Nights in Rodanthe

With my weekly text message for a free movie from Red Box I was forced I mean asked to pick up Nights in Rodanthe. If your a guy you are going to hate it and if you are a woman you will probably like it, but that is not why I write. The movie is based in the outer banks area of North Carolina. We have visited and it is very nice, but also has a connection to Raleigh.

Richard Gere's character is a rich doctor from Raleigh and Daine Lane's character is from Nags Head, but is helping a friend with a beach house in Rodanthe. The people in Rodanthe and the outer banks are portrayed as salt of the Earth people which is so much different that the city folk of Raleigh... WHAT?

In the movie they mention that it is 200 miles distance from each other, but to be honest the two are not that much different. First the fact that it was trying to make Raleigh into a big time city is a little off. Yes it is progressive, but the Triangle is basically 10 mini metropolitan areas that have grown over the last 30 years. When you think of "big city" Raleigh ain't it. Don't get me wrong, that's why we love it here. It has a big city feel without well, the big city.

I understand what they were trying to do, but man, most of the outer banks is very commercialised and portions of it are not rustic. The further south you go (past Nags Head) it is more quaint, but the same kind of people are there as in Raleigh. Go ten miles out of Raleigh and you get more of "country pumpkin" than you will get in the OBX.

Maybe I'm being too cynical and I need to heed my own advice I give to The Wife while she complains about a scene. "It's just a movie." It's only because I live in this area that I notice these kinds of things.

One last thing, I know the only skyline shot of Raleigh is off of Saunders (I've shot it many a times), but why would you go that way to the OBX? US 70 through Garner hella suck and if you go around on the inner belt to US 264 you don't have to take the ferry, with the new bypass it's a whole lot faster... just sayin'.

Radio Fan Frenzy

If you have not been to the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill Triangle thingie let me warm you about the radio here. If you love country then you have the greatest variety with the seven plus stations. I at one point created a theory that stated: "Any where you go you will find three on your radio dial Country, Christian (Either music or some guy yelling about how you are going to hell) or Classic Rock." Raleigh has proven me wrong. They don't have the definitive classic rock station, but they have four of those semi classic rock stations that will throw in some Disturbed and Crossfade to appeal to younger listeners. Then you have about4 crappy pop stations that play the same 9 songs. I know what you are saying "Every where you have those." Not like this, I've talked to people who love pop music and call the stations here horrible. On the FM side the only thing I can stomach for more than two songs is the Jazz station, which is actually pretty good, but I have to be in a certain mood for jazz.

What leads me to post tonight is when I need a break from the MP3 player I am forced to turn over to the AM side and listen to sports talk. You have two choices, which is one more than Columbus, 850 The Buzz and 620 The Bull. The local guys make me yearn for college DJs or Chris Spielman, I never thought I'd wish for someone with the talent(less) skills of Spielman, Ugh. The regional guys are not bad, I 'm starting to like Primetime With Packman. Finally you have the national Guys, I love listening to The V Show with Bobby Valvano when I go to work at 2:ooAM on the weekends. Then you have Jim Rome, Rome is Rome, he is not bad at times, but then he lets the "clones" rant about anything and then they take swipes at each other. I usually go back to the MP3 player for that.

I know this is the third paragraph, but here is my point to this post. The local callers to either the local guys or the l guys are freaking insane! It's all ACC basketball all the time. I know I live in the heart of it with UNC, Duke and NC State, but damn! Caller after call ranting about how they hate Duke, then the next guy attacks the previous call and says he hates UNC, then someone will attack both and yell go wolf pack! For the Ohio crowd here is the best analogy I can create. Imagine Spielman on Sports and you have within the listening range; Ohio State in Columbus, Michigan in Westerville (I know, I know, Michigan is a state and most OSU fans will fall over into the fetal position with that thought, but follow me here) and someone like Wisconsin in Dublin. Two solid teams in multiple sports and then a second one who may not be great, but has a solid fan base.

So you have all this team loyalty in an area and it just explodes onto the radio. Then they let the callers ramble on forever, normally callers will get a quick comment in and then maybe a rebuttal to what the host says, but here I've heard calls last for 5-10 minutes and not really say anything interesting or just how they hate another team. I'm wishing college basketball was over, but I know the madness will not end. Then I'll have to listen to talk about college baseball and NASCAR till it's time for football. Which should be interesting with three of the crappiest teams in the country, what will call in guy have to say then. "Well UNC only lost by 15 to Wake Forest so that means we are better than NC State who lost by 17 and Duke who lost by 40.

