Oh Deer!!

Well, this morning I killed Bambi's mother. Yep. I hit a deer while I was going 65 m.p.h. Luckily I was in my work vehicle which was my 2002 Explorer. Thank God I was driving something substantial or I probably wouldn't be alive today. The doe came out of nowhere and I just caught a quick glance at her before the impact. It was a very hard hit. I hurt my wrist a little with the gripping of the steering wheel.

The whole of my front end is bashed in, my radiator was punctured and both headlights were knocked out. Both quarter panels are crumpled.





But at least I'm alive..

On The Desk

My morning is starting out kind of slow. Our regular desk person, Russ, called off this morning. Since there's no one to call in, I take it upon myself to sit and listen to scanners, lest we miss something overnight.

Soon, I'll be sending myself out to do a live shot about a 1st grader who may have died from meningitis. And the night is still young.

It's 8:15am on a Tuesday...

All apologies to Billy Joel but I couldn't think of a better header.

My cell phone goes off as I'm getting ready to log onto the computer at work . I hate when the phone goes off and I see it's from the desk so close to my shift ending. I answer it, knowing it can't be good.

"Brian, we have sort of a standoff situation going on. US Marshalls and the Joint Fugitive Task Force were serving a warrant. Guy is barricaded in his bathroom. Can you go scope it out?"

I grumble a half-hearted affirmative and head off to pee before leaving. You have to do that. Never know when you'll get the chance at a standoff. I head over to the scene, (first on scene, I may add!) thankfuly the scene is about five minutes away from the station. I see that it's not a full fledged standoff. The SWAT team hasn't brought out MOTHER, the armored vehicle that they use in standoff situations. Only a few members are around and the US Marshalls along with the Cleveland Police are not weapons ready.

And then the neighbrhood wakes up. They all come out and stand behind me asking all inds of questions. I feel like the Today show with all those idiots standing in back of Matt and Katie. I get all the angles from the people. Murder, drugs, it was a chase, etc. I finally turn around and tell the looky-lou's that it was a warrant being served for a Federal Weapons Charge.

After shutting the crowd up, I notice SWAT going heading into the house. They bring a woman out and then they start shaking hands.

The guy wasn't there. The woman that came out was his girfriend. She was asleep and didn't know what was going on until SWAT knocked on her door. Turns out the JFTF and the Marshalls got a tip from an informant and they called SWAT to get this guy. He's vowed not to surrender.

There was no man barricaded in a bathroom. It was all over in 45 minutes. I got a little OT and was able to get home quickly.

So endeth my day with a little excitement.

Happy Presidents Day

Another day of nothing happening. The courts are closed, it's about 9 degrees outside and no one wants to be outside in it. All the bad news, the 5 people shot at a bar, happened over the weekend when I don't work.


Even the fire I checked out today turned out to be nothing.

As Expected...Nothing Happened

Yep, as my last post about the wind warning coming in and battering the North Coast of Ohio said, plans were made for disaster.

And nothing happened. There were three wires down on my shift. Two cable lines and one electric line.

And the winds hit 56 m.p.h.

And as for chicken little, the sky didn't fall or blow away.

Panic Before The Storm

I had just come back from my live shot this morning when I'm accosted by our morning EP. "Hey..we're gonna be busy tomorrow morning. Run and gun..run and gun..we're going to be shooting and feeding. Moving from one place to another and feeding stuff back. " This is accompanied by wild arm gestures and faces. Hoo boy...here we go again.

We're supposed to experience a huge drop in temperature overnight with winds becoming a steady 25 to 35 m.p.h. and possibly gusts up to 70 m.p.h. Today our temperature got up to 60 degrees but tomorrow it will only get to 29. Big temp change but what we'll be looking for is wind damage.

There's nothing worse than a producer that has been programmed to salivate live Pavlov's dog over weather. It's like someone rang a bell.

My fellow photog in the morning, Barry, told our EP that we won't be putting our masts up in high winds. And of course our EP asks, "Why?"

"Beacuse they will snap in the high winds.", said Barry.

"Well...we need to feed video back!!", whined the EP.

"Only way will have to be line of sight and then that's no guarantee either."

"But, we'll need to get video of all the damage.."

"I'm not losing a mast and my job because you want me to put a mast up in a high wind.", said Barry.

"I agree, " I said. "We'll go line of site unless the dish on the truck can't take the wind either." And we walked away.

So tomorrow we'll shoot, and drive to a LOS area and feed back, and then drive and shoot and feed, drive, shoot, feed, etc...

While a pool of saliva forms around our producer.

Testing mobile blogging.

Testing mobile blogging.

The National Media = Whining Brats

I'm actually embarassed about the way the the National Media has been acting over this whole Cheney shooting incident. The way they've been whining and bitching about the fact that they weren't alerted first about the incident.

