Day 346/365

     I did shoot sports Thursday night/day 346, but not before shooting Jessica Schwerin's return to school after finishing her home rest following her kidney transplant surgery. I've loved covering this story, but it was nice to bring some finality to it in wrapping it up. She's an awesome kid, and to see how great she's doing and how the community has come to support both her and her donor Brian Martindale has been a great thing to witness.

Day 340/365

     Friday/day 340 had me covering a benefit for Brian Martindale, 10-year-old Jessica Schwerin's kidney donor who's fallen on hard times recently both medically and financially. Luckily he has a great support network of friends, family, and people who've taken note of what he did for Jessica, and thanks to donations he'll be able to keep things going a bit longer. 

Day 312/365

     It's embarrassing how much i've neglected this blog this past week. Things just got away from me I guess, and I apologize. Prepare yourselves for a slew of updates!

     Last Friday/day 312 I shot a local Bay City boys basketball team's first win of the season. Despite their lack of victories, it was a fun game to watch, and the atmosphere was incredible. The further the game went on, more and more fans and players realized that this was the night they'd finally get a win. It was a pretty cool moment to witness.

Day 305/365

     Yesterday/day 305 10 year-old Jessica Schwerin got to come home to Bay City, exactly one week after having her kidney transplant operation down in Ann Arbor. She and her mother were driven back in the limo again, and before going home they stopped in to see Jessica's kidney donor, local business owner Brian Martindale. It was a fun reunion to witness, (Jessica was mostly asleep when Brian visited her in her recovery room when they were both still down in Ann Arbor last Sunday). I've loved being able to be a part of this story from the beginning up until now, and I'm so glad these two are both recovering well and rather quickly. They both deserve it. If you'd like to see more photos and articles written on Jessica's homecoming, you can find a few with links to others on MLive here.

Day 295/365

     Tuesday's/day 295's photo isn't much to look at, but it certainly carries a lot of meaning. If you remember me talking about Jessica, the 10 year-old Bay City girl in need of a kidney transplant, then this sign will make more sense, (she was in my posts for days 186 and 254). Jessica was originally brought to MLive's/the Bay City Times' attention when her mother, Stacey, was seen standing on the corner of a major intersection in Bay City asking passing drivers to be organ donors, as her daughter had been diagnosed with kidney failure. This is that sign. I'll be covering some major developments in Jessica's story starting tomorrow/Thursday/day 297 through this weekend, so stay tuned!

Day 273/365

     Monday/day 273 was filled with numerous technological issues for me; between my work laptop deciding to lock me out and then the system that I upload to MLive through locking me out as well. In between my hours of calling tech. support, I covered a few assignments, including a local Bay City area school that restored two nine and-a-half foot electrical toy soldiers and installed them at the entrance to Bay City's Santa House. 'Tis the season.

Day 256/365

     My last assignment today was the sentencing of a woman who was recently convicted of embezzlement. She ran a funeral home in Bay County and reportedly embezzled over $400,000 from her customers. She got the maximum sentencing possible today, with a minimum of seven years to a maximum of twenty in prison, along with having to pay over $460,000 in restitution. A number of the victim's family members made statements on their behalf, saying everything from, "I feel sorry for you," to, "You're pathetic," to, "You're evil incarnate." The convicted woman, Erica C. Kaznowski, showed absolutely no emotion throughout the entire sentencing, even as she looked into the eyes of an 86 year-old woman who cried as she stated what dire straits she, her husband, and their adult children are in now that the money set aside for their funeral arrangements is completely gone. To see the article, you can find it on MLive here.

Day 255/365

     Today was filled with a few unplanned assignments, but the most memorable one was definitely a car veering off of a road and into a house in Bay City. It's looking like the driver had a seizure of some kind, and luckily no one was home in the house when the car crashed. If you're interested in seeing the MLive article or more photos from the scene, you can find them here.

