I'm tired

Man am I tired. I just really want finals and this semester to be over. I want to sleep right now and I don't want to have to get up tomorrow and do all the crap I have to do. Of course I'm going to, but I'm going to complain a little bit along the way...
So there's that...

So...

You should all follow me on Twitter!

I made one and lately I've been posting to it a lot more regularly than this.

My ID is jbalagna, so go read it!

But still read this...New post coming (hopefully) tomorow!

Live election coverage...BY ME!!!

Hahaha! Go to nevadasagebrush.com for up to the second coverage of the county Politico, Yahoo News and CNN (and probably a few others, just guessing there though) have branded the most important district in the nation, Nevada's own Washoe County.

Jessica Fryman and I will be live-blogging the Washoe County Democratic and Republican watch parties, Nick Coltrain will be offering in-depth analysis and multimedia will be streaming from the cameras of Casey Durkin, Amy Beck and Devin Sizemore.

So there's that...

Where exactly am I going?

So as I have progressed in my Journalism 101 class and worked for the Sagebrush for a while, I have gradually realized that the news media, and more specifically the newspaper industry, is in a period of rapid and defining change.

With the evolution of new technologies and the speed at which information is transferred, many have declared newspapers as dead. In fact, broadcast stations, cable news networks and even to a comparable degree internet news compilers are dead as well. What is now being created in their place are news outlets, in the very broadest sense of the term. TV stations and newspapers are no longer just TV stations or newspapers any more than phone companies are just land line providers. Communications have evolved, and are continuing to do so at a rapid pace. The news media, up until recently, had failed to keep up. They are paying the price, but are also deep in the process of catching up.

The delivery of news is changing to second-by-second updates and alerts, a far cry from the morning and evening papers of our parents' generations. While nobody in the industry seems to know exactly what form this evolution will take, it seems to be a common consensus that the next generation of journalists, of which I am a part, will be the ones to solve this problem.

I'm excited.

So there's that...

HOLY SHIT!!!

ONE OF MY STORIES IS ON CBSNEWS.COM!!!
hahahaha! I'm so happy!!!
Click here to read!

Dear Blog...I have returned, and this time, I bring a real post.

I know, it's weird. I'm actually going to start blogging again. It may seem as though I had forgotten you old friend. For a short time, you were my only dabble in public writing. Now, every week, I write articles that are published in a real newspaper and read by, quite literally, thousands of people. And while I have been busy, honing my skills as a journalist and learning the ins and outs of the newspaper business, you have always been in the back of my mind. I always tell myself, around two in the morning on a Monday somewhere between checking jumps on A4 and wondering how the hell we missed deadline again, that I will someday get my life organized to the point that I can again post at least a weekly message. Well, that time is here.
I'm sure you're asking yourself why I would have committed myself to something that would tear me from your loving jumble of semi-generic HTML code. Allow me to explain. I am getting a chance that most people don't ever get. I am not only involved with something much more successful and respected than myself, but I am getting a taste of my career while I still have the opportunity to change it. And change it I never shall.
All doubt that may have lain in the corners of my mind that I may want to do anything else with my life has been erased by my experience with the Sagebrush. I get to talk to people as different as a homeless man living in a tent in downtown Reno next to the train trench, to the mayor of that same city in his 15th floor corner office for the same story. Every week I get to learn something new, with topics ranging from third-party political volunteers to budget crises facing UNR.
I am stressed out for at least an hour or two every day, but I wouldn't trade the fast paced nature of my job for anything. I love what I'm doing even before I am out of college. I cannot imagine a time in my life I will not enjoy going to work, and that is something most people take a lifetime to find. And here I am, 19 and I've already found it.
Lucky me. Lucky me.
So there's that...

I wonder if anyone still reads this...

Seeing as how I haven't really posted for what amounts to eons, I wonder how many people still check this...

