Month: June 2008

Posted on

Emmy Nominated

I can now add “Emmy Nominated” before my name.

NewsChannel 5’s 11pm producer Tara Sutton and my former News Director, Steve Hyvonen, are also named in the category of Outstanding Newscast – Evening – Markets 1-20. The newscast was the night of the SuccessTech shootings. Everyone worked hard on the newscast.

You can see the complete list of nominations by going to the National Television Academy Cleveland Regional Chapter

WEWS/NewsChannel 5 got 19 nods for this year’s awards.

Congratulations to everyone!

Posted on

Yep, It’s taawd.com

Some people might think they arrived at the wrong website, but this is the updated www.taawd.com. I’ve been working on converting from a two column to a three column blog for a couple of days.

If you are trying to do the same with your blog, check out Amanda Fazani’s Blogger Buster website. Her instruction are simple and easy to understand. I even felt like I learned a little bit about html and css along the way.

I’m not finished tweaking the look of the blog so keep logging on to see what’s changed.

Thanks for reading,

Posted on

Looking Who’s Coming To NewsChannel 5

The blogosphere is powerful. Just ask P. Diddy, Puff Daddy or whatever he wants to be called. He alerted the world to his moniker change on his blog.

Politicial bloggers can help sway the country, expose a candidate’s story they didn’t want you to know. Entertainment bloggers do the same thing with new shows, movies, careers and celebrities themselves.

Enter the “mommy blogger”, one of the most famous of them is Heather Armstrong from dooce.com. “Mommy bloggers” are all over the country and all over the world. I’m glad to say I know Mom2Amara personally. Another of them with a good following is here in northern Ohio. OHMommy is coming to talk with NewsChannel 5’s Good Morning Cleveland on Friday. Her blog is located http://www.classychaos.com/. You’ll find her post about her appearance here.

I hope you’ll watch the newscast on Friday and hear her story about being a mom who blogs about raising her kids and her huge following.

Posted on

Kids Say The Darnest Things

(courtesy: The Plain Dealer)
They do and this is proof. Obviously, Jacob Sanders’ parents do a lot of watching NewsChannel 5 because he’s not a big fan. At least, he’s telling the truth.
Posted on

Father’s Day (A Little Early)

I had a conversation this morning with my mother about their HDTV. I’m glad my parents have one even though they don’t have the HDTV cable box yet. It’s coming believe me. Anyhow, my dad, who taught me how to hook up my satellite TV signal, who taught me how to use telephone wire as speaker cable (I still think it’s a great idea), who taught me how to fine tune old black and white TV’s, is confused by hooking up the HDTV with all of the components; VCR, cable box and DVD.

My dad can figure out anything. Don’t worry, he’ll figure out the setup.

The entire conversation got me thinking about my father’s influence on my life. My father has done it all, firefighter, deputy sheriff, car salesman, TV repair man, warehouse manager, machinist and a dozen other jobs I don’t remember. He can truly do it all.

I’ve posted countless posts about music. Everyone knows I’m a music freak, there’s no better way of saying it. I know it, I love it, I breath it. So how did that entire love happen? For as long as I can remember, music filled my life. My dad always had some type of music going. He played Four Seasons, Four Tops, Ventures (on 8-track — nothing like a good instrumental that stops in the middle of the song to advance), Tommy James and the Shondells and his one of his favorite songs “Little Black Egg” by the Nightcrawlers. I always tell people (when they ask or not) about how my dad got me started on the music I still love today. It wasn’t just “oldies”, but country, rock and even disco.

My father loves to dance. There was always upbeat music in our house. My sister and I loved to dance and my father wouldn’t have any problem joining in. Believe me, my mother and father still don’t have any problems dusting off the line dance they choreographed themselves.

I remember when my sister and I were kids, he would go out and buy an LP, bring it home and put it on the turntable then dub it over to cassette. He and my friend’s father, Joe, would spent countless hours dubbing. It wasn’t fun for us kids, we weren’t allowed to walk because it would cause the record to skip. They’d set the needle’s sensitivity so delicately.

