Blogging from The Oklahoman interns

TOP 3: Stage Falls

From reading my past blog posts I know sometimes it seems as if I am bi-polar…wait…did  I spell Bi-polar wrong.

Some days I blog about something serious. Some days I  attempt to blog about something funny. But, that’s actually who I am. Some days, I am embroiled in a deep conversation giving my opinion on the serious topics of life.Other days you will find me having a ball entertaining friends and family. Today, I feel like entertaining by blogging about the TOP 3: Stage Falls.

1.)    Michelle Williams

2.)    Lady Gaga

3.)    Columbus Shorts Walks off Stage

I see falling stars. I’m just kidding. If I were a celebrity believe me, I would probably in this TOP 3 posts myself considering the fact that I have fallen down numerous times in public places, including while working.  I just hope I don’t fall after writing this post. If I do this post will definitely need an update.

Since  numbers 2 and 3 both have questionable language I won’t post it on this blog, but you can click their names to find out why they made the TOP 3.

Bacon!

I’m lucky to get to spend the summer surrounded by extremely talented and helpful people.

My favorite article this week is by Carrie Coppernoll. It combines some of my favorite things: great writing, bizarre subjects and BACON.

The column is about a bacon festival in Enid that benefits the American Heart Association. Such a great idea.

Check it out Carrie’s article.

This is a great photo from the festival by Nate Billings.

All encompassing technology

I used to live in California.  I worked in a recording studio in San Francisco and played in punk rock bands. We played shows big and small from San Diego to Seattle and Japan.

I’ve wanted to record an album since I was two-years-old.  That’s one reason I recorded other people’s music; I was determined to get my name in the liner notes of a record.

Liner notes – such a dated concept, right?  Aside from vinyl enthusiasts, who buys physical records anymore?

Apparently more people than I thought, but that number is decreasing.

Fifty-three percent of all music in the U.S was purchased as physical discs and 43 percent of sales were digital downloads during the first quarter of 2011. 

Those numbers were 57 percent and 43 percent, respectively, for the same time last year, according to the NPD group.  But overall music sales are up for the first time since 2004. 

The news isn’t as positive for books.

One report says physical sales were down anywhere from 23 to 42 percent last month, depending on the type of book.  Meanwhile, e-book sales were up 157 percent for some companies.

Adult Fiction was hit hardest by e-book sales, according to Publishers Weekly. 

Speaking of adults,  the average age of a video-gamer is 37-years-old.

A few days ago, I watched my mother play “Bubble Shooter” for an hour on her iPhone.  Afterward we discussed her high score at length.  My mother joined AARP a few years ago and she never played video games while I was growing up. 

Total hardware and software sales for video games are up from last year.  Over all sales were almost $6 billion but physical sales of video games are decreasing slightly and downloadable sales are increasing.

Over one million units of “Gears of War 3” have been preordered worldwide and it doesn’t hit the streets until September.  In music, Adele’s new album, “21,” is the biggest album of the year; it has sold 2.5 million copies since February.

What does all of this mean? How does all of this affect local businesses?

I’ll answer those questions and more in the story I’m working on.

For the record, my name eventually made it into the liner notes of a few albums as a band member and an engineer.

Harry Potter Premier

I was less than impressed the dedication of Harry Potter fans today at the Quail Springs mall.

I was expecting to see more people dressed up like HP characters, but this was nothing like a Star Wars premier.  There were a few oddballs, but the majority of the people that decided to dress up, dressed up as Harry.

Nevertheless, hundreds of people lined the walls of the mall more than 9 hours before the midnight premier of the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and that’s something a fellow geek can admire.

-Garett Fisbeck

Why Google+ is making waves across the web

I’m a quitter.

In the realm of social media, I usually end up forgetting to post and tweet regularly.

I work in waves of activity. One day, at the crest of activity, I tweet and post and blog like a madman. The next day, I’m a ghost.

But those tendencies have dropped off since I joined Google+, Google’s own social networking platform. Right now, Google+ is still in beta testing phase with access granted by invite only. Even so, it is speculated to have more than 10 million users already.

It’s hugely popular with already avid social media users, but it is also gaining momentum for inspiring a new and distinct audience.

Here’s why:

1. Privacy: Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Google+ allows users to choose who they share certain content with. In reality, people don’t speak with family the way they do their friends or coworkers. Google+ attempts to simulate that truth and stimulate deep conversations and activity. They do this with their signature feature, Circles.

