Take Me Out to the ER

I like sports, but generally I'm not very good at them. I want to be good, but years of laziness has caused any sense of skill to diminish.

So what do I do? I agree to play softball... in the dead of summer... in North Carolina. Luckily the team is full of either early thirty somethings and older 20 year olds so we are in the same injury range. I was just looking to get some exercise and some friendly interaction.

I did not HORible, but pretty close. My first at bat, I swung and missed the first two pitches (You only get three total in an at bat). I made contact in the last pitch, but it was reminiscent of Willy Mays Hayes at bat in Major League. I kind of half swung and got it near the hands. I squeal led internally and started to run. I got my first base hit. It almost ended in the same way, only I was picked off when the short stop made the catch and I was half way between first and second.

My second at bat was fair, but I hit it straight to the third baseman and I had no chance of getting to first. We lost 13-7 but I had fun, or I went delirious from heat... either one could be true.

Handy Man

We have been in the house for three weeks now and things are slowly getting back to normal, yet there is still a lot of work to be done. I've started taking up a few projects to make the house a little better.

The first project was changing a door lock. Mind you, I have very little experience at fixing things so I'm doing a lot of this for the first time. For some reason there is a door in the bonus room that we could not lock because we didn't have a key. We searched the house and never found a working key so I had to replace the locks. Truthfully, it was pretty easy. A lot of the parts already in the door worked so I just needed to change the lock part. After 15 minutes we had a working lock and now we don't have to worry about people being able to walk in. I'll be honest I was quite happy with myself.

The next on the list were shelves, and I mean a lot of shelves. So far I have put two more shelves in the storage area, a cabinet and shelf for The Wife's area, and four more shelves in the office. I have done shelves in the past, but it generally ended up slanty or with extra holes in the wall. Since I now own the walls and shelves I thought I might want them to be done right. I got the leveler out and even measured at least twice. I did have a couple of problems. Once shelf bracket does not want to stay in place, it keeps fall out. I got it to stay, but I don't think it's 100% secure, but it will do for now.

Hopefully by next week The Wife and I can get the boxes out of the office so we can start to hang pictures. That's when the house will feel like its done.

Come On!

Last night Boston Stevie and I were sitting in a live truck waiting for a press conference when he got the idea to look at the competitors websites. We did find any new info on our story, but we did find this story. If you don't want to go to the link, the quick version is this old woman took an insurance on her grandson worth $100,000. Come to find out she has done this in the past to her other husbands and now they are looking into see if she killed them for money. Boston Stevie saw that she has a connection to Ohio and immediately thought that she had to be from Ironton.

Back in June he did a blog post on a rock from the Ohio River and the man who dug up the rock just happened to be from my home town. I wrote a response about how every time something news worthy comes out of my home town. He thinks this is funny and did a search using only these three words: Ohio, Woman and Insurance. The first item on the list was from the Herald Dispatch with this title Ironton native with 5 dead spouses 'obsessed with cash.' CRAP! Why did she have to be from Ironton? Boston Steve went into hysterics and I started down a shame spiral... yet again. How can this continue to happen, you never hear about Van Wert, Loveland, or somewhere like Versailles it's always Ironton. Why not national coverage on our Memorial Day parade? Ironton needs an overhaul and has to stop getting all this bad press. I'm probably blowing it out or proportion because I'm from there, but twice withing a month is way too much bad press.

Grin and Bear It

Today is one of the two days out of the year that I do not enjoy... I had to go to the dentist. This is sort of one of necessary evils in life. I know I don't have to go, because I didn't go for six years and the only issue was one small cavity. Yet I'm getting older and I don't want to end up like The Wife's brothers... toothless. This cleaning did not hurt as much as my first one a year and a half ago, but still, I have sensitive gums and all the poking and prodding hurt like hell. That's when I realized that most of the dental tools have not changed since the middle ages.

Oh sure you have the X-ray and some fancy computer, but look at the tray of picks and sharp pointy objects they use. How can they not have some kind of laser, nanobots or something to clean your teeth? Are we not in the 21st century? If you make tools for the medical field you need to come up with something that was not used during the Spanish Inquisition.