I also remember us Dad getting an Atari 2600 for Christmas. My father stayed up all night long that night playing Space Invaders. I think he slept the next day away.

My father pushed me down the road to technology. He loved CB’s, computers and even Intellivision (even though we had to go to Tony and Ann’s to play it) He’s now obesssed with HAM radios. I know he didn’t pass on his obsession tendencies to me. Neither did my mother.

But this post is about my father. He truly will never know the impact he’s had on my life, professionally, personally, musically and emotionally. Even though he even chased me into my bedroom one time, I outran him, thank God because he was really angry with me, I have no idea what the deal was. Ah, the little things you remember and the things you forget!

Happy Father’s Day, Pops, a little early.

Posted on

Good Karma Sunday

I had a good Sunday. It turned out in no way like I assumed it would the night before when I went to bed.

I got up and picked up trash from the street in front of my place. It’s amazing what people will throw away. The area looks a little trashy under the Superior Viaduct. I think that’s part of the reason people litter like they do. If there were beautification of the area, I don’t think we’d see as much trash. I picked up a Target bag full of garbage. Many of the items were beer bottles but I also found fast food leftovers, a flip-flop and a lot of handbills promoting a cruise on the Nautica Queen. People just peel them off their car windows and throw them on the ground.

I gave a friend a ride home to the East side. I don’t go over to that side of town often because I don’t have any reason to do so. I figured I’d call my friend, Missy, and see if she wanted to have brunch. We ate at Eat ‘n Park. I asked for no peppers on my omelet but got them anyhow. I could have complained but why. By the way, there was a man at the checkout complaining about something. Not as good of a day for the folks at Eat ‘n Park.

I also figured I’d drop by my sister’s home. My nephews weren’t home at the time but they arrived they were suprised to see me. It was hot as heck so I took the opportunity to swim in their pool. They’d just opened the pool so we made a whirlpool. It was fun for them but it was all to clean the pool and get all of the leaves and sticks into the center so we could clean them up easier. My littlest nephew, Ayden, is getting bigger and he’s even rolling over onto his stomach. He doesn’t like being in that position that long though.

After getting a lot of sun (I’m burnt), I hurried home to attend Yoga, yes, Yoga! It was a free class and say what you will but it’s HARD! If you haven’t tried it, you have no room to make any fun. I couldn’t believe the trainer who was “practicing” next to me. She got into poses that I couldn’t ever see myself doing. They claim everyone has that potential. One of the big parts of yoga is breathing but you almost forget to do it when you’re concentrating on trying to keep your balance and not falling over.

One of the strange moments for me was when you allow your foot you were stretching to come back to rest on the foot. You’ve just spent about 20-25 minutes stretching that side of your body. When you allow it to rest on the floor, I felt two things. The first was that it was actually longer than the other side of my body. A really weird feeling! What was even stranger for me was trying to find the floor with my heel. I thought it would be about a foot higher than it was. It felt like I was extending my leg below floor level. Think of the feeling you have when you are going down steps and think there is another one there and it’s not.

I rushed home and went to bed only to be woken up a couple of times but the feeling of the sunburn in my shoulders and arms. Still, even with the sunburn, it was a good, positive Sunday, one I wouldn’t have predicted.

Posted on

Ro k Bott m in Chicago!

Apparently Chicago’s Rock Bottom sign works. The Cleveland location’s ‘m’ was on the fritz last night. Photo credit to Jason for the proof from Chicago.

