Tim Russert

Very few times you can walk into a newsroom and find every person gathered around a couple of televisions, the last time I can remember was 9 11. The reasoning why is we are so jaded it takes an event for us to get pulled away from doing our jobs and today we had one of those events, Tim Russert died from a heart attack. He is not a big dog like Tom Brokaw, but he is near the top in recognized news people. When ever NBC has something political he was always there. I believe most people in America knew who he was. They may not have watched Meet the Press or any other news, yet I guess most would say, "Oh yeah that guy."

On occasion I have been to big events where there are national crews there and most of the time I could careless. I never got a chance to be in the same location as Mr Russert, but I would have tried to find out where he was and walk over to see. For someone like me who doesn't get awe struck by celebrities that's pretty big for me. As a journalist I respected his political skills and ability to get answers out of his interviews. As Tom Brokaw said at the end of his special coverage, NBC news will never be the same. I agree, I am sorry that we will no long have a man like Russert, we may never see someone as his ilk again.

What's That Smell

If you have not heard there is a raging forest fire near the coast line in North Carolina. For the most part, I knew about it, but... it's over on the coast, no big deal. Well, until I did a story in Rocky Mount, NC yesterday (one hour eastish of Raleigh). As The Serg and I sat down to eat dinner at Pizza Hut we were asked by the hostess was there a fire near by causing all the smoke. The Serg said it was from the forest fire, because of the slightly cooler front (I'm sorry you can't have a cold front when it's 90) and are now blowing inland.

This made me think a little, how close are we to the fire? Come to find out the fire is less than a two hour drive away. HOLY CRAP! THAT'S RIGHT ON US! Also if we don't get any rain this fire could last for months. I'm now getting a little worried, we are closing on a house and forest fires could be coming. Then on my way to work it looked like early morning fog and it's 3pm! It's smells like Raleigh is having a huge ass barbecue.

The closest I ever came to a forest fire prior to this was when I was a sophomore in high school and there was a fire in Wayne National Forest and while heading to a band competition and we saw smoke and we found out the fire was two ridges over. It never threatened Ironton so it was cool to see, but harmless. Now, I'm worried yet I have a feeling I'm just panicing because we are so close to buying this house. All will be fine... and if it does get close I've already thought out my evacuation plan... Save the dog, the computer, photos... what am I forgetting... Oh yeah and The Wife.

Sharp As a Bowling Ball

I love my dog and she is still young and learning. She has mastered the art of "going" outside, she has sit pretty much down, she can lay and she understands shake. Yet other things she does not quite get like walking on a leash (work in progress) and fetch. But the big trick I've been working on to no avail is something pretty simple, catch a treat when I throw it. Usually she sits there like in the picture and the treat bounces off her nose. After it lands on the floor she goes over and eats it.

The wife gave me the suggestion of "throw it higher." Maybe she doesn't realize that she can catch it, if it's higher it might register in her brain to open her mouth. I loft a treat into the air, it reaches the apex, descends and all I hear is DONK!!! That was the sound of a hard treat meeting her forehead, I laughed and then was worried Lucy was hurt. No she wasn't hurt, she started looking around for the treat. Either my dog is slow or she is too smart, she doesn't have to catch the treat, just pick it off the ground. I'm hoping for too smart.

Wait, Did I Miss a Couple of Months

Due to the fact that The Wife likes to sleep in sub-Arctic temperatures, I have a hard time figuring out what it feels like outside. Well I open the door and was punched in the face and gut by mother nature. Today the Triangle hit a new record high of 100 degrees. Holy mother of crap is that warm, and a month or so too early. I was almost OK with it getting that hot in late July and August, but in early June this is unacceptable. I shouldn't have to feel like taking a shower when I go to get into the car. Then everything in the car is a billion degrees and causing third degree burns on my hands and ass. Something needs to be done, stupid Al Gore and his global warming. Why can't we make him stop it or something!

It's a Done Deal

Today I was forced into helping with a "it's hurricane season" special when I get a call from the mortgage company, I was worried till I heard the words, "what time of day do you want to close." Those were the greatest and scariest words in the world. We are now home owners. We got the house and we sign the papers on the 27th! We have a lot to do over the next few weeks, no more free time for me. I'm either going to be packing or working. Crap we have a lot of stuff.

More Videos

I know I've posted a lot of videos lately and I don't want to turn this into a video posting blog, but I can't pass up the above and below videos. People have too much time on their hands and this is proof and most of the stuff like this on Youtube is crap, yet these are quality items.

The above video takes a simple concept, bleeping out a word that is not a curse word to make it sound dirty. A lot of these clips are not funny, but who ever made this did a great job. The song works with the bleeping and makes you believe the song is not about counting.

I found this one on Deadspin.com and if you like hockey then this equals funny. They take the knob hockey board game as the actual players in the NHL. The writing is simple and great. I love the "In the crease, out of the crease." As the goalie is going ballistic.

Wierd Day

So last night I'm still dripping from the rain storm that we had when I hear an interesting comment float through the newsroom... Ted Kennedy is going to Duke University Hospital on Monday. Then 20 minutes later we find out he is already at Duke. I thought nothing of it till I remembered today at 3:00pm that we happen to have Boston Stevie on nightside. Why is that important, well he has 30 years of connection to Boston and knows all the Kennedy minions so of course he's going to be sent out to the hospital.

My fate was sealed, we get to Duke and Boston Stevie can't go 5 feet without running into an old colleague from Boston. It was like he was the mayor of Newsland or something. It was cool to see him around these guys to get a feel for how it was in Boston. Yet, it wasn't cool enough to stop me from sweating my ass of, it's in the 90s and I'm on asphalt. I downed all my water and then the awesomest of all awesomed happened. Firehouse Subs came over and gave all the media free subs and some tea. So of course that made the crappy day a little better. I now love Firehouse Subs, go eat there so I can get more free subs, wait... is that payola now? CRAP!

The bizarre moment f the night happened while we were still trying to pump the hospital for some form of information (on camera) and the PR slag actually made this comment; "It's not in my job description so I'm not going to do it." What do you mean not in your job description! Your job is to deal with us and give us statements, so you might want to rethink things there skippy, or get one of the 12 other PR slags out here and say, "The Kennedy family wishes to not release any information today." That's all, is that so hard... hell give me 50 bucks and I be the offical sound... throw us a bone man!

Cutting the Cable

Since we are buying a house and generally TV sucks in the summer, we are getting rid of the cable. I'm not just taking about the box I'm talkin' the whole sha-bang. For the next three months we are going to save about $80 a month, but we did get Netflix so that takes our savings down to $60 for a total of $180. When you look at it that way, that's a car payment for The Wife. Yet cable gives so much and asks for so little, so now I will have to do things in the morning instead of sitting there and watching TV. I guess I'll walk Lucy more, blog more and get things done around the house. Who knows, maybe I will never go back to cable again, who am I kidding I have to watch Lost next season. Well, I could go satellite?

