It’s long so I’ve headlined it with what might interest you to skim so you don’t have to read the whole thing. I’m considerate. But seriously, I’m not kidding. Aside from my parents, I will not e-mail you or call you individually to tell you anything. I got shit to do.
9:45pm Monday June 6, 2011
The Trip: The short - It was good, then it wasn’t.
The long - I have no energy to battle with the hotel clerk on what the 26 digits of numbers and letters she handed me sharpied onto printer paper means to work out wi-fi. I’m only here at the Wickham Inn for one night, the lone soldier from the Knox PA Interns widdled out of the crowd to be set up in the suite-style hotel until the “complications” at the Inn across the street from the PA office get sorted out (they cancelled my reservation. The one intern who is furthest away). After 10.5 hours in the car, thirty minutes sighing at security at the gate to get a temporary pass, and a loooooooooooong wait to work out the hotel reservations, I really do not care. I have a bed, a pillow, and half of a cable channel. With my alarm set to wake up for a morning work-out (maybe) and meeting the other interns before our full day of death-by-power point (our director’s words, not mine), I’m blogging about today and I’m going into hibernation.
I embarked on my voyage at 6am, having woken confused and disoriented to the twinkly alarm on the new phone at 3:30am. I shuffled around in the tiny daybed I grew up in, frustrated and trying to remember why the hell I wanted to be up so early. Oh yea. That whole have a career thing. Whose idea was that, anyway? Thus, after breakfast, packing several snacks, trying desperately to get my brain to remember the millions of numbers spewing out of my father’s mouth as he attempted (in vain) to teach me how to get to 26 from Simpsonville, I flipped to the GPS app on the new phone and took a deep breath, hugged the parental units, and rumbled down the road in the light rays of dawn.
The first six hours weren’t that bad. Perused through a few local talk shows, day dreamed, tagged along in a family caravan for a spell, counted 38 sightings of roadkill, 28 busted tires, and four trucks I wasn’t sure were going to make it home. Once I rolled around the south side of Louisville at the slightly tardy time of 1:50pm (thenceforth known as 13:50), I started to get excited. I had yet to get lost, with my trusty three different versions of maps, and my automated voice-over GPS-Android plugged into the battery. Easy peasy lemon-squeazy. Oh contraire. This is Fort Knox, dammit! Not only do they lack signs here, but the GPS will PURPOSEFULLY steer you wrong. Understandably so, yes, but there is only ONE road that feeds into Fort Knox. Three gates, sure. But all of them are on one road. And only one of those gates is for civilians.
Arrival: The short - Security on base is kinda like electrocuting yourself while sucking on a jolly rancher.
The long - Long story short, the following four and a half hours were not a happy time for Heather. The first I spent aching to just get here already and the subsequent three I spent circling - yes CIRCLING - the Army base known as Ft Knox. Maybe if I take 60 this way - nope that didn’t work. How bout back North. Crap there’s 65 again. What if I get back on… no that’ll be backtracking again. Where the hell is 31W? … Wait I’ve definitely seen that creepy half-standing gas station before… Aaaand then another half hour waiting in line for a temporary two-month vehicle pass. Which I didn’t get. Why? Because my boss faxed me the order. Yea. Apparently that means it’s as good as fake. And my car is in my dad’s name. So evidently I stole it (Where'd you get the bike?). It took every bless-your-heart ounce of patience I had left not to rip up my papers and say “FINE I GIVE UP!” in the face of the security clerk as he looked at me straight in the eye and asked me what color my hair is. While he held my driver’s license in his palm. REALLY?
I took several deep breaths and told myself I better get used to the bull crap if I want to do this for a living. I wasn’t late for the meeting. My target arrival of 2pm with three hours to unpack, clean-up and do research, widdled down to running into the meeting at 4:58pm, to find my reservation had been cancelled, and the newspaper no longer exists, and some number of the potential interns dropped out. I felt like the base of Knox was whispering ever so eloquently - "Gotcha, bitch!"
The Staff: The short - I like them.
The long - On a happier note, I am one of two true southerners in this crew - only one comrade of the confederacy. And he’s not really southern, either, I can tell he’s a military brat. His demeanor just screams it. Plus he has a military id. A handful of the crew are like me - newbies, but probably roughly half are not only from Kentucky, but they’ve already been here for two weeks. Luckily none of them are photographers, so my competition isn’t so completely unraveled. I am one of four photographers. There are three strictly writing reporters, one reporter slash social media slash iPad 2 expert, one social media PR intern (poor soul), and four videographers, one of whom is doubling as our copy-editor (weird). Our work will be published solely in the online newspaper and photo gallery. If we do a good job, Steve (our director) might push our work to the Turret, the base newspaper, or the Cadet, the national ROTC magazine. The Leader ROTC Newspaper print version, however, fell victim to budget cuts and re-organization of employment.
