Snow Day - Inaugruation Day - Cold Day

It snowed today. I didn't take any pictures. Or Video. Instead I was planning to head to a local school and watch the kids watch Roberts and Obama mangle the constitution. Did I mention it snowed?



With my wife's pictures proving that school was OUT it was time for plan B. At first, to get a feature on what Wednesday Newspaper front pages would be like. That story got moved to another crew when their story fell apart.(Apparently their story fell apart due to lack of attendence and the refusal of the organizers to change the TV to our channel instead of our competition who wasn't even there. *SLAP*)



So at 11:25 I was scrambling to find a child care center with more than 4 kids in the place that was willing to let me barge in and mic up a child, a teacher and the TV. And of course as soon as I'm about to roll into the parking lot of the agreeable YMCA I got the spot news call of the day.



A child has fallen throught the ice into a river in Eden. Well, Eden is a 1 hour drive. But the roads were fine by that time so off I went. I got a call on the way that the child was out of the river so I kinda new that there wouldn't be much in the way of video by the time I arrived.



I was pretty much right. The child got out of the river on his own and was fine. Cold but fine. Not much in the way of video. The area where the kid fell in is out of visual sight. It's a place I'd been before for a previous news story about the town wanting to build a park.



I didn't think I was going to get any video until I found and almost hidden access drive to the old shut down railroad. Bingo. I had to walk the planks out to near the middle of the span to get a clean shot but it was worth it. Cold but worth it.



I found out where the kid lived but no one would answer the door. I could hear them moving around inside, even saw the blinds being lowered as I walked up but they didn't answer. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that the 8 year old that fell in and his 6 year old brother were 300 yards from home at a frozen river...ALONE. The Eden Police say they're working on that.

So for inauguration day 08...I drove 125 miles and produced 30 seconds of TV.

Exciting.

US Airways Water Landing

Anyone who wasn't glued to the TV for the coverage of the US Airway's water landing could possibly be classified as a little out of touch. I was in the newsroom watching it on 4 monitors and on the internet Twittering, Googling, and generally searching for information that my help our inner newsroom cause. But I'm like that when it comes to news.



But as much as I pine for a good story I would have hated to be in the scrum today in the 20 degrees. It always seems like some of the biggest stories happen in the most inhospitable conditions.



As the accident coverage was unfolding and I was searching for pictures via Twitter and Flickr I found the above picture pretty quickly and it reminded me of a quote from the movie "Talladega Nights" a few years ago...."If you're not first you're last."

The picture that Janis Krums took from the Ferry Boat that was headed to help passengers was the first up close picture of the plane in the water. He posted it quickly from his IPhone and the picture's populartiy has exploded. It's been on all the national news shows, flickr users have re-posted the photo many many times, his Twitter following has doubled, he's been interviewed by MSNBC and he's apparently sold the photo rights to the AP.



So whether or not there's a better picture out there...Krums is the winner for quick thinking because he was first and who's gonna search through a thousand pages of other picture's now looking for something better.

And the only reason he was able to take that picture was because he jumped on the ferry to see if he could help rescue people in the water.

Movie Time

This looks fun...