Hello from Colorado

Hey Collegian friends!

So, things are going pretty well out here in Colorado. I started a job at The Loveland Connection on July 19. So far, it has been great! The Connection is a small tabloid that prints on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but we update our website every day, if we can.

I am the "community reporter" which means anything except schools and sports, which are my fellow reporter Carl's job. So, it's up to me to do city stuff, general features, crime, courts...it's sweet.

The staff consists of me, Carl and our editor, Kelley. We are in the same newsroom as the Fort Collins Coloradoan, which is a daily. The Coloradoan often uses my stories for its Region page, so I get double printing for some of my clips, which is cool.

So far, I have been writing about 6-8 stories a week. I've had to do a lot of weekend assignments - community event features and stuff. That gets a little hard with my hours because we can only have 37.5/week. We get paid by the hour. I usually run out of hours by Friday, especially if I need to save some for the weekend, so I often get half days on Friday and stuff.

We've had some interesting things going on with the city council and medical marijuana dispensary licensing. I've written a few stories on it.

Next week I will be covering a sentencing trial for a man who shot his pregnant wife and at the end of the month, a hearing for a woman who left her baby in a cold garage and it died while she was out at a party. The baby was also born with THC in its system. It was also the first baby of 2010 at one of the hospitals in town, so it was kind of high-profile.

I might post some stories later, but I have been putting most of them on Facebook and Twitter.

Hope everyone is doing well!!

- Maria