Day 344/365

     This morning I covered a status hearing of sorts where a circuit court judge turned down the plea deal of a man who's one of three, (plus one who's still at large), charged in connection with the death of a 6-year-old girl. The shooting, which resulted in the girl's death and her father in critical condition, happened this past August when Saginaw was finishing off an extremely violent summer that resulted in the city breaking its 20-year homicide record. Notorious for its "no snitch code," Saginaw residents rallied for that code to be broken, and seem to have been successful as one of the men involved is now testifying against the two alleged shooters. 

Day 328/365

     On Sunday/day 328 I ventured down to Flint with a friend from work who knew the area pretty well. I thought parts of Saginaw looked depressing; Flint was on a whole other level. We definitely found some places we wanted to check out but couldn't get into, so we'll have to make another trip down with better tools sometime. We did find a shut down elementary school that we were able to get into, and checked out part of an old dam as well. It's sad what neglect can do to a place.

Day 322/365

     Last night/day 322 I got to shoot my first ever college/Big Ten/NCAA basketball game. It was the University of Michigan vs. Michigan State women's basketball matchup, and each team had a former local high school standout. #24 Jenny Ryan who now plays for U of M is a graduate of Saginaw's Nouvel Catholic Central, and MSU's #52 Becca Mills is a graduate of Midland Dow. It was a great game to shoot, with two pretty good teams that made everything interesting. Not to mention the lighting in the arena was fantastic. It'll be hard switching back to high school basketball, but it was an awesome experience all the same. Hopefully I'll get to shoot another one soon!

Day 318/365

     On Thursday I photographed an independent singer/songwriter and actor named Brian Vander Ark. He's pretty popular in the state for being a part of the Michigan-based '90s/'00s band the Verve Pipe. He stopped in Midland to be interviewed for an upcoming show he'll be performing. What I couldn't get over, was how much he looked like a friend of mine, Matt Zador. He literally looked like he could be his 40-something year-old doppelgänger!

Day 317/365

     Wednesday/day 317 one of my assignments was photographing a local sports radio talk show. A new host and show has taken over for the time slot that used to belong to "The Huge Show," which apparently is some popular sports radio show throughout Michigan. From what I've heard, it was basically the Rush Limbaugh of sports radio. For whatever reason though, a huge local debate has started over whether or not the show should've been replaced. There are about an even number of fans who say they won't listen to the new one and are adamantly opposed to the new host, Jared Sandler, versus a fan base that says "The Huge Show" was ridiculous and should be replaced, and are interested in the new programming. Sandler seemed nice enough, and seemed to be taking the whole thing pretty well, so hopefully he can hang in there. 

Day 316/365

     Tuesday/day 316 I got to shoot a new antique store in Saginaw, and then a high school basketball doubleheader. Two local Midland rivals played each other, the girls varsity teams followed by the boys. Both games were fun to watch. One of the girls teams had a come-from-beind victory, which is always crazy, and the boys were pretty evenly matched.

Day 307/365

     It's certainly been a cold couple of days. Granted, I'm much more of a winter weather fan than I am of extreme heat/humidity, but lately the cold air's been getting extreme as well. We're experiencing single digits up here in Michigan, and subzero temperatures with the wind chill factor. There's warnings about people limiting their outdoor exposure, and there've even been reminders to keep pets in mind when letting them go out in the cold as well. 

     Kip's been experiencing some cabin fever, I'm sure, as we haven't been able to go on one of our typical lengthy walks because he starts to favor his paws too much for my liking within about ten minutes of being outside. He also has a short coat, so his daily outside time has decreased majorly. It's supposed to be back up in the 20s or 30s by the start of next week, so I'm hoping to make up for it then.

Day 304/365 - Part 2

     Like I said in the first part of today's post; today started off normal enough. Then, excuse the language, the shit hit the proverbial fan as far as breaking news stories go. Hang tight, folks, this one's going to take a bit to explain. Stick with me here. 

     Around 9:30 pm Wednesday night, January 16, a female Central Michigan University student was leaving the student gym and walking out to her car. Eric Ramsey, a thirty-something year-old man, held the girl at gunpoint and kidnapped her in her own vehicle. He then took her to his house, bound her, and raped her. He then loaded her back in her car, placed some cans of gasoline in the car, and took off with her again. As he was driving, he told her he was going to kill her. She fought. She managed to jump out of the car as it was moving, and ran away towards the closest house she could see.

     The Mount Pleasant area, where this took place, is pretty rural. Other than an indian reservation and the CMU campus, it's a bunch of corn fields. So the fact that this girl happened to jump out in the near vicinity of a house is extremely lucky, but not as lucky as what happens next.

