Donkey attack and train derailing

Gotcha hooked? Good, cause that's kind of my job.

The past two days at work were a litt

le crazy. I guess that makes up for the unbelievably boring Monday I had.

Everyone had taken off work for July 5th, so it was just me and about 4 other people working. I knew that it was going to be slow, but I had no choice but to work because I'm trying to leave town tomorrow! I had to get my three days in so I can drive home for my friend Lauren's wedding (which I'm super excited about in case you were wondering).

Anyway, back to the donkey.

A reporter a

nd I were trying to track down a man for an interview yesterday. In normal circumstances, we would have given up when he didn't return the reporter Jenna's call. But because a bigshot from NY is lurking around the office, everyone is walking on eggshells. Jenna's boss suggested we go drive out to this man's house and knock down his door until we give him an answer. By the way, the story was not in any way scandalous. They found tar balls on Galveston's coast and the guy we wanted to talk to is a UT professor who had hypothesized all the issues that caused the oil spill.

So we drive 40 minutes out of Austin to find this guy. He lives in the middle of nowhere and had a gate blocking the entrance. I front of the gate were two donkeys. When we figured out that we could not get through the gate, we started to turn the c

ar around, but the donkeys started approaching the car. They got right up close to the driver side window and just stared for a while. I thought it was pretty hilarious and took some pictures.

But they didn't back away from the car! It started getting a little scary when one donkey stood right in front of the car, blocking the exit. Meanwhile, the other donkey was walking alongside the car. And then we heard a thump. The donkey kicked the car!

Eventually they cleared out, but for a while there things were tense. And the car was fine too. But we never did get an interview with that man.

There's been this sudden pressure among the interns to work on our "reels." Honestly, I have only had one chance so far to put an interview I made on my reel--Most of the time we are following around other reporters and watching them, there is rarely an opportunity to take over. So anyway, even though I don't want to end up being a reporter, I feel like I need to start working on a reel because everyone else is. Thankfully, today I had a chance.

I went along with another intern to a morning live shoot today. We were supposed to be watching the anchor Tracy while she interviewed these people at an art studio about their printing press. We only get through one segment when we get a call that a train came off of its track and we needed to go cover it. So, we all left the art studio and jumped in a car to go to the site.

The train was just a freight train, so nobody was hurt but a bunch of departures were cancelled as a result of the derailing. But while we were there, Bianca (the other intern) and I were able to film each other doing short stand ups as though we were live on the scene. Of course these did not go to air, but we were able to put them on our reel! For some reason the microphone that I'm holding was not on, but I turned up the sound as much as I could when I edited it.

Check it out!

So I feel like today was an overall success. I started a reel, and I found out I'm the intern with the most cumulative hours at the station right now. I win!

Hokay, so...

It has been quite a while since I've done this. I started getting lazy with the blog, thinking that I had nothing interesting to write about. And then Rachel came into town so I've been preoccupied with that too.

Improv classes are still going well, and work is getting to be somewhat less stressful. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week sitting in on the Laura Hall trial. For those who don't know, the story is pretty complex and gruesome. I'd rather not go into it, but the summary is Hall was convicted of "tampering with evidence" after helping her boyfriend kill and dispose of a young woman. Being there when they went into gory detail was certainly not pleasant, but it is a story that a lot of people in Austin care about, and the outcome was favorable. She got sentenced to 11 years in jail.

Besides all that fun, Rachel is here! We're having a great time exploring Austin together. We've been doing a good amount of shopping and eating here. We went to see the new A-Team movie at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, which was fantastic. The movie was honestly not as appealing as the food and beer, but it wasn't bad. And all of my roommates have gone out of town for the 4th of July weekend, so we had the apartment to ourselves last night! Today we'll probably do some more shopping and then head out to Zilker Park. The weather has cleared up and we're thinking if it gets hot enough we'll go to Barton Springs, which stays around 68 degrees throughout the year.

Let's play ketchup

I had originally wanted to spend my day off sleeping as long as I felt like then eventually getting up and being productive. My roommates plans were a little different. The World Cup USA-Algeria game is on at 9:30 a.m. for some reason (I'm more mad at FIFA for scheduling a game this early in the morning). So, now I'm up.

