And We're Off...Wait, Nevermind

WOW! I've always heard stories about being ready in this ever-changing news world, but to be honest, nothing has been this wild. In the last 24 hours, I've gone from covering the Joe Rangel trial, to breaking news of a 14 year old boy getting burned by an exploded paint can (told he's doing better), to getting a call to leave with Dyess Airmen bound for Haiti.

[Deep Breath]

I was on the scene for a live shot, at ten o'clock, where I made the casual joke to KTAB's Katherine Lane about getting "the call" (we were told Thursday to standby for the call to go with Dyess). She laughed, we did our live shots...then BAM! "The call" came. So we broke away from the scene grabbed our gear and our pre-packed bags, all while frantically calling family, friends, and co-workers to tell them of the latest news.

[Exhale Deep Breath]

So here's, the life we've lived since. We arrived at Dyess at 11. Left after 1, still not knowing what we were going to do, and for how long (common theme, take note). Landed at base in Carolina, at 5:30 Am, and crashed in bed.

Now this trip wasn't that easy, the flight on a C-130 was no "easy" task, our Airmen might disagree. The flight consists of sitting on a makeshift canvas seat, equipped with seat belt, and midway through soon became our cots for sleeping. Not the easiest thing to do, needless to say, I tossed and turned and was tossed and turned by turbulence...

So we arrive, and are told we'd leave sometime later Saturday night. We rested, ate, and prepped for a late night departure.

Only the pilot came down ill...plans begin to shift....will we leave, tonight? Will we leave, at all?

Plans shift again.

We are now set, as I write this, to get a new Herc (AF slang for C-130, I'm picking up on what I can), with a new crew and are looking to set out for Haiti, later tonight (still Saturday, for those keeping score).

It's been wild, but these boys from Dyess are taking good care of us, and keep a positive attitude through this all. I guess, they just keep the mission in mind, and right now it's all about helping those in desperate need in Haiti.

***Okay, after writing this blog post on Saturday, and looking to post it, things changed AGAIN! Just so you know. We’re told TODAY is THE day…Fingers crossed.

It's apparent, you must be flexible because in a moment's notice you're either going on not. For now, we are. I'll update as soon as we can, maybe even with video, Wi-Fi isn't always readily available...

"This is what we train for"

You could see the excitement in the eyes of Capt. Wesley Stark as we stood inside the 40th Airlift Squadron headquarters at 11:30 at night.

He was on a mission to help people.

"We'd much rather be doing this than flying our training missions, he said, trying to repress a grin. "Those get monotenous sometimes. This is the real-world mission that we're trained to do."

Right now, the Air Force is puppeteering 900 daily relief missions in and out of Haiti.

"We work for 16 to 18 hours. Then we'll get an hour of rest, and do it all over again until they tell us to quit."

I can imagine the uncertainty can be a thrilling part of the job.

"I'm very excited," Stark reiterated. "This is what we train for. It's pretty amazing that we can do these relief missions and fight the war at the same time. So I'm getting a break from that,

With so many people working in the relief mission, Stark said he's sure he's going to run into friends. He flew on a similar rescue mission following Hurricane Dean in 2007.

Stark allowed two of our reporters to go along on his C-130, and said he wants Americans to see what the Air Force does for relief on such a large scale.

I wish all of them luck!

I love Abilene

So I am new to the area. I've been here 7 weeks now and I love it. It's not that cold, the snow doesn't stick around to long, and everyone is really friendly. I moved here from Pocatello Idaho. Anyone heard of it? I think it's about 30 degrees there and snowy. Don't get me wrong, I love the snow, but I hate driving in it. Also, I know a lot of you will disagree, but the shopping here nice. Pocatello has no Target, Best Buy, Macy's, Dillards, and the list goes on and on.

With that said, is there any place around here that I have to see? Is there something so cool about the big county.... that you take your out of state friends to see it when they come to town? If so, I want to see it.

Leno/Conan Update: "Coco" Takes the Gloves Off

Since my last post, the Leno/Conan saga has become exponentially more fascinating. Now, we know that Leno will be back at 10:35 after the Olympics, and Conan has one foot out the door at NBC. And it's fascinating to see high-profile people take sides in this debacle.

