Kevin Bowman

1. The California Scholastic Press Association is a non-profit organization that helps train young prospective journalists for their futures in the industry by giving them real life practice in all areas of the trade.

2. At the CSPA, high school students are given the opportunity to learn from actual journalists how the industry works and how to get a career started.

3. CSPA students are able to learn the evolving trade of journalism, practicing writing stories in print, blogs, web, video, and social media.

After the two acre brush fire behind the local high school, things i could do to report the news could be:

• post a video showing the fire and what firefighters are doing to control it. This could be uploaded to youtube and posted on a blog or website.
• pictures of what is going on, showing the destruction of the fire. This could be put on a blog as well.
• a video of interviews of people affected by the fire to determine how it started and how much damage they think it will cause.
• text people about the fire to raise awareness if news group i am affiliated with allows it. it could be like a bulletin lede (pictures of videos could be included)
• post status on Facebook from phone about fire
• tweet about fire on Twitter from phone
• call a Google voice account to upload mobile audio quickly

All videos or images could be captured using a cell phone camera if I don’t have a camera or video camera on me.

Yesterday morning I woke up at around 5:00. I’m not sure what got me up so early, whether it be a car driving by or being cold. But as I opened my eyes I noticed a small beam of light creeping through the door, so I crawled out of bed to investigate. Reaching the door, I discovered the door was not fully shut, so i quietly closed the door, hoping the noise would not wake my roommate, Jeremy.

But when I turned around to see if the soft bump of the door shutting disturbed his sleep, I found his bed empty. I didn’t really think anything of it, since he had come down with the CSPA Plague the night before. I figured he was just in the bathroom letting the flu do its thing. But when I he didn’t return 10 minutes later and I heard no noise coming from the bathroom, I began to get worried. But I heard some snoring coming from the bathroom, so I gave it five more minutes, thinking he might have fallen asleep in there.

But when I came to my senses and realized how ridiculous that idea was, I sleuthed through the bathroom trying to find my missing roommate. I solved one mystery, finding the culprit of the snores to be Adam, who had left his door to the bathroom open. I found no clues in the bathroom as to the location of Jeremy, so I returned to my own room and sat down to think.

I laid down all the clues to determine where he could have gone

• Door not shut (and thusly, not locked)
• Jeremy not in the room
• Jeremy sick
• Jeremy’s shoes still in the room

It was the final clue that brought me to the realization of what truly happened to Jeremy. No sick kid would venture outside on his own in the middle of the night WITHOUT foot protection! Obviously, Jeremy had been kidnapped.

Once I came to accept this fate, I planned out my next action. Should I go outside and search for clues to pursue the kidnapper on my own? Should I let a counselor know of the situation? Should I ignore the middleman and go straight to the cops? Should I go back to sleep to make sure I was well rested for the coming day?

I ruled out the first option, since I was unshowered and unwilling to be seen in public in that condition. And police would most likely refuse to negotiate with any ransom notes. I decided I need to call Matt to alert him of the situation.

At this point I was completely convinced my friend had been stolen from his bed in his sleep and dragged away to his doom. Naturally, I was very worried.

So I called Matt at 5:30 a.m. and quickly explained that Jeremy had disappeared.

Matt responded, saying, “I know. He’s with me.”

I felt stupid. Jeremy had felt sick in the middle of the night and gone to Matt to get medicine.

It hadn’t crossed my mind that a kidnapper breaking in and hauling an unwilling victim off would make a little bit of noise and I would probably have heard. So with the sudden rush of adrenaline, I don’t think i got back to sleep that morning.

It was pretty awesome.

Jeremy Venook is certainly not shy about his political stance.

“I’m definitely a democrat,” he said.

And his television viewing mirrors his political ideals. He rarely watches news on a station other that liberal biased MSNBC, and watches “The Daily Show” and the”Colbert Report” religiously.

And his support for President Obama is no secret either. During the campaign, Venook showed his belief in Obama by participating in a massive Facebook rally, updating his status to show support for Obama multiple times a day. He also created “Barack and Roll” t-shirts with his brother to help the campaign.

Almost 2 years into Obama’s term Venook stays true to his support, despite many critics believing Obama has not lived up to his hype. But Venook has a simple explanation for that.

“There was really no way he could live up to the hype,” said Venook. With the Senate and House of Representatives having their own agendas, many of Obama’s ambitious reform ideas have yet to materialize, since “he can only do so much himself.”

But the Universal Health Care Reform earlier this year was one ideas Obama was able to get passed. Venook, however, showed mixed feelings about this bill.

“I’m not entirely sure I agree with every tenet,” said Venook,”but universal health care is definitely necessary.”

Venook does believe Obama has done well so far, but believes its much too early to tell whether he will be considered a success in the long run.

“You can’t say whether a presidency is a success until a few years after,” said Venook. He believes that in most cases, it is the lasting effect that determines the success of a president, not the immediate results.

Through the good and the bad, Venook has stayed true to how he describes his political ideals on Facebook. Political Views: Obama/Biden.

A few days ago we took a trip to a cat shelter, which housed around 60 cats. The cats carried an interesting odor. And despite almost all of them having some problem (being feral, no ears, tumors on lips, no eyes, weird hairstyles, etc.) there were some really cute ones. And one really fat one.