Ain't No Kinda Man

One of my favorite movies is O Brother Where Art Thou and one of the memorable lines in the film is Delmar talking about getting the family farm back and he says; "You ain't no kind of man, if you ain't got land." Well, The Wife and I are about to get land. That house over in the upper left will hopefully be ours by the end of June. We had the house inspected and the people fixed everything we wanted and even did some of the other stuff as well. Then today we were told by the mortgage guy to go ahead and tell give Fried Chicken Dr our 30 day notice.

I'm a excited about owning something this big, but at the same time... I'm now in charge of taking care of it. When something goes wrong I can't call the super or the property conglomerates, I have to fix it or pay someone too. I have to mow the lawn and take care of the plants and flowers around the yard. As a kid I hated to mow the lawn and on top of it I am allergic to fresh cut grass. With all the bad, I can't wait to move in and create a place of our own.

He's back

Thanks to blogger's post scheduler Gilbert is back up and running. I'm just for some reason I've been getting more traffic lately, I'm hoping to get a little love for the gnome.

Marriage

This past Wednesday was our 2nd wedding anniversary. It's a little amazing that it has been two years already, we have been through a lot. We moved to North Carolina 6 months after the wedding to a place where we only knew two people, that alone could have been disastrous. Yet, we are still together. We were told that the first year was the hardest and to be honest it was very tough. Even though we had been dating for almost three years there were little things we had to figure out, then there was always being around each other and finally finances. For use the finances was the toughest issue, I had a lot of debt and she had just lost her job. There were many a fights, but we still loved each other.

The move down here could have ended it, yet it has worked for us. We were told my family members that we were moving to avoid our problems. For me the move was never about avoidance, it was about a chance to finally get financial secure. I think we have proven that person wrong, look at us we are buying a house. We would never have been able to do that in Columbus. The move also made us closer, we had to, we didn't know anyone else. We have made friends, but we can be comfortable with each other.

I can understand why we have a high divorce rate, but at the same time I wonder if these people actually knew what they were getting into or were they willing to work at the marriage. Who knows, I'm just wonder what the next two years will bring for us.

Wasted

The one thing I can not stand is having my time wasted, so when I go into work and do my job and at then end of the day have nothing to show for it on air... I generally get all pissy and make the normal snide comments. Tonight I was pissy and was tossing out snide comments.

I had an easy night, I only shot one story and it was about Mike Farrell (BJ from MASH) was in town to talk about MASH and promote his new book. I know the story is sooo hard hitting, my thinking is, it's local and could be a kicker. I get to Quail Ridge Books, a locally owned bookstore, and the place is packed. The owner gets up to start everything off and she acknowledged that my station was there and I even had 10 people, or so, ask when it will air. I give the standard, 11pm baring cat in a tree line and I'm off.

I didn't get an interview because Mr Farrell showed up later than expected (for interviews not the event, just in case he ever google's himself and sees this story), so the odds of me getting interview is slim and also he's not going to get done signing till after 9 at the latest. I have some nice video, I cut it and put it in the show. around 10:30 the web producer comes over and asks if I can send him a copy of my video because he can't get it from the show. I look at him strange and he realizes that I did not know my story was cut. I go nuts, my story was cut because I didn't get an interview and somehow the story is less relevant without the interview, so instead puppies and tigers were shown. I'm not making this up, a story about a dalmatian and a tiger from god knows where is in the show instead of a local bookstore with a star from a famous show.

I keep hearing how we are suppose to be hyper local, but I never understand it when we do things like this. I kept hearing it went to the web, but we are still in broadcast and why are we not hyper local there. Some may say at least I got paid, I know, but at least I'm trying to make my product better and that is why I am upset. I get paid to take pretty pictures and I want the world, well OK the Triangle to see them. I shouldn't post this, but I don't care, the person I'm upset doesn't read my blog so who cares... I need a drink

Weezer

Living in the musical void known as Raleigh I have to rely on people like King Tom to keep me informed on the comings and goings of music. Thanks to Tom I learned that Weezer has a new album due out on June 3rd. I tell you want, from the two songs I have heard I am hooked and I already pre-ordered the album on iTunes.

Weezer is one of two to three bands that I listened to in high school that are still around. With the current carp thats out there I would think bands like Weezer would have died out years ago, instead they keep coming back with new music that is relevant. I currently work in an office where the staff is somehow younger than I am... on average of about 5 years. So when I hear the buzz about Weezer from them it's a little shocking. It just goes to shows you the power of the Weezer, good old classic rock n roll for the masses, yet not made for the masses.

The video above is for the single Pork and Beans, only a few bands can pull of this concept video of grabbing all the web memes and combining them into a video that isn't annoying. I was some what shocked that they got people from these youtube videos into the video. Well, probably not too shocked, they probably need what ever money the Weez threw at them. Just a great video that was not overly complex and yet creative.

Sick

Yesterday was a long day and my allergies were kicking up. I was feeling pretty crappy, but then this morning I had officially a allergy cold. If you do not suffer from allergies, an allergy cold is a lot like a normal cold, except your not contagious and for me it can cause dizziness and falling down. I should have called off of work today, but I was stupid an went in anyways (stupid 1.5 days of sick time remaining). From what I've been told I look like the walking dead, and better yet, we had spot news and since I'm working about quarter speed, that causes problems. I just want to go home and sleep.

Their Like Seasons But More Suck

For those not in the TV business let me give you a little insight into the world of television news. Four times a year companies like Nielson find out how many people are watching different shows. From there the sales staff can figure out how much to charge, the more people the more money. We in the business call these four month sweeps. You can tell when it is sweeps because there are always new episodes of your favorite shows. In news a lot of times you see those "You will die if you don't watch tonight's 11pm show!" or "Did you know you can contact 9 different forms of the plague from eating out? We'll tell you which restraints will kill you." You have all seen those stories.

The month of May is a HUGE sweeps month and we went all out and I somehow got tapped to do one of the series. The concept my three part series is that kids are giving out too much info on Facebook. So we set up a couple of accounts with two of our reporters and these accounts had actual photos of two people that are in their early 30s, so it's not like we tricked them. The reporters set out and invited a lot of kids and within three days had over 100 friends.

You can watch the videos to find out what happened, I'm just happy they are over. In a normally I will churn out one story and for the most part move on to another the next day. Not on this bad boy, we worked for over a week on it. We interview three kids and their parents and the Attorney General of North Carolina. I cracked out my light kit ever time and I think most of the lighting is really good. You can hopefully tell I put some work into it. Then we spent one whole day in a studio with a jib camera so we could get some great flying shots. Then I spent 5 days editing. I never take that long to edit, but when lawyers are involved it takes a lot longer. I would finish one piece, send it off and then legal could have problems with it so we would fight over what needed to be changed and then I would most likely change everything.

