Miserable weather we’re having. I had to work a night shift to cover the Focus on the Family rally. I’d hate to vj nightside turning a story every day. I had liveshots at 5 and 6 and then turned a package for 10. Tough days work.
I’m not a fan of covering events like this vj style. Big events in church settings with thousands of people in attendance do not lend themselves to being covered this way. For one thing our cameras, the Sony Z HD camera doesn’t have the lense to shoot from the back of a church. My footage of James Dobson appeared to be that of a body with a flaming globe for a head. Secondly, trying to shoot an event that ends at 9 and drive back to the station to write and edit the piece leaves little time to write well. Capturing footage is in real-time, so my 27 minutes of footage and interviews took exactly 27 minutes to load into my computer.
My producer looked over my shoulder at 9:32 to see that I was still writing!
I made the slot (flaming head on a torso and all).
The lone bright spot in my day today was the cd I selected for this rainy Monday. I dropped my subscription to XM, (a post for another day) so I’m leaning on my cd collection these days.
I hadn’t listened to this one in quite a while, but boy oh boy… 
If I had to go on a cross-country trip with only one cd in my truck, I’d be hard-pressed to find a better choice than “Out of the Blue” by the Electric Light Orchestra.
Back in the late 70s, I nearly wore the grooves off the vinyl, listening to “Wild West Hero”, “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”, “Turn to Stone”, “Sweet is the Night” and “It’s Over”. Of course if you’re familiar with this cd, you may remember all of the songs with rain in them. Side 3 (for vinyl fans) is a Concerto for a Rainy Day, including “Standin’ in the Rain”, “Summer and Lightning” and of course, “Mr. Blue Sky.”
What a blast to turn this thing up full power in my news truck today and drift back to when I was 13 years old, wearing my ELO belt buckle and playing Nerf hoops in my room with these songs blaring on my Juliette model turntable and speakers, chewing chocolate bubble gum and playing some air guitar and drums.
Why on earth would you drop XM????? XM is the bomb!