Congrats to my friends Aaron and Kim on their newborn son, Landon! Of course, as you may remember, we had a name the baby contest here on angiemoriconi.com. The winning entry was "Seven", from bluedogphotog. I am unsure how this discrepancy in the name came about, but I assure the winner he may keep his prize of Hartman's left over Burker King french fries. Congrats Aa and K!

Check out my new wheels! Old Bessy (my old news car) has been retired! In her place is a brand new, dark blue, 2006 Nissan Exterra!As you can see it's parked in the 'media parking' on South Beach (aka: the sidewalk). ;)

Speaking of South Beach... There's no shortage of entertainment when covering stories there! This guy was totally nuts, dancing around my camera, begging to get on the news, talking about how "sexy" he is. As appropriate as it would have been to show him dancing around during a story about a man who killed his little kids by throwing them off the 15th story balcony and then jumping himself... the blog will have to do!

Life at work can be so predictable sometimes. There's always a nut wanting to get on tv, there's always a comment about how the gear is bigger than I am and when you walk to the back of the live truck there's always some random dude with a gigantic snake hanging around there. I mean, why wouldn't there be a guy with a big snake behind the truck? Quite frankly, I'd be more surprised if there wasn't a guy with a snake back there.

Earlier in the week Dave and I went to Pensacola to shoot a few stories. We were there for a couple of days. They are still recovering from hurricane Ivan in 2004! This road is still closed. That's not the reason we were there though. I'll blog about that after the story airs!

My sister-in-law, Amy, said my shirt looks like Piglet's shirt from Winnie the Pooh. haha

Oh yes, and there was crab! They were showing the American Idol finale at this restaurant. When Taylor Hicks won, a poor little 5 year old girl sitting behind us started crying. She wanted Katherine to win. She balled and balled... And balled... And balled... 20 minutes later: "Waaaaaaah! Ka-Ka-Kather--Waaaaaaaaaah!". I think she was still crying when we left.

Dave and I are heading to Vegas and LA tomorrow! Wooo! Soul Patrol!

Happy 9th Birthday, Hartman!!
I adopted Hartman from the SE Kansas humane society 9 years ago! It took some time for me to decide who to adopt. Then I saw this frightened little kitten, cowering and shaking in her cage with ears way to big for her lil head. I didn't stand a chance! This is the earliest photo I have of her taken in the summer of 1997. She did eventually grow into those ears! :)

Here's some cool news. It appears that the piece Dave and I did about the new CBS4 Always On website was shown at NAB! I found this on a website:

"From NAB: Illustrating The CBS Online O&O Push [by Staci]
Last week, I mentioned looking for a link to a striking promo video from CBS4.com aired at NAB. The video shows tech reporter Dave Malkoff explaining the various ways CBS4 is “Always ON.” It also illustrates the company-wide push into digital by CBS and the efforts to move it to the most local levels. Chris Krewson, the mutimedia editor for the Morning Call, found the link so he could share it around his newsroom. Actually, Krewson’s very attendance at RTNDA @ NAB stands out; he was there to better learn how to program a news site for today. I think we agree with the increased emphasis on video, any paper serious about its online operations should consider following suit. Text, audio, video — no news outlet can afford to focus on just one of the three anymore. CBS has figured that out.Related: @ NAB: RTNDA: On-Demand News Still At The BeginningThe NAB coverage is sponsored by Javien."

Pretty cool, huh! It's a great to know our hard work is paying off. What they probably didn't know while watching the story at NAB, and what I'm about to tell you because, hey, it's my blog, was that from concept to completion it was just Dave and me! We spent a total of 30 hours shooting and editing this monster. It took so long because we were doing effects we had never attempted before(no pressure!) AND Dave did ALL of the graphics. We had to do the whole thing on our weekend because the news beast was so very hungry all week.

I've linked to the pkg before, so some of you may have seen it already, If not, here is the link. Our story was also mentioned in an industry newsletter. I don't have a copy of it, but it said that 'CBS has figured out how to drive people to the web' and good stuff like that.

Okay, I'll stop with the back patting now. :) Below is a post that is new as well! Read on!

I've been crazy busy this month. So many projects, so little time!

Here's Hartman helping me edit the Key West portion of my station's hurricane special: "Tighten that up a few frames." "I think we can cut that soundbite." "No, not like that! *HISS*!"
She's my little furry micro manager! :)

It's nice that I am able to edit these projects at home. At work, I always get bumped from the final cut bays for day turn stuff. I get it done much quicker at home! Even with buggy Adobe Premeire Pro 2.0. Check out the cool keyboard my brother got us! The shuttle lags, but the jog is my best friend! Thanks lil brother!

