The trackpad on my Powerbook is on strike. Occasionally it will respond, but only to let me know what I'm missing. As a result, I'm quickly learning that Mac OS X isn't very keyboard friendly. There is a keyboard access option that can be turned on, but it would require me to learn new keyboard shortcuts. Instead, I've got a USB mouse that's filling in for the trackpad (maybe it will see the scab that crossed the picket line and return to work). The USB mouse has four buttons and a scroll wheel. I haven't installed the Kensington software, so two of the buttons are useless, but the right-click and the scroll wheel are quickly becoming two of my best friends.

It makes me wonder why Apple hasn't developed a two-button, scroll-wheel mouse. I understand they want to keep things simple, which I can respect. But if they're going to make a wireless bluetooth keyboard and mouse, why not a more full-featured mouse... the iMac and eMac could still ship with the one-button, but the Powermacs and xServes could ship with the whizbang featured mouse. Or just sell them separate from all the models. Then again, third party vendors are doing a good job of filling the niche, and Apple seems content building certain features into the OS (support for two buttons and scroll wheel), so why rock the boat?

After reading couple Boondocks strips on ucomics.com I bought A Right to be Hostile. It has been one of the best investments I've ever made. I picked it up on Friday, started reading it after a late dinner, and finished it before lunch on Saturday. Hilarious.

KSUA is going to get into the music distribution biz. Well, not really... but kind of. We're going to put together a CD of local artists' performances at UAF. We're just starting the process, and it will be interesting to see how it progresses.

Right now we're brainstorming artists to include, then we'll get in touch with all of them for permission. Then we'll track down the actual recordings and verify their quality. Then we'll go through the selection process and choose which tracks to include. After that we'll do a preliminary master copy and start designing the liner notes and cd-tray card. Then it's off to the replication service to multiply our product and send it back so we can sell it. This will be fun.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, sunspot activity is high, which means that Aurora activity will also be high. Unfortunately, it's been very cloudy here.

Tom and I won an award from the Online News Association (photo at right by Will Sullivan). Here's what the judges said about our project (6mb Flash file):

The Alaska students talked to a number of people in their community with different views about the Patriot Act and then presented each as a story of its own. The judges felt that this site does a great job of tying the arcane legal wording of the Patriot Act to the people affected by it, linking directly from each story to the relevant sections of the law. Audio interviews make the individual stories more compelling. It�s a creative way to localize a broad national story.

To read more about the conference and other winners, visit the full coverage of the conference by Northwestern students. And ignore how dorky we are in this interview.

After spending almost four days in Chicago/Evanston, and a day in Minneapolis, I'm finally home. I've compiled an overview of events of my trip that you can read here. As the week progresses and I get caught up, I'll post more detailed accounts of things.

Wednesday night was spent packing and getting things ready. I was all set, all I needed to do was grab a few things in the morning and I would be on my way. I set my alarm for 3:45 a.m. so I could get up and make sure to have time. Unfortunately, I accidentally set the alarm for 3:45 p.m. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. crammed the last minute items in my bag and was out the door.

Eleven hours later, I was in Chicago. We got a ride to the Omni Hotel in Evanston and checked in. After unpacking a few things and hanging up shirts so they wouldn't wrinkle any more than they already had, we went in search of deep dish pizza. A bellman pointed us toward Giordano's. It was incredible -- the best pizza i've ever had.

Friday morning I woke up and realized I forgot something very important: underwear. I hoped to have time to pick some up, but there was something going on nearly every waking moment. Tom and I picked up some coffee and and searched for a hotel for our last night. We found Hotel 71 on cheaprooms.com. We returned to the hotel and checked in for the conference, which turned out to be quite an ordeal. The registration staffers seemed a bit unprepared but after some confusion we got everything we needed.

The opening Keynote was from Jack Fuller of the Tribune Company. It was funny because about one-third of the audience were working on their laptops during the speech. Some people were taking notes, but some were chatting on AIM and some were watching web animations like The Meatrix. Fuller wasn't a very exciting speaker. I do remember him saying that TribuneCo spent $600 million developing their Tribune Interactive department. An investment he called "a waste." Not because it's unsuccessful, because I think that it is, after several years, making money, but it was a large amount of money that will take a while to realize a return.

The first panel session I attended was about interactivity. The panel included representatives from MSNBC, the Herald (Everett, WA), and Agence France Presse. All the agencies had excellent examples of interactivity.

After the panel session was a trip to Tribune Interactive. Their facility was amazing. Even the AIA thought so and awarded them accordingly. I got to talk to a few people as we hung out around the open bar including folks from the New York Times and Christian Science Monitor.