Circles allows users to sort friends, coworkers,  celebrities and whoever else, into any category you wish. You can create as many circles as you want, up to 5000 anyway.  All you do is click and drag your list of friends into the circles you create. Simple.

2. Hanging out: Interacting with your friends has never been easier. Over the internet at least. Google+ introduced their hangout feature, which enables circles to video chat with each other, up to 10 users. If one person you are interested in is talking, just mouse over their thumbnail video and it expands above the rest. If nobody strikes your fancy, Google+ takes the liberty of cycling through users every few seconds.

3. Photo sharing: If you are like me, viewing shared photos of friends or colleagues is an important tool in social media.

Facebook has slowly improved their tool. Twitter lacks one all-together. Google+ made leaps and bounds over competition. The photos tab on your main page takes you to a sleek, cleanly designed page.

When you open up an album, the photos appear big and beautiful on the page, a photographer’s dream photo tool. Even in the Stream, Google+’s version of Facebook’s Feed, the photos appear big, with every detail clearly defined.

4. Immediacy: Google was able to take Twitter’s  market advantage. Since Twitter publishes every tweet to everyone, information gets lost to viewers who follow a sizable number of accounts. Plus, replies come in a back-and-forth method. Little activity between the audience happens because of the difficulty to keep up with the “who said what to who?” mentality of tweets. Google integrates the immediacy of Twitter with responses in a clean commenting system, like Facebook. But, because all the information is relevant to every Google+ member, more people are inclined to join the conversation and actually see what others are saying, too.

5. Simplicity: The word to describe the entirety of Google+ is simple. Developers took every step to make sure that the program was as simple and clean as possible to use. You’ll be hard pressed to find useless design elements in the system. As of now, Google+ doesn’t feature games or advertisements. That prevents users from being bogged down in the usual insanity that comes along with most social networks.

I’m a simple guy with big expectations. Since I started posting on the site, I realized I was reaching my audiences like never before. I have opportunities to meet others with my interests like never before, and I’m a consistent social media user.

While the program does indeed have flaws, and so much potential to grow, the program has made a serious name for itself. Maybe you’ll get hooked like I did.

Add Brandon Goodwin to your Google+ circles.
You can also follow Brandon on twitter, @bdgood, but don’t expect much. He’ll be on Google+.

TOP 3: Heat Busters

If you live in Oklahoma,  you know how hot it has been across  the state.  You now the 100+ weather began in Spring, which is my favorite season weeks before it was officially  summer:*(.   For those of you who don’t know, if you’ve read this blog you probably know now. So I wan’t to share with you the TOP 3: Ways to keep cool when its ridicuously hot outside ( the  dangerously hot cheetah on the bag of Flamin’ Hots has nothing on the heat here).

1.) Stay inside - For all you outdoorsy people, if you absolutely have to go outside I suggest eating tons and tons of popsicles and snowcones and slushes.

2.) Take cold showers - Who takes a hot shower in the middle of a  hot, hot, hot, hot summer. That  would be like having to take a cold show in the winter.

3.) Drink  ice cold drinks - while drinking ice cold drinks, its very helpful if you do so under the air conditioner or right beside a fan blasted on the highest power.

 

 

*Disclaimer: If you follow this guide, I am in no way responsible for you receiving a cold and therefore assume no liabilities.  Why can’t I make this disclaimer in small print like irresponsible companies do.

@Krystal Wagner it pangs me that I can’t put swimming on this post since I can’t swim.

Historical sites will be history soon

I’ve been a recreational reader since kindergarten but I rarely read nonfiction without someone forcing it on me.  But earlier this year I turned a new page and started reading nonfiction for personal enjoyment. 

The books have been primarily about Oklahoma territory and Native-American history.  It started with “Empire of the Summer Moon,” a brutal and thrilling examination of “Comancheria,” Quanah Parker and the Comanche tribe’s forgotten place in the history of the Great Plains.  I am familiar with the stories.  I grew up hearing and learning about them from every perspective but the book still blew my mind.

I’ve also read “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” a book of stories and poems about the Kiowa tribe and a sacred foothill southeast of Gotebo in Kiowa County.  The place was important to the tribe for many reasons but it also served as geographical marker.  Before U.S. development, the plains were an amorphous land comparable to an ocean or desert in vastness, danger and navigability.

I used to cut wheat and plow fields at the foot of that landmark when I was a kid.  I would commute from Apache via back roads and also use Rainy Mountain as a guide.

