Monthly Archives: August 2012

Professional television camera people are inherently creative souls, but they must utilize every drop of their creative juices in times of a near hurricane. I am watching all the local TV stations as they do their best to report on Hurricane Isaac, even though Isaac is not a hurricane nor is Broward county currently facing hurricane force winds and rains. There are several filming techniques that Pro cameramen and women can utilize to better “report” on the weather.

1. Coconut palm trees are your friend! A close up shot of the palm fronds will always project the image of extreme wind, even if the tree is plastic and indoors at one of the local shopping malls. Coconut trees always look as if they are in a Monsoon or category 5 hurricane.

2. Waves next to a boat. A close up of a small boat next to a dock, rising up and down in the water, banging against the dock, truly shows the ferocity of the storm. Especially if you step on the boat with one foot and kick it about in the water.

3. Rain. While South Floridians see gale force rain nearly every afternoon in summer, again, shoot a close up of a small puddle of water in the road with the raindrops smashing into the puddle. It also helps if you have your field reporter making blowing wind noises.

4. Field reporters can be cranky, but they play a huge part in displaying the dangers of a category 5 storm. This requires a list of its own.

a. Make sure they are fully zipped up in Alaskan Whaling Storm Gear. The bright yellow or orange rain coats should be at least as thick as your arm,.

b. Make sure only a small portion of their face is able to be seen. They may have difficulty with the heat inside this gear and may not be able to breath, but do not worry, field reporters are a dime a dozen and great cameramen are so very rare!

c.  Adjust the microphone so that they have to scream at the top of their lungs to be heard. (Or find a sports reporter,that’s the way they always talk.)

d.  Jiggle the camera so it creates the perception of strong wind blowing you about.

e. Make the field reporter take off their shoes and stand on two softballs. The rocking and rolling and falling about will enhance the storm experience.

f. Remind the field reporter to pull long batches of her hair out from under her helmet and rain gear so it can flap across her face.

g. Your Field Reporter has to be out of breath. You may have to chase them around the scene with a two by four, or have them hold their breath between live shots.

h. They should always have one hand on their hat pretending that the “high” wind could blow it off.

g. OK, you are now ready to leave the TV truck and go out into the weather.

5. Avoid pedestrians! When you have your fully rain geared up field reporter screaming into the microphone as you make wild wind noises while jiggling your camera about creating the effect of gale force winds, the last thing you want is some native casually walking into the scene drinking steaming hot tea and reading the sports pages. It will ruin the effect.

6. Carry bottled water and on occasion splash it onto your camera lens. There should always be a dozen huge drops of water that you are shooting through.

Remember, the camera operator is key to the story. If you film the storm properly you’ll have home viewers hiding under their couches trembling in fear. If not, it just looks like a dorky reporter standing on a calm street in Alaskan Whaling gear.

Some Blogging Guy

I was born in South Florida a long time ago, so I’ve been through dozens of hurricanes, as has many other people here.  Hurricane Isaac is the type of storm I dislike the most, because she is not making her intentions known. Yes, hurricanes are “her’s for me. I grew up when the only names they gave Her-a-canes were female. Great names like Betsy and Cleo. Now we are into extreme political correctness so we have female names, male names, gay names, trans-gendered names and next year, trans-species names.

To me, they are always female.Weathermen try to figure out what they are doing, where they want to go and of course, can’t.

Occasionally we have a storm that forms off the coast of Africa and takes aim at Miami from day one. Eleven days later it hits. I like those storms,

Sometimes we have a storm lingering about the area but it is a CAT 4 storm, so even thought we don’t know if it is going to hit us or not, we all board up. CAT 4 is not to be messed with.

But Isaac is a Tropical Storm. Not even a CAT 1 hurricane. And she is confused about her path, driving left, then right, backing up, stomping on the gas and confusing everyone.

Most of us hate putting up awnings or boarding up. We are not going to do that until the last minute. Or until it gets to a CAT 3 or higher.

So, we play the waiting game. We run through all the routine steps, but hold off on the boards and shutters until the very last minute, which could be too late.

This year I have hurricane impact windows so might delay installing the hurricane panels even later.

Of course, Issac could come off of Cuba and strike a beeline to Miami and quickly pump up to a CAT 2 Hurricane and then many of us will be screwed, if not from the storm from our wives yelling “I told you so!”

Idaho, I long for thee.

Some Blogging Guy

The last time Boise, Idaho got hit with a hurricane was….…NEVER!!!

Some Blogging Guy

It is the weekend when most husbands are preparing for various jobs around the house the next two days. You know, paint the shed, fix the sprinklers, repair the back porch light, neuter the neighbor’s dog, mow the front lawn and so forth.  The weekend is when I feel out of place. My father passed away when I was in second grade and soon after my older brother escape to the U.S. Marines and Viet Nam. I spent the next ten formative years of my life with my eccentric mother, my younger sister and a crossed eye bowlegged Cocker Spaniel with the IQ of a Pez Dispenser.

I did not learn the manly art of fixing and rebuilding things. My mother tried, but the only method she had in her arsenal of tools was to bang something with a big rock. Her 58 Mercury had carburetor problems.   The forty-seven tons of metal would glide to a halt along side the road and Mom would get out, pry open the hood of the vehicle and ask me to go get her a good rock. A good rock was one a little larger than a grape fruit and slightly smaller than a ripen cantaloupe.I would dig through the side of the road and neighborhood trash piles until I found a nice round heavy rock. Mom would then proceed to beat the holy hell out of the carburetor. I mean she would haul her arm back over her head and slam that rock into that carb over and over, which was a little frightening as her cigarette would occasionally fall out of her mouth. Gas, flame, not good. 

