When September Ends

Wake me up when September ends. Greeday -- the philosphers of our time. I am probably not using the phrase in the way the musicians intended. Let me explain...our assignment desk was basically set up by our old news director. He expected my partner and myself to do the job of about four or five people. The work load hasn't decreased, however my desk partner left. There is another person hired, but thanks to corporate feet dragging and a guy who is giving the longest quitting notice of all time, I don't get any help until the end of September. Until then, it's just me, myself, and my migranes. It doesn't help that I get the occasional visit from the 3rd floor sales/business side of the biz, who seem to have no idea what we do in news and thinking we can just do anything they want on a whim. ARRRGHHHHH.

In other news...one of the leaves on my green stick is turning brown. I watered the stick. Let it have sunlight. Why is it turning on me? I don't think this bodes well for me ever becoming a parent.

It's times like these that I just relax and think about a completely stress free time:


This is from my hot-air balloon ride. It was an amazing experience. You really are just floating alone. The experience is one of the few times when I can say I was just at peace, enjoying my surroundings and just experiencing life. Beautiful. Now I'm relaxed...

Cheers,
mE

Everything's Relative

Did you ever notice how things really only matter to you through your frame of reference. This is brought to mind thanks to an hour of my life NBC took that I will never get back. I get a call asking me to help test a video stream that the network is planning to do with Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira next month. I was told it would only take a few minutes, that turned into an hour long confernce call with all these technical people that I couldn't get out of. Arrgghhh.

Frames of reference. Today I was talking with someone at work who was also blogging. She was writing about things that made her laugh. One thing for her...stepping in dog doo with her bare feet. It made her laugh because it was disgusting. To me...not so much funny "ha, ha" as just disgusting. If it happened to me, I wouldn't be laughing. However, gross things made her laugh.

In other news...it's day two and my bamboo stick is still alive. How do you tell the stick is doing ok? I assume bamboo will just turn brown, but I really don't know. If all else fails I'll just paint the stick green and call it good.

mE

Never a dull moment

I have my first living item (besides myself) in my apartment. A group putting up new lofts in town sent this bamboo-plant thing to our news director today, and he gave it to me. Not sure how it's going to go...some living item is now relying on me. Granted it's just a green stick, but it's still a responiblity. Maybe the first step to me getting a monkey.

In the "no way did that happen" file...this morning I got one of the most unexpected phone calls of my career. The phone rings and this girl says "I'm Rachel Huggins." Rachel shot a guy in the chest at point blank range on New Year's day this year. She was having a plea hearing today and was upset with how it was going so she decided to call our station to make sure we had the story. Not something you usually hear from an attempted murder suspect (the guy survived). I think it's because we were the only station to report on the allegations of sexual misconduct against her victim. Who knows...we got a good story.

mE

Bored

I should get monkey. I think that would make life a lot less boring. I'm not sure what my apartment rules are for monkeys are though. I can have a cat with a deposit, so I don't see why I couldn't have a monkey. Think about it...how cool would it be to have a monkey. It's almost the same has having a child, but you can put it in a cage without getting a visit from social workers.

I could even take the monkey to work. I bet I could teach it to edit video or something. If nothing else it could just sit and make monkey faces at people who yell at me. Or I could teach it to go to Vend-o-Land and get me a Coke. A monkey is always a good idea.

Anyone know a good monkey salesman?

Everything's Work

Going to work today I stopped by to get gas. Mid-grade with Ethanol was $2.51. I great bargin considering other parts of the state are paying much closer to $3. I felt good about the getting gas, until I drove home. $2.48 a gallon. While I honestly don't care much about gas prices...because really, I have to buy gas. I'm not going to boycott gas. It's much better than living on either coast or overseas, it's just the principle. I have lost my touch. I used to have the gas price radar. I would get gas the night before the price shot up, or would decide to hold off a day before the price dropped. Now it's a constant series of wrong decisions. It never bothered me before, because I didn't use to live where I would drive by a gas station, now the sign is blaring at me no matter where I am headed. The past several times I have filled up, the price has dropped by the time I come home from work. I even tried not filling up with a cheap price once, thinking it would get even better the next day...I was wrong, it went up.

This discussion brings me to a new point...everything is work. Normal people can talk about gas prices, to me it's work. I'm in news, talking about the weather means talking about work. Whenever I go out with friends, we always talk about work...(granted almost all my friends are from work). Even when we make the "no work talk" rule, we end up talking about work. Why? Because when you work in news, everything has to do with work. It is something that does take a little while to get used to. For examle this past April I went to Easter Sunday services with the family of a girl I was seeing. They took me out for lunch with the family. It was nice and they were all facinated with what I did. I was equally fascinated with all the the jobs they did (they all got actual lunch breaks and only worked 8 hour days). We were in the middle of lunch when I got a call from work. They were having difficulty tuning in a satellite feed from our Governor's visit to Iraq/Afghanistan. I walked them through it, gave them some numbers to call for help from NBC...and told them to make sure they listened to my phone interview with the governor from the day before (I came in on my day off to do the interview). When I hung up, I apologized for having to take the call, and realized perhaps it's not normal for people to have to deal with the gov's office on a daily basis. After this call they started talking about something that was going on in the news, and I had to sneak writing a story idea onto a napkin. Work never ends.

Yet this is what I like about my job. My family lives far away and I don't really have any serious relationships (that Easter girl didn't work out...at all). So all I really have is work. It may sound depressing, but I don't mind. I'm at a good age where I am able to work those 10-12 hour days. And when I'm not at work, I'm reading the paper or listening to people in the "real world" talk about news stories. It's sometimes hard not to butt into other people's conversations when I hear them talking about a news story and they have some facts wrong, or I know something that hasn't been reported yet.

Well those are my thoughts for today. I plan to sleep this weekend. By sleep I mean, sleep a lot. My body hasn't quite adjusted to a dayside schedule, so I am almost always exhausted. Sleep here I come.

mE

First Thoughts

So I've finally decided to take up this blogging hobby. I suppose because I'm bored, or perhaps just lack a creative outlet. Perhaps it's just a fast easy way to communicate my thoughts and gives me at least the assemblence of having communicated with my friends that I never see anymore.

This is where I will start detailing my thoughts on life, or my reflections as the post might suggest. The picture above is one of my own...most people from Iowa will recognize it easily, it's our state capitol building. Actually it's the reflection of the capitol building. Fitting for this post. I think everyone who lives in Des Moines, or has traveled through here has this picture. It's an easy one to get, the Wallace state building sits just to the northwest of the capitol and has those gold/bronze reflecting windows all on one side of it. If you stand in the right spot you can get the perfect, slightly twisted view our the statehouse. A commentary on the political process?...maybe. A metephor for life?...another maybe. The point of the picture for me, is that you see what you want to see. That's the beauty of reflections, they are so individual and very much based on the moment. While everyone can have this view of the capitol reflection I would dare to say that no two photos are alike. It all depends on what time of day you are standing there, how tall you are, from what angle you take the picture, the weather, ect. Much like how we each see ourselves as we wish to see us. Through the filter of personal experiences, preferences and, yes, even the weather can change how we see our reflection. However, no matter how we or anyone else view the reflection, the original creation, remains the same. So no matter how I view myself on a given day, or how someone else views me...I am still me. Perhaps not quite as deep as "I think therefore I am," but it is truly something to think about.

More to come in future posts.