I'm glad I no longer have to do that awful tasting fluoride mouth piece thing. If you do not remember or do not know, back when I was a youngster way back in the early 80s, they had a mouth piece and they would fill it with this.... ooze and put it in your mouth. It was full of fluoride and suppose to help keep cavities away. It tasted awful, and they tried masking the taste with crappy flavors. The first was grape and I hated grape, but they thought all kids love grape. So I had this nasty substance in my mouth that had a hint of grape. I wanted to throw up every time I saw that stuff. As far as I can tell that's the only improvements in the dental field in the last 50 years.

Maybe the next time I visit they will have created something less painful, who am I kidding it'll still hurt.

Cashing In

It's been nearly two weeks since my last baby name update and somehow I am still getting people to vote. I will admit the number of votes has slowed down to a trickle, but there has been a total of 34 votes so far. Baby Cash has taken a majority lead with 18 votes (52%), then you basically have a battle for second place. Nathan has 8 (23%), but J Dog is right there with 7 (20%) and bring up the rear is Englebert with 1 vote (2%). Finally someone voted for Englebert, I mean what a great name for a baby; you can call it Bert or Eng or Engle... the options are countless but I guess it's not cool.

When I started this there was talk about Melissa's family possible coming in and swamping the vote to make Nathan/Nathaniel the clear winner. Well, I guess not, I guess everyone is coming around to the awesomeness of Cash.

I'll keep this thing going till I can go a week without getting a vote.

Cleaned Up

So many of you are probably wondering if the gnomes made the trip to the new house. All I have to say is YEAH! Most even got a little touch up in the paint department. The oldest one, second from the left he was so faded that he was nearly white. Wilson the Gypsy Moth catcher need some extensive work as well, but everyone else was just a touch up. Gilbert got a little dinged up on the San Antonio trip so he's back in form. I also have received a new "welcome" gnome that is added to the group. I don't know what the neighbors think of them, but no news is good news I guess.

Head Shot

I was about to do a post on the gnomes at the new house, instead I shall embarrass my nephew. This is Devon, for some reason he wanted to dye his hair blue for the second straight summer. Only one problem with this idea, not enough bleach, he was warned and wanted to proceed; the above picture is what happened. Of course he is 12 and everything is a big deal and is very upset about his hair even though he is over 10 hours away from anyone he knows. The Wife and I tried to make things better, but that didn't work so I went for the next fun option torture. He hates having his picture taken and he really didn't want those pictures taken. While all this is going on he dared me to put it on the blog... something you should realize, don't dare me to do something stupid, I generally will do it. Sorry Devon, I though you needed at least one more reason for therapy later in life.

Moving In

OK enough of the bad stuff at work, how about something good like,

WE FREAKING MOVED INTO OUR HOUSE!

I tell you what, buying a house is one of the scariest things and yet one of the happiest moments in my life. We are now in debt more than ever, you don't realize it till you see the mortgage papers and that number that has six digits. Then I have to be in charge of making sure everything works. I no longer can call a super and have him fix it... I am now Snider! Then there is the one good thing. It's my freaking house! I don't have to deal with attached neighbors, because we don't have any. We don''t have to worry about being kicked out because the owners got an itch and want us out. As long as we make our mortgage payments we are golden!

We signed on Friday and I started moving boxes that day, the only problem for me was, it was FREAKING 96 DEGREES that day. Since we only had one dolly and not enough room in my car for a lot of boxes with the dolly, I had to lug out boxes from Fried Chicken Drive to the car by hand. I could usually get three big boxes and two medium boxes and five small ones in one trip so that meant I had to make six to seven trips by hand. After five round trips to the new house I had to sit for a while, then lay down and pass out for 20 minutes while Lucy tried to figure out what was going on with this new place. Saturday went a lot smoother, well except for UHaul giving me the wrong truck, We had about 20 people helping us and we got everything in the house before 11:30.

