Chris in the parking lot of Mazzio’s Pizza in Stillwater, and we set off toward lake McMurtry in Payne County. Arriving just before 7 p.m., which was the start of the actual alloted time for the tournament, Zach and I climbed into the boat set off with Tell across the lake just as the sun was starting to set.

The actual process of getting in the water with thousands of dollars in camera equipment was much, much trickier.

With no water protective housing to aid us except for a camera that wasn’t producing the pictures Zach wanted, we both used the strategy of keeping one hand dry and praying to God that the tricky lakes of Oklahoma didn’t surprise us with some massive drop off.

Only once did things get hairy and that happened when I tripped over a fishing line that was left from a previous fool… but thankfully I had four feet of monopod to hoist the camera into the air while I took in too large of a gulp of tasty Canadian River.

No fish were caught the first night we went out, which was a real shame as the light was beautiful and the water felt great. Upon our return to shore, we struck up a deal with Tell that we would meet him and Chris the next morning in the hopes that we would find an unlucky fish or two along the Canadian River.

The whole experience was amazing and while I was riding in the boat under a setting sun with way too many people in it, all I could think about was how lucky I am to be in this funny profession of journalism where I can go and hang with guys that just like to have a good time and stick their hands in holes so catfish will bite them… seriously they want to do this!

Noodle on noodlers.

Amazon's Kindle ebook reader. (AP Photo/ Mark Lennihan, file)

I’ve wanted an e-reader for as long as they have existed, but my college student budget has kept a Nook or Kindle just out of reach.

When I saw that Amazon released a new textbook rental feature for Kindle, I saw it as an opportunity. Especially when they advertise it with, “Save up to 80 percent off the list price of the print textbook.”

Eighty percent? Whoa. That’s a big gap. In fact, I thought, that’s enough savings to buy a Kindle and still come out with my rented textbooks in the black. Right?

Well…

The Mashable.com article said Amazon has tens of thousands of textbooks to choose from. Also, if you rent it for the Kindle, you also get it on your mobile device and laptop computer. Not a bad combo. I decided to test my luck and see what kind of savings I could get.

Here’s what I found:

Screenshot of Amazon.com's Textbook Rental Page. Click to enlarge.

Out of the five classes (15 credit hours, average for college students) I am enrolled in for the fall at the University of Kentucky, I only needed five books.

Now that is unusual, but I take communication/journalism and political science classes, two fairly popular majors, so my chances of big savings should be high.

But out of the five books I needed, only one of them was available on Amazon.com for the Kindle. And that one book was not eligible for the textbook rental program.

Shucks.

My hopes and dreams of getting my hands on my own Kindle were shattered as quickly as they were shaped, but not everyone will have my luck.

From writing about the documentary made about imprisoned soldier Michael Behenna, to covering the deadCENTER film festival and seeing the crazy awesome Troll Hunter, to traveling to Lone Wolf, Oklahoma and becoming engulfed in the artistic goodness of Quartz Mountain.

But this week especially, the workload has been turned up and the stories are flowing in. I have been writing or working on eight stories this week and I’m absolutely loving every one of them.

One of the week’s highlight was attending the OKC Summer Classic Dog Show on Thursday and getting to interview people who are completely obsessed with their pooch. You have never heard the word bitch used so casually as you do at a dog show.

http://www.newsok.com/article/3581775

Slightly unrelated to work but still happened this week was my experience getting to see Doug Benson at the OKC performing arts center. He and Graham Elwood were so stinking funny and the whole atmosphere was pretty spectacular, especially Elwood’s rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”

I don’t get much of a break for the Fourth of July, but I’m going to make every attempt to blow something up and watch Independence Day. Because nothing says I love America more than Will Smith punching aliens in the dome.

WELCOME TO ERF!!!

Happy Fourth everyone!

1. Murrah Federal Bombing April 19,  1995 – Before 9/11 many Americans were too comfortable with the notion terrorism was something that often happened overseas. The aftermath of acts of terrorism were too often only seen through the portrayal of media in nations that were at war or under the leadership of a dictator.The OKC federal bombing had been one of the first major terrorist attacks in the U.S. since Pearl Harbor. And it all too quickly changed the lives of many Oklahomans. Many Oklahomans today still are affected by the aftermath of this terrorist attack.

Video posted by AssociatedPress at youtube.com

2. May 3 Tornado – When an F5 hit Missouri, many Oklahomans already understood what it was like to go through such a severe storm. Several cities in Oklahoma were devastated including areas close to neighborhood I used to live in.  Out of this tragedy came so many stories of survival and a sense of what a community is supposed to be.

