Monday I was put on the Mt. Saint Helens beat. The mountain has been having thousands of little earthquakes below the surface for the last few days, and people (mainly in the newsroom) are talking about "volcanic eruptions" and the like. Wilson and I drove up there to get the scoop.



Basically, on Monday no one was worried and geologists were all overly-excited about it - using the following phrases over-and-over-again in every interview: "seismic event" and lots of stuff about how it's a "real treat for geologists".



Anyway, I spent the entire day up there doing interviews and then later shooting satellite live shots for Fox affiliates all over the country. And, when there was enough time to spare - I was rocking my Xbox.



I keep my travel Xbox all ready for situations like this. I've been stranded in enough weird places (for up to a ten days) to not have all my toys with me. And, I'm way to obsessed with Star Wars: Battlefront lately to just leave it at home.

But, that all ended when the SAT truck guy told me "Better save your game, I'm gonna shut everything down." And, a few minutes later he turned of everything and left us sitting in the dark for 90 minutes.



He wanted to take in the 'majesty of the mountain at night' or something, so we basically had to sit there in complete darkness with nothing to do. We had no working phones, except for the ultra-expensive satellite phone. And, the sat truck guy wandered off for a bit. *sigh*

Anyway, I can't talk too much more about the last part without getting myself into trouble. It doesn't matter. Every time I go up there something weird happens. Last time (four years ago) a live truck guy forgot to fuel up, and we ran out of gas up there. And, with all the rumbling the mountain is doing this morning...next time I'm up there will probably be much more chaotic.

And, I can't wait. I want a photo of my robot next to a lava flow.