December 2009


2010

After sleeping in this morning, Krystle and I went to a Chinese place for lunch. The food wasn’t great but we knew that going in. We probably went to visit Krystle’s mom after lunch but I honestly don’t remember. Later in the evening we went to Walmart to do some grocery shopping. We bought a couple steaks to cook in the next couple nights.Later this evening we got something to eat from McDonalds and watched another movie. I think the one tonight was In the Valley of Elah. We never did go out anywhere. I thought we might meet up with some of Krystle’s family or something but we stayed in. It was terribly cold outside anyway… and raining.

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Rainy Trip

Like a lot of days in New Orleans lately, the weather today was rather wet and gloomy. With my stuff packed for my impending trip to Ruston this afternoon, I went to the office with Dad for about an hour to get a couple things done prior to leaving for the week. Dad dropped me off at the train station around one. I wanted to be early in case there was any trouble. I learned late last night that the train was nearly sold out when I booked a reservation over the phone. I’ve never seen much a crowd at the train station before. I arrived 45 minutes before departure and there was already a long line of folks waiting to board. I did not have any problems, though. I was able to get my ticket and board. We departed on time at 1:45. I spent a good portion of the train ride playing my Nintendo DS. If I remember right, the train was just a couple minutes late in arriving in Jackson. It didn’t matter much to me though. Krystle got hung up with some stuff this afternoon and was late in leaving to pick me up. I went to the nearby Hilton hotel to wait for her. She arrived at 6:30 and made the drive back to Ruston. It was raining through at least the first hour of the ride.We must have arrived in Ruston around 8:30. After we got settled we went to Waffle House for dinner, my first visit to such an establishment. We might have watched a movie later that evening. I think it was a DVD a brought with me, Akira Kurosawa’s Scandal.

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95/108

The workday today was very similar to that of yesterday although I was not as sloppy in my work as yesterday. I monitored a 108 (officer needs assistance, life in danger) on the scanners this evening that apparently involved a lot of cops and a SWAT team on Marigny although nothing really came of it by the time I was done for the evening at 12:30 AM. Nobody was hurt and one of our freelance photographers happened to be in the area and called the desk to tell me what’s going on. Later this evening I packed for a trip I’ll be taking tomorrow.

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Da Bears

I’m only two days removed from writing this log entry but I am already struggling to remember the day. I do remember prompting the nine and feeling a bit sloppy. I forgot to change camera three after weather and John didn’t have the prompter for that tease.Later in the evening I was watching the Bears Vikings game. A win by the Chicago Bears would give the New Orleans Saints home field advantage in the playoffs. John Snell called the desk and suggested I send out a breaking news e-mail alert should the Bears win so the other John helped me set that up before he left. Improbably enough, the 5-9 Bears did win so I sent out the alert. Someone else from the station sent another less than a minutes after me though. Later in the evening I posted an AP story on the game to the website. Luckily there were no other incidents to worry about tonight as the game nearly monopolized my attention.

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Beat by the Bucks

The Saints played another bad football game this week, this one versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a 2-12 team. The Saints were slow to start and didn’t appear to even show up until the 4th quarter. BY then it was too late. The Bucks missed a game-ending field goal late which gave the Saints a shot to tie the game at the end but a sack to Brees but an end to that. The Saints lost 17-20. I went in to fox for five this evening. I don’t remember much about work although I do recall Dana volunteered to run the prompter tonight so I was able to leave on time at 10.

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WPA

Early this afternoon, I went with Mom and my brothers to visit Aunt Dionne. In years past we’ve visited them and all the other people there on Christmas day but that didn’t happen this year. After I got there I was quickly recruited to install a new wireless router and set up the security and then connect all the devices around the house to it including a new blu-ray player and TV in the living room. Despite my familiarity with such things it took a good while to get it working with all the computers and peripheral hardware around the house. I think I had all the settings right from the outset, however. We also exchanged gifts with Aunt Dionne and Uncle Larry while we were there. Mom and Andrew left ahead of Jeff and me as she needed to get back home while I was still fooling with their stuff. Later after I finished everything I went with Jeff to Lakeside Mall. He wanted to get a gift for a friend he was seeing later this week and I had time to kill before heading to work this evening. It was exceptionally crowded and we were lucky to get a parking stop some distance from the mall itself. We went through a bunch of stores but I didn’t see anything I wanted to buy. I have enough new toys to play with anyway.We left the mall at around 3:45. I wanted to pick something up for dinner to bring to the station but Jeff was hungry too and we had enough time to eat out somewhere. He said he was in the mood for a po-boy so we went to Mandina’s, which is more-or-less on the way to WVUE anyway. The place was just starting to fill up when we arrived and we were seated immediately. Jeff ordered a fried oyster po-boy and I had the shrimp po-boy and some fries. The wait for our food was longer than usual. Our waiter told us 90% of their orders today were for fried seafood which was backing them up a bit. He surmised most people wanted something different from traditional Christmas dinners.I was going to be a bit late to work so I called ahead and arrived at about 5:10. I don’t recall much of anything about the workday. I printed the script and prompted like I always do on Saturdays. Everything went smoothly if I remember right. I got back home around 10:15.

