Who? Me...A Smart Ass?

I wasn't a good student in school. In high school, I failed and had to retake in summer school, English. One of the last things my English teacher said to me, was, "Never get a job requiring the use of the English language."

Well, the Air Force didn't hear that and made me a journalist. I had never had any training in it, but I was a quick learner. Within a year, I had made my way to editor of the paper and I turned into a pretty good one, taking several Air Force level awards and placing third (out of five) at Department of Defense level during my 16 plus years as a public affairs specialist which included the journalist job (I spent my first four years as a fuels specialist).

One reason I did well in that job was I wanted to learn the job. It was better than pumping gas to an airplane, which I didn't mind doing when I had to, but the public affairs job sounded a lot better.

These days, I use my writing skills for blogging (you know that already if you are reading this) and for writing short stories and several novels I am working on. I also have a lot of experiences in my life I can rely on and modify in one way or another for certain areas of my writing. Being in the Air Force, traveling the world, helped me with gathering these experiences.

But what also helps me with my writing in my broad knowledge base of things. Like I mentioned above, I catch on quick to things...especially things I want to learn about. I know a lot about a lot of things. I know about earthquakes because I have experienced several killer quakes around the world. I know about volcanoes because I have experienced several eruptions around the world. I know about astronomy because I became interested in it when was 14 years old. I know about birds and bugs because I photograph them and want to know what it is I have created an image of. There are a many other topics I am knowledgeable of, because I wanted to learn about those things.

Because of my knowledge, I have been called a smart ass, a know-it-all, and a few other things. I have also been disbelieved when I answered a question about a topic so obscure that few people even knew what the question was about. But that's me. I love to share my knowledge of things. It comes partly from my military career where I was in a public service position. I would give tours of the bases I was stationed at and have to be able to answer any and all questions thrown at me. So I learned about the places I visited and objects which would be seen along the tour route.

But these days, I don't give tours of anything. I only occasionally do something new which peaks my interest, such as card modeling. I thought it would be fun to create my own card models. So I did. I selected objects from one of my favorite cartoons, The Flintstones. If you go to the website here, and scroll down about halfway, you'll come across my stone age designs. They are available free for downloading and printing. Then with some scissors, Xacto knife, white glue and a little time, you can create your own stone age world. There are other designs from other people, all free for the downloading, but if you go there, don't forget to locate the designs from Ashrunner and look at them. If you do, let me know what you think of them.

But I still have a lot of knowledge in my brain I use. When I can, I pass on that information to others. Recently a friend of mine commented about our relationship being so one sided. When I asked for clarification and was told that I have taught this person so much about a lot of things, while I have gotten very little in return. Well, I don't pass on my knowledge with the expectation that I get something in return. Knowing that I have added to someone else's level of knowledge is a good enough feeling for me. When I was writing news stories, knowing at least one person read any particular of mine, was enough for me to continue. It's the same with sharing my vast database of knowledge.

I love learning something new and I retain that information because you never know when that information will come in handy. But you need to know that the information you are passing on is the correct information. I have made mistakes with my information in past. But I try to limit those errors in fact as much as possible. But there was one time I was wrong and that one time was the impetus for me to learn as much as I can about as much as I can. That incident happened when I was in the fifth grade.

More on that later, but first a some background is needed. When I was four or five years old, I was staying at my aunt's house in Alvin, Illinois. While I was there, a thunderstorm developed. Not long after that, we heard of a tornado warning on the radio. My aunt's family, being accustomed to this sort of thing, gathered up all the children, and led everyone down into the basement. We had tuned in the local radio station we waited for the "All clear." When it came, we went upstairs and checked things out. Things were okay on my aunt's farm, but on the late news that evening, was a story about the damage done to a farm not far from aunt's place.

A photo of the damage was shown and I looked at that black and white picture on the round
cathode ray tube of my aunt's television set with fascination. I also listened as the announcer said, "This is what the tornado did to the home of (I can't remember the name so I'll just say:)
John Smith of Alvin." On the screen was a picture of a tree which had been broken and tossed against the house. That picture was burned in my mind forever, along with what the announcer said.

The next day, my father came out to pick me up and he went out to see the damage himself. He took his camera with him and took a photo of the house damage which I had seen the night before. This is that image.


Flash forward to the fifth grade for me. It was science class time and we were learning about storms. At one point in the class, the teacher asked, "Does anyone know what a tornado is?" Excited that a question was asked which I actually knew the the answer to, I raised my hand. The teacher raised his head, pointed to me and called my name. I stood, fully prepared to give my answer. Now, remember, I was young at the time the above incident happened and it did make a lasting impression on me. I can still see the image on the television screen to this day taken from a slightly different angle than the photo.

I cleared my throat and proudly blurted out my answer. "A tornado is a walking tree which goes around destroying houses."

I slowly sat back in my seat even as the laughter from the rest of the class got louder and louder. I couldn't believe I was wrong and when the smiling, head shaking teacher finally calmed the classroom down, he pointed out the error of my description.

I vowed at that point in time, I would never again volunteer to answer any question in school. I also vowed that I would learn as much as I could about everything.

If that makes me a smart ass, so be it. 8v)

Typos? What Typos?

It's been almost a month since I posted an entry in this blog. I have been sharing bloggin' time between here and MySpace. And when I'm not bloggin', I'm shootin' and when I'm not shootin' I'm processin' and when I'm not processin' I'm generally doin' nothing.

