Life of Me X

Do you guys remember me telling you about buying a car?

Well, my first payment was due this week, but I never got my payment book and I couldn't remember the exact payment so I decided to make the 30-minute drive to make the payment in person.

A cop pulls out behind me between Dothan and Webb, and I just knew he was going to pull me over. Sure enough, a few minutes later his blue lights started flashing, but I wasn't overly worried. I had been driving under the speed limit because of the car in front of me and there was at least a car length between us, so I was pretty sure it had something to do with my lack of tag.

Officer: I noticed you don't have a tag. Did you just buy the car or something?

Me: Yes, sir. I bought it January 4th.

Officer: Do you have your bill of sale?

Like I keep that in my pocket. Psh.

Me: No, sir, but I have my registration.

Officer: Do you have any warrants out for your arrest?

Me: No, sir.

Officer: Well I'm going to go run your license and make sure you check out.

15 minutes later...

Officer: So are you going to get a tag?

No, officer. I planned on riding around without one forever.

Me: Yes, sir. I'm actually in the process of getting all my stuff transferred to Alabama. 

Officer: Oh, so you're going through Alabama?

Duh.

Me: Yes, sir. I'm going to transfer my license tomorrow.

Officer: Well, alright. You drive careful now.

And now I'm a resident of this place. What was I thinking?

Do the Truffle Shuffle

Apparently people living in the South have a higher tendency to be obese. Go figure, right? What with our love of fattening, greasy and/or fried foods and lots of it... who'd've thunk it?

Anyway, the state of Alabama has resolved to get its residents healthier, so they're sponsoring the 5th annual "Scale Back Alabama" campaign. The rules are pretty simple: create a group of 4 people who's BMIs are less than 20, weigh in and aspire to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. That's a pound a week. Totally attainable, right?



So a group of my coworkers decided to form a team. They're calling themselves the Truffle Shuffles. Cute, huh? But totally misleading 'cause not a single one of them is overweight. But anyway, they're blogging their weight-loss adventure on our station's website. It's sure to be entertaining so I encourage you guys to follow along!

In light of my coworkers' ambition to lose 10 pounds, I decided that it couldn't hurt for me to shape up a little. I don't need to lose weight, but I could do with a little toning so I decided last night that I could do some basic stretches and crunches before bed.

So I thought back to my days of cheerleading, softball and tennis to determine what kind of stretches I could do and figure out a good number of crunches to start out with. Way back when I was doing a couple hundred crunches a day between practices and home, so I decided that 50 would be a good jumping-off point.

Boy was I wrong! At 30, my breathing was haggard. By 40, my sides/stomach were aching. When I finally got to 50, I collapsed.

Getting old sucks, man.

This Week in the World of News

Monday

 Robert Bentley sworn in as Alabama's governor.

Live shots out the wazoo.

After the ceremony he commits his first slur - only Christians are my brothers and sisters.

Ouch.

Tuesday

Everything moved so slowly, like everything was stuck in quicksand.

The biggest news? John Tyson is out of a job.

Bentley makes good on his promise to dissolve the Anti-Gambling Task Force.

Wednesday

 You know how in Alice and Wonderland the white rabbit is constantly looking at his stopwatch saying, "I'm late! I'm late!"? That was me on Wednesday.

The show was stacked two minutes over when I got to work. I only had a few spots to drop commercial-wise and all of my reporters went over their time limits.

But Bentley did apologize for his religious remarks, saying he would be a governor for all Alabamians regardless of race or religion.

Thursday

 The next generation of synthetic drugs - bath salts.

Area hospitals are reporting increased cases of patients who've ingested bath salts. By ingested they mean that these idiots are snorting and/or injecting themselves with a product commonly found in drug stores all across the country.

Symptoms are similar to those of PCP, and include unfounded fear, rambling speech, paranoia, hallucinations, increased body temperature, extreme sweating, and superman-like strength and endurance. BUT bath salts are 10-to-15 times more powerful than meth and cocaine. Side effects include kidney failure, severe brain damage and death.

Who in their right mind would ever think, "I wonder what'll happen if I snort my mom/sister/wife's bath salts?"

Friday

 The final straw.

One of our sister stations was supplying me with 3 stories for the late show. We share files through an ftp system similar to the one above, and their files always take forever to move to us. Which isn't a big deal if they send them to us early.

Last night, they didn't send them to us early. I had everything finished except the video for one story. It took it 45 minutes to download. I missed the entire first block of my show. I was so stressed I now have a lovely batch of skin imperfections.

Life of Me IX

Ever had one of those days where nothing seems to go your way? Nothing goes wrong exactly, but it feels as if you're trying to walk through quicksand and are getting nowhere fast.

Yep, been one of those days.

And to top it off, the technology in the building was out to get me... again. This time in the form of the printer/copy machine.

It's one of those monster Xerox-type machines. Intimidating on a good day. Right now though it's not filled with normal paper. Instead it's filled with old letterheads, some dating so far back they're yellowed with age, all fatter than plain white printer paper almost as if it's water-logged. Anyway, the printer hates this paper and makes its feelings known every time I print and copy my anchors' scripts.

So I end up in the hallway with the machine, hitting it, sometimes kicking it and almost always yelling at it. Maybe I should put in a request for a personal printer.

Behind the Scenes X

Reporter: Alligators eat small dogs, cats and crackheads.

You know, the ones that wander into the river.

Deja Vu

I was looking through the endless pictures on weheartit.com, in search of something to give you guys a glimpse into my newsroom on this day of state inaugurations when I came across something better.

To you, this may look like a car with balloons in the floorboard or a silly prank you can play on a person.

But to me, this looks like a memory...

