I shot President Bush yesterday (with my camera). Heh, I'm pretty sure I just got myself placed on some sort of list. ;) We were live during his landing (an 11 minute live shot! whew!) so no stills of el Presidente. Air Force One will have to do.
The guy down here on the right is one of my favorite characters of all time. Manny is a photog at my station and you never know what's going to come out of the guys mouth. Even with the secret service, hillarity ensued! He was the pool camera who rode with the motorcade and followed the Pres around town. I wish I could have been the camera shooting Manny shooting the president! Click below to see a short video starring Manny, shot and edited by Harlan S. It's called: The Cuban Cameraman. Only after viewing this can you fully appreciate Manny with the President of the United States.
I have to share one more Manny tidbit to share. A couple of weeks ago he was on a shoot, and a bee--I kid you not--flew into his ear-got stuck-and stung him. This being Manny, it took a while for anybody to take him seriously!

Okay...it's just a tropical depression... Dave and I are planning to leave on the trip of a lifetime on Saturday. Therefore, I forbid this to turn into a hurricane that's "headin right fer us". These things are so unpredictable, I'm not worried. Not at all. Not one bit. Not even a teeny tiny bit. Nope. Not me.

I think I'll pull a Weaver and not tell you all where we're going. ;) We'll post pictures when we get there and see if you can guess. Weaver was in Miami not so long ago, but we had to work and didn't have the chance to meet. Maybe next time!

I know I didn't post for a while. I guess I can only blame Comcast for one of those weeks. The only thing you all missed was hearing about me getting fed a warm hushpuppy type item with a chilly center of RAW MEAT. "Mmmm! This is delicious!" Exclaimed my reporter as we inconspicously as possible spit it out and threw away the...I don't even know what it was. Then there was my bizzarre encounter with a couple hundred folks who believe some dude in Miami (an ex-con at that) is Jesus Christ returned to earth. Then there was this:

Ahh! Blogger has stopped working again with the photo uploading. I think that's why I stopped posting for a short while. It's frustrating to be in the middle of a story and not be able to finish it. I didn't even get the part about Wilfords hat! This is almost as upsetting as when a waiter at an average restaurant doesn't write down your order and then gets it wrong. Why do they do that? It comes back wrong or something is forgotten I would say 80% of the time. Just write it down! Is it a game of memory for them? Do they think it's impressive and that their tip will increase exponentially with each correctly remembered detail? More likely it's company policy I suppose. But why is it company policy? See what happens when blogger goes down and I can't tell the story I wanted to?

THE GREAT INTERNETS CRISIS OF 2006:
I'm afraid our internets are currently down. Perhaps one day, the almighty Comcast will keep their appointment and come fix it.
Prior to our service going out, DaveMalkoff.com got a re-design. I shot everything on the tape (with the exception of some of the live shots).
I'm using the laptop cell modem for this post, but it's too slow for a full fledged post. You'll have to wait a little longer for the exciting conclusion to Wilford Brimley's hat VS Gator pit. :)
Thanks for the comments about the shuttle launch photo! Dave captured that shot. And for the person wondering where "MacGyver" from Stargate is... He left the show after season 8. But, SPOILER ALERT, he's coming back for a handful of eps this season!

BEST 4TH OF JULY EVER!!

Dave and I had the 4th off and ended up making a spontaneous trip to see the shuttle Discovery launch! As soon as we heard they gave it the go ahead, we packed our bag and drove 3 hours to Cape Canaveral. Watching a shuttle launch is something I have wanted to experience since I was a kid. It was so awesome to finally see it in person. *checks another one off the list*

We arrived at our hotel around 2AM. Our room number was 121---

--- and the mission number for Discovery was 121. If you think that's strange, wait till you hear about Wilford Brimley:

This guy right here, who we'll call Wilford Brimley, was standing right next to us waiting for the launch. Good ol' Wilford had a bit of an...incident. His brand new, and very expensive, cowboy hat blew off of his head--

-- and fell into the water below... it just so happens there was an alligator..
Make that 2 alligators...actually there were 4 that we could see on the surface. Yes, Wilford Brimley's hat had fallen into a full blown alligator pit. "Wulp," said Wilford, "Guess I could go on in there.". Uhm, it was a VERY nice hat apparently.

blogger is messed up again and won't let me post any more pictures. be sure and check back for the end of this story!

Are you all as excited as I am about the premiere of season 10? Hallowed are the Ori!

Dave and I went to see Superman Returns tonight. We talked about how much actor Brandon Routh's real story is so much like the character of Vincent Chase in Entourage. Brandon and Vince both came from nothing, were reletively unknown, then got a big break starring in a blockbuster superhero movie (Superman and Aquaman). In the Entourage episode where Aquaman premiers, Vince and friends go to see it in a theater to gauge crowd reaction. At the height of the movie-- there is a blackout. In Superman Returns, one of the main plot points is Lex Luthor causes a blackout. Coincidence? No? Well how bout this: During the height of the movie tonight--at the Dolphin Mall theatres in Miami--the power went out!
Is it just me, or is this a little bizzare? What does all of this mean?

I asked crazy-backpack-on-head-while-window-shopping guy and he said I watch way too much tv.

Here's that Hartman reaction photo I couldn't get up for the end of the last post. She vows to cough up hairballs everytime someone is over looking at the place. :)

The parade celerating the Miami Heat victory over Dallas was yesterday! I can now mark another one off my list. I've always thought it would be exciting to cover a professional team championship. I know the photo above isn't so hot, but hey, It was taken with my camera phone while I was shooting my pkg! :) It was as cool as I thought it would be standing amongst thousands of crazy screaming fans, sparkly confetti dropping from the sky and shouts to my male reporter of 'hey! why do you make her carry that thing!'. I think all the male reporters need to where a sling around their arm when they work with me. ha.

Moving on.. so remember we had to move back in January because the owner of the place we were renting wanted to sell it? So we moved into a much smaller place (for the same rent. grr.) and have had all sorts of problems with it, like our bedroom getting flooded twice because of a bad seel on the toilet? We just found out the owner wants to sell the place we just moved into! We even asked before moving into it if they were planning on selling it anytime soon because we just went through that. The answer was 'no'. Our lease runs through January, so until then we have to live with strangers coming over all the time to look at the place. Unless be buy it for the 'discounted' price of $330,000! We won't be buying anything until prices return to a reasonable level. The place we moved out of 6 months ago is still on the market. There are sooo many people trying to cash out because they see the bubble deflating. The good news is, we don't think anybody will actually buy the place for even the 'discounted' price. The bad news is, people will continue to walk though our lives until it's sold.

There was going to be a funny picture of Hartman's reaction to this news, but blogger is messed up! D'oh!