By the end I was numb, I blame these stories for a lack of posting this month. I think they are two pretty good stories and hopefully someone gets something out of it. I hope I get out of doing a sweeps story in July.

Flight of the Awesome!

I've been in a blogging funk, I've been stuck wanting to write, but unable to get the words out. I'd sit down and open up blogger, but as I start a new blog, I look at Risk and I decided to play that instead. Then the other issue is I usually blog when I get off of work, but lately I'd rather go to bed and read for a while. Reading has helped me with my writing, yet it also is taking me away from it. So to get back into it here is a post I can knock out quickly and it is a good topic.

For a while now I was told about this band called Flight of the Conchord; they had a show on HBO and I was told they where hilarious. With a name like that it was hard to remember and I never got the spelling correct. Finally, someone sent me a link and I tell you what, it was genius! The above video is called Business Time and it is 1. hilarious 2. we crafted 3. catchy.

Flight of the Conchords are a "Folk/Afro-beat/Comedy" duo from New Zealand, and musically they sound a little cheesy, but that's part of the craftiness. I love the lyrics are classic, my favorite line so far is in the song "A Kiss is Not a Contract," the song is about kissing does not lead to sex. The line is "They call it a (pants) fly because it takes you up to heaven." Another example is in the video below. "Red heads not war heads, blonds not bombs, we're talking brunettes not fighter jets." I can't stop laughing when I listen to every song.

They just released an album and you need to go out and listen to it. If you want go to youtube and look around. Who knew two kiwi's could be this great.

Long Trip

It's Saturday and I am very tired. I am currently in Ironton, Oh for my nieces graduation from college. I'm not tired from the graduation, I'm tired from the stress of driving Thursday night. You see that picture, I had to drive through the area where that happened.

To maximize out time with my family, we thought to was a great plan to drive after I got off work at midnight, stay overnight in Beckley, WVa and drive the last three hours on Friday morning. Well, there were a storms a comin' and I heard it was a bad one. Come to find out it was storm that had large amounts of hail and tornadoes. I decide to slow down and hope we miss it. Luckily we missed the hail and tornadoes, yet we had to deal with the aftermath. Over turned semis and trees on the interstate so we lost an hour and a half from that. By the time we got to Beckley it was already 5AM and I said screw it, I want to get there and I'll sleep for a few hours before the rest of the family makes it. Well, yet again fate was against us. A semi jack knifed going south bound and they decided to close our lanes to clean it up. We had to sit there for an hour and a half.

We finally made it to Ironton around 9AM. It took over 9 hours for a trip that takes 6 and a half. I hope the trip back goes a lot easier than the way up.

Election Fun

When I moved to North Carolina I was hoping to get away from election drama. Well, that has not happened. Even though, the North Carolina primary is one of the last primaries it now is of great importance. Hillary Clinton needs to do well to keep Barack Obama from having a chance of winning out right. So this means I have to cover the candidates and their families. Monday's assignment is covering Bill Clinton in a library. I am not looking forward to this; a small location, secret service, "outside issues" which I am not at liberty to discuss.

The big thing with these assignments is they are a lot of work for not a lot of air time. The event is suppose to start till 6:00pm, yet the set up is at 2:30. I know the event will not start on time and will last probably an hour or more. These press events are like tornado, they roll in and you feel like you've been pulled all over the place and you end up walking around afterwards wondering what just happened. These events are not for the people in the community, most of the people there will have been hand picked and they just want TV cameras to be there so that more people will see it. I think the '04 Presidential election then the '06 Ohio governors race has turned me off of covering elections. I just hope today does not suck .

Home Alone

The Wife left Friday afternoon for a women's retreat and won't be home till late on Saturday, so you know what that means... PAR-TAY!!! Oh man did it get wild on Fried Chicken Dr, there were ladies, guys, cigars, copious amounts of alcohol I mean the cops even showed up... to PAR-TAY! Woooo what a blast!

OK, that was a lie, you all know me and probably figured out my night alone and if you said order a pizza and watch seasons 3 and 5 of the Simpsons then you won the prize (as usual the prize is a hug from me). It's pretty sad state of affairs for me, but at the same time it was totally awesome. So I am now resigned to the fact I am a married guy and have become "that guy." I was never a partier, but I use to go out. Oh well, Lucy and I had fun any ways.

Hey Let's Kill Everyone

With the first episode for about a month, Lost wasted no time to "rev" it up. We had explosions, deceit, Risk, killing of small characters, killing of medium characters, and a smoke monster. This was a Ben episode with a flash forward so it was weird yet awesome. I'm still wondering how Ben awoke in the middle of the Tanzania. I wonder if his secret room has something to do with it. The mercs kill Alex and Ben exclaims "He changes the rules." Then you find out that Ben and Whitemore have some kind of arraignment. It felt like a bizarre Trading Places moment, instead of a dollar wager it's dead daughters.

I felt like I learned a lot about the island, yet I am still utterly confused about everything and have no idea what I learned. I'm guessing that the Whitemore's were first on the island or had something to do with Darhma and we know what happened from there. Who is evil? I don't know who I should be rooting for. The Losties are just screwed no matter who wins. Look at Sayid, Ben manipulates Sayid with the death of his wife (I'm still thinking Ben has something to do with it). From the looks of it Jack ruptures his appendix Hurley is now all alone with Locke and Ben, I'd say that's a lose/lose.

Oh yeah, then you have the return of Smokey the friendly killer cloud of doom! I guess Ben does control it, how, we do not know. Maybe it's something in Ben's Harry Potteresque room that allows him to control it. I also don't remember Smokey looking that long, nor do I remember it having any train like attributes. Maybe it's just me, but I expected to see a conductor on the back of Smokey. Onto the random thoughts!

I really hate Daniel, I am tired of his bad lying and his constant wishy washiness. Every time he opens his mouth I want to punch him so we can get the truth.

Early on I didn't like Miles and now I kind of do. He is getting shoved around, is lost... he's slowly become one of the Losties.

Hurly is right, Australia is the key to risk.

OK we saw Bernard, but where is Rose?

House Shopping

We met with our realtor today and look at 7 houses. It's feels a little weird going into someones house while they are away. I felt like I needed to steal something or look in their drawers, I did neither by the way.

We saw a few empty houses as well and it's interesting to see how it actually "looks better" when there is furniture in the house. I always thought it would be the other way around, but you get to see how the couch could go or where to put the bed. I can use my imagination to see where everything will go, but sometimes it's easier if someone already had it laid out. I also noticed we have a lot more crap everywhere. It's not that we are cluttered, it's just they have less items presented. When we move we may have to store more stuff instead of having it all out in the open.

We saw a few houses we liked, the best was in a small subdivision, the big thing for me and subdivisions is cookie cutter houses and fees that you have to pay. Luckily this subdivision has different looking houses with lots of different sizes. To be honest this house is right on the edge of our price range. If it was a year from now when we have paid off two more bills, it might not matter. Right now it does and I'm a little worried. We have been pre-approved for a loan larger than this house, but still, you have to be able to afford to live there. this is the only problems with past financial transgressions. They will come back and haunt you... stupid aught 5!