Day 254/365

     A few months ago, on day 186, I took photos of a 10 year-old Bay City girl who had been diagnosed with stage five kidney failure earlier this year. Her mother gained local and national attention with her attempts to get the word out that her daughter needed a donor, whether it was by contacting us at the newspaper, or standing on street corners asking people to help get the word out and get tested to be donors. Her efforts paid off.

     Her daughter, Jessica, has received a donor anonymously and will have the kidney transplant in the first or second week of January. Local Bay Cit businesses are now helping the pair out with medical bills by holding donation days this Saturday, where beauty salons, Jessica's favorite candy store, and other shops will donate and profits and proceeds taken in directly to Jessica and her mother, Stacey. A benefit is being held for them Friday night at a local theater with food and music as well.

     This girl is by far one of my most favorite people I've photographed. She's so much fun, and such a spunky little kid. I had to remind myself how serious her problems were, because you'd never know it by meeting her. I met her and her mom at the aforementioned candy store this evening, and after we had taken pictures and I was going to leave, Jessica came up to me and gave me a giant hug. Then, her mother thanked me for helping to get her story out, and that she didn't think they could've done without the paper's publicity. The article that I took today's photos for should be up tomorrow, but in the meantime you can see all the photos from today in this MLive gallery here, and once the article's up there should be a link to it under the photos when you look at them individually. 

Have I mentioned before that I love my job?

     

Day 253/365

     Yesterday was a day of extremes. In the morning, I went with a Bay City crime reporter to interview a likely serial killer from a string of cold cases from thirty years ago that the police could never get enough hard evidence to charge the man with anything. The man was extremely unsettling, as one would expect, but the experience was absolutely amazing. It reminded me of why I love what I do for a living. Unfortunately for me, the man didn't want his picture taken, so I only came away with a picture of an old photograph of his deceased mother, (her murder is also a cold case). To read about the ongoing cold case series, you can find it on MLive here.

     After dealing with the cold case series in the morning, I had a restaurant feature to shoot out in Frankenmuth. That was all fine and dandy, until I was leaving the restaurant to go process my images when the driver of a minivan decided to not check her blind spot and clipped my car. My car, luckily, is still drivable, and I'm taking it in tomorrow for an estimate on repairs. Here's hoping things go much more smoothly this time around than they did in August. Oy....

Day 252/365

     Today I was in a bit of a weird mood; it was one of those days where I wasn't necessarily unhappy, but I definitely wasn't happy... just kind of a 'meh' kind of mood. Anyways, to cut short my rambling, I ventured out on my own more often than I stayed in the office today out in Bay City. It was a relatively quiet day and the only assignments I had were little last minute ones here and there. The area got its first snow of the season this weekend, and I didn't get a chance to get pictures when it first arrived Sunday/yesterday morning so I attempted to go out and get a few shots of what was left today. This photo was taken in Wenonah Park, which is a nice little park right along the Saginaw River in downtown Bay City. Most of the snow is now gone, but I'll definitely be ready for when it really hits and makes everything look like a winter wonderland; I love it when it does that. 

Day 240/365

     I had a few different assignments tonight, but I think the one that was the most fun to shoot was my last one of the night. It was a play rehearsal by the Whistling Idiots, a local dinner theatre troupe in Bay City. They're rehearsing the play "Sorry Wrong Chimney," which I've never heard of, but if the few scenes I saw tonight are any indication, it's going to be hilarious. Especially the girl in the middle of this photo; she made some of the best facial expressions throughout every scene. 

Day 234/365

     Today was a pretty busy one. I spent a lot of time at the Mill End building demolition site again, (new photos are on MLive here if you're interested), and had a few other little assignments to shoot as well. I'd have to say the most memorable thing I shot today was a sailboat fire in Bay City. A mechanic was winterizing the boats at one of the local marinas, when, supposedly, a bad fuel line caused the dry docked boat to go up in flames. Between the burning of the lacquered and treated materials of the boat, and the mildew/asbestos dust flying from the Mill End building, I'm considering burning my clothes.

