Sunday, January 29, 2006

And the winner is.....

Not me....but I'm OK with that.

The winners in the two categories I was nominated in are more seasoned than I am, they are working with top notch reporters and producers(no disrespect to my great co-workers, especially considering my entries were 90% self produced with only 1 of 4 of the stories involved having any reporter involvment, and he was sitting with me tonight.)

I am proud to say I was beat by Mike Rose and Ted Nelson, both of WTVF. They work for a top notch station in a fantastic News Market and have both paid their dues and deserve the honor.(Althought Mike won 4 times! Share the wealth:))

There's always next year. And I will work toward that time with the goal of coming back to Nashville for more Karaoke.(I'm still thinking about whether to share that story or not.)

Silver circle inductee Lee Meredith had one of the best quotes of the evening when he said,"There's no technology that trumps great storytelling."

I'll keep that in mind.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Nashville - Pictures

We arrived in Nasvhille on Friday Afternoon. After checking in we proceeded to our room on the 22nd floor of the Renaissance Hotel. I love the view. This the highest up I've ever stayed.




This is the view from the elevators. That building to the right, we are calling the Batman Building. It sit's omnisciently over the bars and saloons of Broadway staring down on all that is Nashville's nightlight. More about that, and Karaoke, later.




It's almost time for the Emmy Awards cremonies to begin.

UPDATE - Another picture....


Holy Emmy Awards Batman!!!



This is the view of the 'Batman' Building from Broadway taken Friday night.

Did I mention Karaoke? Later.

It's time to head downstairs for cocktails and the Pre-party.

Road Trip - Nashville, TN

Westward Ho!!!! I'm in Nashville, TN for the weekend for the Mid-South Regional Emmy Awards. I am nominated in 2 categories.

I will have pictures up soon.(Have to go buy a transfer cable for my camera. I left mine at home)

--------
Bought the cable transfered some pix.....Here's the nightime view from our room.....



--------
UPDATE - I wasn't going to purchase the internet service here at the hotel at $13 a day but I decided it was easier than sitting in a Krystal Burger Restaurant (where I posted from earlier) or any other hotspot here in downtown Nashville. So now I have the internet in my room. I am trying to upload a couple of pix to Flickr before heading down to the ceremony.
--------
UPDATE - I couldn't get Flickr to work on this connection. I had to use the Blogger Photo uploader and it worked perfectly. Thanks Blogger!

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Church Steeple

From the load on the truck it looks like the guys from PFI Steeple Service have a couple of more visits with the Big Man before they're done for the day.

Steeple

This steeple is being placed on the rooftop of Woodlawn Baptist Church on North Main Street in High Point. After 50 years of service the chruch's old steeple started deteriorating and even causing leaks in the roof. They dismantled the old steeple, put a new roof on the church and then they purchased a new steeple.

But the guys in charge of this lofty project almost didn't finish this one.

The crane operator, working from the truck, raised the spire into position above the bell housing and started lowering it onto the bell housing at the direction of his littler brother who is inside of it to secure it into position. When he pushed the lever to lower the crane a few more inches the truck lurched and the steeple dropped 2 feet bouncing around on top of the bellhousing assembly.

It was surely Divine Intervention that kept the whole assembly from crashing to the ground.


Steeple (3)

After they safely secured the pieces together they hollered down to ask me if I got it on video. Of course I did!

The Church did save the old bell from the original steeple and have it installed in the new one.

Greensboro Signs

There are 9 new signs in Downtown Greensboro that are designed to help you find your way to some popular downtown destinations and they aren't standard government issue.


GSO Signs (3)

The signs are a project of Downtown Greensboro Incorporated and are literally works of art. They are being called Wayfinding signs and were built by Lyndon St. Artworks which is also located in downtown Greensboro.

The informational part of the signs are an almost standard rectangular shaped sign, with the destinations on the face. But on top of the sign is a skyline view of Greensboro with a 3-dimensional tree scape in front of the cityscape.

GSO Signs (1)

The post holding the sign 7 to 8 feet up is a separate work of art itself featuring iron cast details of city culture built into the four 1 inch square tubular supports. The artsy details in the signpost include Grasshopper baseball, The Greensboro 4, from the 1960 Woolworth sit ins, and several other Greensboro area icons.

GSO Signs

I was also told that there is some type of surprise built into the signs. I didn't see anything that was out of the way other than the artwork itself, but it's piqued my interest.

GSO Signs (2)

A 10th sign is scheduled to be unveiled later this year in the new Center City park that is under construction in the background of the above picture.

