My workspace and a Bowl game

Ah! We made it. We finished another year of college football at Aloha Stadium. Last night’s Hawaii Bowl ends my long trips out to the “rust bowl” and sitting in the dark and dank dugout sending images away to AP via Clearwire.

The guys above, Dennis Oda, (l-r), Louis DeLuca–from the Dallas Morning News, Norm Shapiro, and Eugene Tanner, are just a few of the faces who I spent many a Saturday afternoon on that poorly lit artificial turf praying to get a shot or two to make the wire gods happy. With the exception of Louis being here to shoot SMU for the DMN, these guys are roughly my Saturday afternoon family.

My workspace consists of my laptop hooked up to various wires and cables. Ccameras and lenses strewn around the floor as if its showroom. Its really shameful that UH and the Stadium keeps the media in such bad conditions but we could easily keep our stuff up in the media center four stories above the field but we’d get no chance to run up there and file for deadline. So were stuck in the dugout. Not the best place to keep lenses and cameras clean. Funny how sometimes in the camaraderie with the guys (oh…can’t forget cute Lela) we pick up wrong cameras as they all start looking alike at times. I’ve estimated at times, the dugout equipment is worth over $50,000 with all the big glass, bodies, and laptops. Amazing we don’t take better care of that stuff. But any working pro will tell you, they are just tools…and for that matter, Ma used to say, if your Bible is brand new when you take it to church, you probably haven’t been reading it. My Mom’s bible is in shambles…tape, post it notes, tabs, and highlight and pen marks. It was well used…

Its nice to see I had the front page of ESPN for a bit. SMU did well under June Jones, Hawaii’s last coach. He did really well to put SMU back on the map. SMU was actually one of the first colleges to accept me. I don’t know if I would have liked living in Dallas though. Austin’s hard to beat.

Its good football is over. I’m tired of the bad food, the strange fans and that fat guy UH call’s a mascot. If UH ever needs a makeover, they should start with him.