Here I am in Key West taking a coconut milk break! I loooove Key West. As soon as we arrived in town, some random guy on a bike cracked open a coconut and gave it to me in exchange for being in my 'movie'. While the coconut was quite refreshing, I'm afraid he didn't make the cut. Hey, don't blame me coconut man, it was Hartman's call!
We caught up with 'the chicken lady' again! Here's the story: August 2004-- Hurricane Charley is churning towards the gulf-- the station sends Dave and me to Key West. We are supposed to be in the 5pm news for a hurricane preps sidebar. We don't arrive into town until 3:30ish! We didn't know Key West back then. We knew we were in a situation where you just have to pick something--anything--shoot it and get it on! Low and behold, we pull into town and immediately spot a lady chasing and scooping up chickens on Duval st! She was protecting the chickens from the hurricane! Pure gold. We always wished we had more time to make that piece shine. She's a fantastic person and if you're ever in Key West you should definately stop by and 'hi' at The Chicken Store. Maybe even adopt a chick! No, seriously!
It's been a while since I've blogged so I have to catch you all up! This is very exciting news here! Dave and I were shooting in Orlando a couple of weeks ago and found a Buffalo Wild Wings! We stopped there for lunch. We used to hang out at BW3's all the time in Vegas. We loved playing the trivia game. Dave's head if chock full o' useless trivia and should seriously be on Jeopardy. But on this day, all the planets alligned, the moon was full, the wings were extra hot and I WON THE TRIVIA GAME! Woo!
Remeber all that about how all the planets were alligned, moon full and wings were extra hot? There was one other side effect to this cosmic oddity... Sister-in-law Pam was in Orlando the same day giving a seminar! We were able to spend a couple of hours together that evening! It was a pretty darn good day! :) That's not the first time something like this has happened. Last year when I was in NYC for a shoot I learned while I was there (and I was only there for one night) that my Father-in-law, who plays in the Cleveland Orchestra, was going to be performing at Carnegie Hall! It was his last night! And get this, my hotel was directly across the street from Carnegie Hall. I saw the Orchestra and then Marty and I went out for Pizza afterwards!

Here's a picture of me blogging about me taking a picture of me blogging. Did I totally blow your mind?

I'm still at work killing time between the 10 and the 11. I'm on Ft. Lauderdale beach where the Air and Sea show wrapped up tonight.

It was a beautiful day out! Nothing but sunshine, swaying palms, stealth bombers and hundreds of thousands of people (organizers say millions, but I'm not so sure bout that). It was a tad warm at 90 degrees however. After working very hard shooting our pkg for the early show, I realized I was starving! The food was a miles away (so it seemed) and I figured I'd burn up any energy I'd get from a crappy hotdog just walking all that way and back to get it. Then I looked down on the ground-- and I kid you not-- there was a large unopened bag of fat free Ruffles. Finders keepers! So crispy! So delicious! I'm sure I'll pay for the olestra later. The chips also made me a hero to the photogs out covering the show in the blistering heat too busy to grab food. "Thank you for bringing the chips, Angie! We owe you!". I told them I just found them laying around on the ground. "Haha! Right! Thanks again!". Hmm. Chips story wasn't really that interesting... oh well. At least the beginning of the blog totally blew your minds! Gotta go do my live shot!

I went flying with the Red Baron Pizza Squadron the other day! Yup, it's time for the annual 'McDonald's Air and Sea Show' again! Sounds fun, right?
Well, I have to admit... flying in stunt planes is not my favorite thing to do. Something crazy usually happens. Not to mention, motion and I don't get along so well. I even got sick on a blimp once.
You: Wow, Angie! What was it like to ride on a blimp!?
Me: It's extremely noisy, the quarters are cramped, and you slowly sway back and forth...back and forth... back and forth... but, you get to tell people you rode on a blimp!

One time when I was working in Vegas, Dave and I were doing a story with those lightplanes that do not have engines. The pilot was going through his pre-flight safety mantra when he suddenly YELPED and threw something in the air from the back seat of the plane! We had no idea what was going on. Then the pilot became awkward and quiet with only the occasional nervous laugh. We kept asking him "What? What's going on?". Then, I saw it. What had gone sailing through the air was an open bag of vomit from the previous passenger. The vomit had spilled from the bag, landing smack dab on top of the station's expensive lipstick camera! It was covered! Dave and I were reminiscing about that day and laughed as we just realized--years later--that everybody at the station probably figured he or I had vomited on the camera! I suppose I wouldn't blame them if they did. 'The pilot freaked out and threw an open bag of vomit on the lipstick camera' doesn't really sound plausable.
Then, of course, the last time I did a profile on a stunt pilot-- he crashed his plane and died a couple days later practicing the very same stunts as when my reporter was with him.
I never worry that anything bad might happen while I'm doing stories like this. Odds are they won't. Plus, the camera makes you invincible, ya know.
And I've never lost my lunch on any of these adventures (I'm serious old 13ers, Vomitgate is 100%true!). On this day, I didn't do any stunts! Yay! I shot the other plane doing the stunts from my plane. Now THAT I can handle. It was a good day. No motion sickness. No airborne vomit bags. Tomorrow I cover the actual Air and Sea show!
Here's the video link if you'd like to see me not getting sick! :)