What Does Fun Consist Of?

Possibly my idea of fun and your idea of fun may not mesh but I got a kick out of what I was asked to do this morning. I was asked if I'd be able to shoot b-roll of a 25 acre campus of buildings at 6:25 a.m. to help out our dry live shot. And to feed it back before our 6:40am hit.

Nothing like trying to get around 20 some odd acres without use of my live unit which happened to be broadcasting said live shot and have it back in 15 minutes.

Nothing like a little planning, huh?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

What A Great Day

When the generator of your live truck dies on you...twice. Both times right before your scheduled hit.

Made my day.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I Now Have A Crackberry

I was able to get a Blackberry for my personal phone so now I can blog (or not) blog mobile. Hopefully I'll be able to bring posts quickly instead of waiting until I get home to blog.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Test

Test
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

People I Get to Meet On The Job

I'm a very lucky man. I get to see a lot of things that other people do not get to see and i owe it all to my job. Ordinarily I don't work weekends but due to a scheduling conflict, I was asked to come in this Saturday. I'm glad I was able to do it because I got to meet two wonderful celebrities from the Food Network.

First, I was able to meet Alton Brown. I love his show GOOD EATS. I guess it's how he shoots the show and adds how the chemistry of cooking is so important. Being a cinematographer for a while of his life is what attracts me to his show. Plus he's a funny man and when the time for our live show hit, he kicked it up a notch.(Ooops, sorry, wrong chef!!)



Second of the Food Network celebrities that we were scheduled to interview live was Giada De Laurentiis. Honestly I'd never heard of her before but after meeting her, I don't think I'll ever forget her. She was extremely charming and powerfully beautiful. I did have a difficult time pinning a lav mic on her because of what she was wearing but eventually with her help and total disregard of a ham handed photog pawing her, she was successfully mic'ed up for the live shot.



We were giving a signed copy of Giada's newest book to a caller but when Alton found that out, he took the book and drew a mustache on her picture and signed it with a caricature of himself. All in good fun. of course. When we showed it to Giada, she yelled over to Alton, "What are you?? Twelve?" Alton's answer, "Four actually. But it's accurate because being Italian, you'll have a mustache when you're 50."

BANG!!!

Out for a morning live shot on highway preparedness of ODOT for the upcoming winter snow season when getting off an exit ramp....BANG!! It sounded like we got shot, according to my reporter, Jacque. I knew what it was, so I stopped the truck and got out to look at the tire.

Well, as it happens, the tire was flat. Incredible how they always go flat on the bottom, huh?

Russ, our overnight desk guy, was dispatched to get Jacque and take her to our other live shot while I waited for our towing service to come and change the flat. Since I was on a busy offramp that had a sharp curve in it, I was glad that they were coming to change it. I was in a very bad place and had no orange triangles or flares to warn others.

The tow operator came out after a half hour and started to change the tire. I'd already dropped the spare and had that ready for him. I'd also loosened some lug nuts for him but traffic was picking up so I backed off.

He had a hell of a time changing the tire because he forgot his sockets and had to do all eight manually. That ate up a lot of time but eventually he did get it changed and I was off to head back to the station after a morning wasted.

And how bad was the tire damaged? It looked bad out in the field but when I got back to the station, I could have put my fist into the hole that was ripped in the side of the tire. All I have to say is that I'm glad I was doing 25 m.p.h.on the offramp instead of 60 m.p.h. on the highway.

Here's the pics. Sorry, my camera phone is crappy.

BEST.COMMERCIAL.EVER.

I have to say that this is something that makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. If a news team were to actually do it, I'd but them all a round. Two best lines..."SUNNY" and "We're up to 9th place!!"

Pumpkin Roll....Hey, Aren't You??

This morning I set off to Chagrin Falls,OH where the local high school juniors and seniors hold what is called the "Pumpkin Roll". Basically the kids "liberate" pumpkins from local residences and businesses and bring them to the big hill in town. They then proceed to throw smash the pilfered pumpkins onto the roadway. Then they sled down the hill on the remnants of the poor pumpkins. The kids use plastic sleds, recycle containers, cardboard...you name it, they use it. The sledders hit pretty impressive speeds and major injuries are few and far between. Road rash however is a common thing. It's been a tradition for the past forty some years and the police look the other way for the evening....as long as no one gets out of hand. The kids are either very brave or out of this world crazy.

Here's a link to the nights events.

Now, as I was covering the pumpkin roll, a student came up to me and asked, "Hey, are you that guy that has the blog, news something??" I was momentarily speechless. I've never been recognized for this blog. I admitted I was and he said he was a regular reader. He said he likes this blog and all I could muster was "Uhhh...thanks.." But I must apologize to you, my reader in Chagrin Falls, because I didn't get your name but thanks again for recognizing me and saying hey. It really made my day!

Uh-Oh..

Lenslinger's site is down right now...

I hope he remembered to re-up the domain name...

IF not, I'm buying it and putting the screws to his wallet..

Bwaaaaahhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaaa!!!

K, not really.