Nearly every time the Mercury started right up, I don’t know if it was just flooded and dried out during the beating or it just figured it had better start before she starting rocking the rest of the engine. (A mechanic once asked us why the carb had dents all over it. I just told him hail, which didn’t make sense either, but he stopped asking questions.)

Long story short, whenever something stops working I smack the crap out of it. Computers, TVs, lawn mower, whatever. The odd part is in about half the cases it works. At least for a spell.

I do have skills, but different skills. I know how to sit in silly college classes and play the stupid games necessary to earn a masters degree. Granted, I picked a bullshit subject. Most are. I can manage people. I can look at complicated organizational processes and immediately determine what is wrong and how to right it. I can motivate people who get paid poorly to work as if they aren’t, and I can maneuver through organizational politics with VPs, Deans, Faculty, Administrators and so forth like a marble on slippery glass.  I can handle the most crazed and angry customer and turn them into puppy dogs. I can write 17 pages with dozens of pie and bar charts and say absolutely nothing. I can sit in a long boring retarded meeting for three hours and to everyone present appear wide awake and interested.

I can take a 19 minute nap during lunch. No matter where I am.

But if the copy machine or network printer stops working, I am useless after the first blow.

And you know, none of this bullshit gets things done around the house. You can’t BS a garbage disposal. I can’t replace the pipe under the bathroom sink by pretending to be awake,. For instance, right now my wife is calling me because the sliding patio door is stuck again,  I have no clue what makes them stick. Luckily, I have a good rock right here on my desk. Gotta get to work! “Coming Hon!”

Some Blogging Guy

After a crazy day at work and the long 45 minute struggle through traffic and Florida DOT obstacles, I arrived in my neighborhood and stopped at a 7-11 store to buy three Mega Money lottery tickets. (Yes, I am on the Lottery Retirement Plan. I get to retire when I win the lottery!)  I texted my wife to see what was for dinner. Apparently nothing, as usual, or more accurately, whatever I could find in the fridge or cabinets. My wife is beautiful and wonderful, but not Cuban.  Cuban wives will always cook for her man, no matter what.  He could be a mass monkey killer, a guy who steals bathroom tissue out of public restrooms and never worked a day in his life, and his Cuban wife will still cook him chicken and rice.  I know Cuban woman who still cook for their ex-husbands. After the guy remarries!

Anyway, instead of playing food scavenger hunt, I grabbed a foot long Italian sub sandwich at 7-11 along with my three dollar investment in my retirement.

The sandwich contained Genoa salami, pepperoni, cheese and about 1400 other “ingredients” of which few I could pronounce. I think the label factory accidentally switched the sandwich ingredient label with the Syrian chemical weapons label. 

Once home I opened up the foot long and tossed on some fresh tomatoes, onions, about a quart of mayo and a 15 second squirt of mustard. Bright yellow American mustard, none of that dark spicy weird liberal mustard. Lay down a layer of salt and black pepper and yum yum my taste buds were sprouting with joy. 

It was about this time that I decided to read the label again in an attempt to discern exactly who made these sandwiches. Did 7-11 employees make them fresh daily? Did they buy them from a local company? I eventually found the very tiny writing that indicated that LSG Sky Chiefs of Orlando, Florida were responsible for putting these foot longs together, Two thoughts popped into my head as I wiped mayo and American yellow mustard off my moustache. First, the fact that Orlando is about 230 miles north. So, right away “fresh daily” was out of the question. The second thought was “Sky Chiefs”…..aren’t they the ones who provide airline food????

Well….yes. I visited their website and they sure do specialize in airline food.I saw nothing else even remotely related to providing food to convenience stores.

I just paid $5 dollars for a freaking stale airline sandwich??? A sandwich I would never buy even if locked in a metal tube 35,000 feet in the air with no other options?

Turns out the LSG in LSG Sky Chief stands for LSG Lufthansa Service Holding. I bought a German stale airline sandwich to boot!

Damn.

If anyone asks, I am telling them I was dizzy from the rush hour traffic.

Some Blogging Guy

Photo from USA Today Sports

At the 2012 Summer Olympics on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the first amputee sprinter to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400 metres race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August.

The guy has no feet! Yet he is a Olympic runner! 

Holy Crap Batman!

The guy has lived his life without feet and parts of his lower leg. But has it slowed him down? Is he whining about being “disabled”? Hell no! He is a freaking Olympic runner, and we are NOT talking about the “Special” Olympics!

400 metres?  That is about 1300 feet or 440 yards!!! He ran it in 45.44 seconds! That’s seconds!

It takes me about 45 seconds just to get up off the couch and amble toward the bathroom!

Hell, I get a paper cut at work and I whine for an hour!!!  Watching this guy fly down the track and refusing to even acknowledge he has a disability is just amazing. Talk about the right attitude.

This guy has a motto he lives by, “You’re not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have.”

Wow.

I burnt my lower lip on hot coffee the other day. I was looking for a lip sling and called into work sick for two days. This guy sprints with no feet!!!!

I think I need to remember this guy. I’ll never sprint without feet, hell, I get winded driving my truck 400 metres.(It is a stick shift!)  But maybe I can be inspired by his attitude and not fall apart next time I open the refrigerator and get blinded by the light bulb in there…..

Some Blogging Guy