A Meeting To Remember

Good and bad today.
But, I guess that's life.

I woke up at 9:25am, and panicked a little bit. Do you ever wake up and not know what day it is? That's how I felt today.
After gaining my bearings, I hopped in the shower and changed. I was out the door by 9:40am.
I arrived at the newsroom at about 10:15am, with only Gaby in the newsroom at the time.
The good news is, Gaby was my video partner. So, about 20 minutes later, Carl the video/web guy came over and escorted us into the conference room, where I shot my last video.
Here it is. I think it turned out pretty good.
But I was kicking myself on the way out. It's my last week, right? I should have made a statement and picked a crazy score. For example, Highland Park is the area's No. 1 4A team, and haven't lost at home since 1998. Now, I picked against them (picking my West Mesquite Wranglers), but I should have said something crazy.
Can you imagine?
"I think...West Mesquite 76, Highland Park 3."
That would cause a stir.
Anyway, I moseyed back to my desk, and most of the other people had straggled into the newsroom. I greeted them all, especially Damon, who showed me what might be the greatest Web site in the history of the world.
I tried to get organized. Believe it or not, I have a ton of stuff to do this week, even though it's my last.
I made a couple calls, talked to Kevin Stone the designer about a few things, and tried to get some stuff done before noon rolled around.
Meeting time.
I walked over to the conference room and piled my plate high with barbecue. After all, I had chosen it. And what a choice it was.
I sat down and started munching as the meeting began.
I looked up at the wall-sized dry erase board, and noticed two things.
First, that I had surged into third place in the race for the Prestigious Lance Cup. It's an award named after a former TDMN employee for whoever can get the most blog entries published in the newspaper in the "From The Blog" section on Saturday mornings.
And secondly, I apparently wasn't going to place in the "who got their story in the fastest" contest.
You see, you could always tell when I had placed, and in what place. John puts three pieces of paper up on the board, with the pictures of the three winners on those pieces of paper. Then, he puts another piece of paper over it to hide the winner.
Well, I never got my picture taken for TDMN, so John's been using a picture of Truman the Tiger, Mizzou's mascot, to represent me. Problem is, my Truman picture was horizontal, while the others were vertical.
Thus, it became kind of obvious when I would be placing and not placing.
I came to grips with that (how could I not place when I got my story in at 10:40pm?!?) while John revealed the winners.
Third place: Keith Whitmire
Second place: Damon Sayles
First place: Look in the bag
...
Wait...
...
...wait, what?
John pulled a big brown bag out from underneath the table. And what did he pull from the bag?
A stuffed tiger, complete with a graduation mortar board and a diploma.
The room laughed. I grinned and blushed a little bit. That was a really cool touch.
The meeting continued as usual, with Cameron mentioning that this was my last week, and telling everyone to make sure they say goodbye to me.
Weird. It still doesn't feel like this is ending.
The meeting ended at about 1:45pm and I scampered back to the TepCube. After wasting more time on the afore-mentioned greatest Web site of all time, I formulated a plan of attack.
This week, I needed to go out to Rowlett for a note and for part of next week's cover story, North Garland for a note, Mesquite for a part of next week's cover story and North Mesquite for part of next week's cover story.
I also had game capsules to complete.
And, Cameron had just sent me an e-mail asking me to break down the 10-5A, 12-5A and 10-3A playoff races.
Last week let-up, my butt.
I worked as hard as I could for a couple hours. I got approximately one of my game capsules done while finishing my playoff breakdowns and doing some other miscellaneous crap.
It got to be about 4:10pm before I even knew it.
Crap. I needed to leave.
I grabbed my stuff and ran out of the newsroom, hopping in the Baron and driving to North Garland.
You see, practice was going to end at about 4:45, and I needed to do some interviews.
I got there at exactly 4:50pm (thanks a lot, traffic on US-75), and scrambled inside. I tracked down coach David Farris, whom I talked to for a few minutes along with one of his players.
By 5pm, I was out of there. But my running around wasn't done.
My head was starting to hurt.
I drove as quickly as I could over to Rowlett High School, whose practice was supposed to wrap up at 5:15pm. I got there right as the players were walking off the field.
I ran over and found coach Kiff Hardin. I chatted with him for a few minutes before he introduced me to Dexter Imade, his running back that I would be writing a note about. We talked for a few minutes, and then coach Hardin introduced me to a player I needed to talk to for next week's cover story.
By now, though, it was 5:40pm. I had planned to go over to Mesquite to knock that out, but its practice was ending at 5:45pm, and it was 20 minutes away.
Instead, I got back in my car and started driving home.
Stupid headache.
I got home, after sitting in some traffic, at about 6:30pm. All I wanted to do was sit on my butt and do, uh, nothing.
But I couldn't.
With some encouragement from the TepMom, I got off my butt and went to the YMCA with her.
I got on the treadmill, put on my earphones and started running.
By the end of the first half-mile, I had stepped off the treadmill, clutching my temples.
My head was hurting worse than I had ever felt. Worse than when I got a concussion in high school. It was a searing pain.
I couldn't shake it. I tried getting a drink of water, but that didn't help. I tried walking around, but that didn't help.
I finally sat down on a nearby bench and just closed my eyes. About five minutes later, I felt a little better, and finished out my two miles.
I don't know what caused it, but it was probably a combination of being stressed out, not getting enough sleep, the bright lights, the loud music and the weather changing. But I finished my two miles, and my day.
I came home, showered, ate beef stew for dinner, cleaned my room, talked to my beautiful girlfriend and now I'm writing this blog.

Long, but fulfilling, last Monday.
It's all downhill from here.