Jerry Falwell Dies

It's only about 150 miles up the road to Lynchburg, Virginia so when I heard that Jerry Falwell had passed away yesterday I knew I better be ready to head that way. It wasn't long after that thought passed through my head that I got the call to pack a bag.



Bob Buckley and I met up with our Satellite Truck and our co-workers on the scene just 15 minutes before the start of the 5 o'clock news.



Reporter Leah Beno and photojournalist Brad Ingram had a half hour jump start on us and had a package ready for air at 5 about a local guy changing a marquee to reflect the moment.



To help Brad out while he finished up the edit I jumped in, set up and shot the live shot at 5 for Leah and then for Bob at 5:30.





Bob and I also had extra duties besides just turning stories for our station. We were charged with providing our sister stations across the nation with Live reports at 5, 6 and 10 on Tuesday night. (Our 10 PM Story Tuesday)





After doing live shots until 11:05 (the last one was for WTTG) our plan was for Bob and I to get to the hotel and sleep so we could also do the morning lives for our station and our affiliates.



With wakeup time at 3-30 AM we made the most of getting to bed just before midnight and getting up was just as tough as you might think.



We went on the air at 5AM and did 19 Live Shots right up to 9 AM.



After the morning show we found the man who spent time with Jerry Falwell in his last living Moments. Ronald Godwin had breakfast with Rev. Falwell on Tuesday morning.



For the noon news we did a Live Shot with Godwin's thoughts. (That Story Here)



Leah and Brad worked the dayside part of this gig staying in Lynchburg through at least the 6 and possibly the 10 tonight.



Major Kudos to our two Satellite operators Danny Spillane and Joe McCloskey for making all the things happen that must happen (including getting other sat trucks off our designated satellite at the last minute) for these liveshots to be coordinated for each TV Station down the line. As of 6 O'Clock Wednesday the live shot count was up to more than 30.



And of Course we weren't alone in Lynchburg (well, our local market competition wasn't there...???).



TV Stations from across Virginia filed in one after another and all of the Networks were present and accounted for.

This was the CNN Set up.









The Fox Truck from DC came down.



NBC was set up next to us but there shots were cancelled unexplainably.



CBN made an appearance and we watched some of their coverage. They captured some good elements but it was shot a little sloppy.



I will say that the staff, students, members, mourners and everyone we came across while we gathered all of our video and sound were extremely cordial and inviting. That can be tough under such circumstances.

Help Wanted: NASCAR Team

Good Looking, Highly Popular and Talented Superstar Racecar Driver in search of a NASCAR Team willing and ready to seriously compete for Nextel Cup Championship.

Must have fast cars, powerful engines and qualified teamates.

Excellent restrictor plate program a must.

Prior Championships preffered.

Will provide own Sponsorship, Crewchief and PitCrew.

Salary negotiable but must be 8 figures.

Call Junior at 338-8338.*

Ford, Dodge, Toyota need not apply!

Road Trip : Yuma, Arizona

Coming Soon to a TV Near You (if you live in the Triad of NC) or on the web if you don't live in this area....

It's not too often that an out of town trip for the purposes of gathering a news story isn't accompanied by a Hurricane, a sporting event, or a massacre at a...well you get it.

But it was none of the above that took reporter Eric White and I 90 percent of the way across the country to Yuma, Arizona to investigate some suspicious activity on the US Mexico Border.



The Stories about what's going on at the border will start Sunday night but for now I can tell you that it was a fantastic trip, although we almost thought we were going to have to come home as sone as we hit the ground in Phoenix.



We were traveling out on Monday the 16th and as soon as we landed at Sky Harbor International in Phoenix we got word of the Virginia Tech Massacre.



But the bosses insisted that we press on and put VT out of our minds. So Eric and I spent the 4 days, 65 hours and 9 hours of XD Disc trying to flesh out as many goods stories as we could find.



More details to come...and I'll share the story links when they're posted on the company website.

Blue Angel Crash Video

WTOC in Savannah, Georgia has amatuer video of the Blue Angels Crash.

