Heelan’s Michelle Lund puts up a shot agianst Cedar Rapids Xavier during action at the Iowa Girls’ State Basketball Tournament in Des Moines Tuesday, February 26, 2008. (Jim Lee/Sioux City Journal)

This girl must have the largest fan club of any high school athlete I’ve ever known. Of course, that’s just based on the number of requests I get to see more photos of her in the Journal. I was only sent to a few of Heelan’s regular season games this year, so I don’t think I had more than one OK photo of her during the regular season. But hopefully I got a couple tonight that will make her fans happy.

You can see more photos of Michelle and her teammates in our state tournament photo gallery. And Congratulations the the Crusaders on their victory over Cedar Rapids Xavier in the first round of the state tournament.

Unity Christian’s Morgan Rodenburgh shoots as Davenport Assumption’s Gabbie Binion defends during action at the Iowa Girls’ State Basketball Tournament in Des Moines Tuesday, February 26, 2008. (Jim Lee/Sioux City Journal)

Not a long day for me, but for a couple of our area teams. Spencer and Unity Christian both loss their opening round games today. Hopefully Heelan will have better luck when they take on Cedar Rapids Xavier this evening.

Got lucky on the snow storm. The roads were slushy and slick when I drove back to the hotel last night, but they were drivable. The sun was out this morning when I woke up. Roads were covered with ice, but nothing too bad, just had to dive slow. Talking to some other people and it sounds like it was much worse outside of town.

Anyway, check out the photos of Spencer and Unity Christian and check back later for photos of Heelan.

Lawton-Bronson’s Alyssa Brockhaus, front, and Exira’s Hallie Christofferson reach for a rebound during action at the Iowa Girls’ State Basketball Tournament in Des Moines Monday, February 25, 2008. (Jim Lee/Sioux City Journal)

I was surprised. The drive to Des Moines this morning was smooth sailing. Hit a little bit of rain, but that was it. But the weather reports weren’t totally wrong. The nasty stuff is starting to fall now. But at least now all I have to do is shoot one more game for one of our sister papers and then make it back to the hotel.

Got a good laugh this afternoon thanks to one of the photographers from eastern Iowa. During the Lawton-Bronson game he was going around asking all of the shooters if we saw someone take a remote camera down from the backboard. He was frantic. It was his personal camera. His camera was gone (that’s not the funny part.) I thought someone sure had a lot of nerve to steal a camera in plain sight in front of 1000’s of potential witnesses.

He kept asking people if they saw someone take it. Finally, a Des Moines Register photographer pointed out a remote camera mounted on the other basket. Turned out he forgot which end of the court he set it up on.

Anyway, onto basketball. Lawton-Bronson and Newell-Fonda both won their first round games. Check out the photo galleries. And check back tomorrow for photos of Heelan, Unity Christian and Spencer.

Newell-Fonda fan Tyler Wells sports a painted face as he cheers for the Mustangs as they take on Southeast Webster-Grand during action at the Iowa Girls’ State Basketball Tournament in Des Moines Monday, February 25, 2008. (Jim Lee/Sioux City Journal)

Girls State Basketball and blizzards go together like bacon and eggs, peanut butter and jelly, Canadian Bacon and pinapple. You just can’t have one without the other. This year the Iowa girls state basketball tournament, which starts tomorrow, is being held a week earlier than normal, but that isn’t fooling Mother Nature. Looking at the weather forecast, it looks like Sioux City could see some pretty bad weather by morning, but Des Moines is supposed to get pounded. Yes, nature is a mother.

I’m going to be leaving town before sunrise to hopefully get to Des Moines before our first area team, Newell-Fonda, starts playing at 10 a.m. Assuming I actually make it to Des Moines and don’t wind up stuck in some snow bank along I-80, check back later for photos from all of our area games. Our six area teams at state this year are: Newell-Fonda, Lawton-Bronson, Unity Christian, Spencer, Heelan and North. Good luck to all our teams!

Lawton-Bronson students Rachel Thompson sports a caution tape outfit while cheering for the Eagles as they take on Woodbury Central during regional basketball action at East High Monday, February 18, 2008. (Jim Lee/Sioux City Journal)

There were lots of colorful fans at the Lawton-Bronson/Woodbury Central regional basketball game at East High tonight. If they go this crazy for a regional game, I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the state tournament.

Speaking of state, I am scheduled to shoot the first half of the Iowa girls state basketball tournament (Tim Hynds plans to shoot the second half.) But that is a definite maybe. I’m on call for jury duty this month. So far I’ve had to call in each week to see if I have to report for jury duty or if I have to call back later. I have to call next on Friday to see if I have to report for jury duty on Monday the 25th, which is also the first day of the tournament. So let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope I’m sitting courtside on Monday and not in a courtroom.

Lawton-Bronson student Jon Shoemaker sports a basketball mask.

I finally got the video posted from the championship round of the state wrestling tournament. Sorry for the delay, but the there was a change in plans because of the weather.

My game plan last night was to shoot photos and video during the championships matches, edit and transmit the photos from the Wells Fargo Arena, then go back to the hotel and work late editing the video there. Some of the other photographers were watching the weather forecast closely, and about the time I finished all the still photos word was going around about a blizzard that was suppose to hit Des Moines in the early morning hours. Rumor was there would be 1/2 inch of ice topped off with 4 to 8 inches of snow.

