The alarm went off this morning at sunrise. The birds were singing their morning song. Golden sunlight bathed the room, interupted only by the passing clouds. I gazed out the window to take in the beautiful sunrise over the Florida mountains.... wait a minute... Florida mountains? This is pretty much the only state flatter than Kansas. I must be dreaming still. *eyes open* Hey, that's not golden sunlight blinking in the room!!!! IT'S------

IT'S LAST DAY!!!!
Dave's life clock was flashing red! Tomorrow is Dave's 30th birthday!

Needless to say we spent the entire day RUNNING from sandmen!!

We totally outsmarted the sandmen. Where's the last place on city they would think to look for a runner? At Carousel of course! So we cheered on the 30 year olds about to get blown to bits--er get 'renewed'... but we knew we had to do something or the Sandmen would eventually find us... Then, we saw him:

It's the kid who got peed on by monkey's last week (see the February 22nd entry)! So we took his life clock and then went out to dinner. Guess the little guy had a better week last week. If it makes you feel any better, kid, the restaurant we went to was sub par.

None of you got any of that, did you.

Moving on... :)

Here's part 3 of our Burning Man documentary! In part 3 you'll see the little (massive) dust storm we went through. Dave said he still felt like he had sand in his lungs years later.

BURNING MAN PART THREE:

We've been busy uploading some of our work online and dubbing our old short movies and skits that we have made to dvd. I'm afraid none of you will be seeing the movies and skits online. It wouldn't be right to put something on the internet that embarrasses anybody other than myself! ;) I think I just heard friends from all across the country breathe a sigh of relief! haha. The picture you see above is Dave on the Howard Stern show in Las Vegas. He was covering the event when he was suddenly pulled on stage and given headphones. Next thing he knew he was live for a good 5 minutes on the radio with Howard. An edited version (they cut a good 4 minutes and 45 seconds out. ha) aired on his tv show. Click the pic to see the video!
And here is part two of our Burning Man doc. In this segment we take you to Burning Man at night. I wish I could have captured how awesome it was to be in the pitch black desert, with crazy art cars and other works of art lit by mostly neon and fire... The camera I had back then did not do so well in low light. So what we could show was limited. To get the true experience I guess we're going to have to have a photog blog roll trip to Burning Man!

Burning Man Part Two:

We recently found this photo of us on the internet. This was taken in 2001 at Burning Man. For those who don't know what Burning Man is... It's pretty much the coolest freakin party in the known universe.

Dave and I did a 30 minute documentary for our station in Las Vegas. It was an amazing experience. That statement doesn't really do it justice... It was one of those rare times where your jaw drops and you get this mind-blowing rush of excitement because you've never in your wildest imagination thought you would live something this cool! And to top it all off-- get paid to do it! This is definately one of my favorite adventures I've been lucky enough to have. I'm going to post the whole thing here if you'd like to watch it. It's broken up into 4 parts. Keep in mind we did this nearly 5 years ago (pre-workshop). It holds up pretty well, but I hope we get another crack at it someday. Enjoy! And don't worry, Mom, we turned down all the strange liquids offered to us.

BURNING MAN 2001 PART ONE:

Yesterday was our day off! Yay! And what do normal, childless, 30 year olds do on their days off? They goto a jungle full of monkeys, of course! Yes, we drove down to Homestead and experienced Monkey Jungle: "Where the humans are caged and the monkeys run free!". Right away I discovered the flaw in that... You see... when monkeys are roaming free... and you're in a cage... well... This puts you at a serious disadvantage... Let's just say, the tops of the cages should be covered to prevent... accidents. Meet exhibit 'A' on the left. This young man was standing right next to me, gleefully feeding raisins and cranberries to oh-so-hungry monkeys... Then, it happened. I heard a yelp--I turned-- and saw a river o' pee streaming down from the top of the cage on this poor kids head. From that point forward, this was not happy, fuzzy playtime with the monkeys-- this, was war. Okay, more like dodgeball. The next victim was an old man. He wasn't laughing about it though so we didn't take a picture of him. Though we did laugh at him (no we didn't. well maybe. no, we really didn't). We have a saying in the land of television photojournalism: Look Up and Live. Indeed.
We had fun dodging monkey feces, and then moved on to our next great adventure:
THE BEST STRAWBERRIES ON EARTH! No kidding, I never knew strawberries could taste so good! They come fresh from Burr's Strawberry Farm in Homestead just about a mile from the screaming, peeing monkeys. If you want to know why farm fresh berries taste so much better than those genetically engineered hacks at the supermarket... follow THIS LINK I got from my friends Aaron and Kim today. You'll be glad you did. It's so well done and rivals in hillarity a kid getting peed on by a monkey. ;)
In other news... Col. Corn has totally busted me regarding the name of my kittycat, Hartman. Yes, I named my cat after CBS's Steve Hartman. What? That is totally NOT wierd! :) I've been a big Hartman fan for 10 years now. He and his photographer, Les Rose, are amazing storytellers and have been an inspiration to me. You should check out their work online.
Can you see the resemblence? What do you mean you see a restraining order? ;)

