Something Different

Well, prime rib isn't really different, but its definitely not something I've blogged about in the past. I do a fair amount of cooking. Some say I do it well. Still others suggest I should start a catering business. I don't know about that, but I do enjoy cooking things over fire. This time, it was a whole prime rib. 

An old friend had seen photos of my grilling and smoking exploits on Facebook and asked if I would cook a prime rib for his son's high school graduation party. All I need is a reason to fire up some charcoal. 

For this cook, I initially seasoned with Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper then slathered herb-infused butter that included garlic, rosemary and thyme over the entire 15-pound hunk of beef. I needed to keep the temperature down around 250 degrees, so I used half a chimney of charcoal. I split that up on either side of the Weber 26-inch kettle and kept a cool zone in the middle where the roast would sit. The low and slow part of this cook took a shade over three hours. After 30 minutes searing, we were up to 130 degrees. I basted it with the drippings then covered with foil and delivered to the party. During transport, the roast came up to the magic 135 degrees. Crisp bark on the outside. Perfectly pink on the inside. I should've made pictures of the finished product. The line was already 30 people deep by the time they started slicing, and I didn't want to hold up the process. 

Funeral for Homeless Vet

James Beavers Funeral from The Journal Gazette on Vimeo.

I've looked through a bunch of old videos I made during my days working The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Ind., and just ran across this one. Just about every time I look at old work, I wish I would've changed an edit point, added something here, left something out there or even just chose a slightly different camera angle to improve the piece as a whole. I guess that's how you learn. I made this video back in December of 2015. Hundreds of veterans, active military members, and citizens attended the funeral services for James Beavers, a U.S. Army Vietnam veteran who died on November 23, 2015. Beavers had no known family or friends to direct the handling of his remains. The funeral with full military honors was held at D.O. McComb and Sons funeral home on Lake Avenue in Fort Wayne. Numerous visitors continued on to the interment at Riverview Cemetery on Carroll Road to pay their respects to the man for his service to the country. I had to shoot and edit this video on deadline, so I just didn't have as much time a I would've like to really polish it up. I was proud of this vido when I published it, and it won a few awards. Looking at it now, however, I really wish I could do a re-edit, but I am no longer with the newspaper and don't have access to the original files. I'd change a few things up in the shooting of the video as well. I never knew James Beavers. I'd bet almost no one who attended his services knew him either. That's the real unfortunate part of this portion of the story. But it certainly was nice to see a community of people rally for one of their own.

YouTube Channel

Admittedly, I haven't made many videos recently that weren't just home videos of my sons and me fishing or riding ATVs and such. But that's about to change. I'm starting to populate my YouTube channel with some videos I made back in my days working for local media. Soon, however, new content will appear. So, head on over to My Channel. I won't ask you to like anything, comment on a video or subscribe to the channel. You already know that drill. But, ya know, if you want to ...

About this time last year

When I heard about the protests in Fort Wayne in the wake of the death of George Floyd, I looked at my wife, and she knew what I was thinking. So, she said, "Do what you have to do. Just be safe." So I grabbed cameras, goggles, bandanas and off I went. These are some of the pictures I made last year.

Chad Ryan, Photojournalist 3.0

To quote Michael Corleone, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" Well, that's not completely the truth. While I did make a career change about four years ago, going back to my roots as an electrician, I never lost the desire to be a photojournalist running around, documenting sports and news events with cameras. So, I guess I was never really out. But now, I'm going all the way back in. Due to a couple of injuries, I've had both shoulders surgically repaired in the last four years. I'm still recovering from the second surgery, but one thing has become clear: at the tender age of 49, full-time electrical work, and all the overhead tasks associated with it, doesn't seem sustainable going forward for me. As far as the story about how I'm both a photojournalist and a journeyman electician, well, I'll save that for another day. It's long. It involved having a Plan and a Plan B. Suffice it to say, I'm kicking off Plan C now. So, I'll start populating this site once again with photos and videos I've made. I'll even throw in some commentary occasionally. But either way, after a long absence from this site, I'm back.