Leno has the backing of the only people who matter: NBC executives. Jeff Zucker, whose reputation is that of an executive who fails upward, won't let go of Leno. Longtime NBC executive Dick Ebersol TRASHED Conan in the New York Times. Never mind that his reasoning was absurd and contradictory; he cited ratings as the reason why he's not sad to see Conan go. But for two years, Leno got crushed by David Letterman. A lucky break got Leno on track (a "hard-hitting" interview with Hugh Grant after he was caught with a hooker).

Now, Jay is quickly becoming reviled. Jimmy Kimmel did an incredible thing this week: he did his ENTIRE Tuesday night show dressed as Leno, and eviscerated him in the process. It was subversive and brilliant. And what does Leno do to respond? He has Kimmel on his show Thursday, where Kimmel eviscerates Leno to his face, and Leno plays dumb. And that's on the same day that Leno signs his brand new deal to take back the 10:35 spot. I watched the replay of the interview, and said out loud "Jay, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" Bizarre stuff.

Meanwhile, Conan has become the darling of this generation, which I am dubbing "the Twitter generation", and has support he's never seen before. His days are numbered at NBC, and he probably only has six Tonight Shows left before he gets the ax. This may be unprecedented: a guy that knows he's getting dumped by his failing network is absolutely dumping all over it, and people are not only eating it up, but ravenously supporting him. The biggest Must-See show RIGHT NOW is The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. After next Friday, it may be a while before anyone sees him on television. It's not the same as guys who've decided to step down, and wrap up their shows with a long, slow Battan Death March to retirement, a la Johnny Carson. This is 2010, baby. It's going down quick and dirty, and quite literally, ANYTHING can happen on the Tonight Show next week. Those five shows should be packaged and sold as their own DVD Box Set.

Stay tuned. I know I will.

Houston is NOT that bad!

I actually just moved to Abilene from the Houston area just a few months ago, and part of my job here is to help produce the evening newscasts.

Well, I couldn't help but noticing, just weeks after starting my job here, that NO good news ever comes out of Houston. I've been seeing that trend pretty much every day now.

Well I'm here to say, Houston is NOT that bad!! It's actually, in my opinion, the best city in the world!! You don't have to worry about getting shot going to the grocery store, or in your own driveway for that matter. I have spent about 80% of my life in Houston and I'm still alive....

I will say though, I went home last month in a plane, and as we approached the Houston area, there was like a black haze sitting right on top of the city. The skies were also like a blueish-grayish color. Sooo, the air quality in Houston is NOTHING like here in Abilene. :-)
I just love the deep blue skies here in the Big Country; simply gorgeous! And I haven't had ANY allergy problems so far....

But I hoped I have changed some minds about the image of Houston! Trust me, it's a fabulous city minus the air quality, lol.

Thanks for reading and watching :-)

The Snuggie?? Really?!?!?

I'm definitely a night owl, and my work hours don't help. So it's only natural for me to watch more infomercials than television shows.

In my moments of dozing in and out on my couch, there's always a commerical I never seem to miss--the Snuggie.

Ahhh yes, the infamous Snuggie. I know people have written about this "blanket with a sleeve" before, but why is this thing still so popular?

I don't know about you guys, but my fingers get cold fast; and looking at the picture, this new blankie sure won't help me out. I guess there's a population suffering from cold arms that could benefit from this.

Even so, is it that difficult and painful to take your arms from under your blanket and change the channel or read a book? Seems like good ol' Snuggie's trying to make everyone even more lazy.

The funniest part of the commercial was how they advertised that you can wear it and go to outdoor gaming events to keep toasty. Ummm...I wouldn't wear this thing out of the house or I'm pretty sure people would ask me which cult I belonged to (or why I stole my church's choir robe).

I don't know. Call me crazy, but blankets are just fine for me.

Or maybe I really AM the crazy one because Sir Snuggie made a killing from this odd invention, and I'm stuck writing about it on a blog.

Makes me want to create my own frivolous invention that will have me blogging all the way to the bank. Patent Pending...

TV news without the teleprompter

There was a little problem with our teleprompter Monday morning. There was nothing there. We had to do Daybreak the old-fashioned way...reading if from the paper in front of us. It was odd, and you may have noticed us looking down more than usual. There were no words on the screen, and we get used to reading the words flashed on the series of mirror images that appear at the lens. It made it a little more of a challenge, but we had the news and weather to present. The best we could hope for is that you didn't notice. If you did notice, we did our best. The teleprompter was working again this morning.