Service With A Smile – Cart Girl | A Motorized Pilgrimage Across A Texas Golf Range

A Day-In-The-Life of Lauren Kendrick

by stephen masker

UNT student Lauren Kendrick leans forward as she shivers in the Tour 18 service cart during her job as both server and clubhouse bartender on the golf course. Sitting patiently, Kendrick waits for two golfers – one wearing shorts – to finish their round.

Grabbing a Miller Lite beer from its icy crate, Kendrick is shocked as her customer in shorts requests a second beer for himself. The time is 11:30 am.

Providing service with a smile, Kendrick hands over one of the two requested Miller Lite’s as the customer’s seemingly disapproving lady-friend stands with her arms folded in the background.

Back at the Tour 18 clubhouse, Kendrick pens the amount of product she sold after greeting players around the golf course.

Emptying her service cart, Kendrick moves the unsold products from their ice chests and place them in a black bin to be stored away later.

Focusing on her task, Kendrick counts the cold drinks as she removes them from a small black bin and places them inside a refrigerated unit.

Recording her inventory counts, Kendrick numbers the remaining beverages as she tracks them across her cart inventory sheet.

Serving a customer before she leaves work, Kendrick prepares a drink at the otherwise vacant clubhouse bar.

My Self-Critique:

Most of the environment I was photographing in experienced consistent overcast, and had the assignment not been mandatory in black and white I would have presented the images in this way as color did little to add any visual stimulation to the story. Because most of Kendrick’s work was seldom interactive, given the weather circumstances and absence of golfers, my focus was to get close and push to capture what small interaction I could.

Dear President Obama: Where’s the Change?

Promises of change, hope and a new tomorrow seemed all too magical. After years at war and arguably one of the worst presidencies this country has witnessed in decades, President Obama filled his plate with too much, too fast.

SNL’s recent ‘Obama Do Nothing’ press-spoof has amassed thousands of responses with CNN and FOX News doing their own fact-checking:

For a President who can do whatever he desires, with majorities in both houses of Congress, SNL actor Fred Armisen said it best in his portrayal of Obama: “”Elected with a mandate to bring this country change we could believe in…Almost one year and nothing to show for it.”

A list of true Obama promises presented on the SNL skit:

1_ Close Guantanamo Bay [Not Accomplished]

2_ Exit Iraq [Not Accomplished]

3_ Improve ongoing war in Afghanistan [Not Accomplished]

4_ Improvement or modification to health care reform [Not Accomplished]

5_ Improvements to Global Warming [Not Accomplished]

6_ Immigration Reform [Not Accomplished]

7_ Eradication of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy [Not Accomplished]

8_ Limitation of Executive Powers [Not Accomplished]

9_ Prosecutions of Torture [Not Accomplished]

Bill Adair, Editor of a non-partisan fact-checking website, politifact.com, rates the statements of elected officials. He says SNL got some things wrong, mentioning specifically numbers 2, 3 and 4 on the list. The rest, he admits, is accurate. See Adair’s interview with CNN, here.

PolitiFact has compiled more than 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.

What some call predictable, it’s the shared belief amongst a seemingly growing number of people on both the left and right that Obama’s presidency is heading for disaster.

Rasmussen Reports, an American public opinion polling firm, supports this assumption by tracking Obama’s approval ratings which have been steadily declining since his election.

While the educated understand that not just one man is responsible for the success or failure of this country, those operating around the President (e.g. his cabinet and other influential individuals) – contribute to the growing pessimistic opinions concerning Obama’s presidency and his personal promises to deliver change to America.

Those promises, however, have gone undelivered. And I voted for him.

Better than Cheney, I guess.

Gay-rights supporters demonstrate outside the Beverly Hills hotel in California, where President Obama attended a Democratic Party fundraiser in May.

President Barack Obama, speaks at the Human Rights Campaign national dinner, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Apart from my true feelings and opinions expressed on the President, above is a humorous video with a voiced-over Big Bird appearing on a Sesame Street set with Michelle Obama.

Chicago Youth Murders Spur National Action

Days after loosing the candidacy for the 2016 Olympics, youth murder is not the kind of attention Chicago is looking for. But it’s what the city is getting.

The fifth student murder in just six weeks, 16-year-old honor student and victim Derrion Albert was beaten to death by four other students now facing first degree murder charges:

“Silvanus Shannon, 19, Eugene Riley, 18, and Eric Carson, 16, all of Chicago, were charged as adults ordered held without bond. Eugene Bailey, 18, was also charged with first-degree murder and will appear in court Tuesday,” reports the Huffington Post.

What’s more, the murder was recorded with a bystander’s cell phone camera; the video found here.

President Obama encourages parents to take more responsibility for their children’s actions and expresses concern for the youth violence in his home city as well as across the country.