The biggest thing I have found about buying a house is all the things we need. We have faux hardwood floors so the floors hurt our feet if we go barefoot for more than 20 minutes. We had to buy a couple of floor rugs to solve that. We needed more shelves, temporary blinds, curtains in the bedroom (don't want to give the neighborhood a show). Then we have the outdoor stuff, I bought a lawnmower and a weed eaters. I could have bought one off craigslist, but I'm not mechanically inclined so I have no idea if someone is trying to sell me a lemon so I just bought a new one. Even though I have spent more money this week than I have ever spent, we only put the lawn mower on a credit card.

Even after a week we still have boxes everywhere, but the house is starting to look nice. The Wife did a good job in the living room and bedroom and I'm slowly getting things organized in the office. I feel like I'm now forced to be a grown up, I own land and I guess I have to be responsible and stuff. Who am I kidding, I'm a dork and always will be one

Pregnant Military People Might Want to Stay Away from North Carolina

For the second time within a year I'm covering a pregnant military person being killed. The first was Maria Lauderbach the Marine that was allegedly killed by Cesar Laurean in his house near Camp Lejune. Now I'm covering the death of Megan Touma in Fayetteville, NC near Fort Braggs. Both murders were creepy and oddly enough have a lot of similarities:

• Both were pregnant


• Both were from Ohio (Lauderbach Dayton area and Touma Cincinnati area)


• Both were having affairs with married men (Touma may not have know that)


• Both murders were grizzly in nature (one was burned and barried in the back yard the other was found rotting in a hotel room)


• Both murders happened in North Carolina


• Both outside predominate military bases


• Both had gone missing and no one reported anything


• Both families contacted the military wondering where their children were

Then there are the strange outside events like the fact that The Serg and I have covered each event and were forced to stay over night.

This latest murder has me a little creeped out, after the murder a note was sent to the Fayetteville Observer by someone claiming to be the killer and he in fact has killed in other states and is taking on the call sign of the Zodiac Killer, there was a symbol of the Zodiac Killer supposedly in the hotel room. For the most part police think it is not a serial killer, but a well crafted rouse to pull them away from the real killer.

Then the military is keeping REALLY quite about this one. It's not like we normally get a lot of info out of the military to begin with, but it's even worse. They actually called a press conference to say they can't say anything. The reason I used "person of interest" earlier is that no one is allowed to use the guys name even though every media outlet has it. I think the Laurean/Lauderbach case got to the military and they would rather say nothing and hope that everything will go away.

Fayetteville police are stuck in the middle here, they have to deal with the military so they can't give the media any information on tape, but also they don't want to have what happened in Onslow county and have to do a presser every 3 hours. Instead the investigator will give out "some" info but has to stay tight lipped a little. He's got a tough job, dealing with hundreds of us media members calling or camping out waiting for any piece of information we can get and trying to get answers to a murder.

While covering these stories it gets a little nutty for us. We get so close to it and we have to joke around to keep out sanity, I Won't go into them, because people will chastise me for being insinative, all I will say we are going to burn in hell for some of the jokes we are saying. I'm just hoping that another murder like this will not happen and if it does that it is far away from North Carolina or has zero Triangle connections.

A Pup Named Lucy Lu

OK I took some flack from people thinking I called my dog stupid. I don't think she is stupid and this week I am finding out how smart she is. She has figured out the concept of "catching." We bought a blue squeaky ball and she loves that think. I decided to throw it in the air and next thing I know she caught it! Out of the next 10 times she caught it three which is not too bad, she's a pup and overly excited and forgets to either open her mouth or just close it.

I picked up a treat and wanted to test her catching ability, well come to find out she is just going to wait for the treat to land... after it bounces off her head. So she is making the mental discussion to wait for the treat to land, why do the extra work and try and get it in the air when she can get it off the floor.

Enough on tricks, I think is knows something is up with the move. She has been freaking out ever since the boxes moved into the living room. She wants to know what's in the boxes and must get everything out of them. She's just been off the wall as well, we can't wear her out. She's been up at three AM and then again at five, she just wants to play.

