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Okay Mr. Blank Blog... your white screen of limitless proportions does not scare me. Prepared to be filled!



I work for Texas Cooperative Extension with Ag Communications. We're located in the Reed McDonald building, soon to be bulldozed. My friends often ask what I do, and I guess I've never really explained it before. I write articles about agriculture. Really. That's what I do, with my partner in crime Megan. We are in charge of writing the weekly Texas Crop and Weather report which showcases some agricultural topic in Texas. We call Extension experts, commodity groups, producers and whoever else we want to call, and interview them. Since Extension is both state and nationwide (we just deal w/ TX folks though), we do most of our interviews by phone using a handy dandy recorder that hooks to the phone. At the end of the article, we include district reports from each of the 12 districts in Texas. They mainly talk about rain, what's being planted, how cattle are, ect. Our articles are then sent out to news outlets across the country. Sometimes though it feels like the only people who read the articles are our parents. Ha, but since I've been here for over a year, my parents are getting tired of reading them :O) Geeze louise! That's half of our readership!
We also write RNBs or radio news briefs. Using our articles and others written by Extension communications specialists, we condense the story into a 2 min. snippit that's used on the radio. Sometimes we get to record them ourselves... but not very often. Austin, our RNB boss, also has us act as performing talent. We, like the entire office, provide a warm body when he has to make some sort of video. We have marched singing the do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do whistley song, walked aroung Research Park for Walk Across Texas, been hand models, ect. We write other things too, like articles about Extension research, workshops and awards.
The office is very friendly, almost family like. Edith has us out to her house for dinner. Someone’s always celebrating something with cake, and there’s lot’s of teasing!
I work in the most random place, super fun, but completely random! Let me explain. First off, I write to you right this very moment donning a beautiful crown made out of Megan's burrito wrapper. Mmmmm a taste for the eyes and the nose! Okay, next. To the left of me, to the right of me, behind me are mountains of paper flowers. Yes, paper flowers; you know what makes that even funnier? WE'VE SPENT 2 WEEKS FOLDING THESE DANG THINGS!!!! Megan, the eternal optimist, believes that this skill will come in handy. "I truly believe that someday I just might have a mariachi wedding." Sure Meg, keep on thinking that. I'm not coming! :O)
We have several knick knacks decorating the office that have been accumulating since before our time here at Ag Comm. We have a pair of lovely ceramic fruit bowls... one lemon and one grape. They came from Crystal's grandmother's house. We also have a ceramic angel that I won at a White Elephant auction. I actually like it but everyone else gags.
Then we have three computers. One with Word. One with Notepad and no spell check, and one that only has the capability to play CDs. The Word computer used to play C.D.s but somehow it stopped working!
We have one live fish. He doesn't have a name because every fish we've ever had died once we declared our affection for it. There was Mortimer the Beta (he's not dead, just brain damaged after I poisoned him with water cleaner.. I didn't mean to I promise!!!). Fred was a frog that lived in a fish tank now sheltering our ceramic fish. Edith got us the tank as a surprise! Isn't that sweet?!? She's always doing stuff like that! It was an aquatic frog, but sometimes Megan liked to hold it. Eeek. GILLS GILLS! WATER WATER! Then another fish, but can't I remember its name. And another fish, but its name escapes me too. Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoy the ceramic fish, but there's something kind of off about it. It's sort of like if the period was gone after Dr. on a Dr. Pepper can. Something's amiss.
Okay next. Like I said, we have a fish tank in our office. Yes, that does sound fairly normal, but wait, there's more. Our fish tank houses two ceramic clown fish that our RNB editor, Austin, gave us when he TPed our office with orange streamers. But lets stick to the present shall we? We have no windows in our cement office... but we pretend we do. Cutting photos of beautiful far away places, we created our own "portals to the outside world," by stapling them to the walls. Sometimes we sit by them with a cup of hot tea, and think "wow. we're really weird."