(ALSO - UPDATE ON PREVIOUSE BLUE ANGEL ENTRY...LT. CMDR. DAVIS ALSO FLEW NASCAR DRIVER DALE EARNHARDT JUNIOR...VIDEO IN PREVIOUS POST...IT'S A MUST WATCH!)

Story Number One (CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY) has video of Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis getting into his plane before the show and then it shows the maneuver and ensuing crash about 30 seconds into the story.

The second story (CLICK HERE FOR STORY 2) shows the same crash video but talks about finding the black box.

Watching the video it appears that Lt. Davis pulled an extremely tight high G turn to reverse the direction he was going so that he could rejoin the formation.

The black box should provide plenty of information about how many G's that turn produced and whether he was in control after the G-loading manuever that could have rendered him unconcious and unable to control his jet.

Unlike all other fighter pilots The Blue Angel's DON'T wear G-Suits to counteract the extreme forces that cause blood to rush out of the head during these high G manuevers. When I flew with the Thunderbirds in 1995 I wore a G-Suit and still went "Gray" during the 9-G turn at the my video of the flight.

The Blue Angels opt not to wear the G-Suits because the inflation of the air bladders on their legs could bump the control stick causing eratic control of the aircraft. (The Thunderbirds have a side mounted stick in their F-16's and don't have to worry about this issue.)

To get by without the G-Sute the Blue's learn to anticipate their G-Load and condition themselves to tighten their abs and thighs to prevent a blackout.

BUT....If Lt. Cmdr. Davis performed a manuever that was a higher G-Load than usual he may have very well blacked out causing the crash. Again referencing the video of the crash, notice that the plane never came back to wings level and based on publised reports there was no apparant attempt by the pilot to eject. Both of those factors make me think that he was blacked out, at least until too late to correct the problem. And looking at the attitude of the nose of the plane as it starts to go down it appears the jet may have also lost too much air speed to sustain flight at that angle of attack.

As far as trying to eject from the plane....the ejection seats in these craft are called Zero-Zero ejection seats because they will safely eject a pilot from a jet at Zero altitude and ZERO speed.


Back on September 14, 2003 the pilot flying USAF Thunderbird #6 crashed after miscalculating the altituded needed to perform a Split-S loop which caused him to be too close to the ground at the bottom of the loop. The pilot safely ejected 140 feet above the ground only 8-tenths of a second from impact.

Video of that crash here from inside and outside the plane.

Blue Angels Crash

UPDATE - Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis also took NASCAR Driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. on his celerity flight last year. The video is great, and funny at times, as Junior NEVER loses composure during the High-G manuevers up to about 7.6 Gs. I put the video of Dale Jr's flight at the bottom of this post. It's a MUST SEE!




I have sort of sat on this one but with my love of military flying I knew it would be just a matter of time before I had something to say about the crash of Blue Angel #6 on Saturday that killed the pilot Lt Kevin Davis.

Back in 1995 when I flew on a media flight with Thunderbirds I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was one of the coolest things I had ever done. I still have the pictures, video and signed artwork from the team. I was a treasured day I will always remember.



Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis was the narrator for the Blue Angels in 2006 and that gave him the duty of flying #7 for the media and celebrity flights including taking American Idol Kelly Clarkson up over the skies of Texas last May.



(side note - Today(4/24) is Kelly's Birthday and MINE as well )

During a Google Search tonight I found a member of the media who had her media flight with the Blue Angels just last May.




1010 WINS reporter Mona Rivera flew with the Blue Angels and Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis in May 2006 when they performed on Long Island.



The in flight video of Mona's media ride will send a chill up your spine.



Also, an NBC Story about Lt. Cmdr. Davis...


And if you haven't ever seen my Thunderbirds video.....



DALE EARNHARDT JUNIOR BLUE ANGEL'S FLIGHT

Nothing Like a Trip to the Desert

What a week. As usual, I leave town and all hell breaks loose around here.




Eric White and I spent a couple of days in the desert for an upcoming story(or more).



It was like a photog's dream vacation.

More pix and details to come.

Big White Bird

A High Rock Lake resident was fishing on the lake when he saw a flock of massive white birds fly over and land a couple of hundred yards away. He kind of knew they were out of place for the southeast so he grabbed his camera and emailed the TV Station.