Bias

Does the mainstream news media have a liberal bias? Many people throw this idea around, and in many circles it is accepted as simple fact. Today a coworker told me this fact, and I was inexplicably offended. I had heard this claim before and never taken it to heart, but for some reason this time it truly hit home so to speak. I am choosing to devote my life to the pursuit of honest, fair, unbiased reporting; to say such a thing to me is to literally mock my very life. Why are the people of this country so convinced that they should hate the news media? No other nation treats it's watchdogs with such disdain. Journalists dedicate themselves to the protection of democracy through honest reporting. There is no "lesser evil" to a journalist so he equally reports all evils. The only bias is the public's, expressed by what stories they choose to read. It is the public that drives what becomes headlines and what becomes buried underneath, and that is the media's only true bias.
Some people say that unbiased reporting can never be achieved by mere human beings. I beg to differ. Detachment is what allows the soldier to kill, even though he loves human life. Detachment is what allows the police officer to arrest the vagrant, even though she would rather buy him a cup of coffee and let him free. Detachment is what allows the paramedics to methodically manage a crash scene, even when the death and destruction makes them want to do nothing but cringe and cry. And it is detachment that allows the journalist to honestly quote Barack Obama even though he voted for Hillary Clinton, to expose illegal wiretapping despite her thoughts that such crimes are justified, and label opinions as editorials because they are not facts and have no place in reports no matter how much he wishes they were.
Just as the devote Catholic judge can hear divorce trials as well as murder ones, the Democrat reporter can report information damaging to a Democratic president as well as he can report information damaging a Republican one. Just because you can't seperate your opinion from fact, doesn't mean that the people whose job it is to do so can't.
So there's that...

Finally, A New Post!

Alright then, I am finally posting. Directly from the bustling metropolis of McDermitt, Nevada, I am bringing all you loyal readers (you'd have to be loyal to keep checking this page after this long) a description of what exactly I do every day.
Well, first off, for those of you who don't know my summer job is as a wildland firefighter for the BLM, and it's pretty much the most incredible job I have ever held. Right now, I have only been on one fire, but i still love it. Every day I get to drive and ride in a fire truck, and the ten year old in me jumps up and down with glee every time i climb into it. Whenever people see us in our fire shirts, we are instantly respected and, probably more amazingly, trusted. Probably the greatest perk of my job though, is the fact that each time I see a little kid their face brightens up, and once I tell them my job, they won't leave me alone until their parents pry them away.
So there's that...

Sorry...

Alright. Sorry that I haven't posted for weeks now. I have just now got internet at the fire station in McDermitt, so I will be able to post regularly again. In fact, there will be a full post coming this evening. Now that nobody even checks this...
So there's that...

A short, rushed post...

Sorry I haven't posted on here in a long time, I've been a bit busy and away from internet access. I was living in a tent outside of Carlin, NV all of last week, so I hope you can all forgive me. But more on that later. First, I have to vent some excitement. I, Jay Balagna, starting August, will be a staff writer for The Nevada Sagebrush (the student newspaper for UNR)! YES! HAHAHAHA! WOOT WOOT!
Okay, now that I have vented that, I will explain why I was in Carlin. As some of you out there know, this summer I am fighting fire for the BLM. Well, in order to be officially considered a firefighter, I had to go to a week long rookie school to obtain my "red card". I like to affectionately refer to it now as boot camp for firefighters. Walking in lines, getting up at 5 am to work out, wearing 35 lb line gear, long sleeve nomex sirts and pants so we all match, helmets, and communicating through the chain of command. You'd think I would hate all that, but I actually loved it. I probably had more fun at rookie school than most people there (evidenced by the fact that I seemed to be the only one who didn't complain). Maybe I'm in the wrong career path. Eh, probably not, but I'm still extremely excited for this. Way more excited than I was for graduation, thats for sure. Anyways, I head out to McDermitt (the station I am assigned to) for the first time tomorrow morning, so more on my job and situation when I learn it.
So there's that...

Graduation Speech

Well, graduation is tomorrow, and guess who has been chosen to speak! No Amy, not Gwen Stefani, me! And since many of you out there in cyberspace will not be at the Albert M. Lowry High School graduation ceremonies, here is my speech.