What's In a Baby Name Update

I was going to wait till Thursday for a follow up post, but I am shocked at the number of voters I have had so far. You have to remember, according to Google Analytics I average 23-30 hits a day and so far within less than a week I have had 23 votes! First of all Cash took a big lead and is holding everyone at bay with 13 votes. Second place is Nathan with 6, but that's 6 has mostly been votes from the last three days. Then there is the strange shocker of the list... J Dog. Who is voting J Dog... seriously guys, that's the joke name, I know Boston Stevie voted J Dog to be neutral, but I don't by it, he's trying to pull a Pat Buchanan here and mess everything up.

Since I posted the poll I found out that you can not rig the vote by voting every day, one computer IP one vote. Now if you were to log onto every computer you have access too like, 6 edit bays, then you have 6 votes. I'm not saying Shawn is doing this, but who knows, I can't track that kind of thing. My personal goal for this vote is 100. If we get it there, then I think that should be binding and the laws of the land will back me and we will name Shawn and Melissa's baby whatever wins.

Making Things Better

This was kind of a rough week and Friday was the epitome of that. I was dealing with incompetence and people who's news judgement were, well, not very clear nor good and it was driving me crazy. Oh did I also mention I had to deal with President Bush and I did not find that information out till 3:30 and his "drive by" was at 4:30. I'm not going into the annoyance of the day, all I will say is I got everything done that needed to be done. Was it pretty? No, but it got done.

Shawn could see that everything was taking a toll so he, Mellisa and I went to the Wake Forest Carolina Ale House to have a few adult beverages and some food. I went all out bad with the food, a chili Cheddar cheese burger with fries and they had $2 Killians. After a few drinks (not Mellisa, nobody want baby Cash drunk yet) and some good conversation I went home feeling better.

Yet I knew I was still not where I needed to be. Even though a lot of the house is packed, I had one cigar out for just an occasion. I'm not a smoker, but every once in a while I do enjoy a good cigar. So I when out back and lit my Monticello White and relaxed. It was a perfect night, it was in the low 70s, the crickets were chirping and every once in a while a lighting bug would dance on by. I also put Lucy on the lead and gave her a little late night snack she was so calm I actually let her off the lead and she stayed in the backyard, normally when that happens I have to chase her down.

For an hour I sat out there and just relaxed. That's what was needed and I feel so much better, normally I would be bruiting over Friday till probably Tuesday, but now I am done with it.

Boxed In

We are a week away from moving into our very own house and I can't wait. The new reason is not the fact that we will own this house (well, that's one reason), but I am tired of looking at boxes. Every room I enter there is a box; the kitchen has boxes, the bedroom has boxes, the living room and I am currently typing with a box next too me. They cause me to trip over them and then I can't find things because... it's in a box.

The awful thing is I know we are going to need to go out and buy more boxes. All the crap we have won't make it. I can't stand it, I have to go get more boxes! I'm at my wits end and when this is all over I'm going to stack all the boxes up on the street, make a small jump and go all 70s cop move on those boxes (4:50 into the clip)!

What's In a Name

Friends of the monkey Shawn and Melissa are pregnant and due in October and as we near the birth there has been one small question... what to name their son to be. The current name that has been batted around I believe is Nathaniel, but that name is not the most popular choice. Yes, it is a solid name with many options for him through out his life, but the name of choice within the newsroom is Cash.

As you can tell Shawn is a fan of Mr Johnny Cash, I personally think that's a kick ass name. Early on in life he's not going to get it, but later on that name rocks! He could be anything from musician, power broker or even Ohio State Quarterback. Hell, I'm thinking about changing my name to Cash. Yet Melissa's mother is not happy with the name Cash, so that has forced the name to the underground where I am and I shall get a grass root effort going to name the youngster Cash.

You maybe in the mother camp and say that name is way too over the top, who are these people rock stars or something? Well consider this, Shawn is a conservative and with a current agreement the child's initials could be NPR also know as National Public Radio. Well, once this was mentioned that set Shawn off and has given more leverage to Cash. On the same hand though, Cash would end up being CPR. The choices are there, an organization that is funded by the government or a method of saving lives.

To help out I have created a poll over to the left there that will run from now till October 1st and I think the readers should decide the name, of course two options were too few so I added my name, well because I rock and my usual sarcastic baby name Englebert. Rock the vote people, the choice is yours.

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.