1,001 Words

Wednesday, August 16 - 1pm-3pm - Great Falls of the Potomac, Great Falls, Virginia

Not much to say here (thank GOD!).  Just some pictures from a vacation day walking along the Great Falls.  I walked the length of the falls here at Mather Gorge, where the Potomac drops about 60 feet.  I used all of my skill not to fall on some rocks and crack my skull open.  And as you likely know, skill is not something I have in spades.  I had a lot of fun just hanging out, despite thoughts I could get poison ivy, poison oak, poison West Nile, poison mugged and beaten and attacked and left for dead, etc.  The pictures go from the top of the gorge to the bottom.  Yay sunny vacation days!

Title is from the song "Shooting Horses" by Jann Arden.

Friday, August 11 - 6:40pm - NW Washington DC

I took this picture after the 6pm news on a Friday evening.  The studio is quiet.  The only sign of life is Derek McGinty’s jacket hanging on the C-Chair (as it’s called in fancy TV parlance).  It was a different scene just 15 minutes prior, when the 6pm broadcast - produced by yours truly - had plenty of "breaking news" and excitement.  It was a good way to end my first and hopefully last week as the 6pm producer.

I was thrown an alleged bone by management.  Every now and then, they’ll take one of us overnighters, put us on an evening shift, and tell us we’re getting a cup of coffee up with the big team.  We are so freakin’ lucky.  Yeah, the hours are great.  I got to waltz into work at 10am, leave around 7pm, take a half hour for lunch, go out to dinner at Carpool, sleep when it’s dark, wake when it’s light, and ride the Metro like a big boy.  However, my day started with the 10am Assignment Meeting.  It’s the part of the TV day where the news crew decides what stories will be covered.  At the glorious 9NewsNowW*USALiveLocalLatebreaking meeting, it was an echo chamber.  It’s the place where people say things when they have nothing to say.  On the mornings, when you have something to say, you say it - otherwise, you shut up and do your job.

It got the day off on the wrong foot.  I would then go downstairs to my desk and surf the web and the AP wires looking for stories.  It wouldn’t matter, because the 5pm show (which gets more attention by the station, as it should) would take all of my good ideas and leave me with squat.  Which is fine, because the show didn’t have much room in it for creative things (or interesting things, or important things, or neat things, or produced things…really, anything much).  You would think I would enjoy this.  I’ve been a morning producer for seven years.  Most morning producers go at 100mph from the time they walk in the door, and don’t stop until the end of the broadcast.  I feed off of it, as do most career morning producers.  With the 6pm, I would put in the three live reporters I got, put in about two more stories, then call it time for lunch.  I have a weakness for Chipotle, somewhat encouraged by others.  Frankly, the shift was boring.  I found it uninspiring, and it turn found my work to be the same thing.  Maybe, if I were on it long term, I would find it more interesting and I’d find ways to challenge myself.  But I learned that I like the hecticness (yes, I make up words) of the overnights.  I liked being able to go home at 8am and be able to run errands at my own leisure.  I liked the camaraderie of the early mornings.  And even though my boss has his moments, there’s only one of him and he’s easy enough to deal with compared to three of him which I got in the evenings.  And I discovered, as loony as it makes me sound, I actually enjoy my shift.  The hours bite.  I know that.  But the job and the people are good.  And I’ll take that any day of the week over boredom at work.  I’ll take a raise, too.  But that’s another battle for another day.

And oh yeah, if anyone important from work just happens across this - I would tell you this in person and not on my personal blog on my personal time, if you indicated that you cared about my opinions.  God bless working for a corporate giant.

Title from the song "Crazy" by Alana Davis.

Saturday, August 5 - about 6:00pm - Pickerington, Ohio

First off, I didn’t take this photo, which should be obvious as I’m in it.  I’m on the right.  My father is in the middle, and my half-brother Tony is on the left.  He’s home from Iraq for two weeks, and his parents threw a cookout Saturday to welcome him home and have friends stop by.

Now, most people I relayed this story to had typical reactions.  #1: You have a half-brother?  #2: He’s in Iraq?

I don’t talk much about my father’s side of the family, and I talk even less about my two half-sisters (does that make a whole sister?) and my half-brother.  I’ve seen Elizabeth (24) and Sarah (19) several times over the last few years, when pangs of guilt would lead me to my father’s house on some rouse of a trip to Central Ohio.  For some reason, I never saw Tony.  He was at band camp, a friend’s house, trying not to get killed by insurgents in Baghdad, etc.  I actually had not seen him since June, 1996 until today.  He was 12 then.  I was 18.  People can change a lot in 10 years.  I had more hair.  He was four feet tall.  You know how it goes.

It took a lot for me to figure out I even wanted to go.  Like I said, I don’t much associate with the Guzman side of my family.  I hadn’t seen Tony in 10 years (back when he was Little Tony), and I wasn’t sure what it would be like to see him.  But as morbid as it sounds, I figured I would rather see him in an awkward situation in the outskirts of Columbus than in a flag-draped coffin coming back from Iraq.  Morbid, yes.  But as someone said, it’s not like he’s off at college, he is in Baghdad.

I showed up, and after an initial brotherly hug, there was about 10 minutes of forced conversation.  It was awkward, because how to you catch up with someone who you feel you should know better, after 10 years?  What do you say?  "How’s Iraq going?"  It was weird.  I was saved by some other guests leaving, and I escaped to the bathroom (six hours of driving puts some things atop the importance list).  I spent the next few hours making small talk with my relations, and making larger small talk with strangers who I felt I had more in common with and who I didn’t feel like I had to have some kind of bigger conversation.

I know, I know: I’m rambling.  But it’s been a weird day.  I woke up after the fifth night of crappy sleep.  Drove six hours.  Saw someone I haven’t seen in ten years who I should have a bigger bond with, but right now, only share some genes, got good old feelings of family-guilt that few if any people can give me, hopped back in the car, drove another six hours, and now I’m typing away here.  A lot of time to think in the car.  And I really don’t know what to say.  Except that I’m glad I went.  Because the bad feelings for going outweigh the bad feelings I would have had for not going.  If that makes any sense.

The next time you’re having a discussion about the war in Iraq, and you say you don’t know anyone over there, now you do.  His name is Tony Guzman.  He’s 22.  He’s in the Army.  He’s from Pickerington, Ohio and a good middle-class family.  He enlisted in the Army because he wanted to, not because he had no other options in life, and he wanted to after the war started.  He spends his days repairing Army vehicles because he likes to, and because it keeps him off patrols in the streets.  He has a girlfriend who bakes good cookies.  He’s religious, has a devious smile, and sent the cutout of himself (seen below) because he couldn’t be at his older sister’s wedding.  And now, basically, you know him as well as I do.

Next time, I promise to write more about stupid tourists and post photos of ducks.  But I just wanted to hammer out some thoughts while I was here.

Title from the song "Question Everything" by 8Stops7