More Reasons Why I'm Glad I Moved

This picture is what Columbus looked like last week. I get cold just looking at it. 8 inches of snow and then add an ice storm and what do you have? Crappy Ohio winters. If I still worked for the network I'd be outside freezing, hating life and forced to hear reporters say, "Don't go outside, it's too cold and the roads are bad." Yet we would be out there. I hate that mentality from producers "Hey it's too cold for people to be outside, go out there and show people. I'll be in a warm control room glad I am not out there, I also need a hit every ten minutes so you can't get warm." I know it's part of the job, but I'm a photographer and that what we do best, shoot and complain.

Now the picture to the right is what it looked like at Fried Chicken Drive today. For those of you in Ohio that blue stuff is a thing called the sky. I know, it's not gray, freaky isn't it! Comedian Lewis Black has a rant about Boston Weather, but it applies to Ohio:

Normally, in February, in Boston and in most of the country, the weather is gray, rainy, gray, sleet, gray, rain, gray, sleet, snow, gray; every day it just gets grayer and grayer and grayer! You wake up one day, and you go, 'I'm not comin' into work today!' Your boss goes, 'Why not? You sick?' 'No! It's too gray!' - Then you wake up and it's the grayest day you've ever seen! And the next day, it's even grayer! And that's usually Valentine's Day, and that's the day you look at your wrists and go, 'Hey, maybe I should slit 'em to see color!'

So when we moved here and 5 out of 10 days we see a blue sky with sunshine it makes it worth it. Not only that, today it was so warm that I went to the driving range and I got warm enough to take off my long sleeve shirt. This Thursday (my Saturday) it's suppose to be 63! If that would happen in Ohio, it would mean the glaciers have melted and Stuebenville would be beach front property. I know I'm going to have to deal with very hot summers and hurricanes, but 60 degrees in February... I'll take it.

STOP EVERYTHING! IT SORT OF SNOWED!

Since I moved her I've heard that a half an inch of snow shuts Raleigh down. I didn't truly believe it till yesterday. The Wife and I woke and wondered if we did get any of the freezing rain that was suppose to hit. We walk to the door and The Wife says. "I wonder if we got snow?" We open the door and we get the picture above. "Oh crap, I wonder if the city shut down."

We turn on the TV and find out that every school in the Triangle area is shut down, accidents abound, and people are buying out grocery stores. All this from a quarter inch of snow. I under stand that there was some ice under the snow, but seriously, a quarter inch brought the city to its knees? I guess this is the price of living in a warmer climate.

Southern Comfort

As you may have been able to decipher from the lack of post I have officially moved into the south (North Carolina representing!). I've been in my temporary apartment for a week and a half and I've been enjoying my new city and state. Over the next few days I'll give a more detailed analysis of what I think of Raleigh and the new station (Plus there maybe a contest to decide what I shall call the new station).

Plus I will do a retrospective on The Network, what I will miss, why I am glad to be away from that place and maybe a funny story. So this post and the one that will appear tonight just above this one.

Take this job and shove it

Well the above title is a little harsh, but that's pretty much what I said to work this week. I am leaving The Network for a local station in Raleigh, NC. From previous posts you can tell that I have not been happy lately, there were other post about how much I hated work, but those got deleted in fear of someone at work getting upset over them. This decision was a tough one to make. We are going to be up rooting our entire lives just to make a little more money. I believe I need to get back into regular news and I do not believe the Columbus market is the answer for me. The only station I can go to here and get some decent money is the sister station for my current job. From other peoples experience The Network has a tendency to block their employees from doing this, so why do I want to go into a situation involves me fighting tooth and nail just to move for a little more money?

That's why The Wife and I took this Raleigh position. Now our big concern in getting down there; how do we move and how will we pay for it. The station may pay for the move, but I have not gotten that call. Also in the first two years at The Network the pay was dreadful and caused a lot of financial problem involving my credit raiding to drop faster than Flight 815. The Wife's credit is better, but she is going to be looking for a job and that will hurt for they will not want to give us an apartment until she finds a job. Oy Vey the circle of bad credit is never fun.

Even though I am spewing doom and gloom and I looking forward to the new job. I've been tired of doing our version of politics and nothing, I just want to go chase a story no matter how crappy. Hopefully I will not have to drive as much, but Raleigh seems to be a more spread out area. I can't thing that any drive they throw at me is better than most I have done here.

Oh yeah warmer weather... BONUS!