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I went back and forth on this one. This whole "covering Election Day Obama campaign volunteers in Columbus" idea started with talking to Harold, an Obama '08 volunteer, while covering the President's event in Columbus in October. And yet, I ended up not using his material because I got enough on that day. I thought of making the end result just audio, and then I thought of putting the photos on top to make an audio slideshow, and then I settled on keeping the audio and photos separate. Makes the navigation through all this stuff freer, I guess. Finally, the decision to follow Obama volunteers instead of Romney volunteers came from talking with Harold and wanting to finish that story. Of course, that didn't pan out, but something else did. Seriously, these people are dedicated.

So, here it is, finally. I'm sure if I didn't have a day job outside of journalism I would have finished this less than three days after the election. (By the way: Everything was recorded on my iPhone, that gorgeous piece of journalistic magic that made shelling out money for a dedicated audio recorder optional.)

As for the photos: I didn't do any coverage in 2008 (besides one Obama-with-a-baby photo that became my first work published in the IDS), so this presidential election has been an eye-opener. I carried over some lessons from covering the midterm elections in 2010 for the IDS, but of course this year everything played out on a much larger scale. I'm no Damon Winter or Charles Dharapak, but maybe I'm getting there, and I'm sure Demotix appreciates it.

Obama campaign staging location director Jay Smith makes the call to close the German Village field office at the end of Election Day, Nov. 7, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio.

If you were paying attention to popular music in the 90s, then you've heard Blessid Union of Souls, famous for "I Believe" (and for dressing like the 90s?). Their vocalist, Eliot Sloan, came to Brownsburg High School last night to perform Hear to Heal, a program he started to give high school students a voice to overcome all the mess that high school life is. In each high school, Sloan provides students some base music, and the students add onto it themselves, contributing direction, production, choreography, and some additional songs. Sloan's executive producer, Brian Halsey, told me before the show that six of the songs for the night's show were written straight from conversations Sloan had with the students.

It seems to me like a pretty cool idea, especially given what everyone knows about high school. Sloan said it's coming to Pike High School on Nov. 16 and 17, and will be at Ben Davis High School in the spring. As for now, the full gallery of photos appears at The Indianapolis Star. And enjoy some more 90s flashback.

Blessid Union of Souls vocalist Eliot Sloan sings with Brownsburg High School students during the Hear to Heal concert at the Brownsburg High School Auditorium, Friday, Nov. 2, 2012. (Alex Farris | For The Star)

I got an email from the IndyStar photo editor, Mike Fender, saying that the Halloween costume photos I took at Bella Vita Ristorante on Geist Reservoir "got tons of traffic." I asked him if they got more traffic than the Mr. Big story I shot, which got about 80,000 pageviews. He replied, "Bigger than big."

Whoa.

I don't know how, or why, but apparently people really like looking at photos of people in Halloween costumes. So, here's the monster of a gallery (39 photos) for you to look at. Add yourself to the horde, and happy Halloween!

Also something to celebrate: this is the 100th post on this blog. Boom. Here's to another 100 posts.

People wear costumes at Bella Vita Ristorante on Geist Reservoir at a party supporting the Jeff George Foundation, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012. (Alex Farris | For The Star)

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