Posted on

Wii Have Zelda

I don’t own a Wii but I partially own a game for the game console. We bought The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

I’m not by any means a gamer but I have always liked the Zelda games. We’ve played the game for about 37 hours now. It keeps a tab on your gameplay. At any rate, if it wasn’t for IGN, we probably wouldn’t be as far along as we are right now. They have a walkthrough on their website that has helped get us through a couple of spots we couldn’t figure out for ourselves. We are now at the Hyrule Castle. From the looks of it, we have plenty of game left. One of the toughest parts for us so far was getting the covered wagon to the town without it catching fire. You can keep putting it out but the trick was killing the birds overhead. They are the enemies you really need to worry about because they drop bombs. With them gone, the wagon will follow the path and arrive at the town. We must have sent a hour trying to figure it out. It’s a fun game. A good way to check out of life for a while and forget about everything.

Posted on

I Thought I’d Left South Texas!

I have to admit I thought it was Harlingen when I went to work this morning. It was in the 70's and steamy. We were just missing that trademark Gulf Coast breeze, the one Lake Erie could never provide. I know we were close to breaking a record today. I wonder if that happened.

Posted on

Continental Announces Job Cuts & Reductions

I don’t normally put “news” on my blog but this is Continental’s news release about cuts and reductions. Since it maintains a hub in Cleveland, I’m including it as a post. It’s also my preferred airline.

Continental today is announcing significant reductions in flying and staffing that are necessary for the company to further adjust to today’s extremely high cost of fuel. These actions are among many steps Continental is taking to respond to record-high fuel prices as the industry faces its worst crisis since 9/11.

The price of Gulf Coast jet fuel closed yesterday at $151.26 – about 75 percent higher than what it was a year ago. At that price and at our current capacity, our fuel expense this year would be $2.3 billion more than it was last year. That increase alone amounts to about $50,000 per employee.

These record fuel costs have fundamentally shifted the economics of our business. At these fuel prices, a large number of our flights are losing money, and Continental needs to react to this changed marketplace.

Network Changes
Starting in September, at the conclusion of the peak summer season, Continental will reduce its flights, with fourth quarter domestic mainline departures to be down 16 percent year-over-year.
This will result in a reduction of domestic mainline capacity (available seat miles, or ASMs) by 11 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to the same period last year.

By the end of next week, Continental will provide details on specific flights and destinations that are subject to reduction or elimination. For additional information on departures and capacity for 2008 and 2009.

Co-worker Impact
As a result of the capacity reductions, Continental will need fewer co-workers worldwide to support the reduced flight schedule.

About 3,000 positions, including management positions, will be eliminated through voluntary and involuntary separations, with the majority expected to be through voluntary programs.

The company will offer voluntary programs in an effort to reduce the number of co-workers who will be furloughed or involuntarily terminated due to the capacity cuts.

Details of these programs will be available next week.

The reductions will take effect after the peak summer season, except for management and clerical reductions, which will begin sooner.

In recognition of the crisis and its effect on their co-workers, Larry Kellner, chairman and chief executive officer, and Jeff Smisek, president, have declined their salaries for the remainder of the year and have declined any payment under the annual incentive program for 2008.

Fleet Changes
Continental will reduce the size of its fleet by removing the least efficient aircraft from its network.

To accomplish this, Continental is accelerating the retirement of its Boeing 737-300 and 737-500 fleets. In the first six months of 2008, Continental removed six older aircraft from service.

Continental will retire an additional 67 Boeing 737-300 and 737-500 aircraft, with 37 of these additional retirements occurring in 2008 and 30 in 2009.

Given the need for prompt capacity reductions in today’s environment, 27 of the 67 aircraft will be removed in September. By the end of 2009, all 737-300 aircraft will be retired from Continental’s fleet.

Continental will continue to take delivery of new, fuel-efficient NextGen Boeing
737-800s and 737-900ERs. Overall fuel efficiency will improve measurably as Continental takes delivery of 16 of these aircraft in the second half of 2008 and 18 in 2009 and accelerates the retirement of the older, less fuel-efficient aircraft as mentioned previously.

By the end of the second quarter of 2008, Continental will operate 375 mainline aircraft. Taking into account both the accelerated retirements and scheduled deliveries, Continental’s fleet count will shrink to 356 aircraft in September 2008 and 344 aircraft at the end of 2009.