Day 233/365

     I realize that it's been ages since I had a video or audio entry, so today I'm putting the 'multimedia' back into my multimedia challenge! I finally got around to shooting some video for work today, and thought that some of the footage would be a great addition to this project. The historic former Mill End building that I photographed a while ago, (to jog your memory, I put some of my favorites on my website here), has been schedule to be torn town for quite awhile, and the demolition started today. I took quite a few photos and shot some video in between. While I think demo. sites can be pretty cool to photograph, I was a little sad to see this building go. I only got to see it at its worst, (it had been abandoned for years and it'd be much too expensive for anyone to save it), but even with the damage it had undergone I still thought it had so much character. I wish I could've seen it in its glory.

If you'd like to see photos from today, or the other video I put together, you can find them under the photo and video tabs on my MLive profile.

Day 232/365

     Today, as I'm sure you all know, is Election Day. I got up early this morning and headed to my first of many polling locations for photos expecting to be doing the same thing, taking almost the same/extremely similar photos for most of the day. Little did I know that around the same time in Bay City, two local politicians got into a fist fight outside of their polling location, (which also happened to be a church). I thought it was too good to be true; politicians actually duking it out instead of hiding behind backhanded and passive-aggressive, (not to mention, ridiculous), ads? No way. Nevertheless, the news gods were shining down on us today and it was indeed true. You can't make that stuff up. 

(For full on hysterics, check out the article about what happened on MLive here. One of them called the other a 400-pound Twinkie. Seriously. Now you know you want to check it out!)

Day 214/365

     Yesterday/Friday/day 214 one of my assignments was to try and get a few portraits of some local Bay City area firefighters. There's a proposal currently being looked over for the area where the police and fire departments would be combined in an attempt to save money. Police officers would be trained to handle fires, but firefighters wouldn't be trained as officers, resulting in the fire department having to go through lay offs but not the police. Understandably so, this has morale at the fire departments at an all time low. Many of the firefighters we talked to have said that they've been losing employees each year due to cuts and feel like they're being mistreated. 

Day 210/365

     Today one of my assignments was to try and get some photos of the local fall color since it probably won't be around much longer. I'm a sucker for bright and vibrant autumn leaves, and, as much as I love snow and winter, I'll miss them when they're gone. 

Day 200/365

     Friday/Day 200's post is from the second night of the Hell's Half Mile Film and Music Festival in Bay City. Producer Alex Barreto and actor Rider Strong, pictured above, were part of a panel discussion called "Why Make a Short Film?' Friday night and had some great tips and personal anecdotes from their own experiences. I got to catch their short film, "Walter Don't Dance," yesterday and really liked it; it was definitely a unique and creative little film. 

Day 199/365

     My apologies for the delays with the past few days' posts; the last half of this week's been a bit crazy. Anyways, this past Thursday the Hell's Half Mile Film and Music Festival kicked off in Bay City. It's a relatively new festival that showcases short and feature films, and plays host to a couple of independent music acts as well. The Bay City Times branch of MLive that I work for is a major sponsor, so I got a lot of access to cover a lot of different events over the past few days that were really cool to be a part of. Thursday night the feature film Missed Connections premiered at the State Theatre in Bay City, and afterwards some of the cast and crew from the film took part in a Q&A session on stage. I really enjoyed the movie, and the cast and crew members that I got to talk to over the past couple days were a lot of fun. Pictured in day 199's post are, (from left to right), writer and actor Kenny Stevenson, actress Dorien Davies, and producer Lisa Rudin. 

Day 198/365

     Tonight one of my assignments was covering the preparations being made for a haunted house in Bay City. It's actually supposed to be a pretty decent attraction, it's in the top ten haunted houses in Michigan, so I'm hoping I get to check it out once it's up and running.