Laurel Clark, a physician and astronaut on the space shuttle Columbia once explained, “Boats are perfectly safe in the harbor, but that’s not what boats were built for.” He was, of course, speaking on the dangers of space travel, but his words say so much more. They urge us out of the safety and comfort of our harbors and into the unknown, for better or worse. As we sit here, we are on the cusp of embarking on a voyage into that unknown, and each of our voyages will be a bit different. Some of us will hit rougher seas than others, but merely by leaving the harbor, we have already shunned failure.
If anyone sitting here tonight says they’re not unsure about the future, they are not being honest. We are all unsure, worried, about that which awaits us beyond the comfort of our childhoods. It’s only natural to be wary, but we are ready, for every boat must have a captain before leaving on its voyage, and for thirteen years of school, we have been training to sail. Now is our time. It is our turn to take control of our own lives and steer ourselves in the direction we choose.
I would offer advice on choosing the right direction, but frankly, I have none. The only person who knows the right route for you, is you. But that is part of what tonight is all about. In addition to celebrating our accomplishments, we are declaring a new found independence. With that independence comes the responsibility to forge our own path in life, to decide which currents to follow, and which winds to fill our sails. It is up to us to know what risks we take, what consequences we avoid, and what destination we arrive at.
For those of you tonight who have helped us to get here, it may be hard to watch as we leave the safety you have created for us, but that was the goal all along. Rather than sadness, focus instead on the success. You’ve given us the tools, the materials, the helpful hands, and the watchful eyes needed to prepare our boats, and ourselves, to leave the harbor and face whatever storms lie before us. For that, we can never thank you enough. But now it’s time to watch us go, just as you once left the people who helped build your boats. Have confidence in us, for tonight, we have confidence in ourselves.
To the class of 2008, I could not have asked for a better group of peers to spend my childhood with. And now it is time for us to embark together, to leave the safety and comfort we have grown up with and find our own. After all, that’s what we were built for, right?

So there that is...

Is this even real?

Alright then, so when I started this blog I wrote that I would be documenting my departure from the harbor that has been my life in Winnemucca. Well, finally, here is a post about that. For those of you who don't know, I am going to graduate next Thursday, and tomorrow is my last day of school. I haven't honestly been that excited about it. It's not that I'm dreading it or anything, just the opposite in fact. I am looking forward to it more than any single date in my entire life thus far. The gravity of it all just hasn't hit me yet. I still feel like it's ages away. I really can't believe that I won't walk through the doors into the glass hallway at Lowry next August. I can't believe I won't have soccer practice all fall. For that matter, I can't believe I'm done with high school sports. For four years my life has been dominated by Albert M. Lowry High School and I can't imagine it no longer being so.
The weight of it all is hitting me even as a write this. Suddenly everything just seems so dark and cold. I'm scared. As much as all my friends and family, relatives and mentors tell me how proud they are, I feel as if I have wasted so many opportunities. So many things I could have done have slipped through my fingers. And now I crouch in the starting blocks, awaiting the signal to start running into my own life, the life I will create for myself. And I'm even more scared. What if I'm not making the right choices? What if I cannot handle college? What if my course load is too heavy? What if I fail, what happens then? Where do I go after college? I have scattered ideas about graduate school, the Peace Corps, high ranking jobs. What if I can't do any of those? What if I am aiming too high? Should I just be content with a family and a good job in a nice town? But there has to be more than that. I want to travel, live in a city, write articles that change people's lives, help people who would normally never even knew I existed. But can I do all of these things? Should I? I feel like all of these things are going to rush up on me just as fast as graduation has, and again I won't be ready.
This morning my mom (oh God, what am I going to do without her? I can't do this...) warned me that things were sneaking up on me. She meant I needed to start writing thank you cards and letters, but she was right on such a higher level. You're right Mom, things are sneaking up on me, and I feel like I need to hide from them just a little longer...
So there that is...

You would think that with them working at a school they could read...

In the latest edition of Just Outside the Harbor I would like to embark with my readers on a relentless tirade into the idiocy that I encountered while filling out a survey on my high school's website. The survey, titled "Lowry Educational Mission and Beliefs Survey" sounded quite important, so being the highly opinionated individual that I am, I decided to fill it out. With the first few questions I knew my insanely sarcastic psyche was in for a real treat. The second question, for example, listed literacy as one of the 9 goals of high school education I was to rank in importance. Now, perhaps I am mistaken, but I was under the impression that literacy was one of the implied goals of any educational program. And shouldn't students be able to read before even entering high school? Just to be safe, I ranked it number two after "Job readiness", a choice I was soon to regret.
Later on in the survey, I was asked the same question twice ("7. Albert Lowry High School provides a safe environment for the students and faculty," and "9. I feel safe at Lowry High School,"), posed with a question asking what the overall purpose of the high school setting should be (strangely, "learning" and "education" were absent as choices, replaced instead by "safety", "respect", and "discipline"), and confronted with misspellings ("12. Albert Lowry High School provides adequate programs for giftd and talented students," [emphasis mine] to which I only wish "apparently not" was a choice I could choose to reply with).
Now, to be fair, I really have no idea who wrote this survey. It could have very well been a student who in all actuality really didn't know how to read very well, and was therefore bitter over the system having failed him. This student may then have composed this survey and purposely added "Literacy" as a goal of high school education to mock that which he hated most in the world. He also may have intentionally chosen to ignore the spell check button. Somehow I doubt all of this though. Somehow, deep in my cynical mind, I have a feeling that someone working for our school district, someone being paid with our tax dollars to educate our children, wrote this and published it on the school's website. And the powers that be approved it. This probably really isn't that big of a deal at all, or even as funny as I feel it is, but honestly, I'm tired and can't sleep and it sounded like a good idea for a blog to me.
So there that is...

