Routes to travel from North to South

Over vacation, in order to visit my family in the South Eastern part of the United States, my family drove down to Valdosta, GA. Valdosta was only a base though, for we also traveled to Dothan, AL, and neighboring areas. However, to stay interested in the ride, we took different routes each way.

The way down, we traveled on Interstate 95, one of the more popular routes. We left in the after school on Thursday and drove to a hotel on the New Jersey turnpike, almost parallel to Philadelphia, where stayed the night after making minimal stops. The next morning we drove into Washington D.C. and visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History, despite the crowds of schoolchildren beginning their vacation.

That night, after the museum closed, we continued our drive down towards Richmond, where we stopped for the night, leaving D.C. around six o'clock and arriving at the hotel around nine, nine-fifteen that night, after stopping for dinner at Cracker Barrel.

After eating a continental breakfast at our hotel and getting back on the road by about eight-thirty, nine o'clock in the morning, we traveled through the remainder of Virginia and to quote my brother, "The fat part of North Carolina."

As a result of a good advertising gimmick produced by an attraction just south of the North Carolina border with South Carolina, we stopped a a Mexican themed tourist trap called "South of the Border." After many creative signs posted along the highway, we were forced to settle with outrageous prices ($3.25 for a single taco) and crappy food. The one highlight of the attraction, though, was the ability to look out over the highway and surrounding areas from the brim of the sombrero marking the location of the attraction. It cost a single dollar per person.

We then continued our drive until we reached a suggested dining area, still in South Carolina, but near the city of Savannah called Jasper's Porch. It had excellent Southern food and a relaxing nature rock around a little pond. If you ever travel this way and go to the restaurant, I would recommend that you save room for their homemade Coconut Creme Pie.

After dinner, we drove for the final leg of our journey on back roads to the town of Hahira, which is near Valdosta. It would be another week before we headed north again.

Heading north we traveled in the western part of the states. Traveling first through Athens, my mother made a point of showing me the University of Georgia, as I am a ninth grade student. We then Tellulah Falls in Northern Georgia, which is a beautiful look into the natural world. After Tellulah Falls, we continued north.

We were forced to stop before Asheville, NC, which had been our original destination, due to car trouble. You have to be very careful what roads you take with a small car in the mountains and if you are going down the mountain, make sure that you put it in a lower gear, or you might end up with a tired vehicle. We were driving a heavy loaded P.T. cruiser and had to stop less than half an hour after a tiring detour up and then back down a mountain.

The next day, we had intended to travel the Blue Ridge Parkway but were disappointed to learn that the ride from North Carolina to Virginia took about twelve hours and regretfully we did not have that kind of time. So we took the interstate, and to our surprise, the ride was still pretty one, nicer than Interstate 95.

We stopped once that day, at a lodge called Peaks of Otter, a little ways up on the Blue Ridge Parkway near the town of Buchanon, for a country buffet. It was a nice lodge with beautiful views and pretty good food. The drive up and then back down was a good mountain road, but would be easy with an SUV and experienced mountain driver.

That night we stopped in Winchester, Virginia. The next day we headed home with no stops. It was a Monday and we headed up through Allentown, Pennsylvania and then east to the Interstate 287. We crossed the Tapan Zee bridge, bypassing New York and then headed home on Interstate 95 through Connecticut and Rhode Island before arriving at our home in Massachusetts. With several stops, we reached home around 6 o'clock and went about our normal lives at home. My brother even went to his Boy Scout meeting, which started at seven o'clock.

Disgraced Journalist Jayson Blair

Yesterday, Jayson Blair resigned from a position as journalist at the New York Times after reports that some of his articles were fabricated.

The twenty-seven year old was a national reporter for the Times who used plain fiction and odd behavior to liven his stories up a bit.

The Times is reeling from the holes the Blair scandal has exposed in their system of editing. Never was he asked to identify anonymous sources of which entire stories were based to his editors. It appeared that it was extremely easy for Blair to fabricate his stories.

Several months before his resignation, Blair took a leave of absence when he was warned that his job was in danger, but a few months later he found himself back up at the top. Loopholes in the system of fact checking allowed Blair to make it to the top of the ladder instead of simply scraping by near the bottom with his lies.

The New York Times has printed an apology to its readers that is four pages long and has asked people to please not lay blame on the editors because they were deceived, same as the readers.

The Blair scandal proves that unethical journalists will always exist. His story comes to light after reports that writers for the New Republic magazine Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass also plagiarized or fabricated stories for their papers. However the system of fact checking must become stronger and less porous so that stories of plagiarism and fabrication of news stories become less frequent and on lower scales.

