So a few weeks ago in hopes of getting it transcribed in time for this past weekend’s Veterans Day, I went diving through the archives of my Pasadena Weekly days and wouldn’t you know they’re just about complete except I’m missing the issue that had one thing I was looking for: a feature article I …
So a couple days ago I decided to have some e-fun for Halloween. Specifically, I built a mock L.A. Times web page with a news feature headlined “Legend of the haunted Griffith Park picnic table” that I posted and linked to from Blogging.la: [click here to go to the complete story] It’s not my first …
Today marks the 13th anniversary of a suicide in the valley that led me to begin this column for the Pierce College Roundup like this: Evelyn Ruth Billings made a lot of people late to work October 12. Because of her, the two right lanes of the southbound San Diego Freeway were closed for nearly …
Sometimes epiphanies can be found in the heart of the most trivial tediums, such as this morning as I was washing the petfood dishes after their breakfast. Certainly it is a simple task involving some hot water, a touch of soap, a scrub brush, some scrubbing. It is a chore I do in the morning …
Having given up yesterday afternoon, I’m now back at the transcribing desk, or rather a satellite version of it. Inside a few minutes earlier I mandated a change of place — namely an outdoor one. So having duly relocated the lapper and its webcam… …to the patio table and cracked open a fresh Diet Pepsi …
I’m ankle deep and sinking into the transcription of an hour-long recording of a phone call wherein the person I was interviewing yesterday was on a cell phone first in his car and then in what sounded like a Starbucks. Translation? Transcribing audio tape is hell enough without a word or several in practically every …
The salient points are this: before my wife and I embarked on our trip to Africa this time last year, my friend told her neighbor about our journey and the neighbor, an editor for the L.A. Times, got in touch with me informally to see if I’d be interested in documenting the Rwandan portion of …