Of sorts.
I do just about everything at my job, so it's hard to say I'm JUST a photographer. I'm a sports writer too, which is weird. I'm not much of a sports writer, but I digress.
I had one of the weirdest nights of covering a basketball game ever. Here is my story:
I had to cover a high school basketball game a few days ago, which isn't unusual. During the day, I charged our camera's flash batteries and the actual camera battery so I would be covered during the game. When 5:00 rolled around, I could have sworn that I grabbed the flash batteries and put them in the flash.
But I was wrong.
I grabbed the camera battery and put that in, but I left the four AA batters in the charger.
Stupid move on my part.
So I get to the game, thinking I have all charged batteries and - yay - I'm ready to go.
Nope.
I put the flash on my camera, turn it on.
Nothing.
A sense of panic fills me as I look in the battery thing, expecting to see four AA batteries in there. And I see nothing.
Crap.
So I open up the bag and grab our spare batteries, which haven't been charged for probably months, and crossing my fingers that they work.
Again. Nope.
They are completely dead. That's when I panic. Do I have to drive the 15 back home to get the batteries, then come back here? I'll miss half the game! As these panicked thoughts are running through my head, I take the spare batteries out. One falls from my hand in slow motion and I see it rolling across the gym floor.
You know, where they're playing basketball. Luckily for me, they were on the other end of the court, so I race out to grab it before it rolls and further. And it felt like EVERYONE was staring at me. But they probably weren't. But that didn't make me feel any better.
So, batteries back in the bag, now I have to solve my dilemma. My solution - go to the gas station across the street and buy batteries. GENIUS!
I do that and miss the first quarter of the girls' game, but that's better than missing the whole game, which I'm sure I would have if I had gone back home.
During the second quarter, I get hit by the ball. Nothing exciting, but it still made me mad. They have the whole freaking court to throw that thing, leave me out of it.
The rest of the girls game is uneventful. Thank God.
Now on to the boys.
There was a moment in the game when I made eye contact with one of the players. It's awkward, yes, but it happens. I just ignore it and continue on. Well, this particular boy must have thought I looked like one of his teammates because he bounced the ball to me. Directly to me. Just standing there on the sidelines with a camera in my hand. And he passes the ball. To me.
One of the players attempts to dive for the ball and lands at my feet. I still just stand there like, what in the world just happened. I look around and my dad's standing next to me.
"Well, that was weird," he says. Yeah, dad, just a little bit.
It was the weirdest thing ever. There were no other players in my area that he could have meant to pass it to. But he passed it to me. Okay, strange.
The crowning moment of the boys' game was in the fourth quarter. My team was down by a bunch and playing horribly, so I wasn't taking that many pictures. I was just watching the action, ready to take a picture at a moment's notice, when the ball comes flying in my direction. Hard. It came too quickly to react at all, or attempt to move, so I just stood there as it came hurdling at me. Well, it landed in the smallest of small spaces between myself and a cheerleader standing next to me. The space was probably just wide enough for a basketball, and not much bigger.
If that ball would have it me, it would have hurt. A lot.
And the whole crowds goes - ooooooooooooooo. I look around to see if a play happened that I missed, which there wouldn't be because I have the ball by me. Nope. Okay.. oh, they were making that noise at me. Grreeeaaat. I make eye contact with the cheerleader and we both mentally agree that we just avoided a painful death. Or at least that's what I thought.
Yeah so, that was certainly eventful.
When I got back to the office that night to drop the camera off, I saw the four AA batteries sitting in the charger - mocking me. I wanted to throw them at the wall, but I didn't. Stupid batteries.
--
More news - my coworkers and I leave for Des Moies in two days for our annual Iowa Newspaper Association Convention. It's going to be great! I'm up for two awards :) I'm pretty freaking nervous about it, and I'm sort of freaking out.. a little bit... a lotta bit.
I'm up for an award for a series I did focusing on the reorganization of our two school districts. I'm also up for an award for a personality feature that I wrote.
I'M SO DAMN EXCITED I CAN BARELY CONTAIN IT!!!
Okay, that is all.
Wish me luck!
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