Category: Work

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Bards & Beards

It’s never a good thing when a co-worker tells you they dreamed about you last night.

That conversation never quite happened because most of the people who I work with end up sleeping or at least napping during the day. So it went more like “I had a dream that you were in the other day.”

At any rate, the co-worker announced to my other co-workers that in her dream, I was dressed like a 20-foot chicken and was chasing her through the streets in her neighborhood. Apparently it wasn’t fun and games because I was throwing sharp stars on strings in an effort to take her out. Each time I’d throw the weapon at her she’d figure out how to avoid them. I was happy to hear about her defense.

To that end, I offered up these excuses why it could never happen in real life.

1.) I don’t own a 20-foot chicken suit. It wouldn’t fit in the elevator in my building. Not even in the freight elevator. Where would I store such a thing?

2.) I could never quite master a throwing star. I can throw a frisbee like a madman but throwing stars… not so much. I could never be Chuck Norris but no one else on this planet could be either. I guess Wham-O would have to manufacture my weapons. I’d hope they’d be the kind that glow-in-the dark.

3.) I don’t even know where my co-worker lives.

I apologized for her id’s opinion of me and reassured her it would never happen again.

Speaking of Chuck Norris and I know I was, I’ve been sporting a beard of sorts. I’ve gotten more positive comments than negative. I can’t believe the time it saves me every day. It’s like 10 minutes which translates into about an hour a week. You have to substract 10 minutes because I keep it trimmed up. I don’t want to look like Grizzly Adams.

I have a fair amount of red in my beard. It may look a little silly because I have brown hair. For now, I’m enjoying the extra hour that I can devote each week to different things.

Another one of my co-workers has a full-fledged beard. We figured he’s saved about a couple weeks of his life not shaving.

I’m just happy with the extra hour a week, I’ll take it.

Bock, Bock… just kidding…

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Ah, The Weekend…

After having my birthweek off, I made it through five days at work.

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you crawl to Friday like a baby who’s never put one hand in front of the other in tandem with a leg? That’s what it was like this week. (taawd thought: Ayden crawled for the first time on my birthday) I ended the week with a trip to McDonald’s for breakfast. Yum. (Note to self: working out is a must today)

After almost two weeks, this cold/sinus infection/allergy/gunk that fills my lungs still hasn’t totally let up its chokehold on my body. I’m sure the lack of sleep and stress hasn’t helped my immunity’s cause.

Now this weekend, I can relax… and relax, I will.

Can I tell you something? There’s something to be said for a two person life. I have laundry to do, I have dishes to put away. I have shopping to take care of. I also need to relax. Everyone needs to take care of themselves every now and then. The focus needs to be shifted away from everything else and shined on themselves. You know what I saying?

I can’t believe summer is over and fall is already here. It’s one of my favorite times of the year, it’s my mother’s least favorite times. I love the leaves, the apple cider, the county fairs (which I missed this year, there’s always next year!) and just everything else that means winter isn’t that far off.

Call me crazy but I can’t wait for the first snow fall. Of course, I’ll be singing a different tune come March when I’ll be again longing for the summer. That’s the reason I moved back to Ohio from Texas. Down in the Lone Star State, you barely get your seasons. They’re something I’ve grown up with all of my life and I miss the changes in the climate and precipitation. Everyone loves a good snowstorm. Nothing quite brings people together. My (still) favorite holiday of the year happens during winter. Christmas is awesome and I can’t wait to see what this year brings.

Weren’t we just talking about the weekend? How did I get myself already into 2009? Here’s to the future, just one day at a time.

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The Sleep Switch

After being on a day schedule for more than a week, it’s time to switch the body back to vampire mode. You’ll spot me out and about today in my bat form.

I am probably the only person who’s happy that it’s a cloudy day. I need to make myself sleep today throughout the day to start the process.

Of course, my place has two walls that are windows from floor to ceiling. No one warned me when I moved in that I would be working overnights. Summer is rough because the sunlight pours in the windows. Almost every room I have has a large window. There are three places in my place where you won’t find windows, two bathrooms and a closet. My bathrooms have cold granite tiles floors, my closet is oddly shaped, believe me and there’s no way I’m curling up in there.

I’m going to take some advice and buy a sleeping mask. Of course, I feel like I’m giving up some of masculinity in buying it. They need to block out the light. Keep me from seeing sun. When I see light, my body starts the process (think shuttle countdown) of waking me up. I want to make sure I sleep better this time on the overnights. If you check out some of the masks through the hyperlink, you’ll see they’re expensive. If I’m going for a mask, I want it to be comfortable.

Well, wish me luck getting sleep. This week isn’t going to be that bad because I have to work two more days. I’m off Friday which reminds me to remind you about the “Toast To The Trail” again Thursday night at the Atrium at Blue Point. Make sure you check out the Ohio Canal Corridor’s website for more details. Please buy a ticket and support this great cause!
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Confused (& Probably Just Tired)

It’s the end of the week for me and I’m confused.

