Open Letter to Spring

Dear Spring

Where did you go? Did you pull a hammy and told summer to go on in? It's freaking hot already! Do you realize that I have warm blooded pregnant wife that was complaining when it was the 70 for three days. Tell me what it will take for you to come back and have summer go away for a few weeks longer. I'll hire a physical therapist to work out what ever injury you have.

Or is it worse? Did mother nature lay you off? I know the economy is bad, but how can she not have spring? You are so much better than winter. Without you it's be, well like it is now. Cold one day and way too warm the next. Give me her number and I'll give her a call and try to help you out. Or at least try and get hired, I'd be a good season; Winter, Jeremy, Summer and Fall. Who am I kidding you are the best at it.

Whatever it is, please come back and hang out till June. Just give us a little break before the hot head comes in and makes it miserable for me and my pregnant wife.

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!

Wait, Wasn't This Desert Once a Lake?

The picture to the left is me waking about 50 yards into what use to be Jordan Lake. The picture below and to the right is a picture I took while in the middle of Lake Michie. As you can tell this drought is still here. I've mentioned in the past I am not use to droughts, I've always had to deal with flooding. The worst drought was when the Ohio River I believe was 10 feet below normal, nothing two serious.So this is strange for me to have water restrictions and having to constantly do stories about the drought. I even did a "How is the drought effecting the State Fair" story.

Today was no different, except the governor is freaking out urging water conservation and the city of Durham is not allowing people to water there lawns. If they continue to allow people to water their lawns on Saturdays, they will run out of water around Christmas.

Part of our problem is the extreme heat we've been having. We set a record average temperature for the month of August and we still had 90 degree days in October. The heat has made things bad, but it makes it worse because we have not had any rain.

It's scary how little rain we have had. It's not like we have had rain fore casted, it just doesn't make it here. We've Had two hurricanes turn at the last minute and miss us. The rain that hit the Midwest just vaporized and we got none of it. It's like God is taunting us "Look NC, I'm flooding Ohio and you can't have any." We need rain and lots of it, according to our weather guy we probably need a foot of rain to get back to normal. An average rain we might get and inch made two, so we literally need a hurricane to get back to normal. So a thing that may destroy houses and can kill is what is needed to get us near normal for water. Wow, what a crappy catch 22.

Still Hot and More Satellite News

I'm going to ramble a little and do this flow of consciousness so reader beware.

Yesterday I did my first ever satellite uplink! The Chief and I drove to a parking lot and tested my skills. I did pretty well. I did all the conversions from NBC to CNN without too many problems. I did get confused a bit on the location of one satellite. I went to the left instead of the right, but I figured it out. We then headed to Garner for another test. Garner is south and east of Raleigh so everything will be a little different. Satellites are in a semi-fixed location so when you move south, the satellites are further up in the sky. I get everything set up and I hear "Do you want to uplink?" I wanted to, but I was afraid of not being in the right spot.

If I power up on the wrong location on the bird I might blowout someone else and ruin their feed. Then the satellite people will call me and yell and the station has to pay for the new time for the station I screwed over... This could get expensive. We get out transponder and time, I call in and I'm clear to go up. I flip the switch and I see the downlink and everything is great! I don't think I'm ready to do this on my own, but I think I should be able to go out with someone and do the job.

I picked everything up faster than the Chief thought I would. I believe the reason is while at The Network we did countless satellite shots and I watched those guys every time. I didn't know exactly what they were doing, but when my training started I started to piece together what I saw for three years to the information given to me. So thank you Manny and Anthony for all the times I watched you guess set up.

Well, on the way to Garner we run into a problem. The Air Conditioning in the back and front of the truck is not working right. In the back, it sort of works, but the temp got up to 90 degrees. As we drove towards Garner the cab air went out completely. We rolled down the window, but that didn't help. Yesterday it was 104 degrees and that is one degree away from the all time record, but it felt like it was 115! That 20 minute drive felt like an hour, the heat was like a weight on your chest making it harder to breath.

This week has been like an oven, I think Lucifer, you know the Devil wants to turn the air on. Monday 100, Tuesday 101, Wednesday 102, Thursday 104, and Friday 103. Saturday it's suppose to be cooler by almost 10 degrees. That still sucks because it's still ass hot! I know this is not normal, but I don't think I can do southern summers. Stupid sun!

Randomly Hot

It's been a while since I last posted. I have had a few ideas, but time and will have been against me. So to get the juices flowing I'll just do another lovely random thoughts:

Drop It Like It's Hot

I've complained once about the heat and that was premature, because we have hit triple digits. We are on our second straight 100+ day and we have one more to go, after that it's not much of a drop off, well will still be in the high 90s till next week. The thing that makes it worse is the humidity, it's making it feel like it's over 114. Right now at 9:19pm it's 88 degrees and it feels like 93. The only bright side of hurting my thumb is that I don't have to be outside much. I did have to go out and help run a live shot from the parking lot and it was unbearable. I was sweating the second I stepped outside. I'm trying to get back on an exercise routine and I thought, it ought to be cooler. As I mentioned a few lines up it is still warm. I got over two miles in, but I was drenched by the time I hit the first mile. My 16.9 ounces of water was not enough, I conserve so I have have some for the return trip. I get near the end and I think "Hey I'm going to try and job the last 1/3 of a mile." I get only two blocks and I had to stop. I know I'm out of shape, but the heat makes it worse. I at least get to the end of the street and then I have to walk the rest... up hill. I started to get dizzy as I reach the house. I knew it was going to get hot, but this is ridiculous.

