Finally

Since the end of May I have been waiting for the season of Lost to start. There are so many questions that I must know the answers to, yet ABC and I'm guessing the creators of Lost pushed the season start date till February. As time went on my lust for finding out the needed answers died as time went on. The new year hit and I was to the point I almost forgot that the season was starting soon. I started to get a little giddy and then I found out that iTunes had a recap of Lost that's 8:15 long... and it was free! AWESOME! Then King Tom has a link to Missing Pieces and I'm even more giddy! I want it to be Thursday so bad, I've even had the thought of calling off sick, I won't but man, I don't know if I can wait till midnight to watch the 2 hour premier. I almost think this needs to be a holiday or something.

Off My Chest

I had one of those days, the kind of day that it will take a while to bounce back from. While working, I finally figured out the worst thing you can do to a photographer. It's not call him a videographer (that's for Wilson), nor is it going to countless press conferences or meetings, those are boring, yet you are generally inside and don't have to work all that hard. It's not chasing spot news across the area, it is stressful, but your day will probably go faster. The worst thing you can do is take away the hope of a good story.

Today I shot a story about a church organ, it's one of the largest in the state and I really wanted to knock this story out of the park. I was shooting everything possible, we even went up and got the guys tuning the thing. I was even creative with interviews going low angle and putting crap in the foreground. As we finished I realized I shot over 60 minutes of video. To give perspective on this, I average 20 minutes on a crappy story and a good story will be around 35 minutes. I went over board to say the least.

I guess no one realized the President was going to speak tonight so they put our story on hold. Normally this may not sound as bad as I am making it, but there is a history here. When I shoot a story and we save it for later I HAVE NEVER EDITED THE STORY! In the year in three months I've always dished the story off and it never looks the way I want. The person editing doesn't want to weed through my hour of video, they will find something quick and slap it together. It's not their fault, they just don't have the time to find the really good stuff.

This put me in an awful mood, this is the second time in a month I've worked on a story like this and had it pulled from underneath me. The last one never made air, it just went away. All I look forward to is that one story that will allow me to show off my skill and make me want to continue shooting. Every time this happens it gets harder and harder to want to shoot. I had three people reassure me that I will edit this story, I will believe it when it happens... or should I say believe it when I edit it and I see it on air. I need a drink.

Get It Out of My Head: WITH UPDATE

For some reason when I post once I must post often, but this is very serious and I need help. I have a phrase in my head and I don't know why. I keep saying it over and over and over, yet I have no idea where it came from. I know I have heard it, but where?

"Your running around all nimbly bimbly."

Why am I saying this? For some reason I think it's funny and I don't know why? Help me please!



OK, I figured out it was from Super Troopers. Thank you Donna for figuring it out and Wilson wins the prize of being first to comment the correct line.

Random Stardom

I'm not the type that needs to know what celebrity entered rehab or who is sleeping with whom, that's more of The Wife territory. Yet, there were two events that I wanted to talk about and either one does not quite deserve it's own post so here is a Hollywood random moments.

Heath Ledger If you did not know Heath Ledger died on Tuesday and I was kind of shocked, I hope it was not suicide, but you never know. He was one of those actors that everyone knew about, yet he really didn't do a lot of films. Still he has quite a few memorable rolls, starting with 10 Things I Hate About You, Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Monster's Ball, and Brokeback Mountain. I didn't think Brokeback was as good as it was hyped, but I though Ledger did a good job. I think he could have had a solid and long career.

The one thing about his death that is a little disturbing to me is the people taking pictures of his body being wheeled out. I understand the media, and I somewhat understand the paparazzi, yet there were a throng of people with their phones and cameras taking picture of his body bag. What are you going to do with that picture? You're not going to be able to sell it, too many others with better cameras, put it on your blog or are you going to show it to a friend. Will they think you are cool? "Look man, I got a picture of Heath Ledger's body bag."

Hey There, I Don't Care The Emo band Plain White T stole concepts from everyone from the White Stripes to Budweiser commercials to write the song "Hey There Delilah." It is a little catchy, but for some reason people, like The Wife, were enamored with who was the real Delilah and today the Today Show revealed it was some track athlete, Delilah DiCrescenzo. They even did an interview with her... Whoopeedee Do! Now we can get on with our lives now that we know who Delilah really is. When did something like this become important. The 80s and 90s were full of songs about people, yet we didn't need to know who the person was about, I don't want to know who the real Mandy is or who is this Mickey and why he is so fine. Just enjoy the music and use this thing called your imagination and think up a story, or can you America, can you?