txt msg spk (Or, if you can't read this you must be old)

k so i dsided i rly h8 wen ppl use txt msg spk in evryday sentences or evn in txt msgs. i mean, u hve 160 ltrs y cant u put in vwls? & propr pnctuation! & cptlize ltrs! & jst cuz a # snds lk a wrd dsnt mn u cn use it as 1. it mks me :(...
so thrs tht...

Primary Season Finally Coming To An End

As those of you who haven't been living under a rock for the past few months may have noticed, the primary season for the presidential election of 2008 is still going strong, at least for the Democrats. The Republicans united behind John McCain fairly quickly, as is common in presidential politics. The Democrats, on the other hand, are still in the midst of the longest primary season in memory, and every indication from both candidates points towards a contested convention in August.
Now, before I go any further, I'm going to briefly outline my political standing, so any underlying bias is easier to spot. Not saying there will be bias, I will try to write from an impartial point of view, but I believe that when dealing with political editorial type pieces, it is important to know the beliefs of the writer in order to more completely understand his thought processes. Anyways, I am a young college student who has just recently turned 18 and registered to vote. I consider myself fairly well informed on the various issues of the campaign, however I will admit I am very weak on knowledge concerning the economy. I mainly vote on domestic social issues and foreign policy. That being said, I am also a registered Democrat and have supported Barack Obama since the announcement of his candidacy in February 2007. But I digress.
Many have said that the long primary season has hurt the DNC, dividing it terribly. These people say that such division has hurt the party so much, that the Democrats risk losing an election that a year ago was all but handed to them no matter who they chose to run. They say that despite early misgivings among many Republicans over their party's choice of John McCain, these doubts have largely been set aside and the party united, and that the Democrats will be unable to unite so broadly behind their eventual nominee. The schism created by such a lengthy and intense primary season is just to great to heal in such a short time. I plainly and flatly disagree. Despite my unwaivering and longstanding support for Mr. Obama, if Hillary Clinton were to emerge with the DNC's nomination for President, I would wholeheartedly support her, and I believe that despite what many people think, the overwhelming majority would join me. I am equally sure that Senator Clinton's supporters would fall behind Obama if he is chosen. This is because, as much as we believe in the candidate we have chosen to support, we are all Democrats and support the issues and positions that the party stands for.
The capacity of the American populace to vote on substantial issues rather than superficial characteristics has been hugely underestimated by the mainstream media. Now anyone who knows me knows my incredible reluctance to blame the media for anything (I see it as a cowardly cop-out) but there really is no way around it here. The American people are smarter than they are given credit for, plain and simple.
With that being said, if I am right and Democrats unite behind whoever the eventual nominee is, then the lengthy primary season holds only good things. Turn on any political news show, and you will see that the overwhelming majority of coverage is devoted to either Hillary Clinton of Barack Obama, while Senator McCain is merely a side note. It takes outrageous comments for the Republican to gain any sizable coverage at all, and for the most part, such outrageous comments have not served his image well. If the Democratic Convention in Denver is contested, that means another three months of the same lopsided coverage in favor of the Democrats. That means only three months total that the GOP can hope for equal airtime before the general election. The more the Democratic candidates are kept in the minds of voters, the better off the Deomcratic party will be. It really is a win.
Now of course this entire scenario hinges on my assumption that issues are more important to the Democratic voters than grudges, so we will see how right I am in November.
So there that is...

A bit of a useless tirade...

