Howdy, Strangers

Wow. It's been a while since I posted anything to the good ole blog. Hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend. I did... and I didn't.

It started well enough. Dave and I flip-flopped some of our usual days off, so I could have Saturday off. My Central Michigan University pal Mike was in Atlanta for the weekend, visiting from NYC.

Cory and I headed up to Atlanta Saturday morning and hit The Vortex for lunch. Check out their website-- there's some pretty funny stuff on it.

We headed out to Fernbank (The Atlanta natural history museum), which looks pretty cool. It really isn't, though. They ought to call it "the museum of dead, stuffed things."

After a quick nap at the hotel (give me a break- I had to get up early!), it was time for dinner. We met Mike and some of his other friends at Loca Luna in Midtown Atlanta. If you haven't been there, I strongly recommend it. A very cool place.

Cory and Mike haven't ever met each other, but because of the internet, they've spoken via email and weblog dozens of times. Two years later, they finally met in person. I also met some of Mike's old co-workers. Mike was a little bummed that the turnout wasn't so great. I suspect that since it was a holiday weekend, a lot of his Atlanta friends were elsewhere enjoying three days off.

Anyway, that was the cool part of the weekend. Sunday, we had to get back to Columbus so I could anchor the 6pm show. I got to work around 2:30, put my show together. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Because of rain at the Indy 500, the race (which aired on our station) ended four hours late. The 6pm newscast never happened. Glad we rushed back.

Even better (and I say that with sarcasm), our 10pm Fox newscast started late, thanks to delays in the NASCAR race that night, which aired on our Fox Affiliate. Somebody at the station had the bright idea to cut out of the NASCAR coverage early so that we could get our news on the air. The gearheads were not happy. A half-dozen or so pissed-off NASCAR fans called the station to complain, and (lucky me), some bonehead transferred all of the pissed-off phone calls to my desk. As if I have some control over programming decisions. So I got to deal with those calls while I was trying to prepare for my show. Fun, huh?

Memorial Day was also a hoot. I needed to be in Newnan, Georgia (about 1:15 north of here) to shoot a noon baseball game. Hardaway High School was playing in the State Semifinals. Plenty of time to shoot the first game of the series, drive back to Columbus, take a quick shower, rush to the station, put together my show, and anchor the 6pm sports. Cory was going to come with me for the company, and to see some baseball.

Except it was raining.

We didn't even find out for sure that they would be playing until we were already on the road. So the Noon game became a 2pm game. So I didn't get back from Columbus until 5pm... not nearly enough time to take a quick shower, rush to the station, put together my show, and anchor the 6pm sports. The best-laid plans, right?

Somehow, I did it anyway. I ran in the door at work at 5:45. It didn't hurt that I'd stayed late to write most of my show the night before just in case.

More cruddy things happened on Monday besides that (like arranging for the station to buy a satellite window so we could get highlights another Semifinal game in Augusta, only to find out that our master control operator couldn't figure out how to access the satellite feed).

But I digress.

I hope all of you had a nice holiday weekend... and thanks for listening to me bitch yet again.