The 29th Olympiad

I thought working for a station that is running the games would be a huge pain, but it's not really that bad at all...actually, it's kind of nice.


Our regular news schedule is completely irregular, especially nights. We're usually going on at 12, if not 1 in the morning. That's an hour or two late. Most would complain, but I find it offers two wonderful things - a lot of downtime and overtime.


Friday, there was breaking news at 10. Police thought a robber was locked inside a nearby grocery store. They called in the dogs and the SWAT team. Of course he wasn't in the store anymore, but we had to do a live shot at midnight and wait to get information. I didn't get off work until 1, but I got a decent "breaking news" live shot out of it, (thanks to Jon's wonderful ghetto lighting) and some overtime hours.


Saturday I did a live shot for 6, shot my story for late before that, logged and wrote, then went home to eat dinner with Greg. After the relaxing break, I sat and read in the greenroom for the rest of the evening. Around 10 we got sent out to "a fire" 45 minutes away in Richmond, but it turned out to be a control burn (you'd be surprised how many times I've had to run on controlled burns) and I got off only about a half hour late.

Sunday was about the same. My early story was shot when I got in. I fronted that, then met Greg for dinner at Buddy's. My 11 story was actually the package that was supposed to run on Friday, but was dropped because of the breaking news. So once again, I sat in the greenroom and read.

So, thanks to the Olympics, I finally finished A Thousand Splendid Suns, which Dad sent me, and I've been trying to finish for months. It was a wonderful book and I'm not sure I would have ever known how much I enjoyed it if it not for these games.

The other nice thing about the Olympics is I'm pretty sure our ratings are through the roof. Greg showed me the ratings for WAVE, since Louisville is a metered market and they are pulling 25-30 shares for the games and their shows. I can only imagine our numbers are the same, if not higher. Just for example, Saturday Greg and I went out to Harry's in Hamburg. They had at least 8 big screen HD TVs over the bar - all on 18. It's a nice feeling to know people are watching...Even if it means an extra hour sitting around and getting paid for it.