Pie

January 23rd is National Pie Day! For most of you know I enjoy pie, it's actually one of my addictions. It was created by the American Pie Council (How did I not know about the pie council?). So go out and have a pie, make it apple, banana cream, chocolate, pumpkin, rhubarb, meat... whatever, just have pie.

This whole pie running joke with me started back at The Network, one day someone brought in a chocolate pie. I walk by and thought, "Ooo pie," so I had me a slice, but the problem was there were no plates or forks, so I used a napkin and my face. Of course, I got a little, well maybe half of it on my shirt. I tried to get it off, but there was some still there. I walk into editing and DCZ sees the mess. "What happened to your shirt?" I wanted to explain, but I couldn't, so waved my arms around and could only say one word while point to the spot... "Pie!"

DCZ laughed hysterically for a good five minutes. It was rather funny, here is a guy with stuff on his shirt and the only explanation was one word, yet it conveyed everything.... pie.

MLK Day

Strange Holidays: International Hot and Spicy Day

Happy international hot and spicy day, go out and eat a burrito with some habaneros or eat some Indian food. I heard Ethiopian food is also very spicy.

Freaking Out

If you don't watch news or work in it let me inform you a little bit about news and weather; they love to freak out over it. No matter where I have worked if the word snow is used, you will find people running around screaming, changing schedules, whaling and gnashing of teeth. I use to work in Toledo and they would freak out, come on your in Toledo, it's cold and snow will happen. At The Network the weather guys would be live for hours on end and the news director would order pizza.

Here in Raleigh I understand that they are not use to snow, I mean the average temperature in January is around 40. Yesterday they had a slew of people running around trying to get snow video. They got some video of said snow, but all of it was gone by 9 in the morning, yet we were still running video of it in the 11. Now we have a serious threat for Saturday and I seriously believe that if Durham was attacked a la Red Dawn (WOLVERINES!!!!!) we would not be going this full out for it.

The sad thing is all the other stations are probably doing the same thing, why do we do this? People get tired of the freak outs. Back in Columbus people would laugh at the stations for going all out for rain storms. The public is tired of us telling them that the world is about to end because we are getting three inches of snow.

I'm probably cranky about this because if it does happen, I will have to work 13 days in a row. Not a happy camper about that... stupid snow

Small Market News

If you have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, there was a female marine killed by a male marine in Jacksonville, NC. Now this is not technically in the Raleigh market, but it's close enough. Then on top of it there happen to be a few connections to the Triangle, because of this I am blogging from a Days Inn in Jacksonville.

Due to some issues we had to feed our story over the Internet so we actually got to watch the local news. These stations so not have a lot of resources and most of the on air presence is either real young of people who have been there since the dawn of time. Some of the stations looked good, the graphics could be used in Raleigh, but some... wow were real bad, I mean one looked like it was out of the 80s and with a set to match.

I never worked in a any market this small, I started out in Toledo (at the time in the 60s) and then to Charleston, WVa (also in the 60s). It amazes me to see reporters that young learn how to be in news. I created a phrase, they are playing reporter not being a reporter yet. Some day they may be the next network anchor, but right now, they are probably one year out of college. I wish them all luck and hope they move up the ladder, I'd rather keep working with Boston Stevie and The Serg.

Strange Holidays: National Nothing Day

Every year for Christmas my mother buys me a calender, for the longest time it was a Farside daily calender, but this year she bought me a Simpsons mini calender. Not only is it cool for being a Simpsons calender, it has birthdays of strange celebrities plus strange holidays. Some are from other countries, then there are my favorite ones, National Pie Day, International Hot and Spicy Food Day, Talk Like a Pirate Day. I'm going to try and post about each of these holidays on the day they occur.

NATIONAL NOTHING DAY January 16th

This is a whole day is devoted to doing, well nothing. Back in 1973 newspaperman Harold Pullman Coffin created a day "to provide Americans with one national day when they can just sit without celebrating, observing, or honoring anything."

This is why I am posting this a day early, I am going to try and do nothing on Wednesday.

Bowl Game Trip Wrap New Orleans

After the bitter taste of a 63-7 lose, we got up the next morning to head to New Orleans. We planned to spend most of the day near the French Quarter. It seemed like everything was pretty close and easy to get to, parking was my only concern.

As we are waiting for our car I noticed a news crew, the local Biloxi station was going a story about fans staying in Biloxi instead of New Orleans. I see the reporter talking to a valet and then a few minutes later that same valet comes up talking to us about the game. Hmmm, Mr. newsman is staging his scenes... very interesting. Finally the reporter and photog come over and asks us a few questions on camera, I mention afterwards I'm in TV in Raleigh, they just kind of move on. Now when ever I encounter someone from another market I at least act like I'm interested, they blow me off... note to self Biloxi news crews... bad. Even though they blew me off I decide to at least give the guy a nat sound moment, the photog sees our Ohio State decorated car and starts rolling, I roll the window down and yell OH! I get the IO from the guys behind him. Your welcome.