Saturday Morning's first item on the agenda was a "Best of the Best" panel where Tom presented our project along with other award finalists including political cartoonist Mark Fiore, the Center for Public Integrity, LATimes.com, CBC.ca and a representative from the New York Times. Then it was time for lunch where I met a gentleman from Belo Interactive and listened to Andrew Sullivan give a keynote about blogs and journalism. After lunch I was introduced to two men from LATimes.com.

Saturday Afternoon I attended a panel titled "Flogging the Blogs." It was interesting, but after Friday night's lengthy discussion with Tom Regan (who was also on the panel) and Andrew Sullivan's keynote, not much new information was presented, but it was still interesting to hear the discussion.

Saturday night a pre-banquet reception. Tom and I talked with the editor of Gotham Gazette, whom we both enjoyed talking to. We also talked with Michael Rogers of Newsweek Interactive (whom we had met in March while in New York). The night's reception also had an open bar, which should be mentioned. At the banquet we sat at a table with two women from North Carolina, a man from Asahi newspaper in Japan, and a man from NLGJA, who gave us some advice on places to check out in Chicago. Once dessert was served, the awards were announced.

The announced the finalists and then the winner. When our name appeared on the screen, I didn't recognize it at first. I just kind of sat there. Then I realized what was happening and sat there stunned for a while longer before heading up to the stage. I don't remember what we said, except that we didn't mention our advisor/editor's name, which we both feel terrible about. After accepting the award we were interviewed by the students who were covering the conference.

After the banquet, we went to the hotel bar for a drink. We talked for a quite a while with a few people from NYTimes.com and they mentioned there was another reception upstairs for panelists, which we had been that morning. The drinks upstairs were free so we hung out some more. We talked a bit with a man from LATimes.com and then I also talked with an editor from Variety.com.

Sunday morning we went to the Medill journalism school at Northwestern where our advisor was on a panel about new media education. We talked with still more folks, that I was too tired then to remember. I remember one was from NYtimes.com, one from Washingtonpost.com and a couple of faculty at the school.

After that Tom and I hit the town. We checked in to Hotel 71, which was very cool, and then went to find food. We were going to go to a show at Second City, but it was sold out, so we stuck around the Magnificent Mile area. The Apple Store was near the top of both our lists so after eating at the famous Billy Goat Tavern that was our first stop. Even though neither of us could afford anything there, we poked around anyway. We also took some pictures but it wasn't long before a security guard came and told us we couldn't.

We didn't really know where we were going so we just wandered around a bit in search of some souvenirs. After all the walking our feet were getting tired so we decided to something that didn't require us to stand (ie. a movie). But first we needed food. We ate at Heaven on Seven, a cajun restaurant. The walls were covered in hot sauces from all over the place. I ordered the cajun stir-fry but couldn't finish it because it was so hot. It tasted so good, though, that I got a box for it. Then we watched School of Rock, which was a lot of fun. Jack Black can do amazing work, it's just too bad he had to get through Shallow Hal and Saving Silverman.

Monday morning we found breakfast at great diner on Lake street called Old Timers. The waiter gave us a tip on a place to look for a souvenir shirt located on Wabash. That meant we crossed the intersection of Wabash and Lake... sound familiar? In the first Matrix movie, one of the exits is located at Wabash and Lake. The store turned out to be a dud for souvenir shirts, but awesome for any other clothes. I hadn't had much experience with Filene's Basement before, but I would love to go back when I have some money. Incredible deals on great clothes.

Monday afternoon we checked out of the hotel and cabbed to O'Hare. Our flight was little late leaving and even later landing, so we ended up stuck in MSP for the night. We went to a Best Western for the night, but it was still pretty early so we ate dinner and then went to see Matrix Revolutions. Not really into it.

Tuesday morning we went to the airport flew to Seattle, arrived late, got to our next gate just as it was boarding. Flew to Anchorage. Landed really late and had to get changed to another plane to Fairbanks. Finally got home after 30 hours of traveling. I was worried that it would still be cold, but the temperature had warmed up to -15 from -40.

I'm staying at the Hotel 71 tonight. It's the coolest hotel I've ever been in (pictures will come later). The chairs are leopard print, the chair at the desk is leather, the design around the room is modern (or would it be post-modern?) and there's a telephone right next to the toilet. So if I sound a little distracted, that's why. The hotel is right on the river and basically at the intersection of Michigan Ave and Wacker. More later.. need food.

UPDATE: While looking through the drawers of the various cabinets, I found that the hotel supplies this:

In case you can't read the thumbnail, it's called an "Intimacy Kit." Oh, and this may be unrelated, but I noticed that there's no Gideon Bible in the room.