I have the rest of this week off (hooray!) because I'm working two shifts this weekend (harumph). It should be fun though! On Saturday I'm going to the Twilight 5K run--complete with glitter stations and races divided by blood types. And no, I will not be participating, I will be there with a web producer to take pictures and write up a story about the event. I can't wait to see the people who show up in costume. And then Sunday I will be in the studio working with producers. I sat and observed the producers once before and was pretty baffled by the whole ordeal. But hopefully now they'll have the time to explain to me what is going on.

I haven't written in over a week! I enjoyed my weekend back in Lafayette so much that I forgot about keeping up with this. Well, I'll give a little recap.

I took a Greyhound back to Lafayette, which I will never do again. The bus was hot and crowded, and I was too carsick to do much at all. I just closed my eyes for most of the 10 hour ride. But now I know for sure that driving myself back and forth from Austin will be the best choice, mostly because of all the legroom and getting to play my music as loud as I want.

Besides the ride, Lafayette was awesome, fantastic, wonderful, splendiforous. I got to hang out with the family, see my dog, swim in the pool with Neil... It was perfect. We also celebrated Father's Day and Erin's baby shower while I was back. I got Dad a cool cowboy shirt, and I bought baby Maxim one too!

I really wished I could have stayed longer, but I had to get back to my internship!

I worked yesterday with a reporter that had the quintessential reporter voice. It was funny because I got to sit in on him doing his voiceovers and edits, and he would gesture while he spoke although no one except me could see him. It felt like a really long day because I didn't get a chance to sit down and eat the whole time I was there. But now that it's all over, I've got a free day ahead of me and an improv class tonight!

Sparkle Head

Check it out, y'all, I'm famous!

http://www.news8austin.com//?ArID=271822

It's 10:30 AM and I'm already done with my work day! Granted, I did wake up at 4 this morning. I followed Tracy, the morning reporter, who has to wake up this early (if not earlier) every day! I can't even imagine. It was still pitch black when I left my apartment this morning--side note, the elevator was broken at my apartment the whole weekend, and I live on the 6th floor.

Tracy and I drove to a salon/boutique called Stella Blue. We went there to do a feature on summer trends, specifically something that I had never heard of before, hair tinseling. It's basically getting strands of tinsel tied into small sections of your hair. They have all kinds of colors, and both young girls and girls my age are coming to the salon to get it done. I got my hair done as a demonstration that was shown on camera, and the women picked the color for me. I'm actually glad they did, because instead of getting blue or purple like I wanted, they put colors like copper and orange in that complement my hair color. It really didn't hurt, there was not a lot of hair pulling. The tinsel is supposed to stay in for a month, so it's not going anywhere for a while. I can style and wash my hair exactly like I could before, and I can even get my hair colored with them in. I heard that it is a bit expensive to get done, but Tracy and I got our hair done for free!

I did make sure to Tivo my on-air debut (although all I did was smile and show off my hair). There were multiple live segments--5 short segments spread out every thirty minutes--and one of them will be put up on the website soon, so I'll put a link on here once they put it up. I tried, to take a picture, but the tinsel won't show up with the flash! You can see it very distinctly in the sunlight. I think it might catch people off guard--one of the women in the salon said that when she goes out to bars people will reach out to touch her hair without thinking or asking; it's a raccoon-like reaction to seeing something sparkly.

I am so happy I could go with Tracy today, she even let me do my own interview with someone at the boutique. It won't go on air, but I can save it and put it on my sample reporter reel which is great!

I have an improv class tomorrow (which is going splendidly, by the way) and then I'm heading back to Lafayette on Thursday! I am so excited to see the family, my boyfriend, and my dog! I can't wait for Erin's baby shower or Father's Day--they should both be expecting the most awesome Austin-themed gifts :)

Friday=no fun day

I found out today that Friday is usually the busiest day at the desk. Most people do not come in to work on the weekends, so a lot of stuff has to be planned out and shot all on Friday. And on top of that, there were quite a few incidents that happened locally that kept me on the phone most of the day just trying to get more information out of people about what happened. My attempts were not very successful, and I was feeling a bit of pressure about it coming together, but I just kept coming up with dead ends. Hopefully as time goes on I'll get the hang of it, but from my experience today, I found that there are very few resources and the people I did call were in no rush to help me out.

