I haven’t posted much. I’ve been really busy with life and such. The only professional update I have is related to the Virginia Press Association awards (I won three :)). You can read about that here.

Above is a video I made for my neighbor’s band, The Lazy Man Dub Band. We also put together a really simple web site that will surely improve with time.

Enjoy! Big news to come…

I made the crossover to print last week… it was a great slice of life piece!

The story was about local sword enthusiasts who collect antique swords and practice ancient swordplay techniques. And I’m not talking about fencing, I mean true midevil-knight style fighting. The group was known as the Roanoke Sword Guilde, and it was really impressive.

This article was the first print story I’ve worked on since my senior year in college, and it was a lot of fun to get back to the writing side of things.

I did produce a video for the piece, too. I couldn’t completely pull myself away from my normal online duties.

The title of this post basically sums it up. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Cassell is home for the Virginia Tech men and women’s basketball teams and is VERY loud.

Since it was the men’s final home game Wednesday against NC State, fellow RT photographer Matt Gentry suggested I make the long, arduous journey from Roanoke to Blacksburg to shoot video. Of what? We did not know. But I figured mic’ing up a fan wouldn’t be a bad start.

At the very least, it’s always fun to watch a collegiate basketball game from the court. Though the noise in the arena did pose some problems back in the editing room.

A not-so-new, yet revamped style of video has really caught my attention lately. It’s a mixture between home movies and an art film, but I like to call it street video.

Editing video is great when it’s only an in-point and out-point.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

Phoenix - 1901 - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I spent Saturday morning on my first ever birding tour with bird and nature expert Clyde Kessler.

I didn’t realize that 215 different species of birds decide to make Radford, Va., their home at some point during the year. Pretty remarkable.

Radford also lays claim to the largest winter roost for vultures in the country, which is why the city was holding its third annual Vulture Festival on Saturday as well. The birding tour was actually part of the festivities.

After 36 years of operation, the Blacksburg, Va., High School gymnasium collapsed shortly before 1:37 p.m. Saturday. Fortunately, nobody was inside the building when it happened.

A tragedy was narrowly averted, though, as the high school girls basketball team was practicing in the gym earlier that morning and two maintenance workers examining cracks in the walls escaped seconds before fall.

The photos are truly remarkable. So I aimed to create a graphic that allowed users to examine the photos more closely than just looking at the photos in a slideshow or in the paper.

…and so what if Lindsey Vonn’s potential absence ruins the whole entire thing for me. The best part of the Olympics thus far has been looking at Ralph Lauren’s ridiculous Olympic collection (for a mere $385, you too can wear an official Olympic Games Shawl Cardigan).

I’ve been wanting to use this graphical concept for a while, and I finally got my chance during a recent autism project we published this weekend.

Below is the original graphic comparing the fallout of major U.S. banks during the collapse of ‘08 (if you can’t read the text, just know that blue represents market value in the second quarter of 2007 and and green represents market value in January 2009).

I first saw the graphic, which was published by JPMorgan, in a chain e-mail and the concept just stuck with me. The idea of a smaller circle being able to fit inside the larger one to illustrate proportion and change was simple yet brilliant.

Here’s my best attempt using the rising number of children with autism spectrum disorders enrolled in Virginia public schools between 2001 and 2008.

You can view the entire project page here (which I also helped design).

Surprise, surprise! Another snow storm for Roanoke. And this one is could be one of the worst we’ve had all season (forecasts vary from 12+ inches, although eastward including D.C. will be getting the most snow).

Either way, I walked into work Friday morning. It’s one of the many perks to living so close to downtown Roanoke. I snapped these photos on my way in, so I thought I’d share.

Downtown Roanoke at the corner of Luck and Third streets

Snow covered trees on Mountain Avenue off Franklin Road

Cars parked along Day Avenue are covered in snow

Another big snow is projected for Roanoke, Va., this weekend. Forecasts have us around 10 inches with some areas nearby getting as much as 15 inches. Here’s a handy webcam that Jordan and I set up to keep up to date with everything.