Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Ugliest Reporter EVER!


Soooo.....I'm now in charge of entertainment reporting. I get my own little web page on the company's site and I get to report on local and national entertainment. I've always maintained that I have a face for radio (hell I was a deejay for a classic rock station in my younger days) so I don't get the rational behind throwing my mug out there.

So much for staying behind the scenes,

Later,

CS

Saturday, February 02, 2008

SNOW-POKALYPSE!

The Snow started falling last Saturday and didn't stop until around 4 p.m. on Sunday, then it started right back up again on Sunday night. It was SNOW-POKALYPSE!

I got called to come into work at 10 a.m. on Sunday because it was all hands on deck. I told Jonny 5 when he called that there was no way I was even going to be able to get my car out of my driveway to come to work without getting it stuck on my street. He said "Oh the roads aren't that bad you'll be able to make it. Just come down Monroe it'll be fine". After I hung up there were a lot of words uttered that shouldn't have been said around Elliott. Not because I had to go to work, I'm always fine with that, but because I knew I was either going to get stuck or wreck my car on the way there. Morgan wasn't happy either, "Call him back and tell him that someone needs to come and pick you up". I just grumbled (that's what I do...it's kinda my thing) and went outside to shovel the side walk and drive way. I shoveled about 5 feet of sidewalk when my phone rang, "How about if we send someone to get you in one of the stations 4x4 vehicles". This was great news because I knew the car wasn't going anywhere. You see we live on what's called Spokane's "South Hill" it's about 2500 feet up the hill where we live and the hill is pretty steep no matter where you try to drive up or down. Plus there was the matter of not being able to even drive the car on the side street in front of the house because of all the snow.

Morgan and Elliott came outside while I was shovelling.

Morgan and I traded off the shoveling duties. No I didn't make her or anything, she likes to do it. We got all the way to the driveway when the landlord showed up with the snow-blower. We let him take over.


It was 11:30 before I got picked up. Jonny 5 came in a station vehicle himself to get me because everybody was out shooting. We got 3 blocks from my house when he said, "Yeah you never would have made it into work if you had driven your car". I could have told him that, in fact come to think of it I did tell him that. As we were driving to the station, at about 10 mph, we saw car after car stuck in the snow trying to get out of their driveways and on unplowed side streets. I did a phoner over the air with the station about how the conditions were on the drive in. We stayed on the air nonstop with coverage until 7 p.m.

When I got to the station my desk was being used as a set for one of the reporters so I had to sit at one of the producer's desks. The news desk was already manned when I came in so I was just information gathering for the first little bit that I was there. Finding out about power outages, answering phones (they were ringing off the hook, something that would continue all week.), find out what events were canceled in town and what ones were still going on.

We started to hear unconfirmed reports that a jet had slid off the runway at the airport. So we sent a crew out there. Turns out it was a Southwest Airlines Jet (one of the big ones) and it did a 180 immediately after it touched down on the runway. I would have crapped my pants and had a massive heart attack if I was on that plane. Fortunately the plane was fine and no one was injured. I got a call from a woman who said that her father was on the plane, so I got his cell phone number from her and called him. His son who was sitting next to him went on the air, doing a phoner, describing what happened.


We already had a camera and reporter at the airport shooting the plane on the runway, but we wanted someone in the terminal to talk to the passengers as they got bussed of the jet. I went lenslinging down there with a reporter. We shot an interview with two women that were on the the plane and terrified. I ran the tape over to the live truck that was shooting the jet, feed it back and my reporter fronted the story live with the plane as the backdrop. He stayed with the live truck and the other reporter and photog and I went back to the station.
I don't usually don't shave on Sundays so that's why I'm looking a little scruffy.

When I got back the chief photog said, "Yeah, here's the deal. We don't have enough photogs, so you're going to have to shoot a live shot". I was back out the door with another reporter, going to the plow yard for the 5 and 6 pm news. What's different about Toledo and here is that the photogs run the live microwave trucks here. In Toledo it was a whole union thing, and an engineer had to run the live rig, it was a big pain in the ass. I don't do a lot of live shots here, I can count on one hand how many times I've shot something here and got it on live, and as you can imagine the trucks kind of are complex, not like just operating a DVD player or anything. Fortunately the 5 and 6 hit went off with out a hitch. I even got on a third time before we went off at 7pm. We got sent to a carport at an apartment complex that fell down and crushed a bunch of cars.
I was able to drive there shoot it and drive to a place where I could get a live shot and do another hit.

I ended up staying til midnight working the desk and got a ride home from a photog.

Monday I tried to drive to work and promptly got stuck in the street in the snow. School was cancelled so the little toe headed kid across the street who's about 5 or 6 was watching as I tried to get the car out. He decided to put his two cents in, "You should'a bought a twuck". I took a breath a answered back to him, "Yeah, well you shouldn't talk to strangers." he didn't say anything else after that. Fortunately a good samaritan towed me out and I bought some chains the next day. I had to use the chains until they plowed my street Thursday night.

The snow was so deep that day it came up to Elliot's waist. and she wasn't even all the way in the snow.


Morgan took a picture of this Icicle in the back yard. She really liked it, the thing was huge. The neighbor kid (different kid) knocked it down on Friday. She had words with him about it. She said he "killed her joy".

In all we had 23 inches of snow fall this week. It was supposed to snow today, but we only got a little. I'm glad, I'm over the snow. I thought we got a lot in Toledo. This is how high the snow is piled up next to my drive way.

I had to get after the same neighbor kid that broke Morgan's favorite icicle for climbing on the snow pile and knocking all the snow back in the driveway. I'm planning on yelling at little kids to get out of my yard while shaking a cane when I'm old.

Back to the Superbowl

Later,

CS