And of course, Rex is the coolest cat.

Here’s some other interesting ones.

And lastly, here’s some photoshop fun.

So Tuesday night was pretty fun. Coming back from discussion we decided to get some Mao in before sleeping, so we all piled into one of the rooms and brought in some cookies and chips.

The first game was pretty straight forward with no crazy rules. I ended up winning for the first time and got to incorporate some rules for the next game. And that’s when things got fun.

For the next two games, added rules got people saying some increasingly inappropriate and politically incorrect phrases as we played certain cards. And we got creative too, following the general rule, but embellishing it a bit. Fun stuff.

And of course if you weren’t there you understand nothing of what I’m talking about and find nothing interesting in this story. Sorry.

Anyways, I’ll get back into my mock analysis. So I won the first game, Adam won the second, and Arian took the third, so clearly experience seems to be a key factor early on in the tournament. There weren’t a lot of mistakes in the game since the rules were easy to catch onto, a lot of fun nonetheless.

But the game itself was only half the fun. Finishing up our discussion at 11, we didn’t have time to fit 3 games in before lights out. So when 11:30 came around, we made sure to follow the rules and turn our lights off… but, in the words of the extremely talented singer Ke$ha, “the party don’t stop, no (oh oh oh oh etc.).” So we whipped out our flashlights and cell phones for light, turned down the tunes DJ CJ was pumping, and played on.

Knowing we had a busy day the next day (which we certainly did) we only played 1 game and still got to bed at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately, Jeremy Venook felt passianate enough about his musical tastes to debate them loudly in the bathroom for another 10 minutes, which didn’t make sleeping simple.

Here’s how the updated standings look. (Since we haven’t all played the same number of games, I figured I’d just go by number of wins, and not complicate it with the loss number. So 1-5 is tied with 1-4.)

After an exciting first game, the tensions rose to an even greater level for the next 2 matches, when several more contenders joined in on the action. The newcomers were Adam Robak, Arian Khansari, and C.J. Morrison. C.J. was the only Mao rookie of the bunch. Liam Madden also joined in after watching Game 1 (a choice I recently discovered should have been a violation of rules and a penalty).

These two games were a bit of a blur, since we played them Monday evening and it is now Wednesday. But here’s my attempt at remember details.

Rookie Jeremy Fuster put in a strong showing in just his second ever Mao game, winning in a hard-fought battle

“I…I think I won one of the games,” said Fuster of his performance two days later.

Fuster, forgetting his winning privileges, did not add a new rule to the next game, making it relatively uneventful. Liam Madden, another rookie, hit the rookie wall, struggling to remember the words to say after playing certain cards, and killing any chances he had of winning the match.

Madden still shows signs of enormous potential, though, based on his size (6’4″) and high Mao IQ. If he can cut down on the mental mistakes he makes, such as those in this game, he could become a top player in the tournament.

The real story of Game 3, however, was Adam Robak, who dominated from start to finish. His impressive performance and knowledge of the game help make him a leading contender to win the tournament. He’s definitely the man to beat as of now.

After a tough battle, Brendan Nguyen earned the win in the opening match of the tournament Monday morning.

Nguyen, a Mao veteran, narrowly defeated three Mao rookies in Steven Lau, Jeremy Venook, and Jeremy Fuster, as well as myself, another experienced Mao player. Nguyen got off to a shaky start, with a Talking penalty followed by a Five Second violation a few moments later.

As the game progressed, the rookies quickly learned the unspoken rules of the game the hard way, with multiple penalties in which the violator receives an extra card. I even learned some new and different styles of rules from Brendan, which I had not previously played with.

Several times Brendan and I, with the obvious experience advantage over the first timers, got down to just one card left, but Failure to Say Mao violations and not having the correct card to go out on, delayed potential victory for both of us.

Finally, after a twenty minute battle, Nguyen got the right card to go out on, and won the game and the right to create a new rule for the next game. This good luck was accompanied with a stroke of bad luck, as the clock showed it was time for us to head over for breakfast, meaning Nguyen would not be able to take advantage of his new rule advantage. Despite their defeat, the two Jeremeys and Steven had accomplished a right of passage by losing their Mao virginity. There lives have been forever changed for the better.

No, Mao is not any reference to Chinese communism. Mao, in fact, is the greatest card game known to mankind. Don’t know how to play? Not a problem. That only makes the game all the more fun for the rest of us. In fact it’s quite a simple game to learn.

Chairman Mao could not live up to the lofty expectations for him to equal the greatness of the game that he was named after

Mao is very similar to Uno and Crazy Eights, with just one subtle difference. There is only one rule: you cannot discuss the rules.

This stipulation clearly leads to some interesting happenings throughout the game, as the rules are created as the game goes on, each winner adding a new rule to the next game. Being that it is such a fantastic form of entertainment, it is only natural that this card game has turned into a tournament in the dorms. Let the games begin!

Shhh. A Test post is going on.

This post is a test .Here is a video of my band playing at Warped Tour. I played with my marching band played at the London New Year’s Day Parade in 2009.