Breaking News: Worlds Collide!! Hartman VS Heathcliff Luckily Heathcliff was more of a scaredy cat than Hartman. If Heathcliff only knew that Hartman's attack would have amounted to being lightly tapped with cotton puffs-- things may have gone differently. Hartman successfully defended her territory with her ferocious roar.

Here's my reporter brushing his hair before our live shot. He cracks me up!

Hartman had an exciting adventure this morning exploring the great unknown (new back yard)!

This is the same look I get from people when I'm shooting some crazy angle at work. :)

I had to wipe the spiderwebs from her lil face when it was time to go back in.

On top of the world!

TheDanielLyon will now be enjoying his RedVines across town at Channel 7. I hear it's the only shop in town with Mr. Pibb. See you in the field, Danny!

Not much to blog about lately... The most exciting thing I've done is shoot myself brushing my teeth (sans toothpaste) for a med story that went out on the CBS Newspath feed. See, told you it's been slow. I'm sure you don't want to hear about how taking a shower the other day cause water to spew up from the bottom of our toilet flooding the bathroom and half the bedroom and now the carpet has smelly mold growing under it.... Didn't think so... Uhm..Anybody know how to solve that mold problem?

Here's a natsound piece I did a few months ago. I wish I could do them more often. A 'natsound piece' or 'photo essay' is a story that the photographer alone shoots and edits using only pictures and natural sound. In other words, from concept to completion-- it's all mine, MUAHAHAHHA! ;)

If by chance you are judging the Best of Photojournalism contest, do not watch the story. The entries are supposed to be anonymous. I'd love to hear what you all think! The NPPA QCC judges had some good constructive criticism for the story. Though their biggest--across the board--complaint surprised me. Pretty much what I thought was right with the piece was what they thought was wrong. D'oh!

Some guys from KOAM, my first station, put together this spoof of that crazy delicious SNL spoof. Pretty funny! I just hope the station is okay with this being on the internet! :)

Here's a pic of me and 'Cool B' in 1999. 'Cool B' always leaves me comments on my blog so she gets her very own post. ;) I'm super excited about her trip to Miami in March. I'm sure I'll see wierd parts of Florida I never would have seen if she hadn't come for a visit!
My cool sister-in-laws are visiting in March as well! Plus, stay tuned for a special blog entry on Feb 28th!

Just when you thought I couldn't get any weirder... The photo on the left is a photo of the photo I keep in my newscar. And no, you're not seeing things. It is indeed my cat, Hartman,-- with a stack of pancakes on her head. It's a great conversation piece I must say. Yesterday I had a co-worker from the other end of the building (which means we've never met) in the car. We were having the ususal get to know you type conversation... but I could tell his eyes kept averting to that fluffy golden stack of buttermilk goodness. I meant to explain... but the conversation kept turning corners and I never did get around to telling him why I have a picture of my cat with pancakes on her head in the visor of my newscar. Who knows what strange rumors are now being whispered in the unknown "other end of the building"! (I'm kidding). So, you may be wondering: "Uh,... why DO you have a picture of your cat with pancakes on her head?". Some of you may already know. For those who don't... first of all, the pancakes are not real. I always reveal that... eventually. :) They were photoshopped in. So, now you may be asking "Uh,.... why DO YOU HAVE A PICTURE OF YOUR CAT WITH PANCAKES ON HER HEAD??". Alright! Alright! Calm down. Sheesh. Have you ever heard of Oolong the rabbit? Oolong was a rabbit from Japan. His owner did actually put pancakes on his head and posted photos of his beloved pet on the internet a few years ago. Oolong was all the rage back when I worked in Vegas... well...in certain circles anyway... I have had a picture of Hartman with a pancake on her head in my newscar for the past 5 years. The above is version 2.0. :)