thursday night in guntersville
Well after a day of doing nothing around birmingham. I traveled to the Albertville Newsroom and spend some time with teh crew. We are doing a live remote in the morning (friday AM) for a tools for schools drive. I ate at the Applebees in Albertville. Food was great! There was a man and women sitting at one of the booths. He was ordering mixed drinks, the bar cut him off at 3 drinks (must have some rule against getting drunk at a nice eating establishment (i agree with the rule) however his wife or lady friend started ordering the same drink (did not see that coming) I left before they cut her off. I got a room at the holiday inn in guntersville (will insert hotel rating after stay..can't judge a book by the cover) The awning is 10 ft tall and the truck is 12.5 feet. I see a dish deduction coming (not my dish because I did not go under it, but the point system dish deduction for parking problem. Speaking of books either someone left the book
Get on with it by Billy Gene King in the hotel room or Holiday Inn has chosen to expand there library in addition to the Gideons Bible located in the bedside table drawer. Newsroom management recommends the book
who moved the cheese. Its a selfhelp motivational (that spelled correctly)book about a several mice (rodants)who are used to finding the cheese in the maze at the same place every day. And then the cheese is moved. It talks about how the mice react and deal with it in differant ways. Perhaps Holiday Inn should leave a copy of that book in the rooms. My High Speed internet was alot faster in Titusville, FL than here in Guntersville, Al. I having a hard time dealing with it (where is the cheese) more on the star rating tomorrow.
hotel rating 8 of 10, bad parking for me and had to go to lobby to check out.
hallaway in birmingham
After a long drive from Cocoa Beach I found myself setting up for a 6pm and 10pm live shot in Birmingham. I did get a good meal out of it at the CheeseFactory and saw an 2 old friends Shane Hayes from Fox 6 WBRC and Alex Lynch from ABC 33/40. I parked teh Satellite truck inside ABC 33/40's parking area and stayed the night at Alex place. There are no star rating points for free nights stay with a friend. He did however tell me I should post the rating system and change from star ratings to satellite dish ratings. a full upright satellite disk is a full star and a 1/2 way up satellite dish would represent 1/2 a star. Its a good point and when I figure out how to make small satellite dishes the size of star ratings I will.
closing comments from the cape
1st trip for scrub launch. Hotel was ok (Holiday Inn, Titusville) I give it 7 out of 10 stars, (not in walking distance of restaurant, bad A/C and checkout required a trip the front desk) Great view for launch.. Media check in went well. Took couple hours to put cables in place. Took 12 hours to drive home
2nd trip down I took my time. I hit a big recap in the middle of the interstate traveling 70 mph. The impact caused my tail pipe to get caught under the rear tire and pull away from the muffler. I had to cut the rubber bushing that attaches the pipe to the chassis. I stopped at a truck stop to have it inspected it will get it fixed when I return to Huntsville. Hotel was Ocean View inn, Cocoa Beach. I rate hotel 8 of 10 stars (no High speed internet and Check out required at front desk) Shuttle launch day started early 3 am CST. Wakeup. We had to beat the crowd and the long lines thru security. The launch went well I was proud of our TV coverage and equally proud of our hard working friends and neighbors at NASA. We ended up doing a Live remote for FOX 6 WBRC Birmingham and WAKA. Its not uncommon to help out other TV stations who are not in direct competition with you. They help us out as well. We also ran into some old friends who used to work for Channel 19, Steve Simon and Joel Eisenbaum both former reporters for us. After we were finished we went to eat at a restaurant. After the dinner I was approached by a bum. The bum asked for 2bucks to buy a beer at the ABC store. I normally don’t support bums but I found the honesty respectful. I gave him the money and thanked him for not telling me a story about his broke down car. Tomorrow I will drive back. I hear the may be some new developments in the Miss Hallway case. This could mean a stopover in the magic city. Stay tuned.
launch of the shuttle
Its hard to put into words the emotions that I feel right now. I was excited to see the launch. When the shuttle launched the fire ball was alot brighter than i expected. I am glad things went well for NASA. above is a bad picture of the shuttle taking off above the satellite truck.
Around the Horn
wide shot
Getting ready for today show
Gregg edits tape and Steve writes the news.
Setup at the Cape
We (Gregg, Steve Johnson and Myself) arrived in Cocoa Beach yesterday. Today we drove the Satellite truck the the asphault pad to setup for the Shuttle launch tomorrow. We will do several remotes from here today as well as tomorrow.
