Requiem for a Vet

I got surprised today.

While strolling through the blogosphere, I saw my picture!

Lenslinger wrote a post essentially about my impending release from the prison of tv news. That, my friend, is quite a compliment. Stew is the photog’s voice in the blogosphere, putting in words the frustrations, the joys, the daily grind we photos go through everyday. It was not uncommon for me to be feeling the same thoughts that Stew would write about. Of course, he would write about it better. Maybe it’s his thesaurus.

Thanks, Stew.

Merry Christmas

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Frozen mast

A big crap-ola this morning.

Kevin and I went to Bay City to do a live shot on the “Holiday House” thing the city is doing. A bunch of houses are decorated for the holiday, and they open for the public.

We went to one of the houses, where we planned to do a “walk-and-talk”/live interview with the PR person for the event.

Well, that was the plan. The truck had other ideas.

The mast was frozen DOWN, which is a first for me. It’s not uncommon for a mast to freeze while extended, but to not want to raise up…that’s a new one.

I knew there was a problem when after I pushed the “raise” button and the generator was kicking and chugging and the mast was going up extremely slow. When I looked at the mast, I could see the ice on the mast, being spread out by the raising mast. After kicking the circuit breaker three times, with the mast only half way up, I called it quits.

Needless to say, the people who own the house where we were, in addition to the lady we planned to interview, were a bit unhappy at getting out of bed early for no reason. They were nice about it, but unhappy nonetheless.

Posted by photogguy at 1:59 PM 5 ramblings

Introducing Floyd T. Flanigan

This is Floyd T. Flanigan. You can tell he’s Irish by how pale he is.

Floyd will be making appearances throughout the winter…as the weather allows.

During today’s live shot, the newscast director was asking for different shots of the snow falling througout the newscast. I had a shot of Floyd for the end of the newscast. For some reason, it didn’t make air.

Whatever.

Posted by photogguy at 3:02 PM 2 ramblings

Stream of Consciousness

This is an example of how my mind works when unencumbered with consciousness (in other words, while dreaming). Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Faint of heart should turn away now. You’ve been warned.

————————————————

I was driving the live truck to the airport to do a noon live shot. When I get there and approach the spot where I usually park, I notice that a troop of Boy Scouts have set up in my spot doing Boy Scout stuff. I approach the guy in charge and ask why they’re there, he says they’re in a bad location for the tornado. I ask “What tornado?” and look northwest. I jump in the live truck and drive away, to find myself in the newsroom and see Lisa (morning show EP) with her feet on the desk drinking. I tell her about the airport and the tornado, and she says to not worry about it, we don’t have a noon show today, we don’t have any news until 11pm. I tell her she should maybe slow down on the drinking, she won’t want to produce the show drunk, then the bad weather hits….

—————————————-

And the alarm goes off. Good Lord, I have vivid dreams, and they leave me tired.

Scary, huh. I did warn you.

Posted by photogguy at 3:53 AM 1 ramblings

About Blogs

I started blogging just about a year ago, timidly and with varying frequency. As I expanded my blog reading since then, I’ve tried to find my voice. It’s a work in progress.

One thing is certain…I’ve become addicted to blogs. Not posting, so much, but reading other people’s blogs. They very from the inane, sexual, work related, mommy blogs, funny blogs. There are about a dozen that I frequent on a daily basis, and those are in the links on the right side of my blog. There are, however, a few that stand above the rest.

The first blog I started reading, and admiring, is Viewfinder BLUES. Stewart is the thinking man’s photog. Not only does he enthrall with his story-telling, he tends to throw a philosophical edge to his thoughts.

“The Adventures of Chad Cleanly”, while technically not a blog, is extremely entertaning as it pokes fun at the workings of a television newsroom. I’ve posted about it before, but I can’t recommend Chad enough. I even have an autographed picture from Chad!

Certifiable Princess, better known as CP, writes about the things that happens in all aspects of her life. What makes her an interesting read is the attitude she uses to cope with life, be it her 18 year old daughter marrying an older British guy to her dealing with bipolar disease. Usually a very funny read, even her serious posts are a good read.