I was handed an assignment sheet with his information on it and a link to his picture of the flock of white pelicans. It turns out that the American White Pelican is almost NEVER found in the southeast. They can be found in Florida but they hug the Gulf Coast as they migrate west and north toward Canada staying mostly west of the Mississippi.



I met Michael Axelrod at his house near Southmont and we proceeded to find the Pelicans for the news story I was assigned to produce.

With a cold wind blowing on the lake which is drawn down several feet below normal for the winter, getting around on the northern reaches of the lake were challenging. We got stuck once and when we were moving the wind was biting cold but we kept searching for the better part of almost 2 hours.

Just about to give up, we spotted 2 of the birds floating about 500 yards from our location. After getting video of this pair we headed back and 5 more birds found us.

The story turned out pretty good.

Are You Smarter Than a News Photog?

It's an age old question, right? OK, Maybe not but follow me here for a second.



If an out of shape Photog chooses to carry 25 pounds worth of Television equipment to the top of a 1 mile trail with an elevation change of about 1000 feet... how soon should you notify his next of kin?



If the reporter accompanying the photog to the top of the mountain offers to carry the camera while running in place beside the heavily panting photog... who gets to push him off the mountain?



If a news photog double punches the record button missing an entire interview on top of the mountain... does that dissolve him of complaining about the walk up the mountain?



If you can see the building in the downtown skyline with your recieve site on it do you go for it or still try to hit the site 35 miles farther to the south?



Do all reporters make good sound techs or just the Emmy winning ones?

Bees What's the Buzz?

Do Not Swat. Do Not Move Too Fast. Do Not Be Afraid. Do Not Panic.

Those are all things I was thinking in the picture below.



I found myself curiously surrounded by 50,000 busy honeybees and in that situation it's really hard to avoid bee to skin contact.



Turned on to the story of a mysterious bee sickness by the assignment desk looking for another package on a slow news day, I called a local proffessional beekeeper who was listed in the beekeeper yellow pages.



Jeff Lee of Lee's Bees was more than willing to oblige, but he couldn't do it until 1:30 in the afternoon. With a 50 minute drive there and the same back I was going to be pushing it to make my 5-30 pm time slot.



But the time slot dilema was out of my mind the minute I saw the bees. I was almost drawn to them. I had to regain focus. I had only 45 minutes to get the story shot and drive back to High Point and still have just enough time to get the story on the air.



Did I mention that I was in a swarm of 50,000 bees? But that was only a small fraction of Lee's Bees. He has 1200 hives (60 million bees)that he takes all over the nation to pollenate crops for farmers. He recently brought back 480 of his hives from California where they spent the early spring working on the almond farms. (the insurance companies for almonds farmers require 1 hive for every 2 acres.)

Right now a bunch of his bees are in Eastern North Carolina navigating the Blueberry patches.

But over the winter 18-millions of his bees died. Some of them died for now apparant reason. This is a trend across the country and that was the basis of the story.

Without honeybees 1/3 of our food supply couldn't be grown.

So I finished shooting the story, made it back to home base in time to write and edit the piece only to get word that they floated me to the next day.

That was good though. I spent a few extra minutes tweaking it out a little more than it would have otherwise.

Here it is.

Jib Jab What We Call the News

If you haven't seen it yet... you gotta!

What We Call the News | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

FOUND - Missing Boy Scout.

UPDATE - Various Story Links at the Bottom
=================
Unlike, say - Lenslinger - I haven’t been sitting around in an edit bay this week looking at file footage and trying to conjure up ways to get my site meter spinning. That was last week for the former and Yesterday and Today for the latter.

(BIG SMILE)



I was almost going to skip writing about my treks Monday and Tuesday to cover the search for the missing Boy Scout that quickly became a national news story, but how could I? I was a boy scout when I was his age. I am a Boy Scout Leader (for a Cub Scout Den) now.



So here goes.

Monday morning I got the word as I walked in the door. Head to the Mountain.