Friday, January 13, 2006

BIG LINK

I'm the BIG LINK....It's me....tell your friends...Link to me.

Amber Alert

The call went out around 9 A-M in the little Alamance County community of Swepsonville just south of Interstate 85.

All available units were needed....The Sheriff's Department, the Rescue Squad, the Fire Department, a boat with a couple of swimmers, Animal Control officers and a veterinarian.

It was an Amber Alert of unusual proportions.

Amber Horse (1)

If you look, really, really hard in the highlighted box you won't see much because of my distance from her and the low rez nature of the cell phone camera, but take my word for it, Amber is there and she is in the water.

Amber Horse

Maybe this shot is better....it's a screen shot from the LCD on the side of my XDCam.

Amber is a 20-something-year-old thoroughbred Mare, and she's blind. She wandered to a far corner of her pasture next to the river and stumbled in a hole and fell into the river.

Five miles downstream her owner and the assembly of rescue volunteers caught up with Amber, who was swimming back and forth, looking feeling for a place to exit the chilling water of the Haw River.

Using the rescue boat and a couple of ropes Amber was coaxed to the shore. Getting her up the steep, muddy, bank would be another story.

Amber struggled time after time for more than an hour to exit the swift current of the swelled river, but with her hoofs slipping and sliding and her strength waning her human helpers had to come up with a different solution.

They decided best course of action would be to use the ropes and a lot of muscle (and a tractor hooked up to the ropes) to pull her from the water.

A couple of large heave-hoes and Amber was pulled up onto the riverbank, shaking and trembling from the cold and exhaustive effort she had put forth to survive.

They tried to coax Amber to stand up and walk up the hill to level ground which leads out of the woods but the horse was just too tired and not positioned well to push her massive body up from the ground.

After more than an hour of resting on the riverbank more roping was tethered around the horse and the tractor was attached to the rope to pull Amber up to level ground. A shot of medicine from the veterinarian and some carrots brought to the scene by a neighbor and Amber was almost ready to stand and walk away from this trying ordeal.

To get her on her feet the tractor was used again, this time lifting her with the frontloader scoop attached the the homeade rope harness.

Amber bucked to life and stood there for a few minutes as the rescue parties let out a few well deserved woo-hoos and finally after almost 6 hours since she fell in the cold water of the Haw River, Amber was on her way home.

The Amber Alert was over.

WRAL - Breaking News

OK, so I find this a bit amusing....

I was checking out WRAL's Live at Show on the internet because they had helicopter aerials from the story I was at Today, which they called breaking news along with another set of aerials from a log truck crash with they also had as breaking news. Well enough....Two breaking stories brought to us by Sky Five....and on the internet to boot.

But the third story was kind of funny to me....It was an AP story that was actually from the News and Observer about the sale of the Myrtle Beach Pelicans baseball team. Only funny because Capital Broadcasting owns (or is selling) the baseball team and owns(not selling) WRAL-TV.

I just find it odd...Hey let's report on us from an outside source!

(disclaimer - I don't know that they didn't break the news first on their on air newscast. Still Odd!)

Friday, January 06, 2006

Business Cards

Almost anyone in any type of job collects business cards to keep up with their contacts, but when you're in the TV business the collection of business cards can grow to be quite diverse and interesting.

Business Cards (2)

A lot of my cards are Police, Fire, EMS cards. This was one of the various models of Sheriff Gerald K. Hege cards.

Business Cards - 2

There are also lots of Laywers, politicians, government officials and a plethera of tow truck companies.

Business Cards - 2 (2)

Some of my favorite cards are from the local NASCAR teams.

Business Cards - 2 (1)

And the collection wouldn't be complete without a ton of cards from other TV reporters and photogs that I have run into or worked with over the past 13 years.

Business Cards

I met Jim Cantore at a NASCAR Race a couple of years ago.

Business Cards (1)

Another staple business card is the 'free food' card and the 'buy 5 get one free' card.

Business Cards (9)

And cards to get us back to great places to eat. (interesting opaque plastic card.)

Business Cards (4)

This card is for that one day that me and some deputy get into a pissing match....

Business Cards (7)

That's on the back of this.....

Business Cards (8)

I also have cards from a familiar blogging buddy....

Business Cards (6)

Some of my card collection goes back to the mid to late eighties when I was just a kid. This one is my parents 'Show' card from their country music singing days.

Business Cards (3)

Most of the cards I collect get deposited onto my computer desk until I take the time to insert them into the card holding book.

I haven't kept up with getting the cards inserted into the book lately.

Business Cards (12)