When I first started college I didn't know anyone, but it wasn't long before I met my best friends.

That picture up there is just a sampling of what these very special ladies did for my first college birthday.

They stole my keys and filled my entire car with balloons. I'm talking floorboards to roof balloons.

And then, about a week later, we got rid of them.

Windows down. Major highway. Traffic.

It was awesome.

Storm the Castle!

Here's a word of advice for you: don't storm the castle before you know the lay of the land.

This was a rough work week. First there was the national championship. Then the champs came home. Then there was the day my show was 2 minutes over no matter what I did to shorten it.

And then there was yesterday. When a decision was made not to run something because it was deemed inappropriate, but the reporter wasn't informed of the decision nor the reason behind it. So said reporter found out when the show came on and the item in question wasn't there.

So, instead of waiting until the show was over and gathering all of the information behind the situation, said reporter stormed down to the control room and confronted me. In the middle of my show.

The decision not to use his material was not mine. Yet he stormed into my domain, interrupted my concentration and distracted everyone responsible for making sure the show goes on the air.

Moral of this story? Make sure you have all the facts of a situation before you go on a warpath. Otherwise you make yourself look like a total ass.

Behind the Scenes IX

The Package

Reporter: How's my package look?

Graphics Op: I don't want to look at your package. I check my own package. That's enough.

 This, of course, led to a full-blown discussion about packages.

[It should be noted that most times I am the only girl in the control room.]

Inclement Weather Warning

Attention: The state of Alabama will be closed Monday due to the impending doom lurking just off its western border - winter weather.

The governor has declared a state of emergency, and nothing has happened yet. Schools are being closed, jury duties canceled, but guess what?

The news must go on!

A House Divided

I try to stay away from politics when it comes to my personal life. After all, I work in the media and am constantly inundated with the political happenings of this country and the rest of the world. The views, legal-speak and bipartisanship that I sift through on a daily basis while putting together my shows exposes me to enough spur-of-the-moment debates and finger-pointing to make me uncomfortable enough to last more than a lifetime.

I know that the general opinion of the population at large is that the media is biased one way or the other. I know that, save for FOX, most major networks swing democratic. If you don't believe me, think back to the last election. NBC, CBS, ABC, all of them gave the democratic candidates enough face time they could have justified giving them their own television show. FOX on the other hand was just the opposite, overrun with Republicans spewing venom in the direction of the nearest democrat.

Where I work, though, isn't a major network. It's a small-town, community station that, I believe, is ethical in its treatment of politics. We give both sides the same treatment, regardless of our individual political views.

I will admit that, as a whole, journalists tend to be more liberal in their thinking, but that says nothing of their political leanings. I would like to think that we've been around the block enough times to not take anything at face-value and realize that half of the bills/laws recently passed in Congress were only passed due to bipartisanship. I would like to think that journalists don't cast their votes based on a party but rather on the issues that the candidates stand for.

It doesn't take a particularly-observant person to see that our national leaders are simply fighting amongst themselves. If the Democratic party supports this then the Republican party doesn't and vice-versa. Is that how we want our country run? Do we want all of the decisions that are made regarding us made simply because the party that holds the majority on Capitol Hill supports it?

When did we become a nation divided by a two-party system? What were we, the voters, thinking?

A great man once said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." That man was Abraham Lincoln, and he was right. Until our leaders start to work together instead of fighting against each other, the reforms that our country needs will never be effective and heartbreaking incidents like the one that just happened in Arizona will continue to happen.

The "I Bought a Car so I Must be Grown Up" Post

Yes, you read that title correctly. I bought a car, mostly on my own, and now consider myself to be officially grown up.

I realize that people of all ages buy cars every day. I know that teenagers buy their own cars all the time, but I've decided that the act of going through the tedious process of securing my own loan - without a cosigner I might add - and setting up my own insurance and signing a whole bunch of paperwork is my passage into adulthood. And let me tell you, it was a very tedious process.

You see, I live in one state but have residency in another. I suppose a rational person would have waited another month or so when they had swapped all of their stuff from one state to another to buy a new car, but I wanted it now.

So my parents, the seller, the bank and the insurer were all concerned with the legality of everything and basically putting the cart before the horse. They were wanting to have everything set up in Alabama right off the bat, which would have been cool except there's a problem.

In order to even get a quote for Alabama insurance you have to be a resident, so that meant no Alabama insurance. And you've got to have insurance before you drive the car off the lot.

Then there was the question of the title, i.e. what you need to get a tag. In order to do that in Alabama, once again you have to be a resident.

In the end though it all worked out legally, without having to crawl through any loopholes, and I am now the proud owner of a gently-used 2008 Toyota Camry.

[as a result of my growing up experience, I am now broke. guess that resolution I made is going to come into play, huh?]

Belated New Year's Post

Happy New Year!

[better late than never, right?]

The new year is about making resolutions to be better, right?

I've never actually made a new year's resolution. I'm serious. I've never pledged to lose weight, go to the gym or save money. I've always thought it was kind of pointless to reserve "resolutions" solely for the start of the year. [that and I don't want to lose weight, I abhor going to the gym, and I already have a savings account]

You see, I like eating what I want when I want. And I prefer to get my exercise in places other than a gym. And I fully believe that worrying about how much money I haven't saved is pointless and will only make me miserable in the scheme of things.

So instead of setting an unrealistic goal for myself to accomplish over the course of the year, I've decided to stick with something I know I can do.

I'm going to spend more time with my loved ones. Eat that cookie I want. Not worry about money. Smile more. Hold hands with my boyfriend. Take time to appreciate all the little things.

After all, shouldn't our resolutions be about the things that matter most in life?