Month: September 2008

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9/11: Seven Years Later

This is a repost from an entry I first put together after the attacks back in 2001. Some people may not have seen this so I’m reposting it so everyone will get the chance. Where were you?

September 11, 2001 – One of those days you’ll never forget where you were. I was working at a Detroit television station, WDIV, producing the noon newscast.

At the time the first plane went into the North Tower, I was out of the newsroom. One of our videotape editors ran toward me when I came back into the newsroom and started pointing at one of our TV monitors. He said “check out the wild pictures from New York.”

At the time, we weren’t aware that a plane had crashed into the building and it wasn’t an accident! We talked about how hard it would be for firefighters to fight a towering inferno.

There weren’t a lot of people in the newsroom at the time because most people didn’t arrive until around nine o’clock in the morning. By this point, all of the television feeds we got from NBC and CNN were on the towers.

Slowly, people started coming in and rushed to see the TV’s, they’d heard the story on their car radio. It was about that time when another plane slammed into the South Tower and then we all knew something wasn’t right, we were under attack.

I saw so many co-workers with tears in their eyes. These are people who deal with death everyday. Murders and other unexpected deadly accidents we deal with them every day and have to bring that news to people who watch our station. It’s sad you somewhat get immune to death. It’s not that every death doesn’t have an effect but you have to block it out a little.

This was different, this was an attack on America, this was something no one had ever experienced before. How could you deal with such a breach of our nation? How could you cope with the potential mass casualty? The world changed forever. The lives of an entire generation of people changed forever.

Now seven years later, Osama bin Laden is still on the run. Airport security is still high even though some critics still say the U.S. have much more to do to protect people.

I do recall the hunger for information and how little it trickled out on that day. We all couldn’t do any work. We just sat at our desks watching coverage on televisions with our mouths literally gaping open watching in total disbelief.

It’s a day none of us can or will be able to forget. We must not also forget the innocent people who lost their lives and their families who have to endure the pain of not having them each day and every anniversary of 9/11.

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College Connections

Actually, Ashland University took great pains when I was a freshman to make sure we didn’t call it a “College” anymore because it was now a “University.”

Say what you will about facebook (everyone’s doing it!) but it’s got me back in touch with some of my college (ur, university) friends again.

The only person I can say I really kept in touch with was Michelle Valiquette Wilson. That’s because I worked with her during my stint in Detroit.

I recently got the itch to go through a bunch of pictures from college from my days at AU in the R/TV “area”, we weren’t a department. I can’t believe all of the people I’d forgotten. Nothing personal, where’s my phone calls or e-mails, people!?!? I won’t take it to heart either.

Actually, back then I wasn’t as cool as I am today. I was socially awkward. Oh, to do college over knowing what I do now. That would be scary as sin.

I’m just happy technology and the six degrees have hooked many of us back up again. Now, I’m enjoying the humor of Aaron Jerviss and playing catch-up with other people I wish I’d kept up with all of these years. We were all part of the “family” and should have stayed in touch.

It’s still WRDL, 88.9, The Rock. Crank it!

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My Fruit Pizza

After everything that happened at Wal-Mart, this is the finished product. Yep, I made that. By the way, it’s delicious. It got rave reviews at the BBQ. Everyone wanted the recipe so here goes:

1 tube of Pillsbury’s sugar cookie dough
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
8 oz cream cheese
strawberries
bananas
kiwi fruit
one can of mandarin oranges

Arrange slices of the cookie dough from the tube on a pizza pan so they touch one another. Cook that at the suggested temperature of 350 degrees for about 12-14 minutes or until brown.

Mix the vanilla, sugar and cream cheese together to make the topping, spread on the large cookie you have after it’s cooled a little then arrange the fruit to complete the pizza.

Folks, this isn’t hard. I can do it. The most intense part is cutting up all of the fruit. Again, I can even do it.

You’ll love it,

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Wally World Adventure

I got invited to a BBQ thrown, in part, by my friends, Rodger & Rebecca on the Viaduct. The best part, I didn’t even have to drive anywhere because of the proximity of my apartment. I volunteered to bring the dessert, a fruit pizza. I’ll post the recipe later for those of you who may want to try it yourself.

I needed to get the ingredients and a bunch of other things for my place (read: the cupboard was bare.) I went to Steelyard Commons and my friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart. First, they didn’t have strawberries. How can they be out of strawberries? I know it’s not exactly strawberry season here in Ohio but it’s still very bizarre that they didn’t have them.

After about a half hour of wheeling my cart around the store, I decided to finish up with a trip to the Health & Beauty section to look for some Q-tips. I don’t like off-brands or Johnson’s Cotton Swabs. I want Q-tips. I go up and down the aisles looking for them and to no avail until I ask some saleswoman who points me to her cart. It has Johnson’s, I tell her I want Q-tips, she was a little exasperated that I couldn’t use Johnson’s and finally takes me to them. By the way, they’re in the Baby Care aisle. That doesn’t make any sense to me, I would have never found them there.

I finally arrive at the checkout to find the lines at least 4 or 5 people deep. I secure my spot, wait and realize I forgot charcoal. I tell the lady next to me that I’ll be back and to go ahead of me if necessary. I get the goods, race back and find she’s let someone else in front of us. That was fine but what happened next, wasn’t.