     The girl ran to the front door of the house, pounded on it, screaming for help and that a man was trying to kill her. During this time, Jim Persyn Jr. was on his way to pick his fiancé, Tiffany Ramon, up from work. Since Persyn only had about a fifteen minute roundtrip to pick Tiffany up, their children were left home alone. Their children being their 14 year-old son James, their 11 year-old daughter Acelin, and their 2 year-old son Angus. It was the Persyn residence that the CMU girl ran up to.

     James heard her screaming, opened the door and let her in. When she told him a man was after her and trying to kill her, James locked the front door. He then grabbed his hunting knife,  got the girl, his siblings, and the family dog and had all of them go into the bathroom at the back of the house and they barricaded themselves in. Since the bathroom door didn't have a lock, James made sure to sit closest to it with his knife. As this is happening, Eric Ramsey has realized where the girl has gone and is banging on the front of the house yelling to let him in. James had the girl use his phone to call 911, and then James called his dad to tell him that someone was trying to get into the house.

     When Ramsey couldn't knock the front door down, he tried to light the house on fire with the gasoline he had put in the trunk of the girl's car. Luckily Ramsey was unsuccessful, and left the area. The children's parents rushed home and were able to put out any flames Ramsey had managed to start, and the police arrived. After crashing into a state trooper, stealing a sanitation truck, and then crashing into two other state troopers over the span of three other counties, Eric Ramsey was shot and killed.

     James Persyn III, a fourteen year-old boy, had the presence of mind and a level enough head to save not only the rape victim, but protect his younger siblings as well. I have never been in awe of anyone before, but I was today when I had the honor of meeting the Persyn family and taking their pictures as they were interviewed by an MLive reporter. I was also heartbroken, as it was easy enough to see how scared both James and Acelin were, but they were calm in spite of the shocking events they had been witness to. 

     Today, I met a fourteen year-old hero.

Day 302/365

     Yesterday/day 302 one of my assignments was touring the construction going on at a local power plant in the Bay City area. This particular facility used to be one of the worst sources of mercury pollution in the state of Michigan, but is currently updating pollution control equipment throughout the facility to be in compliance with new EPA guidelines that'll take effect in 2015. It was a pretty interesting tour, but my favorite part by far was getting to go up on the cat walk with one of the heads of construction. It was a great view, albeit an extremely cold one. 

Day 277/365

     It finally snowed today! In both Michigan and Ohio! I love snow in general, but I especially love it around the holidays; it just doesn't feel like Christmas to me without some snow. Hopefully it sticks around until Tuesday!

Day 267/365

     My return back to Michigan/work was met with another basketball game to shoot. It was a lot of fun, and had the first slam-dunk attempts I've seen this 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 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 231/365

     Yesterday/day 231 was filled with election preparations pretty much everywhere, but especially where I work. The only early voting that's an option in Michigan is via absentee ballot, so the different polling locations really have to prepare for a mass of people coming out on Election Day. I think it goes without saying that most, if not all, of us, whether in the media industry or not, are extremely ready to end the election fatigue and move on. With that being said, all of you better vote!

Day 224/365

     I ended up having to work Monday night instead of having the day off as originally planned. I covered some high school sports and some early trick-or-treating, and a sad story about a family's dog who was killed by loose neighborhood dogs. I was in a weird mood after that one, but the amazing sunset managed to make up  for it a bit. 

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. 

Day 196/365

     I'm working the night shift this week, which means you'll probably be seeing a good amount of high school sports coverage. Tonight's assignment was a boys soccer game at the high school down the street from my apartment. The only soccer games I've ever been to have been the few I've covered up here in Michigan, so I'm still getting the hang of shooting the sport, but I think I'm improving. It also helped that tonight's game was by far the most interesting one I think I've seen; lots of flipping and rolling and diving from the guys makes for some pretty easy photo opportunities. 

Day 178/365

     Today's post is from a local comedy theater rehearsal. They're preparing for an upcoming performance of Jeff Daniels' Escanaba in Da Moonlight, which apparently was originally a movie about the U.P. I've never heard of it, but everyone I work with has, so I guess it's a Michigan thing. From what I gathered from photographing the rehearsal, it's about a group of guys who go hunting, with one of them thinking he's cursed since he's never managed to kill a deer. The parts I saw were pretty funny, but I'm sure it would've been even better if I actually understood half of what they were talking about. Anyways, this guy was my favorite... for obvious reasons I think. 

Day 156/365

     Today one of my assignments was to get photos of a former Detroit Red Wings hockey player, Kris Draper, visiting the local minor league baseball stadium in Midland. While I was waiting for Draper to arrive at Dow Diamond I got to sit by the dugout and watch the Great Lakes Loons warm up and have batting practice. It was such a nice day out; it was a perfect afternoon for baseball. Unfortunately, I didn't get to stay for the game, but I'm hoping that I get assigned to cover one before this season's over. We'll see!