Head is still ringing from the going away party. Too hung over to post pictures.

LLR is going to take a little break for the week while I travel across the country, to my new home in South Carolina. I got friend, and fellow blogger Hasser as my copilot, and we'll decided to make a little ROADTRIP BLOG, so our friends and family can chart our progress along the way. And, it'll also give us something to do for 2800+ miles.

It still remains to be seen if we'll actually keep on top of it. We're already six hours behind schedule, and haven't even gotten out the door yet.

Talk to you later.
I'll miss you, Portland.

[ LINK TO THE ROADTRIP BLOG ]

I miss the toys. Don't get me wrong - I'll miss everyone at work, dearly. But, I'm a photographer, so I tend to be somewhat of a gadget freak. So, here's a tribute to my some of my favorite gear [this is not intended to make me look like a spoiled brat]:

My news rig



I was meaning to vacuum and wash it, I really was. But, I just didn't get around to it - due to all the packing and drinking . Although I did leave several years of stickers and junk on the rear camera cage (or "flare" as management refers to it).



The gadgets
I'll miss the Nextel phone and its questionable coverage area. And, I only just began to develop a loving relationship with the company issued credit card. And you've all heard me go on-and-on about my wide-angle lens and lip mic, so I'll move on...



The DVC-PRO camera.
I'll miss you most of all camera. You are mine, right out-of-the-box and we've always gotten along. I even bought you a UL Softbox and Anton Bauer body armor. *sniff* take care.......*crying*

My last shift at work was a piece of cake (pun intended). I got to work a day shift and basically go shoot a bunch of random stuff with no impending deadline - except for lunch.

Here were the final stories I covered at work:

1. guy getting his eyelids surgically altered.
2. people who like living in expensive apartments downtown
3. giant doughnut stolen from indie-rock doughnut shop.
4. human bones found in ground at city dig site.

And, I didn't shoot anything about meth babies - it was a good day. When I got back to the station I hid out in the maintenance garage cleaning up my filthy news rig. Eventually I was called into the conference room for some cake and a round of hugs and handshakes.

Good times.

[11/14: KPTV was a great place to work. Patrick McCreery was nothing short of an excellent news director. I stand by all my hard working co-workers that are still there, doing their thing. I'm not your tool Oregon Media Insider, and you can kiss my ass.]



Tomorrow is my last day, but I got lucky and pulled a day shift, so tonight was probably my last live shot for the station. We put together a decent weather-related story, had a good live shot, and had good props.

By "good props" I don't mean the producer telling us "great job, guys" at the end of our live shot (which they did). Nope. I'm referring to the ubiquitous item that many reporters hold up in their live shots, to better explain what they're talking about.

For example, tonight Kevin used a digital thermometer to add scientific value to his live presence. [see below]



Just about every live report has a prop, and we have about five live reporters in rapid succession over the first 13 minutes of the show every night. That's a lot of props. So, where exactly do all these props go after the show?

The Prop Drawer, of course.



It's a supernatural filing cabinet over by the producers' desks that contains millions of random items used in past live shots - many hoping to be used again in another live shot someday.

For example: The reporter could do one story about tools getting stolen, and hold up a hammer - and then later on use it again in a story about a lady getting clobbered over the heard several times by a hammer wielding bandit (true story).

Here's an random sampling of items in the drawer:

40 ounce malt liquor
tire iron
cold medicine
fireworks
spray paint
BBQ lighter
rat poison
kosher salt
plush children's toy
baseball bat
screw driver (phillips)
vhs tape
crime tape
hammer

I try not to mess around in the The Prop Drawer very much, since there's a good chance of bodily harm, or accidentally pushing several items together that could potentially become a makeshift bomb - which could explode, releasing the drawer's mystical-vorpal energy that keeps all the items safely inside.

Anyway, as we used our second prop in the live shot tonight (snow ball), I kinda got all nostalgic thinking about all the weird, prop-live shots I've shot over the years. And, I wonder if the station I end up at has their own prop drawer. I couldn't imagine working in a place without one.

The TV weathercasters have been predicting the possibility of snow here in Portland for the last few days. The town got hit last year with what FOX 12 coined, The Winter Blast (something other stations are now using this year) which pretty much shut down the city for a week.

So, this year everyone wanted to be ready for the next Winter Blast - and today all the stations went live for most of the day with continuous coverage of what I'm calling Winter Blast Light (or possibly Diet Winter Blast). And, while the weather was kinda lackluster (no snow), people did drive themselves into ditches or slam into telephone poles all morning.

Since I'm on my way out-of-town, and traded to be NOT be on-call this weekend, I wasn't asked to participate in all the winter coverage.



But, I did land a special last-minute assignment: picking up the anchors and driving them to work. Basically, Patrick (the news director) called me and said, "I'm appointing you with this task, Frodo Baggins. For if you cannot do it...the fate of Middle Earth is lost." Well, I'm paraphrasing, but it was something important like that.



To be fair: Wayne and Shauna did have a tremendous amount of dangerous ice on several streets leading up to their houses, and I have 4WD studded-tire machine that is handy for such occasions, so it was a good idea for them not to drive.



My entire adventure only took about an hour, but I feel that I made a difference when I look at that TV today (from inside my warm house) and see the lens meat anchors hard at work with the Low Carb Winter Blast coverage.

And then I wonder....



...How are they gonna get home?

Gave my two week notice yesterday. My boss already knew it was coming, and he was really cool about it. It was a weird sensation walking from his office, back out into the newsroom. It was completely official: I'm leaving very soon. I'm already feeling slightly disconnected already - especially when everyone talks about sweeps, and upcoming projects.

But, I quickly shake all of that off and get down to business. If I'm going to get another job soon: I'm going to need a resume tape.