A man (looked to be in his 20’s) with a kid had just scanned through $258.41 (let’s say) of food. I also noticed on the belt, a box of Magnum XL condoms. I didn’t know what to think at this point. The clerk announced his total, he slid his first credit card, it didn’t work. He tried another one, it was declined as well. He told the clerk, he had $180.00 worth of cash on him and he’s going to have to give back some of the merchandise.

At this point, he starts pulling products out of the bags in his cart and the clerk voids them off his bill. I was in a rush but there wasn’t anything I could do. I sympathized with him. I just waited and watched as food came out and was to be put back on the shelf. It was kind of like being on the Price Is Right. I started guessing the prices of each of the products he brought out of his bag. He ended up pulling about $80.00 worth of stuff out of the bags. Milk, meat, cereal, juice, more meat, donuts, bread, cheese, the stuff you really need for you and, I assume, your family. What he didn’t pull out (bad choice of words?) were those Magnum XL condoms. Those were staying put.

He paid up and so did I. I left in a rush to go to Dave’s Supermarket to get the strawberries so I could make up the fruit pizza. I was a half-hour late to the BBQ, which wasn’t a problem, but it was mostly because of Wal-Mart’s lack of strawberries and Mr. Magnum XL man.

I wonder if this is his favorite ride at Cedar Point? Didn’t someone at the park do some fact checking first before they named the ride?

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The Politics Of Life

I’m up, I can’t sleep. A friend called me and woke me from my beauty giving slumber. You know I can use all of it I can get. I don’t feel much like sleeping right now though. Friday wasn’t good for me. The past week wasn’t good for me. My life is a little out of control right now.

Friday night was a short one for me. I ate at Rock Ottom, big surprise and came right home and went to bed. I just wasn’t feeling things this evening. My friends were in different moods than I was and I wasn’t having it.

Saturday looks better. I have a BBQ and I’m making a Fruit Pizza. I can’t wait to taste it. Just like Mom makes, yum! Better yet, I can’t wait for some of my friends to try it. It’s a different circle of friends.

At any rate, we’ve been through the national conventions for both the Republicans and the Democrats. Now, people are starting to really take sides in this election. Since I’m part of the media, don’t expect to get my stance on everything on this blog. I think I’m good at keeping my opinions out of my writing at work as well. I have my own ideas about things but I don’t let them leak into my stories.

I’ve written something like this in the past about entertainers not getting political. If you’re a singer, sing. If you’re an actor, act. You get the picture. I just don’t like to get caught up in politics. Everyone feels strongly about what they believe and I’ve never been a great debater so I don’t like to argue about such things.

I love hearing about past Presidents and their accomplishments. Cleveland Bachelor will attest to that. I picked his brain for hours one night. CB, I’ll do it again too anytime you’re ready!

Partisan talk wears me down. I don’t like to get involved in such discussions. I don’t mind others talking about them. Just don’t be shocked if I wander away from the conversation if it involves Republicans vs. Democrats. I’d rather talk music, pop culture or why that woman over there is wearing a dress with a print was better left on the side of a zebra.

I haven’t claimed table 241 at Rock Ottom for nothing, it’s called people watching, folks!

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Hyperclicking

Wait until you see where this post goes.

I love Wikipedia but I hate that I start out looking for information about bumblebees and end up reading about the life and times of Queen Elizabeth twenty minutes later.

The same thing is true about the blogosphere. I wanted to catch up on my blog and everyone else’s today. I’ve been working crazy hours this week and haven’t had time to do much posting. I started going through the blogs when I got to Narm’s.

Ironically, I went to Ro k Bottom with Narm last night. Ro k Bottom is Rock Ottom now. (c’mon Marco, you gotta fix that sign and the wiring) Narm’s just as hilarious in person as on his blog. If you haven’t read the Secret blog, spend 5 minutes or less of your life and read it. It’s one of the funniest posts I’ve ever read. I was happy to tell him apparently there is a new scent of Secret out there that smells more manly. My neighbor bought two of them but then pitched them because she didn’t like the smell. He even made me curious to see what the stuff’s all about. I’ll never tell anyone that I actually used the stuff though. See my comment on his page. By the way, if you go to Ro k Bottom, you can’t order a GLBC beer or let’s say a Miller Lite because Ro k Bottom is a brewery. I’m just trying to keep you from embarrassing yourself. I can never spell “embarassing” correctly.

So back to the Wikipedia connection. I was reading Narm’s blog and his comments on one of his posts and I clicked through to Hebrewhero who had a funny retort. I, of course, read his post about going to the dentist. It got me to thinking about my hundreds (I mean hundreds) of trips to the dentist over the years. I apparently had bad mouth of chompers. I love the dentist over a trip to the doctors.

When I was down in South Texas one of the hygienists told me that people gag all of the time at the dentist and that’s the best part. I don’t need to remind you what follows gagging. I was shocked by this revelation. In all of my professional visits (I can claim professional because I went to the dentist so much, I actually have a degree. One of my procedures actually allowed my dentist to buy a hot tub. I’m not joking.)

Starting over…

In all of my professional visits, I can claim I never gagged once… until that dreaded woman told me of the phenomenon. Now, I have to watch my reflex closely when I get x-rays or impressions taken. I mean, did she really have to tell me about that? It’s engrained in my brain now and I think I have to be like the cool people, kind of like Britney Spears following Paris Hilton’s trend of going commando, and start gagging.

She was nice enough to tell me that the secret to avoid the gag is breathing through your nose. I practice that now and rule the day she ever told me such a thing.

See I told you we were going to be all over the place.