Poor Lucy

Yesterday we were responsible dog parents and took Lucy to get fixed. She has been tired since then and not allowed to go on long walks and I can't rough house with her. The worst part of the experience has been the cone. She started to lick the incisions and we had to put it on her. She was not a fan and fought us every step of the way.

After we got it on, she walked around the house moping, whining and bumping into things. It was sad and yet somehow funny. Lucy finally laid down and dealt with it; she is not a happy camper.

Rick Rolled?

I was visiting one of my favorite photographer message board and someone had a Youtube link to story he had shot. He loved it and wanted to know what we thought. The link led to the above video, supposedly we got "Rick Rolled." I guess it's the new fun web prank, you tell someone about something cool on Youtube and when you get there, you get Rick Astley. I can't figure out why this is funny. The video on Youtube has over 7 million hits, so there has to be a lot of people doing this. Maybe I'm out of touch, maybe it's actually because I remember when the song was a hit. To me this is on the level of chain letters, bad photoshoped pictures and guys saying "pull my finger." Please explain to me why this is funny? It's a fair song with a crappy 80s video. Wouldn't Flock of Seagulls I Ran be better how about Men Without Hats Safety Dance and my personal choice Snap! I Got The Power. You can be Snapped or Got Powered. This is getting kind of hectic and if I get Rick Rolled again or I will attack you don't want that.

Update; the above video is not working, I guess the Rick Roll people want you to ask for permission to embed the video. How about no, if you want go watch it, I just don't want to encourage them any more than I have to.

Why Are You Calling Me!

OK, I was going to wait to do this, but people are forcing me to reveal this a little earlier. We are looking to buy a house... again. So I was looking for property values and since the house is technically in a small rural county, they don't have any of that information on the web. To be honest, they barely have anything on their webpage.

So I go to Realtor.com to look for property value, because I know the house is not worth that much. Well, you have to go through some hoops to get the value; including a page for buying a car and selling a house. Stupid me did not use a fake phone number. As I am driving to pay for my car licence I get a call from a chevy dealer. He thinks I'm interested in a Aveo. I inform him that it was the first car I could put down so I could move on to find the property value. Two hours later another Chevy guy calls me another hour later I get a call from a lady asking if we need help selling our house. Obviosuly we don't have a house and who would want an Aveo?

This is what I get for using the internet to find information.

One for Me Nineteen to Uncle Sam

Today being tax day I guess I will have to do the obligatory people who are doing there taxes at the last minute. To be honest we sent our government tax in yesterday. We actually finished it back in March, but we owed this year. In the grand scheme of things, its not too much, but still we owed Uncle Sam over $750! So you can see why we waited to pay.

Yet, with all that money going out, North Carolina owed us over $400. Obviously we are using that to help out, and luckily I picked up 46 hours of over time on my last two pay checks. With The Wife's job, it's always going to be like this. We are finding new charities and other tax deductible ways to help out next year, so maybe we can get it down to the point we just send the government what North Carolina sends us. We also may have a big way to get a tax break... more on that later (Crosses fingers).

Finally The March Madness Wrap Up

I've been back for a week and you may be wondering why it took me so long to get a wrap up of my trip. The simple answer is, I was exhausted. I have never had a trip were I worked that hard, had so many problems and still get everything done. I'd say it was more exhausting than my post Katrina trip, and on that trip I slept on the ground two nights.

After my last post trying to convince UNC that they needed to win because they were loosing to a guy named Sasha, things didn't get any better. UNC lost and I had to go into the locker room for post game talk about how they were not prepared to play. We got a lot of great sound and things were looking pretty good. It was a late night but the next day should go pretty easy. Yet again, Murphy had other plans.

Sunday we had laptop issues ranging from my external hard drive dying to Gibby's laptop not reading P2 cards. Then here's where it really went down hill, the internet in some of the rooms in the hotel didn't work. Let me revise that only two rooms could not get internet connections; mine and Gibby's, the two people feeding out copious amounts of video. After having the business center guy not care about our plight Penn got his room to work and I continued to deal with the motel's engineer and his compatriots on the phone in some undisclosed location. All I got was I'm sorry for the problem and a bill for internet usage. We barely got everything in for the 6pm show... how barely... lets just say less than 5 minutes barely.

After we were done, no one at home knew we had a problem, in TV that's the biggest thing. You can have a day from hell where nothing works, yet when it's time for the story to air and it goes as planned all problems are for not.

After all the problems we decided to hit the town, we caught up with a couple of radio guys and had a good time. While sitting there I hear one of the radio guys mention he sees Dan Dakich. Poor radio guy, he did not know I'm an angry Bowling Green fan that is willing to make a fool out of himself. I taunted Dakich with everything but the kitchen sink; you suck, how many players left you, you destroyed our program, good job at Indiana, I think I even started screaming Ay Ziggy Zoomba. My sports guy was laughing while the radio guys hit under the table. They had interviewed him earlier in the day and here I am launching attack on him next to them.

Here's the thing Dakich has zero connection to North Carolina, so why where they talking to a guy who was not going to be out of a job and had no way of coming to our area. That's the problem with radio guys, they only worry about connections, they are almost as bad as PR guys. Of course I would never have yelled at him if I had my gear with me, I'm a fan and when I see a guy like Dakich or Urban Meyer I'm going to let them have it.

A Guy Named Sasha is Beating You

Dear UNC,

You are letting a guy named Sasha beat you. How can you allow that to happen, his name is Sasha! There is no way a guy named Sasha should be allowed to play anything other than figure skating or fencing. You are down eight, start playing like the other team has a guy named Sasha on it.

Either Win or Just Lose!

So I run out to the live shot to make sure it's good, when I get there the lead was down to 4. I set up the lights and get everything ready. I run back in and the lead is up to 8! Come on Tarheels take the lead or lose big, I want to know when my flight will be. If it gets ugly, we can call and change our flights, if they start to win everything is fine. I hate the waiting.

Talk in the hole

The big conversation in the second half by the Carolina media is defense and the fact the Heels don't play it. Even though the lead is down to 14, they have to start playing defense. it's even been brought up that they have not played defense all year.

Half Time

Murphy has not only smacked me upside the head, he has decided to hit UNC as well. My Laptop has crapped out, I can not use my external hard drive and I also can not record the game feeds. So I can only blog and edit off of my P2 cards. It's caused a lot of stress for me and yet again I feel less than whole. This trip has been a mental disaster.

I guess UNC forgot that Kansas was a 1 seed and seemed out of sorts. At one time the Tarheels were down 26 points and at half time were down 17. They were forcing shots and were chasing Kansas around the court. The one thing though Kansas seems to be in a bit of foul trouble and that could help Carolina in the second half.

If UNC loses, I'm probably going to be flying back early Sunday or sometime Monday.