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Christmas 2009

This Christmas Eve was a pleasant day at home. I had the day off and didn’t have much of anything to do. Dad made his awesome jambalaya for dinner, sort of a Christmas Eve tradition. I felt strangely tired early this evening and went to bed around eight.Following a long night’s sleep I was up at a decent hour this Christmas morning. Sometime after ten everyone was up and we opened our gifts. We didn’t put up the tree this year so they were all stacked in front the fire place under the stockings. It was gadgets all around this year. Mom and Dad bought me a Zune HD and some toiletries. Andrew got a new laptop and Jeff got an iPhone. Dad bought Mom an Amazon Kindle, apparently a very popular gift this year. I gave away several copies of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue album and cash this year. I spent the better part of the afternoon playing with my new toy. I have one of the old Zunes now known as the “Zune 30.” It’s a nice player but the new Zune HD is very appealing. Its OLED screen is the best display on a portable device I have ever seen. The interface is quite slick as well and the applications and web browser and nice novelties. Like most mainstream players, it lacks FLAC and DivX support which is a bit disappointing.Later this evening, I went out with Andrey and a few friends of his. One my way across the river I picked up LaQuenta, an acquaintance of Andrey’s I went to high school with. She was part of our “lunch table” crew but I had not seen her since I graduated. She doesn’t live here now but was in town for the week and staying just off De Gaulle drive.We went to Melange at the Ritz-Carlton where we were to meet Andrey and a couple of his friends. Even though it was Christmas Day, the place was still quite crowded and Jeremy Davenport was playing like any other Friday night, although the repertoire was more “seasonal.” I managed to find a table for the two of us although it wouldn’t suffice after the rest of our party arrived.Andrey arrived with two ladies in tow about 15 minutes after we did. I met one at Patrick’s birthday a couple weeks ago. We all stuck around at the Ritz for an hour or so. We were two chairs short for the duration though so Andrey and I had to stand. After we left the Ritz we walked a couple blocks to the Ohm Lounge. There was supposed to be a DJ there this evening but we didn’t see one yet. LaQuenta had to be home by midnight and Andrey gave her a ride back. One of the other girls was hungry so I went with both of them to IHOP on Canal Street while we waited for Andrey to return from the west bank. I was hardly hungry but I ordered a little something to occupy myself.Following our late night meal we met back up with Andrey on canal Street and went back to the Ohm Lounge. The DJ finally showed up a while after we did. The house music wasn’t bad although it did make conversation cumbersome. We called it a night around two if I remember right. I caught a cab from Canal Street in short order and went home and to bed around three.

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Bad Lieutenant

Although the doctor’s office will be closed tomorrow and Friday, things didn’t seem very busy at work today. Patient flow was reasonably steady but hardly overwhelming.Late this evening I met up with Andrey, David and some other to see a movie. Originally, I was going to meet David at his house to go to the theater but that didn’t work out so well. First, I was unable to get a cab after waiting for 40 minutes. I called David to let them know I couldn’t make it since I didn’t have a ride but he called me back and offered to come over the river and pick me up. There was also the small issue of the showing we were going to apparently not happening. We planned on going to Elmwood but had to go to a theater in Kenner to see an 11 PM show. David picked up Lucas and them came over to pick me up. We met Andrey and a couple other people at the Hollywood Cinema 9 in Kenner, a dumpy and not particularly charming theater adjacent to the Esplanade mall.We saw Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, a Werner Herzog film. Our group made up the entire audience so we were free to make “comments” during the film without going to “the special hell.” It was a crazy and very entertaining film although immediately after watching it I did not have much appreciation for its artistic merits. I remember saying it was one of the best bad movies I have ever seen. Having had a couple days to digest it, I think it is worthy of higher praise. I will be watching it again sometime in the future to try and solidify my opinion. After the movie, I asked David to drop me off at Harrah’s Casino downtown to catch a cab home. I assumed there would be a handful just sitting there but I had to wait a little while.

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Tuesday

I didn’t have much in the line of real work to worry about to day. I was mostly worried with getting some mail out. On the way to the station this afternoon I stopped at Rouses to get deodorant and something for dinner. Overall, work at the station was not unusual. The five o’clock news was smooth enough although it would have been easier if more scripts were in sooner. I wrote a short “rest of” story about Celebration in the Oaks extending its run which was read largely as I wrote it although Bobby added a couple lines.I was lucky enough to have another late night shift pass quietly with the exception of some vacuuming in the newsroom.

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Monday

I needed a jump to get my car started this morning to move it out of the way this morning. I had a couple reports to work on at the office which I largely finished. I headed to WVUE at quarter to four this afternoon. Script printing for the five o’clock show was more hectic than usual, largely because Val’s Tim Whitmer stuff which was to lead both the five and 5:30 shows was late arriving.I wrote a “rest of” story for the nine o’clock show that made air. It was a short thing about the Roman Polanski rape case. John took a couple minutes to offer some constructive criticism. I made a couple changes based on his suggestions and it was read as I revised it.After the news I was on duty until 12:30. Luckily nothing of circumstance happened. When I got home I talked to Krystle on the phone for a while before bed.