When I was leaving the arena it was just starting to rain. I called my boss and decided I would rather drive back in the late night hours before the storm hit than risk getting stuck in a blizzard. So I went to the hotel, grabbed my stuff, checked out, then hit the road. I got home around 2:30 a.m.

The drive home made me realize how old I was getting. I kept fantasizing about a pillow the whole way. And I was out cold when I got home.

It doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago that long, late-night trips would never bother me. One time when I was in college, the sports editor for the Iowa State Daily and I decided to cover an ISU football game at Missouri. It was about a ten hour drive from Ames to Columbia, Missouri. At the time I was also working part-time for a local paper shooting Friday night football. I got off work around midnight, picked up the sports editor at a party along with a couple of friends who wanted to tag along with us, and we drove all night to Columbia. We went to the game, grabbed some dinner, then drove all night back to Ames. I went 45 hours with no sleep. Yes, I was tired, but there is no way I could do that nowadays. I’m starting to hate this old age thing.

So I got the wrestling video edited last night, it looked and sounded good on my computer, but when I uploaded it to the web the sound just fell apart. I have no idea what happened. When I got back to the hotel, I checked the original video, it was good, so I tried uploading it again and it still fell apart. Wish I knew why.

I’ll be back at Wells Fargo Arena this evening for the finals. We have seven wrestlers from our coverage area in the championships, including Chad Ryan from North High. Should be a good night of action. I’ll be shooting plenty of photos so check our web site later this evening.

I actually have enough time to grab dinner before the 3A wrestling semifinals start, but not enough time to leave the arena to go to a restaurant, so that means concession stand food. I got a tenderloin, a pretzel (instead of fries, that’s my way of eating healthy ) and a bottle of water: $11.00. Thank goodness for that expense account.

Sheldon’s Josh Ihnen celebrates his victory over Davenport Assumption’s Willie Argo at 189 pounds during state tournament wrestling action in Des Moines Friday, February 15, 2008. (Jim Lee/Sioux City Journal)

It’s always fun to get out of town for the state tournaments, but it’s also a lot of work. Today I arrived in Des Moines for the Iowa State Wrestling Tournament. Luckily I only have to cover the semifinals and finals, but it still makes for a long day.

I left Sioux City at 8 a.m. and arrived a bit early for the 1A semifinals so I had time to setup the laptop in the photo workroom. Between the three classes, I only had 15 matches to cover in the winners brackets, but I have to shoot photos and video, edit and transmit the photos back to the office, post photos in galleries on on web site and reprint site, and edit the video and post it for the web.

By the time I get everything done today, it’ll be about a 13 hour day for me. Luckily I only have to cover the finals tomorrow, so it should balance out.

Right now there’s a bit of a break between 2A and 3A action, which is giving me time to work on the photos and video. Actually, if your check out the galleries some of the photos are already up. I’ll wait a bit to post the video so I can add clips of our metro wrestlers to it. Which brings up another challenge. East’s Kory Kistner and North’s Chad Ryan both qualified for the semifinals in the 103 pound class. I am going to do my best to get photos and hopefully video of both. But with 8 mats going at the same time, it could be difficult to get both. But I will do my best. Check the galleries later to see if I got lucky.

The photographers workroom in the Wells Fargo Arena. It may not look like a luxury suite, but when the state tournaments were in Vets Auditorium the photo work room was bout the size of a broom closet. So the new arena is a joy to work in.

Jose De Jesus Alvarado, South Sioux City, cheers for Barack Obama during the Democratic caucus in Dakota City Saturday, February 9, 2008. (Jim Lee/Sioux City Journal)

I think I’m ready for another vacation after Saturday’s schedule. I had to shoot photos of a Morninigside College swimmer for an upcoming Living cover at 1:05, followed by the Nebraska caucus in Dakota City at 2:00, then a quick portrait assignment on the north side of town at 2:30, district wrestling finals at 3:00, and a nightcap of hockey at 7 p.m.

The tight scheduling of the first four assignment was going to be a challenge. So I started at swimming, which had challenges of it’s own. Indoor swimming pools tend to be extremely hot and humid. Cameras do not like the high humidity (and neither do fat photographers.) So I had to get there early to allow my cameras 15 to 20 minutes to adjust to the humidity, otherwise my lenses would all be fogged over.

OK, no problem so far. I was there to photograph one specific swimmer. Well, it turned out the race he was in didn’t start until about 1:45. I had to shoot the race, walk back to may car and race to Dakota City for the 2:00 caucus. It’s about a 20 minute drive. For the caucuses, they lock the door at 2:00 sharp and I was late. Luckily, someone near the door saw my cameras and let me in.

So I shoot quickly and hurried to my next assignment. By this time, not only was I late for that one, but I was already late for the one after that. Luckily, the reporter at the 2:30 assignment was interviewing the people for a while and was still there. But I had to do a quick shoot and scoot and high-tail it over to North High for wrestling.

Luckily, I had a little time before hockey to go back to the office, download photos and do pre-press work on the photos, but it was another one of those days where my dinner break was a fast-food drive through on my way back to the office.

I’m ready for the weekend. Well, my weekend, which is actually in the middle of the week.