Chapel Hill Live Blog Hell

Today is Halloween, a holiday I actually like prior to coming to North Carolina. Since I've been here I now hate this holiday more than anything. The reason why, I have to cover Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Pretty much it's like Ohio University, only smaller, but with my previous history with the town, it makes for a bad night. To recap last year, I laid 1000 feet of cable four different times (each time to a roof of a three story building) was surrounded by idiots and was kicked off the roof by the town snipers (their only reason for this... "we don't like the TV stations").

I've prepared myself for the worse and so far at 5:04 everything is going OK. The only problem so far is the live truck they gave me only had 500 feet of cable. That's 150 feet short, luckily I brought an extra cable. I'm going to try and do updates with photos through out the night, I don't know how often I will be updating, but between here and facebook you will be able to see how bad or easy the night will go.

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.

Random Insomnia

As I sit here at 1:30 in the morning I am tired, yet I can not sleep. I've had a lot on my plate as of late and I'm starting to feel the effects. Work has been all over the place, my church has asked me to do a lot and I had a little family situation:

Work Front

I don't know what it is about Raleigh, but nothing interesting will happen for a long time and then all the sudden we have major news events every day. I blame Duke vs UNC for the start of my work stress. As I have mentioned I do not like Chapel Hill and yet JDOG-17 saw it fit to send be there to cover the possible riots if the Tarheels won the game. For the most part the night went smooth... except that I got hit by a car. I had a guy want to park next to the live truck and we put cones up so no one couldn't. Lets just say he started off on the wrong foot with me and I didn't make things easier. I started to move my cones and he guns it and swipes my arm. I am still not sure how he missed my foot. Luckily for me Shawn was there as well as two reporters and an intern. Come to find out later he was running late for a radio interview. That's ass, for nearly running me over so you can go to another media outlet.

After the brush fires, there was an explosion outside downtown Raleigh. Someone tried to take live mortar shells to a scrap yard and two went boom. As the night side crew Boston Stevie and I got to baby sit the scrap yard as the military decides what to do with the other 40 shells. Well the military gets the great idea to start blowing them up on site. Yeah that went over real well with all the locals who had to be evacuated or kept hearing explosions all night long.

One Church Two Locations Not Enough J Dog

I go to a church that meets in a movie theater, it's different, but The Wife and I like it. Since land is getting very expensive here, and we are out growing the current theater, we are opening in a second site. The new expansion is in Wake Forest, so now we only get to drive 10 minutes instead of 30. But there is a catch here, they are not increasing the ministry staff. How is that possible you may ask? That's where I come in, they are currently going to tape a sermon in advance, so I have been tapped to help. I have spent the majority of my off time at the church trying to help them figure out how to make this work. It's not that bad, except at times I feel like I'm trying to move a mountain. They want to save money, yet make it high end; use my skills, but use an editing system I've never touched; try lighting with 5 times the light needed, adjust it to make it work. I don't mind this extra work load, it's that my normal job has started to see a little bit of an effect from it. Hopefully after the opening this week everything will calm down.

Family

I was working Sunday and The Wife called and told me that my grandfather is not doing well. He is starting to have kidney failure. After talking to my mom, I guess it got to the point where she didn't think he was going to make to the end of the week. He's 94 and has led a full life, but he's my grandfather! He lived next door and I would go over every Monday and Friday and stay till my parents got home. When I was young and we moved around a lot. I would stay with them as the family packed. I still haven't gotten over the death of my grandmother and that was 6 years ago. I just can't imagine not having him here. Over the last few years I have taken him forgranted, I hate seeing him in a nursing home, it's just hard and makes me realize his mortality.

He did make it through and is getting better, no longer are we 100% worried (more like 50%) yet I am still shaken by this. I am actually wanting to get back home and currently there is no way to make that seven hour drive and not kill myself even more. With this news we were planning a trip to just Columbus in June and now we may have to include Ironton, just so I can visit.

Enough random ramblings for the night, hopefully I can get to sleep soon.

How Time Flies

I don't know why, but I've been putting of this post. I've just not been in the mood, it might be the fact that I'm doing two blogs and the other one is taking up my creative energy or just plan laziness.

As of last week I have been in North Carolina for a full year. I am amazed at how different things are for The Wife and myself. Instead of doing a post that is a look back at the last year, I thought I'd just ell how things are different.

The biggest thing for me is that I am not working as much nor driving as much since I left The Network. The working less thing is great, I actually get to life a half way normal life. The driving is great, but I did catch myself complaining about driving to Chapel Hill which is 45 minutes away. At The Network that is a short drive, I felt like I was either going to the statehouse or driving 2 hours and I'd get out of work exhausted and tired, just from the driving. Now when I am tired it's because the desk drove me insane and didn't plan well and I had to go crazy to make things work.

Financially things are better, we don't have to work "as much" about paying bills. We are still paying for transgressions of the past (as I call it 2005), but once those are all cleared up we might actually be able to create this thing called a saaaviiiingsss aaaacccouuunt. Even though cost of living is a little higher here we have been able to make some wish choices and have almost similar expenses as we did in Columbus. It also helps when our heating bill is about $100 less, yes the air conditioning is worst, but our house is designed in a way so that the master bed and living room do not get direct sun light... SCORE!

I feel I am also in a slightly better working environment. I hear about a sports photographer opening at The Network and at first I kept thinking, why didn't they create that when I was still there, I might have stayed. Then I started to think about it more, and I realized I'd still be unhappy. Is the current job a bed of roses... no, it's news I have days where I want to kill someone or burn down Chapel Hill's police department, but overall it's better. I've got two really good reporters to work with, one is an old pro from Boston and knows how to make a story, the other is a young talented reporter who is great to work with. Even when I go to dayside I've got a great story teller there and an we just hired a new reporter who is great. Right there, I get a good story at least one a week, I think if I made a resume tape today it would be better than the one I sent here.

Do we miss our family and friends we left behind? Very much so, but we had to do this, The Wife needed away from her family and I needed to get my head on straight again and realize that even though news will probably be the end of me one day, I still enjoy doing it. Oh yeah and it's warmer here... it's suppose to be in the 70s tomorrow! Who would have thought it, 70s... in November!