I have friends who are playing right now at “Around The Corner”. I should go.

I haven’t worked out today. I should.

I got some sleep during the day but I don’t feel like it was enough. I’m not going back to sleep for now.

I haven’t biked since the first day I was out because it was raining yesterday and Tuesday I worked out. I’m biking to Tremont tomorrow to go to the bank. (Robbers, I will have no money before or after I visit said bank so don’t even try. You will just be wasting your time and risk me running over your butt with my bike. I’m warning you I will do it. Seriously, don’t try!) Seriously!

I have a lot planned this weekend. I have a lot planned over the next three weekends. At the end of the week, it catches up with me, the lack of sleep, the “to-do” list grows out of control. Why can’t we have eight days to a week where we get three days off? I’d just probably plan more things on the extra day and ignore all of the little tasks I really need to accomplish.

Tomorrow night promises to be fun with the Ingenuity party that Cool Cleveland is hosting plus, I’ll be hanging out with a new friend. One of my out of town friends is visiting Cleveland. It’ll be good to see him since he’s sort of fallen off the face of the earth.

Saturday night will be fun. I’ll get to see one of my best friends as he hosts his annual pool party. I’ll have pictures probably posted via the cell phone. It’ll be a blast, I promise.

Okay, enough stalling. I’m going to Lakewood to “Around the Corner” to wish one of my friends happy birthday. I’ll work out tonight, I promise. Make sure to ask me tomorrow if I did, that way I won’t be able to skate on that promise.

Alas, the weekend cometh… At least that means a night’s sleep,

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Weekend Recap

Good times so far this weekend.

I got my new computer up and running fully. I have to do some housekeeping inside the machine; tie-wrapping cables, installing the hard drives in their bays, putting the cover together. I will probably spend some of the day getting software installed on it. It runs Windows Vista like a champ. Basically, the freeze problem centered around the fact that I was running a hard drive and a cd-rom drive off the same IDE bus. It’s well-documented that you can do this but for some reason my computer/mobo didn’t like it and pouted (read: froze up!).

I’m writing this blog before I officially start my day. I’m going down to my friend, Kevin’s house to get my new bicycle. What a friend! He’s giving me the bike. Of course, I’ll ask him like 50 times if I won’t take any money for it and he won’t but that’s how we roll. I’ll probably have to stop at Target for a bike lock and cereal.

I got to meet Mel, a fellow blogger, whose place on the Internet garners a lot more attention than my little space. Say it ain’t so! You think she’s awesome from reading her posts? Try meeting her in person. She’s great and a laugh riot. ‘Nuff said for now.

Housework definately is in the plans for today. I have a load of clean laundry sitting in the dryer. Thank God, I have an iron. Oh, and there’s another load of clean laundry that somehow found it’s way on the floor. {looks around like he doesn’t know who did that}

And there’s sleep… I’m in early for the next two days at work to help with our morning newscast. One of the producers is off so I’m going to be a writing machine. My fingers and typing skills are going to get a workout.

Speaking of that, I don’t know what I pulled on the right side of my chest but it hurts like a mutha. I suspended my workouts for about four days and tried working out Friday and it seems to have come back. It HURTS! When I sneeze, I have to hold my hands to my face to stop from jerking forward, otherwise it feels like someone suckerpunched me in the ribs. Zowie!

Okay, seriously, I have to get going else all of the aforementioned things are just either not getting done or they’re all going to back into one another.

So, I’m off…

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Groundhog Day

Yeah, I know it’s in February but I feel like I’m living the movie. If you’ve seen “Groundhog Day”, you know how Bill Murray’s character repeats the day each morning he gets out of bed. I feel that’s what I’m doing working this overnight shift.

Each night around 12:30am, I get a call from the station to talk about what we’ll cover that morning. I go back to sleep (or take a nap) until I get up around 2:15am. I stumble into work around 3am (thank God for the short commute). I’m very busy until around 8am in the morning. That’s when we have a conference call to set-up the rest of the day. After that, I work on the next day’s newscast or station projects. That work takes me until around Noon when I leave to go home.

I try to take another nap around 1pm. For some reason my body wakes me up from sleep around 4pm or 5pm. It’s working out, working around the house or getting “to-do’s” done. By 9pm or 10pm, it’s back to sleep again for what I call my actual sleep time even though it’s only about 2 hours long. Then it’s back up for the conference call again.

Thankfully this week, I’m only working four days. I’m going to South Texas again, don’t ask why. I get to see my friends again. Last time I was down there it was Borderfest and Charro Days weekend. This time, it’s RioFest, Harlingen’s spring festival. The problem with that is most of my friends work at a television station there and they have obligations at the festival. Hopefully, they’re going to have some time to spend with me. I can’t wait to get down there again and see them. It’s only been a couple of weeks ago but I miss them already!