When we first arrived, our meeting to hash out dumb details (like a place to sleep, for example), was dispersed with some of the PAOs poking fun and getting to know us. One riled up the reporters, saying they had it rough while we of the visual variety were on a cake walk. For a spell, I was concerned his teasing wasn’t really teasing. I came here for a reason - to build my career, to network, to expand my portfolio, and to grow as a person. I thought it out and started to build a back-up - “I still plan to accomplish these tasks, whether it be through finding challenges for myself, or by annoying the hell out of my PAOs. Knowing me, it’ll be both…”
Cue today’s actual blog…
5:52pm Tuesday June 7 2011
All Squared Away for a Relaxing Summer… Kinda: The short - Not really. Thank God.
The long - First real day on the job. Supposedly. It was just training today. The Cadets (the ROTC trainees) haven’t arrived yet, though there are Cadre (the trainers) taking over my hotel reservations everywhere you look. It’s all ok now, I’m set up in my permanent residence for my stay here. Its one room, minifridge, microwave, wifi, and half of a stove (I didn’t know they existed either, but that’s saving me some serious dough - I can smell it!). Not too shabby. I got a guy to help me move in by letting him borrow my wrench to fix a flat tire. It was a little awkward, I was just striking up conversation and I guess he ended up thinking I was hitting on him (ummmmm no). Ok, sir, give me my wrench back, you just made things weird. Just brings up that thought that frequently crosses my mind - people need to learn how to be friends with the opposite sex. And learn that flirting does not consist of "Hey can I have my wrench back?" Grow up.
Anywho. The point is that I’m where I’m supposed to be. And now I am enjoying what will be a rare commodity - an evening of TV and free lance work. The LTC (Leadership Training Course) Cadets will arrive on Sunday, which will be my first day of shooting. The impression we were given of weekends off is false. With so few of us, we will be working any of the seven days a week. Very likely all of them. The only guaranteed day off is July 4th, if there’s no graduations that day. It all depends (a military term they leave out of the books, I’m learning) on the training schedule, the cadre, the weather, and whether or not you brushed your teeth this morning. My hours could be anywhere from a regular 9-5 (unlikely for photographers) to the more frequented 5am-7pm or later. I will be in the field 80% of the time, in my room editing photos 15% of the time, and the remaining 5% in the office waiting on a writer or wrapped up in budget meetings. I will be on the wall during repelling, in the water during boat training, in the woods covered in mud during obstacles and team-building, on the tarmac during PT, and in the barracks during reaming. This is quite literally an all-access pass. I can be as close as I want, where I want, when I want, as long as I don’t sustain an injury. Then it’s on me. Hooah. I will be assigned to one company, and I will follow those 200 men and women through to the end of July, publishing an average of 40 photos a day to the online gallery, with a couple being donated by my good graces (and an Army paycheck) to the online publication.
The Program: Boring Stuff for People who REALLY Care. IE: My dad. Who will read it so there is no short.
LTC isn’t your general ROTC course. It’s for late starters and early risers. Those who joined ROTC behind the times get a crash course in the first two years of Military Science (the classes ROTC have to take at University for credit) that they missed. That’s why they’re training 15 hours a day 7 days a week. These guys haven’t signed any contracts yet, they’re just getting a feel for it before they lay their life on the dotted line. The others are in Junior College, getting a head start on ROTC programs while their academic career catches up to move on to a four year school. Those guys will come out as 2nd Lieutenants, one step ahead in the game of scissors, paper, rank (can’t take credit for that one, heard it from a USMC PAO). It used to be bigger, with about 1,800 cadets at one time. With budget cuts this year, they’ve only brought 800 here, and shoveled others to bases overseas (no idea how that’s cheaper).
Now The Leader has been in function for almost as long as the program, which started in 1965. It used to be mailed out to Cadets' families as well as potential Cadets, to give them an idea of what goes on here. Now, the website is crawling with parents and recruits. And, I’ll be happy to tell you, the biggest hits are on the photo galleries. Over 3.5 million hits on the galleries last year. Granted, most were probably family revisiting in the hopes of seeing the sweaty, muddy, dirty, joyous face of their young hero, but it means my stuff will be seen, which isn’t something I could really say before. Love you guys, but I know most of you don’t give a crap about flipping through my photos on Facebook. It’s ok, I forgive you. I might still cut you a discount when I’m … well, better known…
The Rest of My First Week: It is short, quit being lazy.
Wednesday: more Powerpoint torture, and a tour of the base
Thursday: budget meeting
Friday: Photogs/Vids meeting
Saturday: off
Sunday: Louisville to shoot In-Processing.
And then the J-School said, "Go forth and Free Lance!"
Sounds like you are going to have an AWESOME and busy summer!! Good luck! :)
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