Everyone is Blue

It didn't dawn on us till today, all four schools at the Final Four have the color blue. All be it that UCLA and North Carolina are a light blue and Kansas and Memphis are darker it's still odd to see that much blue in the city.

Yet with this blur of blue the largest fan base belongs to Kansas. I can't throw a rock with out hitting a Jayhawk... trust me I tried and they don't like being hit by flying projectiles. This has me a little worried, the last time I saw some many fans out numbering the others was the BCS title game where LSU represented strong. We know how that game ended so I'm a little worried. I don't want to go home early.

No Basement at the Alamo

I felt a little extra spring in my step so I took a quick jaunt down to the Alamo. To be honest I was a little disappointed. I almost walked right past it, luckily I saw an arrow point me across the street. I took a lot of great picture and I might post them after I get my camera developed.

The one thing that kept popping into my mind was, the Alamo was a huge defeat. You always hear the cry "remember the Alamo," as a kid I always thought we won that battle. Instead it's about remember how they killed everyone inside. Enjoyed the walk around and seeing the history.

IT'S ALIVE!!!!

It's alive! My camera works!!! Behold me in all my glory! Suck on that Murphy your my bitch now! Crap I probably cursed myself now. Ummm, hi Mr. Murphy... my your hair looks nice today. Please don't make things suck. I'm off with Gilbert to the Alamo for some touristy crap.

Murphy Strikes Again

I was hoping today would be better, alas not so. I got the battery plate around 10 in the morning only to find out it's the wrong plate. For some reason Panasonic and Anton Baur decided to make different plates for each model of camera. So, for another day I was cameraless.

We developed a system for having only one camera and that worked out fine, the only other problem was feeding video. I guess the Alamodome or the NCAA tournament did not realize TV stations would feed through the internet and there is not enough bandwidth to deal with this issue. So what took 20 minutes last week was now taking and hour or longer. I caused a lot a panic and then at different points through out the day the laptops kept "freaking out." Mine would not respond and then we would have to start the sending process all over. Gibby's was just going real slow.

Luckily for the most part the viewers never saw a problem, except when the IFB (the way the reporter can hear what is airing and hear the producer) when down. Also we had a problem coming back from commercial one time. We did not know they were going to not play the normal music, instead they went straight into the Mariachi band that we sent back. All I heard on the phone was; cue... CUE, J DOG CUE PENN! I frantically started waving my hand at Penn and he response was classic. What? Oh, hi?!?! Welcome back.

So after two days we have had our fair share of problems and I am looking forward to a relaxed morning and a slow start before the chaos known as game day. I may see the Alamo tomorrow and I might do some other touristy crap before we have to head to the arena. I hope tomorrow I will have more time so I can do more than one post a day.

I'm Murphy's Bitch

You all know Murphy and his law, what ever can go wrong will? Well that was yesterday, it all started with the 6:30AM flight. The flight itself was OK, it was my camera that did not enjoy it. I had to check my camera and bad things happened. I get the camera to the hotel room and find out that the batter that WAS connected has now been ripped off and the battery plate is severely damaged and the battery is useless. So yesterday I had a $16,000 paper weight. Of course, the station was not happy and luckily they are sending me a new plate. I am down to two batteries, but that should get me through the week.

Then we almost missed our slot in the show. For some strange reason, every time I sent back the look live through the internet I would get an error message with 5 minutes remaining. We thought it was my computer till we tried to send it to my external hard drive. The file was bad and I had to reconvert it. It made it back with five minutes to spare.

It was just a long day, we pretty much started our day at 4:30 in the morning and did not stop till after 7 in the evening. After we got back to the hotel I kept sending more stuff back so could get ahead on Friday. Hopefully Friday will go a little better, it's 10:00AM and my battery plate has yet to arrive, FedEX normally gets to the hotel at 8:00AM... not a good sign.

One more thing, I also for got the digital camera. So there will only be pictures posted via my cell phone or image grabs from the video camera... if it ever works.

An Encounter

Gibby and I finished out work for the night and started to walk to the media pick up van. As we are loading in ESPN's Andy Katz joins us. It's a nice ride till Any notices the sign I am carrying. As we are packing up I snatched the "Video Distribution" sign, why did I do this? I was forced to sit in a small room and watch the game on a small monitor when the actual game is just yards away. It's my small revenge against the NCAA. Take that, I stole your sign that cost you only nickles.

Andy looks at my sign and starts laughing and ask why would I take that sign, not one that said North Carolina or some thing more significant. I convey the above story and he laughs. Gibby and I inform him that other signs were taken as well, he can't believe it. He then asks where am I going to put it, of course in my computer room where all my news stuff goes. Technically video is distributed there so it fits.

I can now imagine him telling all his ESPN friends about that weird guy in Charlotte that took the Video Distribution sign. Well, he will probably for get about that chance encounter by the time he hits the airport.

Deep In The Heart of Texas

Well UNC won the game and I just found out that I am going to the Final Four. I am very excited, yet at the same time a little worried. Finances are a little low right now, we are going to have to find ways to make this work. Good thing though I get paid Friday and will have a lot of over time from this trip. Now I wonder what days I will have so I can get packed and spend time with The Wife and Lucy.

At the Half

It's half time and we are getting a little loopy. One of the guys from RAL grabbed my digital camera and started taking pictures. I've been singing Cool It Down by New Edition and T Dog is, well T Dog.

I just said the phrase redonkulous... we need out of this building, and drinks are required.

More on the Cardinal Teeth

I mentioned the whole Louisville Cardinals' mascot has teeth and that does not make any sense. I actually got to do the story today and the above is what aired

Yesterday Shorts, Today Parka

Yesterday and the day before it was in the low 80s and I was loving it. I put on my shorts, I got a little sun on me. Then today I go outside and the wind is whipping and it's now in the 50s. Those in the frozen north are looking at me like I'm insane for complaining about weather in the 50s. I don't care it's a 30 degree difference and it's tough to deal with. It doesn't help that downtown Charlotte is a wind tunnel and making it feel even colder.

I almost did not bring my fleece pull over. It was sitting on the outside of my suitcase and it was between putting in the fleece or putting in the bathroom bag. I decided to put the fleece in there even though it was not suppose to get below 70 all weekend. I learned from my lessons last year. Always take a warm shirt just in case.

Great Moogly Googly!

OK, I just checked my Google Analytics page and I saw something I thought I would never see, I had 240 visitors with 364 page views yesterday! I don't know what's going on, but I am in complete shock. It seems everything is coming from blogger navbar page, I've tried to see what it is, but I can't get that page to open. How many more will I get today? Who knows, but I'm excited to see.

Last Full Day

It's just after noon on game day and I am feeling much better today than I did yesterday at this time. I slept for about nine hours and the only thing that hurts is my feet and calves (stupid walking). As I mentioned yesterday the game does not start till 9 so we don't have a lot of work to do till later in the day. This will hopefully give me enough energy to get through the day. Our work flow will be in a more compact time frame and I'll be on the move a lot.