I knew it was coming, I had watched the weekend coverage from the safety of my home Saturday and Sunday. I had a knot in my stomach by Monday morning though, because it was approaching the 48 hour mark since Michael Auberry had disapeared.



Caron Myers and I joined our colleges at the scene in McGrady, NC at the base of the mountains that form the National Park where the Scout was lost.



And by the time we arrived Monday morning this story wasn't just a North Carolina story. Crews from Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc...etc... had arrived on the scene of the crossroads with a post office, but no stoplight.



We wrapped an 11 hour Monday high above the chaos in McGrady fronting a 90 second story about a group of scouts that traveled 4 hours to come help in the search almost to be turned away before being allowed to help serve food to the searchers.

We drove back home Monday night knowing that somewhere in that vast forest was a missing Scout.



We came back to the mountain on Tuesday. About halfway into the 2 hour trek we got the call that Michael had been found....ALIVE. We had to make up some time on the road to get there and have any chance at getting the crucial details on camera.



We went through McGrady barely stopping and headed straight to the location where the searchers were staging.

We hoped this would be where the Found Scout would be brought to. It turned out that he wasn't but the crew that found him did come back to this location and we interviewed the dog handler that found Michael and watched as the Scout's Leaders gave the crew a round of applause and a bunch of big hugs.

We went back to our perch high up on the mountain summit and did our part to broadcast the good news.

Links to all the good news....

WGHP
Scout's Mom Speaks
WKRN Nashville
ABC Good Morning America
CNN
AHN
WCNC
Fox News - Rick Levanthal Blog
London Free Press
Yahoo! News
Google
CBS News
CBS News Video
KLTV
USA Today
WHAM
Drudge

Cat Attackes Reporter Finally a new post:)

OK so I've been so busy I've neglected to post anything so here you go...

(The setup)

A reporter at Fox 8 (in Cleveland) is holding a cat for a live shot...that's all, but you have to see it if you like it when things go wrong on TV.


Cat Attacks Cute Reporter - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

High Rock Lake View from the TOP!

When the NC Forest Service put a Fire Alert in place last week because of high winds and dry conditions I set out with reporter Jeff Varner to find a visual way to tell the story.



And just in case there was no actual fire to put in our story, we figured it would be smart to actually have some other kind of hook in our story to make it work.



So with the permission of Distric Forester Lloyd Brown, Jeff and I headed to the old firetower at the lower end of High Rock Lake(at the point of the arrow).



We were forwarned that the climb up wouldn't be easy without a ladder because the lowest flight of the stairs heading up had been removed from this tower that is now only used as a communications platform.



I won't go into too many details about the climb other than to say it involved a ladder that was too short, a little shimmying and using an extension cord to haul up my camera that first 20 feet.



After gathering my equipment on the first level I climbed 5 more sections of stairs to my vantage point (2 sections above where I am in the picture below) where I gathered some video for our news story and these pictures to prove it.



I don't usually say I'm afraid of heights, but there's something a little unnerving about climbling a 50plus year old rusty tower on a windy day. The wind really picked up above the height the treetops.



But it was worth it for the view looking out over High Rock Lake. I could easily see for 50 miles or more. In the picture below you can even see Pilot Mountain that was 51 miles to the North (and slightly west) of the firetower.



In the map below I have pointed out where I was(at the bottom) and where I was looking(at the top).



As it turned out there were no fires this day but the climb made our story worth watching and frankly, worth doing.




Now, when summer gets here I'll be on the lake!

I Smell a Rat...

Being out gathering news all day sometimes I miss these things on TV during the day and have to catch up on the internet...Now where did I eat lunch today?

Sweeps Stories What Have You Done?

OK TV Photogs, 22 days into February and I have to ask....What sweeps pieces have you produced?

Give me some titles or descriptions or even VIDEO links. All of the above would be great.

Here's a sample of some of mine...

Limbo 41414....a website where you can win some fabulous prizes just for guessing a unique number...Melissa Painter and I drove to Nashville (NC) to talk to a big winner.

LIMBO 41414 VIDEO HERE

American Idol...the other Idols. Bob Buckley and I found out there are alot of Idols in the Triad.

IDOL VIDEO HERE

Chad Tucker and I drove to Johnston County, NC to go to biker church.

