So I’m out in rural (and I mean RURAL) Virginia learning how to survive in hazardous environments from the Centurion group. They handle a lot of the security and conflict training for the Associated Press. It’s a great course if you ever get the opportunity.
Today I learned how to identify a claymore mine, stop an arterial bleed and manually clear my way out of a mine field. (I don’t recommend ever getting stuck in a mine field. It takes roughly 20 minutes to move 10 feet.)
I was hoping that while I wasn’t dodging pyro-technics and cow pies out on the training farm, I could be catching up on the news on my laptop in the hotel room. No dice. The Internet connection is roughly 56k and barely enough to support an animated GIF, so I’ve had to resort to reading the actual newspaper they put outside my hotel room door. I’m at mid-90s news consumption levels here.
So there aren’t going to be a lot of posts this week, but check back next week. I’ll have lots to post about as I prepare my presentations for the NPPA 2009 Multimedia Immersion workshop.
In the meantime, check out these great videos from NY Times video journalist Erik Olsen on the new LENS blog. (If you aren’t following this blog, you are missing out)