This has been a week of interviewing intern applicants and reviewing student essay contest submissions and restarting servers and writing captions and looking through photos for something that will look good on two pages. Admittedly none of this is backbreaking work but it can be tedious if heaped on all at once. Then, the other night, my job was to go to the BYU/CSU basketball game and look at the signs that fans make and hold up during the basketball game. We've been following fan signs all season so there were a few new ones but mostly they were repeats: What Would Jimmer Do?; Emery, Thou Shalt Steal; Jimmer, Will You Marry Me?; and Fredette About It, to name a few.
Anyway, while I was standing next to the security officer and other event staff maybe 10 feet from the BYU bench (pictured), I had one of those moments that occasionally accompanies this job; where I look around and think, "Am I really getting paid for this?" This usually happens when I am on assignment. Like when I had to interview Danny Ainge in Boston or Andy Reid in Philadelphia for magazine stories I was writing. Or when I was standing next to a dinosaur dig with Walter Cronkite, having lunch a few tables over from Gordon B. Hinckley, or shaking hands with Fred Rogers (that's Mr. Rogers to you). Or when I was hiking Sicilian volcanoes and Swiss alps with geology students, observing falcon nests in Alaska, or collecting algae samples on Monterey Bay with biology students (and harbor seals). Anyway, you get the idea. There's plenty of unglamorous work but then there are some unbelievable moments. And I have been truly blessed with cool opportunities, big and small.
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| Julie and I pose with Walter. |
My brother had a similar angle on the All-Star game so even when I'm feeling special, he's always there to one-up me. He had a great view of Ray Allen wearing some Air Jordan 2011s in LA and I had to settle for Jimmer hitting threes in Provo. Oh well. It's all good as long as you can see the ball hit the net.
I can't wait until high noon tomorrow when BYU and San Diego meet again on their home court. I'll have to settle for a high-definition signal from CBS and a view from my couch for that one. I'll enjoy it even though it will be harder to justify watching this game as "work."