After two more hours of driving we finally get to New Orleans. The last time I was in this area was after Katrina and I was in a Humvee, a lot has changes, yet a lot still looks the same. There are buildings that are still falling apart and that need to be torn down, yet three years later, they still stand empty and looking awful. The GPS took us through one of the down trodden areas I'm shocked people are living in some of these places. Then all of the sudden we turn a corner and we are in the French Quarter. I at least expected to have a transitional section on land, instead it was falling down building, next block, beautiful French influenced buildings.

I hate looking for parking in crowded areas and after a half hour we find parking a mile outside the Quarter and we start walking around. To be honest it's like going to another country, you don't feel like your in the States, yet you are. The architecture, the drinking in the streets, the people, just feels different. We had a lot of fun, we saw street performers ranging from Dixieland bands, guys with puppets and a guy posing as if he is climbing a ladder. Also we found countless Voodoo shops, I finally convinced The Wife to go into one and it was interesting, all kinds of Voodoo dolls for sale along with weird statues. I would have taken a few pictures, but every store had the same sign inside... no pictures. For a tourist area I find that a little odd, even the stores selling T-shirts didn't want cameras out, Gilbert the Gnome did not like this idea.

After a few blocks we finally head towards Bourbon Street, holly crap there's a lot of people packed into a small location! You just walk the streets and try to go with the flow. Even though everyone is in the middle of the streets, the road is not closed, people trying to get to the other side of Bourbon had to honk their horns and almost ram their way through. If you are visiting the area, TRY NOT TO CROSS BOURBON STREET, it took probably one car 30 minutes to cross.

I called my sister Julie who had been to the area before and told me about Pat O'Brien and they made the Hurricane, of course I now wanted one, and I tell you what, that drink is STRONG, I defiantly did not need a second, if I tried I'd be laying in a gutter somewhere. The one thing The Wife wanted more than anything else was some Jambalaya, she talked it about it for weeks! After walking for a few hours what better way to rest than to sit and eat. We get in pretty quick at the Cajun Cabin and we even get to sit on a balcony! The food was out of this world. The gumbo I had was better than the one in Mobile and her Jambalaya was just as good. The Wife is now happy and tired of the crowd, we take a few side streets and took at the wonderful town as we head to the Superdome.

To be honest I would have sat in the upper section behind a poll, I mean the tickets were free and they were in a great location. We could see the entire field and we were close enough that the players did not look like ants. We enjoyed the first quarter and after that things got ugly. OSU lost and I am no long wishing to go to any more bowl games.

Even with the two loses we had a great trip I would love to go back to New Orleans again just to see more. Maybe there might be a guys trip there. I think Skybus now services New Orleans... who's with me!

Bowl Game Trip Wrap Mobile

Sunday we made it to Mobile for the GMAC Bowl, but we had a lot of time to kill since the game did not start till 8:00. I was told by Dan to go see the USS Alabama, I wasn;t too interested till we saw it. Sweet mother of mercy that thing is HUGE! We pay the 26 dollars to park and take a tour. It was interesting to see the quarters and how much climbing you have to do. We only saw about half the ship and we were getting tired from all the climbing and hiking. You see the 6 main guns, but there are so many all around the main deck. I just kept imagining all the people running around while being attacked during WWII.

They also had numerous airplanes and even a submarine, I of course started yelling ROLL TIDE! I don't think I was the first to yell that because the locals were rolling their eyes. I would never want to work on a sub. Those things are tiny and not a lot of room to move around. The bunks are stacked on top of each other and men had to sleep 6 in a room. If you want to serve on a sub, fine by me you are a better person than I. ROLL TIDE!

After all that walking we find a lovely pub and eat some wonderful Cajun food. I love gumbo and they had some of the best, The Wife had a shrimp po boy and that think was PACKED with shrimp. If you are in Mobile go to the Hurricane Bar.

We still had a lot of time left and The Wife was wanting to buy a shirt for the next day. We heard of an outlet mall not to far from Mobile and we head that way... we missed the exit and could not turn around for 10 miles. We see signs for another outlet mall at the next exit... even better. Then we take a wild turn, The Wife sees a sign for beaches. She loves beaches and since it is near sunset she wants to see the sunset in the gulf. Time is short, we can only do one, so we start for the beach. The sun is going down fast and the game starts in a couple hours. Finally signs about the beach! We are almost there we are so close we can.... toll road... 14 miles! Forget that noise, TO THE OUTLET MALL! We get to the mall, we can only spend 20 minutes there and The Wife doesn't see a store she likes... except the Coach Purse store. I just drove 40 miles out of our way and WE ARE STOPPING AT A STORE! We go in and of course all the purses she likes cost more than $200 one was closer to $400! We finally leave for the bowl game.

