Julio Ojeda-Zapata's Blog, page 6

I snag the Pioneer Press ‘news hero’ prize

This bizarre-looking trophy is the St. Paul Pioneer Press newsroom’s “News Hero” award.

It is awarded weekly to a news worker or workers — such as reporters or copy editors — for awesomejournalism.

I hadn’t been anointed thusly until recently, when I jumped on the Pokémon Go craze and wrote a series of stories about it.

An editor wrote:

During a couple of weeks of angst-filled news of police shootings, Black Lives Matter protests, presidential politics, etc., some people took a break from t...

Pictures: Remembering Philando Castile

Philando Castile, the St. Paul man shotby a copduring a traffic stop, won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

I certainly won’t. I’ll be reminded of him every timeI walk onto my porch, look to the left, and see the J.J. Hill Montessori school where he worked, less than a block from my home.

All is quiet now in my ‘hoodafter many memorialsand protests —including thosefront of the governor’s mansion, which is just a few blocks away.

I am left with the pictures I took during all the tumult. The three...

My amazing wife builds me a porch desk

I often refer to my house’s roomy front porch as my third office because I do a lot of work there during Minnesota’s all-too-brief summers.

It seems criminal to hole up in my Pioneer Press cubicle, or in my home office, when I can do my work amidst fresh breezes, whispering trees, tweeting birds and delicious odors from my wife’s nearby gardens.

For years, however, I could not get my porch-workstation arrangement exactly right.

I tried this folding wooden table I scavenged from a pile of of...

I’m interviewed on the Pioneer Press patio

The Pioneer Press’ shiny-new HQ across the river from downtown St. Paul has many sweet amenities, including an outdoor patio with a spectacular view of the city skyline.

So, when KARE 11 asked to interview me, I thought the patio would be the perfect place to do this. I was right.

Cameraman Nicholas Petersen did an awesome job of capturing the the patio’svisual allure using his two cameras.

The post I’m interviewed on the Pioneer Press patio appeared first on Julio Ojeda-Zapata.

Awful news preempts my TV appearance

When Esme Murphy of WCCO-TV last week invited me to appear on herSunday news show for Father’s Day tech-gift picks, she couldn’t know what a horrific day it would turn out to be.

My live segment, naturally, got preempted along with the rest of Esme’s Sunday Morning line-up.She did record my segment for later use, though.

The post Awful news preempts my TV appearance appeared first on Julio Ojeda-Zapata.

My wife’s fairy garden is a child magnet

My wife has been dropping a small fortune on garden ornaments in the shapes of animals, fairies and the like for a reason: The younger neighborhood children are nuts about them.

She has created a veritable civilization of ceramic beingsthat are scattered throughout a lovely curbside garden she maintains. Tots with their parents often traverse the adjacent sidewalk outside our house, and the kids never fail to pause and excitedly examine what to them are wondrous, magical toys.

They’ll pick...

My wife’s magical garden is a kid magnet

My wife has been dropping a small fortune on garden ornaments in the shapes of animals, fairies and the like for a reason: The younger neighborhood children are nuts about them.

She has created a veritable civilization of ceramic beingsthat are scattered throughout a lovely curbside garden she maintains. Tots with their parentstraverse the adjacent sidewalk outside our house, and the kids never fail to pause and excitedly examine what to them are wondrous, magical toys.

They’ll pick up the...

For the first time in ages I bike-commuted

Longago, when working in Washington, D.C. at one of my first journalism jobs, I was a bicycle commuter.

It was a spectacular commute. I lived in Arlington, Va., not far from the Arlington National Cemetery. Every morning Iwould zoom through the cemeteries’ grand entrance, whip by the Marine Corps War Memorial (commonly known as the Iowa Jima memorial), and zoom mostly downhill into the nation’s capital.

It was a thrill to ride by national monuments, such the grand U.S. Capitol dome.

On the...

Good job, St. John’s. My son is impressed.

Thirty-six years ago this winter, aCatholic young man livingin San Juan, P.R., took a leap of faith and —sight unseen — chosea secluded, wooded Benedictine campusin a faraway land called“Minnesota” as his home for the following four years.

It was the best decision of my life.

I could not know thiswhen my motherleft meat St. John’s University in rural, seemingly godforsaken Collegeville. I was bereftas Momdrove away (I was a bit of a mama’s boy) and doubtful as to whether this Waldenesque, a...

I loved a new memoir about death & love

Ralph the Toddler and I crossed paths for the first (and, so far, only) time at a Minneapolis backyard party last summer.

The little dudewas impossible to miss: He nonchalantly picked up a garden hose, engaged the trigger, and proceeded to spray the adult attendees for severalseconds until someone intervened.

It was awesome.

Now think about an entire book filled withsuch awesomeness. Such a book exists … by the Mother of Ralph herself, Nora McInerny Purmort.

That book has been much anticipa...