Of course, I’ll be mobile blogging throughout my trip. It’ll be fun. Stay tuned right here!

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Busy!

I’ve been busy over the past couple of weeks. We’ve lost some people at work and a bunch of us are picking up the slack. It’s been tough on all of us. I hope there’s a break in the near future. It’s even been hard to update my blog and you know how much I like doing that!

My sleep pattern has been off so much. I slept last night and then was up for a little bit this morning. I fell asleep from 1pm until 5:30pm. I felt like I was in a daze yesterday afternoon. You know the feeling like you aren’t really there but it’s happening anyhow.

It’s funny because while I’m sitting here writing this about three cars have slowly driven past my apartment. I love how people gawk inside the windows of people who live in my apartment building. I wish we had reflexive glass that would allow us to see how but not others to see into the place. I hate closing my blinds because part of the point of having this place is the view of Cleveland. Sometimes I feel like a zoo animal. I feel like putting up a sign that says “Don’t feed the tenants!”

When I wave to the people in the cars, they realize I see them looking at me and they drive off. I’m just being friendly and acknowledging their interest in my exciting and sloth-like life.

Well, it’s time to get ready for another week at work. Fun!

Enjoy the week!

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Friday’s Here…

and I’m not dead yet. Nope, I made it through my first week working the vampire-ish shift overnight. Yes, I know, some detractors out there would say I’m whining but when you completely switch your body around going to sleep when you normally get up and vice-versa, it’s a little kick to your system.

St. Patrick’s Day is Monday and look for everyone in Cleveland to turn Irish if only for the day. There’s the parade which is one of the biggest celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day in the United States. St. Patrick’s Day is practically a holiday in Cleveland because everyone takes off work for the day to celebrate being or not being Irish.

Bars will open early. The House Of Blues is opening at 5am. Flannery’s will start the beer flowing at 5:30am along with some great breakfast. That restaurant/bar will be packed and the people who get out of line will have to answer to DeShawn. Believe me, you don’t want to have him on your bad side. Even the Martini bar in my building is pushing their celebration.

It’s always a good time if you can stay away from the fights and the really drunk people. They’re the ones normally who are drinking the green beer at 5am in the morning. All of the TV station morning shows will be at one of the bars broadcasting live.

Make sure you’re wearin’ the green and be safe,

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On Being A Vampire

This overnight schedule that I’m working is really starting to mess with my head. It’s not as easy for me to swing my body clock around like it once was. I think I got a whole four hours of sleep today and I’m hoping to get about two more before I get into work this morning.

It’s also really playing with my emotions. I’m cranky, short and sensitive. I feel like I’m Clint Eastwood. “Go ahead punk, make my day!”

Today was a particularly difficult day because a lot of people called off sick and we had to make the day work without them. As I said before, I’m pulling double duty at work and there’s a lot on my plate right now. I do have to admit though I like the new challenge but I’m not so keen on the hours I’m working right now.

Somebody once used to joke with me when I worked the overnight hours earlier in my career that I was a vampire. I feel like I’m one again but this time I get to function a little during the day. Working 3am until 12pm isn’t the most desirable shift but it does give me a little time to get things done. I got to go to the bank today and get some milk. I didn’t, however, have time to get my hair cut and that needs to happen. I’m starting to look like Shaggy. I’m not talking about the rap artist either.

I’m resisting the temptation to take Tylenol PM. I got addicted to it back when I worked overnights in the past. It does the trick but I don’t like the feeling the day after. I can’t wait for this weekend so that I have a little time to get a good amount of sleep. I wish today was Friday.

Happy hump day tho,

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Life In The Mornings

With little sleep under my belt, I got into work at 3:00 this morning. Getting through 7:00am wasn’t the tough part. Getting through the rest of the day was!

Our assignment manager (the person who lines reporters and photographers up together and arms them with stories) had an off-site meeting. I took over her duties for a couple of hours. Assignment editing was one of my first jobs in television. Many times it’s a complicated and thankless job. You are constantly figuring out how to cover new stories while getting the ones you’ve already planned, finished. For some reason to me, it’s a challenge and can even be fun. (I’m waiting on mom2amara‘s comment on that last statement.)

It wouldn’t be right to talk about assignment editing without giving some kudos to the people who taught me how. Lisa Lowry and Danielle Fink walked me through “workin’ the desk” in the mornings and the evenings. They are both a different monster and both come with their own distinct problems.

We got through the morning with me “on the desk”. We even got a couple of spot news stories. I want to thank the photographers for making life “on the desk” a little easier for a “new face” who was sleep deprived.