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Out of Time

I’m writing this entry only the day after and my memory is already largely faded. Before getting ready for work and leaving for the evening I recall mopping the kitchen. Work at Fox was largely uneventful. A bunch of us got dinner from the Italian Pie. I don’t remember any problems with the newscast.There was one significant timing issue with an otherwise smooth Final Play show. John Henry did not have a guest this evening to add any variables but we ran out of time after the C block. There is supposed to be a final goodbye segment, which John teased after he started reading the show closer, but it turned out that there was not enough time for it and the show simply ended. There was a substantive discussion at the end of the show about what exactly happened.I thought I might be partially responsible because I scrolled right passed the black C block tease in the script and the break and started rolling the final show closer which John started reading before corrected himself and said we’d be right back. We still wouldn’t have had time for him to actually come back on air but the end might have looked a little cleaner had I held on the blank script page header.It took a little while to get morning sports ready and I finally left at 10:20. I watched some of this week’s Top gear episode and talked to Krystle on the phone for a little while before heading to bed.

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13 – 1

I don’t remember much going on this afternoon. I went to Fox for five this evening. The New Orleans Saints played the Dallas Cowboys this evening at the Superdome. WVUE did a three-hour pregame show live from there this afternoon. It was on-going when I arrived and I didn’t have anything to do related to the show. I was also largely free to watch the game in the newsroom tonight. We did a half hour newscast at nine which partially overlapped with halftime.As for the game itself, it appeared to be another instance of the Saints phoning in the first half. Unfortunately they didn’t make things happen until the fourth quarter. Late in the game after the Cowboys missed a field goal and failed to make it a two score game, it looked like the Saints had a chance to score a touchdown and tie the game. It was not to be, however and the 8-5 Dallas team handed the Saints their first loss.Although my weekend shifts usually end at 10, I stayed until quarter to 11 to see the rest of the game. Afterward, I heard from Andrey and agreed to meet him and some friends for drinks at The Cure on Frenchman. After a long wait for a cab I finally got there only to find it was closed for a private party. I called Andrey again and he eventually picked me up and we went to pick up David and then headed to the Monkey Hill Bar on Magazine Street. It’s a nice place but it would have been better with a lighter crowd. We were soon joined by Andrey’s friend John and a couple ladies he brought with him. Andrey had to lave a little after one and I decided to take my leave at the same time. I caught a cab home from in front of the bar.

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Avatar

I did not go to work today but I did get some things done. This morning I got a haircut after putting it off for a couple weeks. I did have to wait a while to get it done though. I can usually walk in when they open at 10. Today I couldn’t get a place until 10:30 and some confusion prevented me from being seen until quarter to 11. I also made stops a stop at the bank before heading back home. I was planning on stopping at the post office too but Dad graciously agreed to take care of the Christmas cards and gifts I wanted to ship today.This afternoon at home I got some laundry done but I did not have everything done and in order by this evening. Jeff was home tonight for the weekend and we both went out to the AMC quazi-IMAX theater in Elmwood to the 10:45 showing of James Cameron’s Avatar this evening. We arrived 45 minutes early after getting dinner nearby and there were already some 200 people in line to get in. We managed to snag respectable seats up high though. I was expecting a simplistic but gorgeous film and that’s pretty much what we got. This was my first time seeing a feature-length 3D movie. The added dimension was not gimmicky which was nice although many of the seemingly 3D objects were unrealistically out of focus. As for the film itself, it was very pretty to look at. Story wise, it was quite simplistic and a bit trite… Dances with Wolves in space, really.

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Leslie Out

I got a couple charts done at the doc’s office this afternoon before leaving to go to Fox this evening. I normally do not work Wednesdays but someone needed to cover a shift for Monica who was taking an exam today. The script for the five was a bit slow to finish to so I got a nice workout running scripts for the newscast. Dana, Edwin and myself I ordered dinner from Mikimoto this evening. I couldn’t decide what I wanted and picked out the “Combo Box” randomly. I did not care for what I got and didn’t eat much of it.Shortly before seven this evening we learned Leslie Jacobs was pulling out the mayoral race following Mitch Landrieu’s late entry. Ms. Jacobs joined the anchors for an on set interview at the beginning of the nine o’clock news. Ed Chervenak from UNO dropped by around eight to record a short interview offering reaction to Jacob’s decision. We also heard a shooting on the scanners before we went on air which we were able to fit into the end of the news broadcast.I was on duty until 12:30 AM. The scanners were busy this evening but there were no major incidents. This evening I had the same cab driver who I had on Monday with the heavy rain. He said his car developed a minor electrical problem on the way back to the east bank but it fixed itself after a couple days.

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