So far the feeling is that Louisville could beat North Carolina, all I am saying is this is the same game that the Tarheels lost last year so, you never know. I'm torn, I want to travel more, but I have a feeling if they do move on I will not be going. I get the sense that I will have to stay back and to the Chapel Hill rioting live shots. For some reason when I do them, the shot works. When someone else does it... failure. I believe it's nothing that I am doing, it's more about being lucky. No matter what I probably won't get to see the game. I'll just have to enjoy this game and the rest of my trip.

Thinning Out the Herd

As I sit in the video distribution room, there seems to be a lot less people, that because there are less people. With two teams losing all of the media covering exit stage left and head back home. On one hand it's great because we get to spread out and have more room. On the other hand it's less people and someone who might be interesting has left. I don't feel too sad, because I'm still here and that means at least two more days away from the office.

This is just one of the prices everyone has to pay when you cover a one and done tournament, you think you are going to have a full four or five days and all the sudden you have to go home and do your normal job. For all the complaining I may do, I'd rather stay out here and work long days than do the normal routine. Would I want to do this type of life style all the time... no, but it's a great change or pace and can make things a little easier when I do return to the daily grind.

Grrrr I'm a Cardinal

This is the Louisville mascot, it's a simple little bird, look at it's feathers a little beak and FREAKING TEETH! At last check, birds don't have teeth like this. All I keep thinking is grrrr I'm a cardinal and I'll bite your face off because I have teeth!

I've asked some Louisville fans, but no one has an answer, most don't even realize the teeth. The usual response is, it has teeth? I did not realize that or it makes it look angry. So hopefully you will think grrrr I'm a cardinal every time you look at the mascot.

Saturdays Game

The big question this morning has been when will the game be played on Saturday. Will it be the logical 6:15 EDT or the ridiculous 9:00 EDT time. We come to find out we are the late game and the NCAA needs to get their heads checked.

The reasoning you will here is the better game is the UNC Louisville game, but when the other game is being played out west and involves UCLA... University of California Los Angeles... you might think more people out west would rather watch that game at 6:00 Pacific instead of 3:00.

The real reason is money, the NCAA wants the game that more people will watch later, why? They can charge the advertisers more because the east coast is more likely to stay up to watch UNC than UCLA or Xavier. The west coast will tune in for UCLA and CBS hopes they will stay and watch UNC. More people at one time, that equals a lot of money.

I don't mind people making money, but when it comes at the cost of making the game enjoyable and forcing people to stay up late and hope to see a final is going to be the NCAA's down fall. Last week I did not know who UNC was going to play because the game ended after midnight. I'm not that die hard of a fan and I can wait a day or two to find out who they will face.

Logic needs to prevail, yet I know it will not. This also hinders us from doing our job, we can't show highlights during the 11 because the game will still be on. Then if the game ends during the show, we now have to scramble to get back inside and hope to get sound about how they won or lost. Instead of wanting to do what's right for all the NCAA will greedily force everyone east of the Mississippi to lose sleep or not watch an ending of a good game.

I know money rules and the NCAA will do what's best for them, but think of the public as well.

Yesterday Wrap

Ok, it was a long day, but over all good. UNC played OK, they looked a little sloppy, but Washington State is known for their defense and if they could have hit a few of the threes they missed, it could have been a more interesting game.

After the game ended we were unable to show the highlights, why might you ask? Some silly NCAA rule, so we did a reenactment with dolls, and Gilbert was one of them. go to the video page and look for UNC dolls, it's a pretty creative idea and we have gotten a lot of publicity for it.

After it was all over I ended up working 15 hours and I'm really tired. More to come from the tourament later.

Long Trip

The one think I do not enjoy on trips like this is the live-shot at nauseum idea. To make it even tougher, the live shot location is on the other side of the building. So anytime I need a battery, something from the sat truck or just to go to the bathroom involves lots of time. I don't mind live shot, it's part of the job. I just wish i didn't need a beast of burden to carry all the equipment. I missed most of the first half and hopefully I will get to watch a little bit of the game.

WSU Kids

This update took a little longer than I wanted it to take. Lots of live shots and having said shot on the OTHER side of the building has made me a little tired and sweaty. Earlier we talked to some kids who actually drove the 40 hours from Spokane. They only made spots at gas stations, so they had to hold it or do the old Dumb and Dumber Coke bottle bit.

That's dedication to a team, I don't think I could ever do that. Considering they are playing the top seeded Tar heels. I hope these kids have fun and one day be able to tell there kids about it.

In Da House

I'm getting this in later than I wanted... Internet access is a little bit sparse around the building and I just finally finished my story for the early shows. The biggest difference from last year to this year has been, well, the city. East Rutherford = hole, while Charlotte so far is warm and there are places to eat that do not involve me crossing an eight lane highway. Also all the locals are nicer and it's a lot warmer. I'm actually going to crack out the shorts tomorrow. Next update will be about these guys who drove in from Spokane.

So It Begins

Within a few hours, I will be heading to Charlotte for the third and most like fourth round of the NCAA tournament. I am going to try and do it like last year, with many new posts about everything I am going to do, and what I see. The interesting aspect this year will be that I am a day behind everyone else that is there. Because of scheduling problems I had to stay and edit the Wednesday shows. I hope this does not cause problems and hopefully I will get into the swing of things. I am leaving Raleigh at 9AM and hope to be set up around noonish or maybe one.

Not Again

The other day I get a call from The Wife, she sounds a little distraught. While she was babysitting, a woman came to the door looking for the person who owned the Silver Mazda. The woman had hit the car while backing up. Of course, it's my car, there is not a lot of damage, but still the front panel is cracked and the side light is knocked it of place. The best part of this story is the woman did not want us to contact the insurance company, first thought was year right... you say you are going to pay for damages, till you find out how much and then we are left with a bill. I hope this does not become a big problem.

Meet Lucy

The great puppy search of aught 8 is over, meet Lucy the puppy. She is 7 months olds and we have no idea what kind of dog she is nor did her previous owners, so she is a full mutt.

I can definatly tell this is our dog, she's been chasing her tail half the day. So far she's gotten it about 3 out of 10 times.

This so far is my favorite picture, finally a puppy all my own. She's been doing really well so far, only one accident in the house, but she has no idea of this concept I call walk. She'd prefer not to have the leash and run wild. We'll work on that.

Puppy Watch 08

We are on our way to meet Lucy, cross your fingers.

Prodical Castaway Returns

I liked this weeks episode of Lost, but for some reason there was a disconnect for me. Maybe it's because I stayed up a little to late playing poker last night and I'm still a little tired. The one thing I find interesting is the fact you never really see Walt. The big problem is that he's suppose to be 10 yet in real life he keeps aging and he is going to be 16 this May. The writers have been doing a good job keeping the character in the show without really showing him.