Video posted by GualdAnubis at youtube.com

3.  2007 ice storm – This is the first time, I truly understood what life would be like without all the modern gadgets and invention we enjoy today. For, at least two days we were without electricity and heat. There were no working phones. And for those who lived in the country and drew water from wells, many did not have running water due to frozen pipes.

video by briandjin2 at youtube.com

Stillwater’s Other Lives apparently impressed Mates of State when they opened for the group during a show in Norman this past spring.

Other Lives is set to open nine shows for the San Francisco native Mates of State, starting with a show in Columbus, Ohio in October.

For a full list of shows with Mates of State, click here.

Those shows will come after the band plays six shows with Indie Folker Bon Iver in September.

Other Lives released its second album, Tamer Animals, on May 10 and so far has drawn positive reviews from music sites Pitchfork and Paste Magazine.

Plus, the band made perhaps one of the greatest music videos in the history of music videos that take place in space… (Probably only edged out by Michael Jackson’s Scream video. You just can’t beat Pong in space.)

With a rich history of a little more than 230 years,  the TOP 3 events isn’t an easy task, but why not go for challenge?

The single most important event in U.S. history is:

1.) The Declaration of Independence  in 1776

Without the Declaration of Independence, the U.S.A. — as it exist today– probably would have never  been… I would dare to say that this was the time when Democracy existed in its purest form. Not that Democracy doesn’t exist today, but I strongly believe the nation has strayed far from democracy and what the “founding fathers” intended it to be.

2.) The Civil War

The Civil War should be in any list about historical events considering the fact that it was the Civil War that United the States. Without the War The USA may have easily been known as  the DSA – The Divided States of America.

I wonder if the U.S. would be like N. Korea and S. Korea today?

Many people believe  the Civil War happened as a result of slavery. However, The Civil war was no more than a power struggle between two competing economies, two competing viewpoints and two competing presidents who wanted to  be on top…For the record, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all states in South. In my opinion, the slaves became free because the war devastated the South leaving them with very few means to continue to enforce slavery to the same degree they had before the Civil war.

3.) The Civil Rights Movement

I shutter to think about what the America we know today would be like without the Civil Rights movement.  In spite of what many may think the Civil Rights was not about race. It was about obtaining the very rights that were sought for all citizens of the “new world.”  The “unalienable Rights” of  “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” as stated in the Declaration of Independence.  Those unalienable rights were sought for every U.S. citizen regardless of  gender, race, religion, creed, etc.

P.S.  Its hard to analyze events that have occurred within the last 20-30 years or so because I don’t think  we can even begin to grasp the magnitude of just how those events may have changed American History. So I did not include any events that occurred within that decade.

Other events that I thought about choosing from include:  WWI, WWII, Pearl Harbor,  the Womens Rights Movement, the assassination of former president Kennedy, the Louisiana Purchase, the Moonwalk, the Industrial Revolution, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl,the Vietnam War, the Mexican American war…there’s so many events that could be listed here this list is by no means exhaustive.

Looking for something awesome to do on a Tuesday night?

Then gallop on over to the Conservatory tonight and catch Horse Thief  open up for J Roddy Walston & The Business.
Horse Thief is made up of students from the Academy of Contemporary Music of The University of Central Oklahoma. Originally from Denton, Texas, Horse Thief then moved to OKC to attend ACM @ UCO and has since been playing around the state as well as SXSW and Norman Music Fest (Where they were unceremoniously kicked off stage by a terrible venue operator).Plus, their song Warrior is awesome!

http://horsethiefrock.bandcamp.com/track/warrior

Go see Horse Thief tonight at the Conservatory, doors open at 6 p.m. and the cover is $12.

Jim Hanon took home the award at the deadCENTER Film Festival for “Best Oklahoma Film” for his documentary “Little Town of Bethlehem.”

The film tries to shed a new light on the centuries old Israeli Palestinian conflict by talking to three men, Sami Awad a Palestinian Christian, Ahmad Al’ Azzeh a Palestinian Muslim and Yonatan Shapira, an Israeli Jew who have all taken a pledge of nonviolence to help end the fighting.

Hanon, who is based in Oklahoma, talked after his film ended about the struggles that went in to making his documentary and the importance he sees in the message of his three characters.

“Every situation you saw in the movie, I was in there,” Hanon said. “So I was tear gassed and other different things and I have made a lot of different films but I was never afraid while making a film until this one.”

They know the history, and so they know unless something changes that history is going to continue to repeat itself. They have been fighting forever but these guys are starting to look and say they don’t want their children to inherit this so they are trying to change it.”

-Adam Kemp