“I almost ran into a nun.  Is that an immediate ticket to Hell?”  –Ron Thoma 05-10-08

“Everyday is Mardi Gras in my world.”  –Trish Williford 05-13-08

“You could bring a dead fish in here and we’ll encode it.”  –Randy Bain 05-16-08

“You’d think you could get a decent picture of an armadillo having sex without porn sites popping up.”  –J.J. Lewis 05-11-08

“Did you have to pay your friends to buy your lunch?”  –Clay Kirby 05-16-08

Ever look up an ailment or two on the internet and scare yourself into oblivion? 

It was a dark and stormy night… 

More than six inches of rain was dumped on the Shreveport-Bossier area in less than two hours last night, catching hundreds of motorists off guard.  I pulled over into a parking lot and did a live phone report for the 10 p.m. news from the Broadmoor area.   I was stranded.

With help from a Chuck Norris-like boyfriend (an off-duty firefighter/EMT), who was able to roundhouse kick the floodwaters into oblivion and pick me up in a truck, I left my car in the parking lot and headed out with my video camera.  See above.

We then picked up a girl on Pennsylvania who was stuck in a driveway and took her home. 

When we got back to the station (typical well-oiled machine chaos–reporters, editors, producers, photogs…gettin’ it done), The Boyfriend took Rob Brennan and Gerry May out in his truck for more news coverage while I helped write scripts and get video on our website.

Our crews worked through the night, as did first responders, reacting to incident after incident.  Back at it again today.  

   

Can you honestly list here your top five most recent Google searches?  Yeah, it takes courage to list them and invites many questions.   Truth or Dare?  I’ll take both!  Whatchu got?     

Armadillo claws

Armadillo paws

Cavanaugh Center

Spanish

YouTube

Job Title: Technical Director at KTBS 3

Hometown:  Haughton, LA

“I love playing all sports.  Golf, football, baseball, basketball.  I play basketball the most but I’ve never been very good.  I like to play any sport.”

Favorite thing about your job:  “I like being in control and always having something new to do.  I never really know what to expect until I get to work.  I also like a fast-paced environment, although it seems to be slowing down, or maybe I’m just getting faster.” 

Your inspiration:  “First of all I say Jesus..But also my mom, dad and especially my brother.” 

Your family: Dad–Terry, Mom–Vicki, Brother–Shawn…And the 18 year old blind, deaf, toothless dog Kato.

Anything people might be surprised to learn about you: “I am deathly afraid of spiders.  I once burned a pair of shoes with a blow torch because a spider had made a nest in them.”

Favorite food:  “I’m a fan of all food, but my favorite would have to be Mexican.”

Favorite saying:  “Second place is the first loser.”  (I obviously hate to lose at anything)“My biggest challege was trying to learn spanish.  I took three semesters of it and still can’t say or read a sentence.  It’s complete gibberish to me.  It’s a shame because I would really like to be able to speak a second language.”

Fantasy job:  “I think owning a catamaran in Hawaii that takes tourists out snorkeling every morning would be the perfect job.  I think I would work about 5 hours each day and spend the rest of the day lying around relaxing.  Then I would make Sparky clean my boat.”

Music: Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, The Eagles, The Beatles.  This is about all I ever listen to in my iPod.

Suzie Talley, Darlene Talley, Bonnie Talley, Billie O’Connor, Dee Talley, Sally Stockton, Joan Talley, Shelby Stockton Lamm, Trenada Bethune, Sonja Bailes, Krysti Burleson, Angie Day, Allison Tennehill, Nellie Johnson, Viki Fentress, Colleen Spillane, Pam Elder, Nya Ealy, Sherri Collier, Ruth Baker, Darlene Warner, Peggy Robertson, Amy Fultz, Lisa Wellborn, Tina Jinks, Lisa Wells, Mary Thoma, Celeste Lewis, Alice Normand, Laura Smith, Sue Sieck, Melissa Parkerson, Sandra Haynes, Sherri Swartz, Karen Gordon, Peggy Heacock, Lisa Hargrove, Ann Landry, Kathy Lamb, Susan Kirton, Susan Long, Laura Nanda, Sherri Lorraine, Karen Muscutt, Dorothy Long, Katherine Pettitt, Paula Rembert, Sue Smith, Paula Slack, Lucie Thornton, Kendra Wagnon, Renee Whitler, Kimberly Pizzaro, Virginia Shehee, Cheryl Sirven, Donna Buford, Judy O. Williams, Nancy Wilburn, Aly Fletcher, Lauren Ostendorf, Nancy Cotter, Cheryl May, Wendy Gayle, Joan Mack, Krysty O’Quinn, Linda Bunce, Cindy Holman, Gail McCulloch, Janice Harville, Amanda Webb, Mickie Cowan, Lou Adams, Kim Bray, Susan Allbritton, Annie Reese, Anissa Day, Dena Horne, Cindy Baswell