Right now I’m reading “Chilocco: Memories of a Native American Boarding School.”  The book is about the “Indian Agricultural School” north of Ponca City, just inside the state line. It was open from 1884 to 1980.  More than 5,000 students graduated from there and approximately 18,000 students, representing 176 different tribes, walked the massive 8,640 acre campus.

I plan to read “Carbine and Lance: the Story of Old Fort Sill” next.  I went to the museum at the military base every year as a child, but I hope to learn something new from the book.

These  books and stories like the one on Collings Castle by Derrick Ho and Hannah Rieger, and others I found in the archives have inspired me.

While writing stories for the metro section, the know-it section of Newsok, the forthcoming Yukon Living Guide, and working on stories for the business section, I’ve also been developing a multimedia project that examines endangered historical sites in Oklahoma.

I’m just not sure if I will have time to do them all. 

Many of these sites are rural and forgotten.  It is sad to see locations rich in historical significance give way to the elements of weather and neglect.  Oklahoma City residents had the tax base and common sense to restore Bricktown.  However, there is no economic incentive to save many places on the list of the state’s most endangered historic places.

I have five sites selected.  I hope to do at least three.  Feel free to email me with any suggestions at koswald@opubco.com.

Road Trip Series: Part 2

From the moment we saw the spider crawling along the windshield of the PT Cruiser, we should have known the trip was doomed … or at least we were in for some interesting times.

For the second installment of the road trip series, fellow intern Whitney joined me.

Once again, my GPS wasn’t cooperating with me so we relied on Whitney’s phone to guide us on our journey.

As we drove along, we managed to pass the sign for the Red Rock Canyon State Park in Hinton. This was entirely our fault as we both looked at the sign without it registering that was our destination.

The steep, winding roads into the park led us to the first stop in the park – a green pond with what we assumed was water beneath. There wasn’t much to the park until we started walking the trails.

We took a path that looked less traveled – no pun intended – and it led us going the opposite direction on a path we originally didn’t want to take.

After that hike, we got back into the car for the next destination that was an hour away.

We might have missed another sign welcoming us to Roman Nose State Resort Park in Watonga, but even as we doubled back, the only signs indicating we were in the park were signs for horseback riding.

The park has a variety of activities including paddleboats, horseback riding, mini golf course and tepee rental. If the weather weren’t so hot and we had more time, it would have been fun to try some of the activities.

We could hear the sound of the rushing water even as approached the stream in the Three Springs Area. The stream sounded larger than it is, but it’s still just as beautiful.

 

 

Yet again, we passed another park. To our credit, Glass (Gloss) Mountains State Park in Fairview didn’t look like a park but more a look out point area.

There isn’t much to the park other than a parking lot and a trail leading up the side of a mountain.

The view from the trail was wonderful. I wasn’t able to climb all the way to the top as Whitney did, but I still enjoyed it.

As we searched for the Great Salt Plains State Park in Jet, we made an unexpected trip to the Great Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge where the car unexpectedly died. We sat there looking at each other wondering what happened. The brake didn’t even work as we rolled backward down a slight hill. Thankfully, the PT Cruiser rallied with another turn of the ignition and we were on our way again.

 

After turning around, we realized that had we turned right at the first park we encountered, we would have been in the correct course.

The cabin seemed promising with the appliances and kitchen utensils. The back windows overlooked the Great Salt Plains Lake.

After a long day of driving and hiking in the hot weather, sleep sounded wonderful. Little did we know, there were unexpected visitors about to rear their ugly little heads.

 

Within a 15-minute span, we killed two spiders and a third was just crawling out from under the nightstand. I’m not a fan of spiders, but I can

handle killing them. Scorpions on the other hand … no way.

Whitney found a mother scorpion and her baby hiding among the extra pillows and blankets. At that moment, we decided we couldn’t stay the entire night.

Needless to say, the trip provided some unexpected experiences.

Energy Saving Tips of the Week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With temperatures in Oklahoma reaching well beyond normal and energy bills going higher and higher each month, what can we do to stay cool without going broke.

First, turn the air conditioner down. Yes, that’s right. Turn it down. Statistics show that running your air conditioner at 76 degrees rather than 72 degrees offers the same relief.

Put those chores off. You don’t have to tell me twice. OG&E warns of washing and drying clothes and dishes during the day. Why? Be cause it heats the house up more. Doing the laundry during the morning and at night can help keep the house cooler and reduce electric bills.

International Finals Youth Rodeo

I had the privilege to get a great assignment, covering the IFYR.

It was an excellent environment for action and feature shots and so far, my favorite assignment.

See more from IFYR here.

-Garett Fisbeck

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