I spent the bulk of yesterday making "hire me" packets to hand out at the ONA Conference this weekend. Then I packed, set my alarm for 3:45 a.m. and went to bed. I woke up at 4:30 and scrambled to get ready and out the door. Apparently, I had set the alarm for 3:45 p.m. instead. Fortunately, we were still at the Airport with plenty of time.

Now I'm in MSP waiting to get on the plane to Chicago. Apparently O'Hare is backed up because there were high winds this morning, so our flight was delayed a bit. The concourse has Wi-Fi access that, to my surprise, is free.

Creating a live newscast is a pretty intense process. The control room is the nerve center. The director manages everything that goes on-air from his seat in here.

The switcher takes orders from the director and selects which signals are being used.

The anchors are in the studio which is in another part of the building.

The live truck lets the station put someone on scene and do a report on location. The signal is transmitted back to the studio where it is shown as a source in the control room.

The final product is the result of many hours of working and writing in the newsroom. The signal is broadcast throughout the Anchorage area.

After spending a day with the crew, tired students are loaded onto a small plane and flown home.

Yesterday I was in Anchorage with my TV Production class. We travelled 350 miles to shadow a news crew in action. The staff of the station were awesome for letting us tag along.

9:00 a.m. - Morning Meeting (all times approximate)
The Morning Meeting is when the News Director (ND) and Assignment Editors (AE) decide what gets covered for the day. Reporters are also in on this meeting and bring their story ideas and/or take assignments from the ND/AE. This particular morning, a couple reporters had their own ideas and were sent off to start working on them. A couple others didn't have ideas and were waiting for assignments.

9:15 a.m. - Morning Meeting
One reporter had left and took a student with her to cover a story. Someone from the newsroom poked their head into the conference room and said something along the lines of "hostage situation in a trailer park, negotiator on scene." (Those are far from exact words) The ND made the assignment to a reporter and our professor pointed at me and motioned for me to follow.

9:30 a.m. - Muldoon Road
We didn't have the exact address when we left the station, but both the reporter and photographer (photog) had cell phones and were trying to get directions. We drove up and down Muldoon a couple of times and finally found the right place. The trailer park was quite large, and the Police had it blockaded, so we couldn't get very close by car. The photog parked the car and we walked around some of the other homes and made our way toward the scene. I was very excited, but also pretty nervous. At this point, all we knew was that there was a man in a trailer with a rifle who had already fired several shots out his window.

10:30 a.m. - Muldoon-area Trailer park
The reporter, photog and I waited in the police staging area. The man's trailer was around a corner, but we didn't know how far, and the police weren't going to let us get any closer. It was snowing heavily and SERT officers were arriving regularly, putting on their gear and checking their weapons (unfortunately, I had left my digicam in the news truck... no photos). The APD Public Affairs officer was a helpful, but there wasn't much he could do for us. There must have been more than 20 officers on scene that approached from our position. The road looped around, so there may have been more on the other side.

11:15 a.m. - Muldoon-area Trailer park
After a couple hours of waiting in the snow, we were notified that the man surrendered peacefully. A Lieutenant talked with the news crew and let them know the details. The 84-year-old was apparently fed up because neighborhood kids were always picking on him. The negotiator had talked him down, and it was confirmed that there was no hostage as originally suspected. After a few minutes we made our way to the scene, now that the situation was over, and got footage of the man's trailer.

It was a very exciting morning to be a part of.

It snowed a bit yesterday, so on my way home today, I took a few photos:

Wow, it snowed and rained today, making the roads quite dangerous. As a result, nearly every event in town was cancelled. OK, it wasn't quite that bad, but the Speed Dating event was cancelled. It didn't bother me too much, because I would have been missing a class I couldn't afford to miss much more. It turned out that class was also cancelled, though, pretty much killing my evening. Not one to let a perfectly good evening go to waste (and to put off doing homework), I decided to clean my room, which was long overdue. Now it's time to write some more of my novel and try to catch up... i'm a few thousand words behind schedule.

I took this picture with my new digital camera. Actually, the camera's refurbished, but it's new to me.

Lately, my Powerbook has been acting erratically. When I try to use the "command" button (aka "open apple") sometimes it puts my computer to sleep. Sometimes it does just what it should. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. Mac OS X does include a command-key shortcut to put the computer to sleep, but I'm not using that command, I'm doing things like copying text (cmd-C) and replying to e-mail (cmd-R). It doesn't happen every time, but every time it happens, I have to wait a minute to reestablish a network connection and also deal with the interrupted workflow.

I don't know if I've said this before, but I don't think I'll being any more refurbished computers.