Caged Photographer

Even though the thumb injury has me indoors, which is a plus. The negative is... that I am trapped indoors. I can't stand another three weeks of this, I have to move around and sitting in a poorly lit small room with nothing more than a computer is death for me. As the week moves on the more I get restless, Monday I can handle the day; by Wednesday at lunch I want to take a hammer to the monitor and by Friday, An hour into the shift I'm wanting to pound my thumb so that I can feel pain instead of the numbing tediousness and repetitiveness of news editing.

Also every week I have worked a different shift. Two weeks ago it was 9-6 then 11-8 the following week, 3-11:30 after that and this week is 9-6 again. In two weeks I get the joy of editing overnights midnight-8. I know that do not know what to do with me, but come on, make it a little more consistent than this. It's making my struggle even worse, I can't wait for my thumb to heal and I can get back on the road... even though it is a billion degrees outside.

Hitting a Bird

I know I just ranted about being stuck inside, this week has been a little different. I have started training on our satellite truck. For those not in TV there are two ways we can go live from a location: 1. is via a microwave truck, that's the one with the giant pole, it is only for local shoots within a general range of 20 miles or so. They are fairly easy to use and the station controls everything 2. is via satellite truck, a large dish on top of a large truck. You can go just anywhere with one of these, but it is very hard and expensive to use. Also you have to pay for time on bird (an insider name for a satellite) which can get expensive. There is a lot of training and things to remember with a satellite truck, luckily for me The Network did a lot of sat shots and I watched some of the best truck operators do their magic. I've got the basics down, well from the parking lot, but once I exit our gates I have to know how to take this dish and point it to a specific spot in the sky and the bird. It's like taking a marble and rolling it across a ballroom into a Dixie cup. I think I can do it away from the station, but we will see tomorrow. The biggest problem will be the math of figuring out the angles and other monitors in the truck.

I've been asked by some at the station why I am doing this training, it's going to cause me to work a lot more (I will be one of three people who can run the truck). Also I am not getting any extra pay and from what I've heard the company does not consider sat truck operators as anything more than glorified photographers. I'm doing this for job security, the area has a lot of locations where you can not use a microwave truck, so we are always going to need sat truck ops. Another reason is if they ever try and get rid of me or all the photographers, I will have something else to fall back on. There are numerous companies that do nothing but drive a satellite truck to a location and charge people lots of money to use their truck, I remember one year The Network used one of these trucks every weekend during football season. During Virginia Tech a third of the trucks were rentals.

PC Load Letter?

I've mentioned we bought a new computer and for the most part it has been great... except for one thing. The only DVD drive has never worked right. We called Hewlett Packard support and it started working... for three days. We picked up an external DVD burner drive as a back up and well, to have a second drive. We bought it at Best Buy and have a year warranty, but their stupid Geek Squad is constantly busy and everything takes over a week. The Wife finally beat me down and we took it Monday to be serviced. Of course they don't believe me that the drive isn't working. They try to play a couple CDs and DVDs and it doesn't work, what a shock. Luckily they are going to replace it for free and we are without a computer. Luckily I'm WORKing around this COMPUTER issue, I just hate not having all my music, pictures and games.

Holy Crap My Face is Melting

Last August 3rd I mentioned it was freaking hot in Columbus. Well just over 8 months later I'm in Wake Forest, NC and

IT'S FREAKING HOTTER THAN THAT DAY.

According to JDOG-17 weather people it's going to be in the high 90s. Did you catch that, the high 90s and it's not even summer yet.




This morning The Wife left for work and made me go outside to feel the heat. It's only 8:30am but it's in the mid 80s. By the time I left the YMCA It was in the 90s. I went home took a shower (bad move) and decided that I need to hit some golf balls so I don't embarace myself in front of my father in law and then two days later with my dad. I get a small bucket of 70 balls and I'm not even half way through and I am sweating more than Wilson with two of his lady friends in the same room. I finish my bucket and I am soaked. I have to go take another shower. I knew it would be warmer, but damn is this hot.





We've had 90s all week and I handled it pretty well and then the weather gods throw this day out and all I can do is sweet. I did want to lose 10 pounds before I came home and well, I guess I'll just sweat it out... stupid insulation!

(

P.S. I know I didn't post for a few days, I've had a run of a few bad days at work... well the entire nightside crews have had a few bad days and I did not feel like posting, hopefully this will get me out of that funk.)