We get to the stadium just in time for the game. We walk in and BG is coming out of the locker room right in front of us! I pull out the BG flag and try to encourage my team, I guess I didn't help enough. Come to find out BG forgot how to hold onto the ball or play defense. BG lost 63-7 to Tulsa in the worst bowl loss EVER! We actually left the game while it was 49-7 and headed to Biloxi

Bowl Game Trip Wrap Intro

I've had a few days to rest and I am still tired, we drove 1900 miles in 4 days, I think that will make anyone tired. For the most part we had a great time, we divided the trip into two parts, the bowl games and the good parts. Bowling Green broke a NCAA bowl record for losing by 56 points... at least we are number one at something. Then Ohio State lost, that game was a little better, but still hard to deal with. I'm probably not going to any more bowl games for a while, I'm afraid I might go into convulsions, drop to the fetal position and have flashbacks to these games.

Instead of dwelling on the games too much I'm going to write about the fun parts of the trips, we got to see the USS Alabama, ate some great food, and walked around the French Quarter. I'm now going to take another nap and then write about Mobile.

WOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! BOWL GAMES!!!!!!

I wonder if you can tell I am excited about my trip? FREAKIN' A I AM! I had trouble sleeping last night, I couldn't wait to put all the stickers, magnets and flags on my car. I even washed it today (Using a car wash that uses recycled water thank you)! I'm going to take as many pictures as I can and will hopefully have some form of Internet access along the way. I'm guessing the casino might have WiFi, but the $50 Days Inn... not so sure. The hard part will be figuring out which blog to do first or the most. I'm guessing this one will get the most post and then Gnomadic Gnome and if I have time I'll do the work one. The work one I might just do a final wrap up. I'm not going to spend the entire time blogging, I gots to get me some beads!

One big note; I finally shaved, it was getting too annoying and The Wife was enjoying the torture aspect of it too much and it had to go. I also didn't want to have to explain to our kids one day why I had a beard for two weeks. I need to go and finish packing the car...

GO BG

GO BUCKS!

Is it Me?

I don't know why, but I've always have felt like people don't like me. I think it's something from childhood, but it drives me crazy. Why do I obsess over this, I know there are people who like me, but why can't I get this through my head.

Earlier in the week someone at work told me that there will be a group doing karaoke at a local watering hole. I was excited, I haven't been asked to go out that often, plus it was karaoke, I enjoy karaoke, but not for the same reasons as most. I like doing spoken word renditions of popular songs or I act like a total idiot and go all "rock star."

Yesterday started out bad and kept getting worse. In news you get days like this and there is nothing you can do, but bend over and take it. It's cold so we had to do the obligatory it's cold outside story, we drove to Durham and shot half and then finished the rest in downtown Raleigh. Then a spot news story popped up and we had to drop everything and go on a story that happened three hours earlier. We barely get everything done, but the viewer at home did not notice any problems.

While all that was going on I kept getting a feeling that karaoke was not going to happen. I mention the outing to The Serg and he didn't know anything about it, that made me think even more that it was a bad idea to go. I had to make myself want to go, I'm just being paranoid and everything will be fine. I get out of work and head over to the watering hole. I walk in and do not see anyone I know... this is not looking good. after a extensive search I finally find two coworkers, but come to find out they do not know about this karaoke night, they just happened to be there. No one ever showed up.

I stayed and talked to the guys till they left and I followed a few seconds later. I'm now a little upset about the night, there has to be a reason nobody showed up, they probably just forgot to tell me. Something in my head keeps telling me they did it on purpose, to make me look like an idiot. Why do I do this to myself, I know I'll fret over this for a week... stupid mind.

New Years

The above video is the Mt Olive pickle drop, why a pickle you ask? Well that is where the Mt Olive pickle plant is and get this... it's at the corner of vine and cucumber.... get it... pickle references!

Since it is the new yers I guess its resolution time and I am not going wild I'm just going to modify my resolutions from last year:

1. Read 11 books- last year was 10 and I'm half way through one book right now so I'm on my way.
2. Loss 25 pounds- I lost about 10 this year, if I make a real effort I should reach that goal
3. Less your mom and your face jokes- I don't know why I still do them, but it needs to stop
4. better posting content- I need to think before I write.

That's all nothing too hard, I think I can do all these... probably not, I'll revert to my old self after a few weeks.