I was also supposed to go shadow an anchor who works the early morning shift (meaning I get to wake up at 4), but that didn't work out. I will be able to go out with her some time next week, and I will be TiVo-ing it because she usually has the interns appear onscreen for demonstrations and things. She gets to do a lot of fun stories. For example, last week she went to the circus to learn how to become a clown, and she got to film an ice cream juggling contest at an ice cream shop in town!

I did get to shadow another reporter today though. She is working on a series that will air on News 8 in July (it's similar to a documentary.) The series is about childcare, so we got to go to a very highly acclaimed facility in Austin to film and interview some staff. Unfortunately, I did not get to goof around with the kids because we had to film them, and doing so means trying to be candid and not get involved. The day with her was interesting though, because her series allows her to get more in depth than most reporters, so it should turn out to be an interesting story.

There are a few things at the apartment I would like to work on over the weekend, but besides that I've got nothing! I've been lucky to have a lot of free time on my hands, but because I'm still a stranger to this town I am hesitant to venture out on my own a lot (especially at night). I am really looking forward to having family come to visit soon so we can go do some fun activities together! And I've always got my great cousins to show me around!

Sicktastic

So, I must have caught a cold somehow. I actually had to call in sick to work on Wednesday because I couldn't even get out of bed. Fever, headaches, congestion, you name it. But I am feeling much better now, which is great.

I was able to go in to work on Thursday, and when I got there I had around 300 emails to sort through from the day before. No exaggeration, there are literally hundreds of emails that we at the news desk have to read every day. Most of them are plugs from a local band or news that does not pertain to our station, but it is important to check them all in case there is something important mixed in with all the clutter. On top of that, each morning we are expected to read the local newspapers and call the police stations to see if anything happened overnight. My job was to sort through the papers, and I found a couple of stories that I found interesting. So what I have to do from there is copy the story and send it out to our producers, reporters, and everyone working at the news desk with me. If someone likes the suggestion, they'll bring it up as a story idea in the morning meeting. Even writing all of this information down is making me a little exhausted!

The point of all that explaining is that I sent out a story that an anchor read and liked.

(Here's a link to the story if you're curious)

When I was standing in at the morning meeting, he began to say how an intern sent him a great story idea and I raised my hand and said "That's meeeeeee!" I was too proud of my accomplishment I couldn't help myself. Any time I get recognized at work I get really excited because if I'm making a good impression on everyone, they could remember my name and contact me for a job once I graduate! Who knows, if I stay on this winning streak maybe that'll happen.

First Day of Work

Check it out! It's my new intern badge that gives me VIP access to the News 8 Austin building! Never mind that the picture shows it backwards...

I'm still feeling sick today, but I made sure to go to CVS last night and get medication before my first big day at work. I worked an eight hour shift today, and although it was fun it took a lot out of me!

A big part of my job as an assignment desk intern is answering phones and sorting through hundreds of e-mails each day that contain tips, press releases, and more often than not worthless junk. My e-mail account couldn't be set up until the afternoon, so the first few hours of me being there were a bit worthless. My supervisor, Tina, saw that I had nothing to do and decided to send me out on an assignment with a photographer. Why he's called the photographer I don't know, because he was definitely a videographer. The "photographer" Drew and I drove around in the news van to meet up with reporters and film their stories. Although it is a 24 hour news channel, most of the segments are pre-recorded, but I did get to see a live news shot today. After filming an anchor do a "Go Green" interview, we met up with a reporter named Karina who was doing a story about the governor's mansion. Apparently, two years ago someone set fire to the building and it is still under construction. I got to set up the light and carry around a tripod, but besides that I mostly just observed. But it was really cool! I told Tina how much I enjoyed it, and she said I will be be able to go out and do it often!

When I got back it was lunchtime, so instead of taking an hour long lunch break, I was able to eat my lunch at the desk so I could get out an hour sooner. I don't know if I'll do that every day, but it was certainly convenient since my medicine was wearing off. I got told by somebody that I look like Annette O' Toole today, who I have never heard of before. Apparently she was the mother on Smallville, and from her picture I'd say that it's a compliment.

http://www.nndb.com/people/096/000024024/aot4.jpg

I don't see any resemblance besides hair color, but it was still nice.