Wow.  What fun!  This media fitness challege did what Robert “Super-Mann” Blount meant for it to do.  It motivated several of the nine local journalists who competed this morning to reach a higher level of fitness and health.  Several of us are resuming training programs and adding to what we’ve learned in the past three months.     

So, thanks to Supe for the motivation, everyone who competed for the challenge for the inspiration and challenge and to Martin Cota of Digital Photo 662 (www.dphoto662.com) for taking such awesome pictures and letting me use them on this site!

8:30 a.m. - we reported to Riverview Hall for measurements.  I was so awestruck by what Roy Lang and Val Horvath did in their attempts to lose weight.  Roy lost 34 pounds…Val, aboout 30!  I had some shifting of inches I was happy about.  I was surprised to learn I actually gained and lost in places I wanted to!

The challenge:

Bench Press (55 lbs. for women/men bench their weight) — as many as we could do in a minute.  Then, pushups (the boy ones!)  BTW, the military might be calling Fred Childers after his pushup performance.  Situps - as many as possible in a minute.  Then, in some cruel and unusual surprise, we were presented with a 220-pound tractor tire and offered the opportunity to flip it for time.  Thanks, Supe!  After all that, we ventured to the riverfront for a half mile race.

Click here to see the story on KTBS.

Congratulations to the winners!  It was a close and competitive (we’re journalists!) challenge.  A single point made the difference between first and second place in both categories.  Let’s do it again next year! 

Men—

1.  Chris Redford, KTBS-TV, 2.  Fred Childers, KSLA-TV, 3.  Roy Lang, The Times

Women—

1.  Katrina Webber, KSLA-TV, 2.  Sherri Talley, KTBS-TV, 3.  Christina Erwin, FOX-TV, 4.  Amber Miller, KTAL-TV, 5.  Val Horvath, The Times, 6.  Neisha Livingston, The Times

I’ve seen this phenomenon in other neighborhoods.  I just never thought I’d see it in my own yard.  Does this stuff grow on trees?  Was it in Joe’s forecast and I missed it?  Gerry and I are always talking during the weather.  That’s probably what happened…some sort of May El Nino occurance.

Another thought as I looked out the window this morning:  What makes this stuff go away?  Right off the bat, I’d say a son, home from college might be one solution.  Only, I can’t say for sure who might be more closely associated with the knowledge of how this came about:  him or me?

I think I’ll leave it up for a while so that the substance can be more closely studied.  Call it sort of a community contribution to the study of the environment.  What do you think it is? 

It’s no secret now that my fitness has fallen off.  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.  While my fitness didn’t happen there at all, it somehow stayed there, because I haven’t been back on my strength routine since. 

Tonight, we weighed-in for the Fit For Life Journalist Challenge at the Louisiana Boardwalk.  Eight time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney laughed hard when I talked to him about how a bunch of out-of-shape journalists (speak for yourself, Talley!) were going to give it a go in the morning during a fitness challenge.   I responded with one of those sort of fake, nervous laughs.

I’m a runner.  Not a fighter.  Ha…no, I mean not a strength person.  Anyway, each of us have had our own goals and while weight wasn’t as much a factor for me as was strength, I was so impressed by the weight loss of some of the other journalists.  30 pounds!  24 pounds!  Dang!

I really don’t want to get up early and toss around a tractor tire (as if!), throw down some iron and run faster than is necessary.  But I will.  I said I would.  And I think it just might jump-start my motivation back to where it needs to be for me to get excited about my racing goals again.   

So, (although I’ll be cussing him at 6am) I want to thank Supermann Robert Blount for being such a motivator in this challenge.