For the first time, I think we actually were given out a lot of valuable information. We find out that Whitemore was the one who planted the plane and that people from the island have a problem dying. We also have conformation that the sea people are in fact wanting to kill everyone.

I think there needs to be a list of created TV characters and Ben is going to be near the top. That guy is so evil, yet at times you feel that he some how is trying to protect the greater good. Has there ever been a more manipulative guy on TV? Has has everyone eating out of his hand. Even after Alex finds out that Ben is not her real father and she still listened to him. Or course that led to the possible death of Rousseau and Karl. He also got into Micheal's head. I loved the line about Ben doesn't kill innocents, yet when Micheal called him out that Micheal had to kill Anna Lucia and Libby the response was, Ben didn't tell him to kill them, Micheal killed them. Damn, that cut him hard.

I'm not pleased with the fact I have to wait a month for new episodes, I know the writer strike threw everything off, but I want more as usual. Here are a few random thought.

We saw a lot of dead people in this episode; George McCaskey, Naomi, Libby and Tom.

What kind of super powers does Miles have? We know he talks to ghost, but what else is there.

Interesting that Sawyer is starting to question Locke about not giving everyone answers.

I'm thinking Miles opened Locke's eyes a little about Ben with his pound cake line.

Don't Make Me Pull This Computer Over!

I know I just posted about my NCAA trip next week, but this is really getting my goat. The Wife and I recently reorganized our CDs out of their cases and into a large CD folder. Since we buy albums from iTunes we don't go to the store and buy many CDs any more so this is saves a lot of space.

While organizing I notices a bunch of CDs were not ripped onto our computer (Stupid computer meltdown of aught 7!) I start to load them in with Windows Media Player because my MP3 player is not recognized by iTunes, and things were going fine till iTunes decided to open up every time I put in a new CD. SO I had two programs trying to rip music off of the same CD and it was causing things to go very slow.

It's now to the point I'm closing down iTunes every time it starts up. I'm not a fan of Windows Media Player, yet because of the fact iTunes won't allow non iPods to come in and play I'm stuck with this stupid situation.

The Streak is Alive

Today starts the NCAA tournament and I had been a little sad that I was not going to cover it, well that changed. Since UNC is playing in Raleigh we don't need the extra crews, but next week I am heading to Charlotte if North Carolina moves on. I know it's a lot of work, but I enjoy it. You are on the road, it's just me and a couple people and no management. How great is that! I will attempt to do what I did last year and blog the entire experience.

The Bunnies

Last week I was asked by my church to create a video for them and the above is the result. I've always wanted to try stop motion animation, and now I have and it's going to take a lot to get me to do it again. It was a lot of fun, but you have to move each piece little by little and hope it looks good in the end.

I am very proud of this video and I need to get my creativity out somehow. This at least was a creative and productive way to get the crazy out of my system

My Day

This might sound like a random post, but I'm going to just do this as a kind of log of my day. In news weird things happen and today was just odd. I don't know why, maybe the reason is I was working with The Serg, those days always seem odd.

When I got to work I could not get into the building. For the past year and few months we have been using these key fobs" on our key chains, but that was not good enough. They recently decided to go with the lanyard and ID bag. There has been some discourse over this system, but I don't care, we had it at The Network and it was fine. The problem was, I'm not use to the badge yet and I left it at home. So all day I had to either borrow some one's badge or coordinate my comings and goings with people schedules. Of course I'm the first one to forget my badge... yeah me. I know I have a tendency to be a little flaky, but to be the first really sucks.

It's hard to explain working with The Serg sometimes, it's not a bad thing, but our conversations go all over the place. We have had actually people listen into our conversations and tell us we are strange. We had time to kill so we stopped off at a local coffee shop called the Mad Hatter. That led to me talking about why the mad hatter was actually crazy. I though it was starch in the hat, but, it's actually mercury vapor used in hat making. Then that divulged into crazy relatives, and then into all the people around us using lap tops, then strange movie characters. It's rather fun way to waste time, I never know where the conversation may lead but I will know that it will some how always go back to Emo Phillips, Paul Lynn, Las Vegas New Mexico, and Ice Pirates.

While at the Mad Hatter I was asked "What kind of milk?" for my drink. I was confused, many of you might know what she was getting at, I missed it by a mile. As I was about to say cow she could tell I was about to say something stupid. "You know skin, 2% or whole." I seriously thought they had options on what animal the milk came from. This was a froo froo coffee place and you never know, maybe I had a choice between cow, goat, llama or some other exotic animal.

We finally get back to our OH SO exciting story... drought and construction at city hall. If you want to know my least favorite story ideas that's all three right there: drought, new construction whoas and meetings. Plus we had one of our beat reporters there as well, she was not pleased we were on "her turf," but hey, I didn't pick the story. Well, our story changed within the first 10 minutes of the story. Durham city council honored the officers that caught the suspected killer of Eve Carson and Abhijit Majahato. It's a meeting, but the mayor wants to find out why these guys were let out on bond with multiple court hears within the near future. He felt that they system did not check itself and Durham has to do something so this will not happen again. I'm giddy, this is much better than our other story, yet who gets it... us the night side crew or the beat reporter. I look at it this way, dayside are the lions we are the hyenas and they are the other animals. You see our original story was taken by dayside so we had to find something else and that else was Durham city council. In the wild the hyenas kill the prey and then the lions scare off the hyenas and have their fill. The hyenas get the left overs and what ever is left is up for grabs. I hate doing that to the beat reporter, but we HAD to turn something that night, and she didn't fight for the story so I don't feel guilty.

Maybe it was karma for taking the story, but I almost did not get the story on air. We get back a little later than we wanted, so there was not a large room for error. The Serg's laptop started freaking out and he couldn't log everything that was recorded. By the time I got it, my laptop started to get a little nutty. The docking station would not read my external hard drive that had all my Eve Carson file. My computer froze and I had to restart it, then it would not open the editing software. I finally had to give up using my computer and work in an edit bay. I had 25 minutes to get it done. In news when you are in a crunch and need total concentration, everyone wants to talk to you. The Serg asked where the video was, and the producer kept asking how I was doing. I finally snapped back "If people would stop bothering me I'll get it done!" I got it in 5 minutes before the start of the show. I've only missed "slot" once, and that's because the guy taking in my story was being picky about audio and had me keep making changes, so I don't even count that as my fault. When will they realize that I will get things done, I know we are the lead and if I can't get it done the show goes to hell in a hand basket.

I thought Learning Physics Was Tough

I am confused about tonight's episode of Lost, I'm not 100% sure what actually happened, but I'll give it a shot. For the post part it was about Jin and Sun as we find out that Sun is the 6th member of the Oceanic 6 (I'm taking partial credit, I thought it would be Jin). We find out that Sun has made it off the island and is giving birth. Then there is the tricky thing that is throwing me off. They kept showing Jin, King Tom thinks it is a flash back to throw us off, I am not too sure about that. Maybe he is alive and he is working for Ben or Witmore, either way that can not be good.

