Back from the trenches

This weekend was the first time I'd spent more than a few hours in the City of Anchors since I moved up here. Anyone (in any profession) who's ever attended a conference already knows what I did: ate greasy mall food and overpriced-but-still-greasy bistro specials for three days straight; spent the daytime hours sipping lemon tea and purified water in stale, 80-degree hotel conference rooms; absorbed a lot of industry knowledge laced with a touch of trademark self-importance; stayed out way too late every night in crowded reggae clubs; and tried in vain to sleep in a frigid hotel room with snoring coworkers.

Talk about exhausting. It was a lot of fun to meet the denizens of Alaska's alternative press, including the folks of Insurgent 49 and The Ester Republic. Through it all I only really got out once, on Saturday, for an eight or nine-mile run along the coastal trail and the perimeter of the city. That small tour of Anchorage made me feel more homesick than I have since Christmas. There are so many similarities between Anchorage and Salt Lake City. I actually spent much of my outside time entrenched in moments of de ja vu: the apartment decks lined with bicycles; the nondescript architecture; the sun-lit viaducts; the big, barren body of saltwater nearby that seems to be largely ignored. Both cities feature towering mountains wrapped around nearly-tapped-out suburban sprawl. They both have populations in the quarter-million range. They're both clinging to the fading soul of their downtown area while the parking lots and trinket shops quietly move in. Salt Lake and Anchorage could be sister cities, if it weren't for Anchorage's insistence to put a moose, bear or eagle on just about every enterprise in town.

All in all, I overindulged and spent too much money, but I met some passionate people and did a lot of speed learning. Will I be a better journalist for it? I don't know. You got any more of that lemon tea?

Racing twilight

Date: April 5
Mileage: 17
April Mileage: 53
Temperature upon departure: 37

I'm going to be on hiatus for a few days here so I can go up to Anchorage and hobnob with real journalists during the Press Club conference. The bikes are staying home, too, which means I'm going to have to spend the weekend sucking in those city fumes and making a mockery of running with my 10-minute miles. Maybe I'll get lucky and the hotel will have a fitness center. Maybe I can even challenge my boss to a treadmill race.

On second thought ... scratch that. But one thing's for sure - I do need to start thinking about training again if I am going to attempt any major summer events. I can't believe there's less than two months until June! I still leave the house every morning in the shadow of massive banks of snow. The old-timers tell me the spring thaw will wipe it out quick, but, really ... I'll believe it when I see it. For now, I feel pretty confident in my belief that I am currently living under the beginnings of a new glacier.

Today I had already put in about 10 hours at the office and driven home when I had to return to town for a literary reading by some local authors. I wanted to get in some riding today, so I took my bike. The reading was good but dragged on until a little after 9 p.m. By the time it ended, the sun was well below the horizon, and I was facing my usual epic hill climb on a road bike with no lights and about a half hour of twilight left. So I scrolled through my iPod until I found some old-school Rage Against the Machine and I pumped it, hard. I even began to slip into that place where I hear nothing and see nothing but gasps and flashes of light - "the tunnel," as I've heard it called. It's a hard place to force myself into, believe me, but I really am that scared of traffic.

When I arrived at home it was 9:30, which means my average for the climb was about 10 mph - far faster than I've ever done it. So maybe there is hope for me yet.

I used to be better at my job

Date: April 4
Mileage: 31
April Mileage: 36
Temperature upon departure: 41

Had one of those long, frustrating, hectic days at work that buzzed by before I ever looked up at the clock. I came home, ate because I felt a little hungry, and headed out on Roadie. At first I put the bike on top of my car, but when I couldn't get out of my driveway due to shin-deep slush, I just saddled up and rode my bike from my house - slush, mud, gaping potholes on all. I should do cyclocross.

I had a great ride, and I was amazed how little traffic there was. There didn't seem to be a car on the road. When I finally completed the climb back home, I found out why - it was 9 p.m. I don't care what people say. I love Daylight Savings Time.

Also, today I found out I won an award from the Alaska Press Club! I wanted to thank Mary for leaving a comment to inform me of this. Turns out I won third place for "Best Layout and Page Design" for a page I designed back in November called "Hanging 10 at 10 degrees" (It's about people who ridiculously attempt a summer sport - surfing - in the middle of winter in Alaska. How could I possibly relate to such a thing?) I was happy about the award, but it's hard not to feel overshadowed by my place on the short podium.

See, when I was a bright-eyed graduate fresh out of college, I secured the feature editor position on a circ.-7,000 community newspaper in Tooele, Utah. What a great job, right? I was but a week on the job when I rolled into work bright and early on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. When I stepped into the newsroom, it was just a few minutes after 7 a.m. MST - just in time to see something very shocking live on the T.V.

That day, I had a reporting assignment prescheduled at the Deseret Chemical Depot. I was supposed to participate in a mock decontamination drill the DCD had planned, then come back to the office to complete my duties as feature editor. Convinced that World War III was beginning, I still drove out to the Depot because, well, it was my job - a brand new job - and I didn't know what else to do. The problem is, the Deseret Chemical Depot is a chemical weapons incineration plant. They store chemical weapons, massive quantities of mustard gas and other lovely products that could easily wipe out the entire western half of Utah with one swift hit. I arrived that the depot at about 7:30 a.m., just a few minutes before the entire facility went into complete lockdown. No one was allowed to leave, including me.

As the only "media" within reach, the DCD commander dragged me into his office and explained the entire situation to me. He spent over an hour with me alone, waxing eloquent about the futility of terrorism and the stregnth of spirit in America. I scrawled pages and pages of notes, convinced that I, a measly feature editor, was about the write the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin news story of the year.

When the Depot finally cleared me to leave, I drove as fast as I could back to the office, equipped with my Pullizer-worthy notes and action photographs of soldiers barricading the entrances. What a great local tie-in to the news story of the decade, right? When I got back to the office, I excitedly told my editor what had happened. He smiled and told me to give my notes and photos to a news reporter. "You have feature pages to design," he said.

And as I watched the Pentagon burn, the Twin Towers fall, the entire world as I knew it collapse around me, I designed a freak'n feature page. It was about a guy who builds cement flower pots in his backyard. I slapped it together, sent the thing to press, and turned back to watching the TV.

When the 2001 Utah Press Association awards banquet came around the following year, guess which page won first place in the "Best Feature Page" for small newspapers? That's right. The one dated Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

I think that was the day I lost my passion for these awards. Or maybe it's because, with just a week of experience behind me, I created something I'll never be able to top.