Self-assesment of term 3 work in Journalism

I have done my work for term 3 completely. My spelling and grammar are mostly correct but I could be a little more creative in finding ways to illustrated the different forms of writing in journalism and create more creative, relevant, and to the point stories for each type of writing for both my blog and my stories for the school newspaper.

Music Review

Country artist produced the album Reba Duets in the fall of 2007 in collaboration with many other popular artists including Rascal Flatts, Vince Gill, Faith Hill, Justin Timberlake, and pop artist Kelly Clarkson.

The album includes eleven newly released songs, all featuring Reba and a different second artist.
The opener for the album "When You Love Someone like That" is a song done with Leanne Rimes, following the typical country pattern of a broken heart. Reba portrays an older more experienced woman while Rimes plays the role of a girl just recently coming into the world.

Reba performs many love songs with the male artists being perhaps about a divorce as "Every Other Weekend" is with Kenny Chesney, or about a budding relationship such as "Does the Wind Still Blow in Oklahoma" performed with Ronnie Dunn. She ends the album with a final love song "Break Each Other's Hearts Again" with Don Henley.

Some of the songs done with the female artists are about a bad relationship yet several are worthy of mention for the emotions they stir in the first time listener. The song "Sleeping with the Telephone" with Faith Hill, is a song about a military man and a police officer and the emotions of the women while they wait for them to come home.

The song "Everyday People", done with Carole King, is a wonderful portrayal of the good of people in this world. It begins with seniors in college fixing homes in needy areas during spring break. It then proceeds to tell of a woman who can not afford health care when she gets sick because she is a single mother with several kids and how her neighbors came up with money to help. The final verse begins with the lyrics, "Little girl takes her Mama's hand/and walks inside saying 'please don't cry'/ as the people who built this house just for them/ laugh through the tears as the family moves in." This song shows and highlights the good in many people and many types of good deeds that people will perform and can do.

Her eleven song album is very good and will be admired by her previous fans as well as new ones. Each song is unique and shows a different light, both of the accompanying artists and Reba. The album itself is a good showcase of voices in country without it being a miscellaneous, unorganized soundtrack. I would recommend the album to any fan of her previous albums, movies, or TV series Reba.

self assessment of hourglass story

I have good spelling and punctuation--4. My organization is pretty good--3. My creativity might need a little work--3. I have good quotations and they are in the correct format--4.

Bike Rider Killed in Truck Crash

Bicyclist Sandra Martine was traveling cross country with the intention of raising money for poverty stricken children in third-world countries when a tractor trailer driver lost control and hit the sixteen year old girl, Tuesday evening.

Thirty year old Harold Young, lost control of the vehicle when he saw a toddler running towards the street and swerved in an attempt to avoid the infant who was stopped by a family member before she reached the street.

Sandra Martine was riding cross-country with a charitable organization which opened hostels for riders of the group to stay in each night while they traveled cross-country to raise money for the charity of their choice.

According to fellow riders, Sandra was a ray of sunshine during the long ride.

Sandra began the ride in mid-June with the intent of finishing it by the beginning of August. She was a straight A student who felt passionately about the ability of one person to help change the world.

“When Sandra told me she wanted to go on this ride, I was really worried about her but I knew I had to let her go because this was what she really wanted to do,” Sandra’s mother told reporters in and emotional interview.

Trip members told us that Sandra was a bright member of the group the whole ride. She and fellow rider Mike Smith had left the group and headed off to the grocery store to purchase dinner when the trailer hit her.

“Sandra and I had left the hostel and I stopped for a moment to adjust my packs. She continued riding but paused a few yards down to wait for me. I saw the truck swerve over the line and saw it barreling towards her and yelled for her to look out. But the truck was too loud, I think, and she was hit before she or I could even respond,” Mike Smith said.

The trip leader said that this was a first for the organization. “We normally remain on the bike trails with the exception of trips to the store at night. It’s a terrible tragedy and will now travel in large groups all the time.”

Smith, as well as residents in the area, called authorities immediately but Sandra was pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver says he had the sincerest of sympathies for the family of the child and will do all that he can to help. Right now, it does not appear as though any charges will be pressed against him, although a court order may come out for the families of infants on major roads in the town to put up three foot fences in the front of the house to prevent any more accidents like this one.

*This is a fictional story and derived from my imagination.

Self-assesment of interview

Two Strengths: My puncutation and spelling were good.
Two Areas of improvement: My sentences could use more variety and my angle should be better defined in my questions.