BIKER CHURCH VIDEO HERE

Melissa Painter and I did another Deal or Dud on a tooth whitener call the Whitening Light

WHITENING LIGHT VIDEO HERE

Bob Buckley and I did a neat story about a documentary called "The Projectionist"

THE PROJECTIONIST VIDEO HERE

Neill McNeill and I visited with Richard Childress and talked mostly wine back before his driver won the Daytona 500

RICHARD CHILDRESS VIDEO HERE

Cartoon Me....

I was surfing around the other TV Photogs who blog and when I got to Angie Moriconi's blog I saw an animated picture. I had to click on it out of sheer curiosity.

Where that linked picture took me was the place to create this....





The movements that come with this little camera totin' dude are a little funny but otherwise it's cool. It was fun to customize.

NASCAR Daytona 500 In HD!

A couple of weeks ago I realized a longtime dream of mine. I purchased an HDTV. After much research on brand, quality, specs and price I decided on a 55 inch Sony 3LCD set. It has a great picture and combinded with the HD-DVR Cable box from Time Warner I have a bunch (but not nearly enough) of choices of HD Programming.



But today I want to tell you about the Daytona 500 in HD!



This is my second time watching a race on my new set in HD of you count last week's Bud Shootout. But a difference this week is that now even most of the incar cameras are in HD. Although on an ironic note, the #96 DLP HDTV Car's in cars are NOT in HD! That's odd.



This is a great new feature. Last year all of the incars were 4x3 SD resolution video. The HD incars look awesome.



I even have my surround sound set up so when Fox goes into "Crank It Up" mode I do! The surround sound is unbelieveable.

I have been wanting to get an HD set for a long time. I can remember the first time I saw an HDTV demo at the state fair in Raleigh back in the mid-90s. WRAL had the TV set up with a demo playing. I knew then that one day I'd have an HDTV. That day has come.

Now if I can just get Time Warner to get ESPN2 HD on the lineup and get SPEED to broadcast in HD I'd be set.

Personal Hygene Men v. Women

I admit it...I've been slack about posting lately. But I've got a good excuse. It's called February Sweeps. I've been editing almost everyday 4 hours at a time. (gotta have lunch!)

Anyway, I found this video at Break.com recently and it made me laugh. It's a humorous look at the differences between men and women's showering routines.

NFL Says NO to Church Parties!!!

Who the hell does the NFL think they are? Telling Churches they can't hold Superbowl parties!




Here Here Here Here Here Here

"The NFL sent a "cease-and-desist" order to Fall Creek(A Church in Indianapolis) in response to its planned "Super Bowl Bash."

The NFL even has a ban on showing the game on a screen larger than 55 inches.

Like some others have said, bars and other venues have parties (to make money on alcohol sales)with the game on and it seems to be all good with the League, but as soon as a (non profit) chruch wants to have a safe place for its parishioners to get together it's against the copyright law. That's bogus!

I don't think it's possible to infringe on a copyright law unless you have a revenue stream (or maybe it even has to be a profit) coming from the activity. And even so, there's no damages with out causing a loss.

The ban on these parties is what causes the loss. Think about this...

10 parties per medium size city averaging 200 people per church party in, say, 20 cities in all 50 states. That's 2-million viewers or 2.2% of the estimated viewing audience!

I don't think the advertisers would appreciate that too much.

EMMY Winding Down the Excitement

OK, So I'm still smiling from ear to ear. I'm still holding the tropy close. And I'm still in shock....really.



But I've had to get back to work and that means the pressure is on. I mean, now that I've won it people expect it. Of course that really doesn't change the way I operate. I've always went out everyday looking for a way to make every assignment the best story possible.



Mike Redding down at WCNC in Charlotte may have said it best in a statement on his Travel Journal.

"But it’s Monday and the Emmy I won Saturday night means nothing starting today. That Emmy represents my past. It’s a statement about the work I did; it says nothing about the work I’m doing right now."

And so I too am back at work, trying to make every story, everyday, better!

(I even had a pretty kick ass story on Wednesday in preparation for the Winter Weather - Click to see it.)