Down time

There's not much of it at a small paper (I can't speak for larger newsroom, having never worked in one). Today for instance, I started out by writing a media-related column for the Entertainer that appears every other week. It's my one chance, other than blogs, to write in first person for the paper. Once that was in the can, I did a quick phone interview with the executive director of a local social service agency, who, like everyone else around here, has been hit hard by the economy. I also did a quick drop-in interview with some volunteers at the agency, and then rushed back with the photographer to make my afternoon appointment with an award-winning local volunteer. With two stories already written I have one more to write before I can hop on my bike and head home for some down time (and possibly some blackberry picking) before it all starts again tomorrow.
This photo was taken a few weeks ago during one of the really hot days we had. We were waiting for a class full of middle schoolers to come outside to shoot off homemade bottle rockets, and I decided to take a rare break. Thanks to former photog Tiffany Brown for pointing out that I'd been using some really outdated pics for my blog. I'm trying to go through some of the great old ones before getting the photogs around here to pass along more current shots like this one.