I was shocked at how Juliet convinced Jin and Sun to stay on the beach. I think telling Jin about Sun's affair was a very Ben move. I think she wants off the island like the rest of the losties, but there is something there that almost seems that she is going to stay. Maybe Ben has a stronger hold on her than she realizes.

The biggest shock of the episode is the return of Micheal I mean Kevin Johnson. Other people who find little nuggets of information realized this weeks ago, I did not so I was surprised by Micheal being the one who is Ben's informant on the boat. I guess Ben convinced him to help him a little bit more, "Hey I helped you get off the island, I need your help."

What is up with everyone killing themselves on the boat? What effect does the water around the island do? One woman jumps off the ship and another blows his brains out. Man, note to self, so not go on any freighter trips to islands of mystery.

Overall this was a good episode, but after what we got two weeks ago and part of last week this was a little bit of a downer. If this episode would have happened last year it would have been a top 10 instead it's only going to end up in the middle... I hope. With only 16 episodes for this seasons, there can't be that many meh shows. No random thoughts because, well there wasn't many.

The Things We Do

As I am typing this I am sitting outside the lovely Durham county courthouse awaiting for my story and subsequent live shot. If you had not heard they finally caught the second guy that may have killed UNC student Eve Carson. That happened Chapel Hill, so why am I in another county? Not because he was arrested here, it's because he may have killed someone else prior to Eve. I know this post is sounding a little morbid, and depressing... well like the news, but my tale is not about this story, but what we do in our waiting time.

I'm with The Serg and when we are working together it's like pop culture overload. Tons of obscure references and silly comments. While standing on the porch trying to get someone to answer the door, I thought of a new game. Who's career would you rather have. You basically take two celebrities and decide who you'd rather be.. ie the first one was Prince or Bon Jovi; we both picked Prince. The Serg asked Tina Turner or Cher, I went with Cher, because I didn't want to deal with the beatings of Ike Turner, yet I had to consider that video where she was wearing that duct tape and fish net thing... I don't thing that would look good on me. Next was who would you rather be, the other guy from Wham! or Oats. It was decided Oats because at least I knew his name.

Here are a few more you to mull over:

Rodney Dangerfield or Oingo Boingo
Bangles or the Go Gos
Jean Claude Van Dam or Steven Seigel
Bobby Brown or one of the guys from Bel Biv Devo
One of the guys from Color Me Bad or one of the guys from O Town
The guy who was Alf or the guy who was HR Puff n Stuff
Charles Neslon Rieley or Paul Lynn
Men With Out Hats or Dexies Midnight Rinners or Flock of Seagulls

Stupid Random!

I've been busy, and have been wanting to post, yet I haven't found the gumption to sit down and write one. I didn't even do a Lost post this week! Well I am forcing myself to get at least one post out, so I might as well make it a random one.

"Back" in the field

OK the back sprain is healing pretty good and I think I am ready to go shot again. Well, it might also be that I am sick of show editing. I've not touched a camera for two weeks now and I need to start up again. I've got a small amount of discomfort when I sit, but we will see about carrying heavy items around. At times I fell the station thinks I want to get out of shooting, why else am I always getting injured? I just need to do more preventive work like stretches and actually lifting the proper way. My goal is no more injuries for at least one year. Stop laughing.. seriously, I want to be injury free for a year. OK, I'll go for 6 months, that's a good start.

Dog Watch March 08

For the last year we have had a battle of will in our house, baby vs dog. You can probably figure out who wants what. My argument is that we start with a dog and then we can see how we do there and then go for the baby thing. It's kind of like The Wife's brother and his wife, they got a dog, everyone but them realized she was going to be crazy and now that they have a baby, she is well, crazy.

Well The Wife decided to meet some of our neighbors and guess what they had... A PUPPY! and she fell in love with it. To make things even more awesome, they told her my idea was a good one. I finally won a battle!!!! I felt like there should have been balloons and confetti dropping from the ceiling. We started a search and came across Odie on craigslist. We have been emailing back and forth and then we could not check our email on Sunday and from that point on it went quiet. I emailed twice on Monday and no response, finally I open my email and see a message from the woman... Odie may be adopted to someone else. The current owner for some reason took no emails on Sunday as several days. We both would love to have this dog, now it looks like we may have to move on. We'll try and give updated.

"You Ain't No Kind of Man if You Don't Own Land"

That quote came from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou one of my favorite movies, and from it you can probably figure out we are looking at buying a house... sort of. This past Sunday, we had lunch with some friends and they happen to live near a house for sale. We look at it and it's a nice house and then we see the price has been dropped. The builder is actually selling it for less than it's worth. Then an agent just happens to show up. We are thinking this house has to be for us what are the odds of all this happening?

We look at the house and think it would be a great place to buy. Then comes the part I feared the most... figuring out how we can get a loan. You see back in aught 5 I subconsciously decided that credit was not that important and well, destroyed it. Money wise, I'm fine, yet they look at that score and cringe and usually hang up. The Wife's credit is much better, but she doesn't make enough, so we have constant problems with anything that involves credit.

I call a group that specializes in first time home mortgages and amazingly enough we get approved and at 6% fixed. Considering that is no money now... not too bad, then the bad part, the payments are 180 dollars more than we pay in rent now. We could probably make that payment, but things would be tight. We have done well in getting rid of some of our debt, I'd have to see us revert back to having problems. It's kind of hard to get that close and then find out that everything is just out of reach. At least I now know that I can buy a house if we want to.

Basketball Postseason

For the past 6 years I have been able to cover some form of basketball post season. I thought I was about to make it 7 till I was pulled from the ACC women's tournament because of "overtime" issue. Then I threw my back out and the point was mute. It just feels odd not having to travel cover pressers and rushing around trying to feed out video. It was always a lot of work, but I loved it. It all started with the MAC tournament when I was in West Virginia, I got to see Antonio Gates play basketball not football. I covered three years of high school basketball in Ohio and got to see OJ Mayo, Raymar Morgan and Bill Walker play. Last year I covered North Carolina in Winston-Salem and then East Rutheford, New Jersey.

There were rumors that I would run the sat truck, but they installed new equipment and I have no idea how to work the truck now. There could be an outside shot, but I'm not holding my breathe. We are short two photographers and no way are they going to give anyone up to sports. Yet another era for me ends.

Birthday

This will be the first time in 6 years I won't have to cover basketball on my birthday so that's a nice trade off. I normally hate birthdays and usually bad things happen around them. Nothing horrible, just random bad days that make me not want to have birthdays. This year I was hoping to get Odie, but now I might get to go to the Bentonville Battlefield reenactment. I know a Civil War reenactment... I'm a dork. I like the Civil War, it was an interesting time in our country and I live near the final battle sight so I'm going to see the reenactment.