Alright, sorry it took so long for me to post a new blog, but I have been extremely busy as of late. Just getting school stuff done, all that stuff, I'm sure you know the drill. By the way, thanks to my Aunt Dodi for posting the link to my blog on her page, I promise I'll return the favor when the opportunity arises. So anyways, this post is going to be a bit of a tirade against something that has been bothering me lately.
Anyways, if you live here, you may know it, but for those who don't, Winnemucca has an extremely bad hard drug problem among people my age. Far disparate of its population. Some people say this is because we are at the junction of two major highways, some blame it on the size of the town. I don't know the cause, and I'm not going to pretend to. Perhaps later on I will research that a little bit more and post, but for now we will just cover my observations. Anyways, I'm a senior in high school, I would consider myself fairly social, and I will often find myself in places where quite honestly I shouldn't be. Now I don't mean stupid high school parties where bored teenagers drink and act stupid or even the comparably less serious problem of tobacco and marijuana. While that may be a problem, it is a separate problem. I'm talking about the places where the minute you walk in you wonder why you're there. The kind of places where you just don't go in any other rooms except the one you're already in, out of sheer fear of what you will find. The kind of places you stay for ten minutes and that's way too long. Now I know what some of you are thinking, "Of course you're going to think the drug problem is going to be bad if you go to shady places like that, you're observations are skewed," or at least you're thinking that if you think in complete sentences like I do. Anyways, that's what I thought too at first, but oh how wrong we are!
It's not just the shady people who abuse pain killers, eat 'shrooms, smoke meth, pop ecstasy, shoot heroin and do God knows what else (those are just the ones I've seen). It's also the athletes, the normal kids, the smart ones. You know what I mean, the kind of golden kids that everyone likes, that all the junior high kids emulate, that win scholarships and are the pride of the community. These aren't just the high school dropouts, but the graduates too, the ones going on to bright futures. Those of you young enough to remember going through DARE or whatever similar program was in your area might remember how much they stressed not to believe the excuse that "everyone is doing it." But that's just it, in Winnemucca everyone does it. I honestly feel that by not being addicted to anything (with the exception of maybe caffeine but that doesn't count) I am in the minority at my high school.
People chew in class, trip on "e" at dances, and hotbox cars all while I and a few others watch in dazed confusion. It's not that I feel super pressured to do all of these things, I mean, I've held off on constant drug use/experimentation this far, so I'll be alright, and people seem to respect the decisions of people like myself who don't do these things. I just feel like it's all kind of pathetic that people need to take little blue pills to have fun at prom and chew up vicodin to be able to sit through an English class. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong and I'm missing out on some kind of fun, but I think my life is hard enough through the prism I see it through now, without anymore confusing lights and sounds, so to speak. There will probably be more on this later, but for now I'm done.
So there that is...

I'll miss you Ammie...

Okay, so this is about a week old, and I know most of you won't even care about it, but my grandmother passed away last week and I feel like this needs to be posted. This was kind of a short group collaboration by all of my cousins, so I'm not claiming credit for all of it, I just feel like I want it on this blog.

To you, she was Aunt Helen, Hoolie, Mom. To her, we were Angels, Treasures, Peaches, Beesaws, and even Dickens. To us she is, and always will be, Ammie. These are the moments with her we will always remember, and that’s the last and greatest gift we could give to her.
From ballet recitals to classical music concerts, Baptisms, First Communions, graduations and a wedding you have been there for us. While learning to ride a blue tricycle in the driveway, fishing at the reservoir when not big enough to be one of the guys, making applesalad and playing “Lady, I’m lost,” you taught us the lessons of life.
Sleepovers, movie nights, easter egg hunts to make us laugh. Angel night lights, Ammie’s Lambies, and Buddy Dolls, Christmas stockings and the ever faithful Valentine’s Day cards always showed us you cared. With these and more you left a lasting impression on all of us and taught us lessons we will pass on to our families.
On the most important days of my life she always said, “Don’t worry Treasure, it won’t rain on your day--Ammie won’t let it.” Well Ammie, no matter what the weather, we know you love us and won’t let it rain on our important days. We love you Ammie and will always be your Angels, Treasures, Peaches, Beesaws, and even your Dickens’. Rest well.

So there that is...

The Beginning

Alright, so for some reason I have decided to start my own blog. Eventually I'm sure it will be full of incredible, intelligent posts, but right now I have nothing to write about and am still trying to figure this all out. For those of you who don't know who I am, my name is Jay Balagna and I am an 18 year old high school senior. I know some of you are probably cringing that I just gave away my real name on the internet, but honestly, if you search it on MySpace or Facebook, you'll get way more than that, so I really don't see the point of hiding it. With that lovely intro, I guess I will explain my title choice. It comes from my favorite quote, "Boats are perfectly safe in the harbor, but that's not what boats are built for." I guess I feel that now that I'm about to embark on my own journey, my own life, that I'm kind of leaving the harbor so to speak. So parts of this blog will document that, my adventure out of the safety that has been my childhood. I'm not saying that's all it will be about, because that would be really boring, but that will be a big part of it. The rest will probably be little tirades following no particular pattern until I get the hang of this blogging thing down. So there that is...