Good people,
My life for the last seven weeks has been largely focused on a story in today's paper - about an Old School skate night at a local rink that's been going on for 40+ years. We've got an extensive photo gallery and audio clips to go with the story and I'm really proud of the whole package.

I'd be thrilled if you'd check it out here;
http://blog.mlive.com/flintjournal/extr ... thing.html

One of the best feature stories I've ever done that illuminates a slice of our area that's never been looked at much.

I hope you enjoy it.

Will definitely check this out.

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Excellent piece, Chad.

I'd love to do lengthy human interest stories and devote time to the story. But I wind up having to whip off short radio copy every hour, without much regard for indepth writing. And it's always a combination of wire services and whatever original I can comeup with in that hour. No time to get to know people or care much about the topic.

Good job.

Cool story , Chadwick.

Also, it looks like the webmasters at MLive.com are the same ones who administer AL.com...when I clicked your link, the same zipcode/year of birth/gender page comes...and it had remembered my info.

Thanks Phil,
Dunno if you listened to the audio clips - they're short - but my intros were blatant ripoffs of the way Terry Gross introduces her guests on "Fresh Air."
Or, rather, my Z-grade approximation of what she does.

Yeah, the Advance Newspaper syndicate is one far-reaching, many tentacled media organism. I just wish all our Web sites didn't have the same templated feel that sucks out all personality.
Oh well.
Glad you liked the piece.

It also makes it harder to find actual, local info...and, there are 4 "big" papers in Bama, but our conglomerate website only carries 3 of em.

I bet you could parlay that piece into a magazine profile of one or two of the folks...especially if you lash it together with more about things like the dude who avoided gangs and drugs and shee by sticking with the skating (you know, if you wanna)

Great article, Chad! Way to go!

Excellente, Chad! I'm down with Footy G.

Thanks Bob. I think you and Footy could make for a fantastic (unintentional) comedic duo. Guy's an unbelieveable skater.

He actually lives in my old hometown — about 45 minutes north of here — which has become wild wild west-like in the number of shootings and such in recent years. I feel safer living in Flint, if you can believe that.

We gotta get you outta that war zone, man. Is a move to Austin still possibly in your future?

Dunno.
It's... complicated.