For the love of all that is Holy, the National Media doesn't work for the White House. It's not the White House's responsibility to inform the media about what happened. Last time I checked, David Gregory and the rest of those idiots that sit there and ask the questions, are "journalists". They want information? Fine. Go do some investigating instead of having it spoon fed to you.

If I recall correctly, no one in the country is required to talk to or even report anything to the media. The media does the reporting and investigating. If Armstrong chose to talk to one little local paper and not the National Press, oh well, tough shit National Media. The police don't even have to tell the press anything.

The National Media is acting like a bunch of whining children that didn't get their way. They got scooped by a small town paper and they can't stand it.

This seems to show what the mentality is of the National Press. This exchange is from The Drudge Report. David Gregory acts like a spoiled child who doesn't get his way when he asks a question before the Press Conference had even started:

NBC REPORTER TO WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: 'DON'T BE A JERK'
Tue Feb 14 2006 08:54:18 ET

NBCNEWS chief White House correspondent David Gregory warned President Bush's spokesman on Monday not to be a "jerk!"

The heated exchange came during a press gathering at the White House.

Gregory asked White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan about the Cheney hunting accident.

'David, hold on, the cameras aren't on right now,' McClellan replied. 'You can do this later.'

'Don't accuse me of trying to pose to the cameras,' Gregory said, voice rising. 'Don't be a jerk to me personally when I'm asking you a serious question.'

'You don't have to yell,' McClellan said.

'I will yell,'' said Gregory, pointing a finger at McCellan at his dais. 'If you want to use that podium to try to take shots at me personally, which I don't appreciate, then I will raise my voice, because that's wrong.'

'Calm down, Dave, calm down,' said McClellan.

'I'll calm down when I feel like calming down,' Gregory said. 'You answer the question.'

'I have answered the question,' said McClellan, who had maintained that the vice president's office was in charge of getting the information out and worked with the ranch owner to do that. 'I'm sorry you're getting all riled up about.'

'I am riled up,' Gregory said, 'because you're not answering the question.'"

END



"You answer the question!!", says David Gregory. Who the hell does he think he is? If David can't play by the set rules of the White House Press Office and wait his turn then David should have his credentials revoked and get a time out.

Sucks To Be Sick

I had to call of work today because I can't keep anything down or anything inside me. In fact, my wife has what I had and ralphed all over the inside of the car this morning. Good thing it's a rental.

Hope to be back tonight for work.

What's That Smell??

Yesterday morning I go to a call of a body in a car. I get to the scene and the body was in the car but the car had caught on fire inside a garage. A windy day pushed the smell of the fire plus burned flesh into my nostrils. Not to mention that I caught a full view of the corpse when a fireman shone his light on the victim for the coroner to take pictures. Blecccch.

My stomach was upset the rest of the day. Put me off food totally.

The Stuff Of Life

It happens once in a lifetime. You meet someone on a story that changes your outlook on life. I met that someone today. His name is Art Goodman. He is small of stature. He is an octagenarian. He has also donated 40 gallons of blood in his life. That is 325 pints. He's saved over 1200 lives.

His first blood donation happened in 1944 on the battlefields of France. He did a direct donation to a fellow soldier whom was wounded very seriously.

He's kept on donating since then. Imagine 40, 1 gallon bottles of milk in your fridge.

That's amazing. And I'm donating tomorrow.

STEELERS WIN!!!!!!

STEELERS WIN!!!

21-10!!!

The Bus gets his Championship and retires!!

And I am very happy indeed!!

Off To Pittsburgh Again...

I'm off to Pittsburgh this weekend.....again!!! I miss my former hometown quite a bit. I consider myself lucky to be able to live close enough that I can just go and drive two hours down the turnpikes and be there.

I'm headed off with the wife to go watch the Super Bowl with friends of ours and no children!!

w00t!!!!


GO STEELERS!!!

MOS Mess

This morning my reporter and I were sent out to get live reaction to President Bush's State of The Union Address. We were sent to Steve's Lunchbox which for reality's sake should be called Steve's Shoebox. This place was tiny, old and slippery with grease.

Oh, I should add, it's inner city and caters to all types, especially the walkers of the street, drinkers of the wine, smokers of the crack and those devoid of housing.

Sure, we're gonna get reaction on the SOTU from a guy who doesn't have a house, let alone a television, a woman who is standing on a street corner, a person who is more interested in drinking or getting high than politics. They all love to be on TV.

How many live sound bites did we get?? One. And that was from the waitress. We were able to get another on tape from a mill worker on their way in for take-out.

Making chicken salad from chicken shit did not happen today. We had horse shit to work with.