But my current favorite is Crystal. She writes incredibly well, weaving tales that are, all at once, funny, poignant, thought-inspiring, and inane! I love her writing so much I just spent a sizeable part of the last five days reading all her posts. Watching her grow into an outstanding writer, as well as watching her life take a great turn, is inspiring. She’s due to have a baby any day now, so a lot of her current posts are about that, but her blog is definately not a mommy blog. In fact, if you’re thinking of reading her at work, beware, she curses a lot, but with mirth. I highly recommend visiting Crystal.

Posted by photogguy at 1:28 PM 2 ramblings

“Who’ll stop the rain?”

I’d've paid real money for someone to stop the rain this morning.

As I posted yesterday, it rained cats and dogs. It was supposed to change over to snow sometime overnight or early this morning. Didn’t happen

The station sent Kevin up to Saginaw to do live shots, while Randy and I did live shots in Flint. And the rain just wouldn’t stop. I’d would have preferred snow falling to the heavy rain, because it’s easier to deal with snow. Snow just isn’t as wet.

The rain was relatively light as Randy and I drove to the live shot location, but as soon as I parked the live truck, the deluge recommenced.

This is a shot of Randy. As you can see in the pic, Randy’s coat is soaked. And this was just the start of the two hour morning show.

Randy used the ice build up on the railing to demonstrate how slippery the roads were.

In an attempt to keep the camera dry, I put a small garbage bag over the lens as well as another garbage bag over the back end of the camera, then the rain cover over the camera. It seemed to work well. I would find out later I was wrong.

All during the live shots, the rain just didn’t let up. It was non-stop, and actually got worse for the last hit at the end of the newscast through the tear down process when we were done. By the time I got back to the station, however, the rain had all but stopped.

Typical.

Just as I had finished my last bite of breakfast, I was sent to shoot video of a tree that had fallen into a street. Apparently, the tree was old enough for the extra weight of the ice made part of the tree break off. When I stepped out of the newsroom, I was glad to see the rain was still only at a drizzle. By the time I got to the tree, however, yep, you guessed it, the deluge had re-commenced.

My attitude was quickly taking a nose-dive.

After the morning editorial meeting, I was assigned to the weather noon live shot. Great. Just what I needed. More standing in the rain. I was still wet from the morning live shots.

Well, the noon live shot showed me that my precautions earlier in the morning didn’t do much to keep the water from the lens.

When I set up the noon shot, I noticed fogginess in the picture. I cleaned the lens hoping that was the problem. Nuh-uh. No such luck.

I tried using a hair dryer on the lens, hoping that would clear the pic. No such luck. In fact, the fogginess appeared to get worse.

By the time we hit air, this is how the shot looked…

Nice, huh?

When I got back to the station, I took the lens off the camera, and lo and behold, I saw the fog inside the lens. In fact, I saw a few drops of water in there as well. Water in a lens is not a good thing. I told the engineers about it, but I’m not sure they can do much. If they want to fix it, the lens will have to go back.

I hate when my gear isn’t working correctly.

Posted by photogguy at 5:59 PM 2 ramblings

Rain becoming Snow.

Man, did it rain today.

Kevin and I were live this morning in front of Southwestern Academy, doing a preview of the moving of 800 students to a different building.

It was raining cats and dogs on my drive into work this morning, and it didn’t let up during the live shot setup. Luckily, I have an Australian drover coats (you know, those trench coat-like coats cowboys wear in westerns), and it is GREAT at keeping my dry. I also have a hat made of similar material, which is equally great at keeping my head dry.

Later in the day, I was shooting with Matt, doing the story of the move for the afternoon shows, and it was still raining. It was raining so much, I couldn’t keep the lens dry for the live shot.

Sometime tonight, the rain will change over to snow, and we’re expecting anywhere up to seven inches of snow by tomorrow evening. And of course the newsroom is in full speed “We’re all gonna die from the snow!!!” mode.

Good times, good times.

Posted by photogguy at 4:08 PM 2 ramblings

Go Figure.

Back on the 19th of November, I was bored, surfing some blogs, and came across the Christmas Elf Name Generator. Willo posted about it on Medialine. Being bored, I indulged, and had a Christms Elf name generated, and posted about it.

Here’s the weird part. While Google searches have occasionally led web-surfers to my humble blog, none as much as searches for “Christmas Elf Names”. In fact, the number of times Google searches for Christmas Elf Names has led people to my blog far and away outnumbers every other search that has brought up my blog.

WTF? Are people sooo bored that they have to search for Christmas Elf Names? Is our society spiralling downward that fast?

Go figure.