I've been at kptv for just over six years, and I haven't had to make a it's-for-real-I'm-looking-for-a-new-job tape in quite a while. Where to begin? I've probably shot like five million stories in the last few years, and I needed to narrow it down to only a few little gems.



I scoured the station for looking for various tapes, and got a pretty decent tape all planned out. Looking over the list I thought to myself, "It's looking pretty good, but I wonder if anyone will care that there isn't a lot of general news stuff, and mainly a bunch of feature stories?" An hour later I got a call from my former boss. He said to me, "I know that you've most-likely started on your resume tape, and it's probably great. But, you need to make sure you put more general news stuff on there, and not just load it with cool looking feature stories." I said to him, "Oh yeah, no problem" as I reluctantly went back to the archive room, searching for more G-news stuff.

Putting "general news" stories on your tape shows them that you can do the grunt work, and not make it look sloppy. But, at the same time they probably want it to have 'something special.' This becomes a problem for me because nearly 90% of the news that I cover involves "meth babies" and "sex offenders on the run" - neither of which have stellar, natural sound or magic moments. And, since our show is at night, we are required to start every story with "night video" to give it a more fresh appeal - even if the thing we covered happened at high noon. So, even if I had something really awesome that didn't involve a meth baby, there'll be ten seconds of semi-dark video at the beginning as the reporter backs into the story.

Anyway, I found two sorta-decent G-news stories and weaved them into the tape.

To me, making a good resume tape is like making a romantic mix tape for girl back in tenth grade. Each and every new song (or in this case, news package) has to look somewhat random, but is completely deliberate and crafted from an intense obsessive mind set. You don't want to look too lame or needy right away, but you don't want to start with too much flash and come across like an overconfident jerk. So, I slave over the detail and composition of every story, and pretend that I'm watching as if I'm someone else watching the tape and thinking about the person who made it (me).

Here's my line-up (awesome stores are in italics):

"Stolen Tip Jar" - general news
"Holiday Toy Drive" - general news
"Digital Exterminators" - photo essay
"Mail for Grabs" - investigative
"FBI Academy" - sweeps feature
"Tongue Splitting" - feature
"PDX Fashion" - photo essay
"Dirty Bathroom Keys" - investigative
"Majestic" - sweeps feature
"X in PDX" - sweeps feature

Okay, it's a little long, but I figure they can stop the tape when they've seen enough, or are compelled to call me that very moment. Better to be over-prepared anyway, I think.


After all the hard stuff is done, the RESUME TAPE DUB STATION 3000 does the rest!



It can make a ton of dubs at one time, while handling each one with tender loving care. One some occasions the dub station is being used to make copies of weird manga-cartoons or crappy infomercials, but tonight it was all mine.



And, with great alacrity and nimble fingers (something photogs are known for) I was able to fire off a ton of tapes (and DVDs) in no time.

Tomorrow I throw them in the mail, and the waiting game begins...

Well it's official: my girlfriend got the job. She's now the news director at WHNS in Greenville, South Carolina. She's definitly the right person for the job, and has worked hard to get where she is. Yay! Congrats!
Oh wait...that's in South Carolina?

[ take a moment to let that sink in ]

Yeah. I know.

That's far.

Well, with much consideration, the LLR is moving to South Carolina (which is still weird to say). However, the decision is a no brainer for me. I love my gal and I'm really proud of her, and if that means giving up my little job here (and my fucking super rad wide angle lens) and moving to the South - well then I'll do it.

That's how it goes in TV news if you want to climb up the "ladder of success" (or was it the "stairs of opportunity?" I forget). If you want your career to grow, you gotta do the bounce from market-to-bigger-market-thing. Usually the spouses have to drop everything, move, and start over somewhere else. But, since I work in TV and know the routine, I'm able to roll with it a little easier.

I'm going to miss my station terribly. I feel like Morgan Freeman in the Shawshank Redemption, and how he felt all "institutionalized." I went to KPTV six years ago when I was just a punk kid, and now I'm leaving as an old seasoned photog. I think I'm going take a knife and carve "JL was here" on the ceiling somewhere - just like Morgan Freeman did at the end of the movie - it'll probably be in the "photog ready room" at the station. I'll finally get to use that Leatherman knife-thing that I always carry around on my belt (just so I can take it off at a court house or airport every day).

Anyway, I've been breaking the news to everyone for the last few days and it hasn't been easy. Most people are kinda like "oh wow! You're leaving?" but when I get to the South Carolina part, they get all wierded out and say "WHAT?" and I can see them trying to wrap their minds around it as I continue to talk, but they don't hear anything I've said because then they say, "WHAT?...... SOUTH CAROLINA?"

The the hardest part of all this: leaving the friends and family. I have the best of both, and it'll be hard to eventually say goodbye without crying like I did in Stanford's at happy hour the other day . I'm also leaving the greatest city on the planet, Portland, Oregon. But, we just got a new mayor, so maybe now is a good time to leave - in case it gets all different and screwed up (no offense Potter, I'm sure you'll do a lovely job).

What does this mean for my blog?

Well, you'll get to see the part of my job I haven't covered yet: quitting it. That's sure to be entertaining. And then there'll be the whole series of "news photographer seeking a new job" posts (that'll be shortly after the inevitable " the water tastes funny here" post). I have so much crazy stuff going on in the next two weeks that it'll probably be the best thing that's ever happened to much -neglected blog. I'm also hoping to get one of those Colonel Sanders outfits to wear when I get there - Hasser told me they're everywhere.

Whatever the case. I got to go to work today and give notice - and then get those resume tapes in the mail.

I can't believe this is all happening so fast!

South Carolina, prepare to have your faces rocked.