That is the extent of my life these days. Not much to it, but I like it. Yes, it could be better. Jessica Beal could be my next door neighbor, or I could be able to go anywhere I want to shoot the photos I want. But she ain't and I can't...so I don't worry about it.

Hell, I can't even afford to get my desktop system working properly. And when it doesn't work correctly, I am forced into using a laptop which is almost as old as I am. And I can't stand the keyboard. My desktop system has one of those ergonomic keyboards. I love that keyboard. I hate straight keyboards. I spend almost as much time fixin' typos as I do typin' words worth typin'.

I hate typos. During my Air Force career, I was assigned as the editor of a couple of base newspapers. My first one was stateside and for the most part, when I submitted copy which had typos, the typesetter would correct them. She was great like that. She was also hot...but taken.

Then I was assigned to Aviano AB, Italy. I loved that assignment. As editor of The Vigileer, I had a lot of responsibility in that position, especially since I was the only staff member. But the worst part was fixin' the typos. Some English words are very similar to Italian words. So, when the typesetters saw a similar word, they typed the Italian word out of habit. It didn't happen all the time, but it happened often enough to keep me on my toes. I generally caught almost all the typos. Some did get by me, but I rarely had one on the front page...until a week in September 1976.

Just prior to my arrival in Italy, a series of large earthquakes struck the region. Close to a thousand people died in the strongest quake. Towns were in a shambles and most of the damage was in the towns surrounding Aviano. The people in the area knew what killed the majority of the people. It was buildings falling on them.

So when another fairly strong quake hit on the day my newspaper copy was being set, the typesetters decided they didn't want to be in the building they worked in until they were sure it was safe. That meant waiting until the next day, then making sure the building was still standing. But my timetable had taken a hit...it was a day behind schedule. When I arrived at the publishers to layout the paper, none of my set copy had arrived. At this point in time, my newspaper was hot lead. Each line of type was formed on a strip of lead. The letters, the words, the pictures, everything about the newspaper was mirrored so it would print correctly. When I looked at the columns of type as they were in the boards, the letters of each word was reversed. Normally, I would run some ink over the plate, press a large sheet of paper on it, and then take the proof sheet back to the base and proofread the paper that evening. But I was behind schedule, and in order to publish the paper on Friday, I had to make some decisions.

As I was trying (my Italian wasn't that good and no one spoke English at the printing plant) to explain my decision, another shaker rumbled through the area. I watched as everyone in the plant ran out the large double doors about 30 feet away from me. I watched as dirt fell from the ceiling rafters, I watched as the lights swung back and forth and I watched the last of the workers and followed her gorgeous body out of the building.

Here it was Wednesday morning, the newspaper needed to be "put to bed" that evening so it could be printed on Thursday and distributed around the base and town on Friday. It had been drilled into me that an editor NEVER missed a publishing date. Well, not long after we exited the building, the typesetter's (their building was about a half mile way) delivery man arrived with the first run of copy. I did the best I could to proofread what I had, marked the mistakes and sent the changes back to the typesetters. A couple of hours later, another tremor rumbled through the area. Well, that did it. Everyone quit working and went home.

The owner of the printing plant said if I was there early in the morning, he would make sure everything was done by noon so the paper could get printed and delivered on time. So, the next morning, I was at the typesetters at 6 am...and they weren't. I waited around for about 30 minutes and then went to the printing plant. As I walked in the door, yet another quake shook the area. After hanging around outside for a couple of hours and noticing the building wasn't coming down on top of us, we all went back inside. I told the owner about the typesetters and he called their office. No one answered. He then called the typesetter boss at home and talked to him for a few minutes.

When the owner hung up the phone, he told me that the typesetter's building sustained some damage the day before and his workers were off until the building could be repaired the next week. Now remember, no one there spoke English, but a man who worked in bar a couple of buildings down did and that is where we went to talk over the situation. With a cup of Cafe Correcto and some sort of pastry, the three of us talked...one translating what the owner and myself said. In the end, I called my office, explained the situation to my supervisor told him I would do what I could to fix the typos, and get the paper out Friday morning when it should hit the street. Since we had no idea of when things would return to normal, he agreed and told me to get the paper out on time.

Well, I did the best I could to fix the typos, especially those on the front page. And I got the paper out on time. But at a cost. During the lunchtime, a lieutenant who I had never met walked into my office and plopped a copy of the paper on my desk. He had circled every typo he found in the paper in red ink. As he dropped the paper, he said, "I have a degree in journalism and I would have rather died than put out a piece of shit paper like you did, sergeant. What have to say for yourself." I looked at the lieutenant and said, "Talk to my boss, sir. Captain So-and-so will return from lunch shortly." He left without saying another word.

I unfolded the paper he dropped in front of me and started counting. On the front page alone, there were 17 typos. I knew there would be a lot since I couldn't fix all of them the day before, but I didn't think there were that many. Looking through the rest of the paper, there were a total of 122 typos. Normally, I would have three or four in my eight page tabloid. I reached for my roladex and got the number for my counterpart at higher headquarters and called him to relay the news about my paper. After talking to him, and explaining the situation, he understood and said he wouldn't count the paper against me. I vowed then and there that I would do everything I could to get rid of typos in things I type.

But they still get through and this friggin keyboard isn't helping...hehe.

But you know, the worst part of the story above is this: I put out 24 issues a year (skipped New Years and Christmas weeks). In early December of that earthquake ridden year, headquarters for the Air Force announce the dates of the mandatory newspaper submissions for the annual media contest. You guessed it...my earthquake ravaged edition was one of the mandatory submissions. Naturally, I didn't win any awards that year.