Cincinnati, Ohio

January 30th – 31st

UMass vs 10 Xavier – College Basketball – ESPNU – Noon ET

Much improved in the weather department!


There was more rain and snow over the past 24 hours, but the roads were fine until just outside Cincinnati.

I drove down on Friday afternoon - about 22 hours after I had just returned from Cincinnati.

Uneventful evening as I had to get up at 4a.

The game on Saturday was good.


I just kept thinking I was at UC since I had done so many UC games this season.

Had breakfast with some of the crew at Buskens. It's a locally family owned bakery; the breakfast was fabulous!

Drove home after the game. Big Saturday night – asleep on the couch by 6:30!

Cincinnati, Ohio

January 28th

Georgetown vs Cincinnati – College Basketball – ESPN360.com – 7:30pm

White death!
That’s what we joke about when it “snows” in Columbus because we typically never get more than a dusting. However, if you listen to the local media, you better get to the store for canned goods and batteries!

On Tuesday night I worked the Blue Jackets game – and yes – the roads were a mess on the way home.

So on Wednesday morning, knowing I had to be in Cincinnati at 1:30pm, I got up a little earlier than I normally would to check on the weather.

Guess what - this time, they were right!

Pretty much the entire state had been hit hard with 6 inches of snow, couple inches of freezing rain, then a couple more inches of snow. Everything was closed!

I checked the University of Cincinnati website and yes indeed, the campus was closed. However, the game was still a go! Well… it was a go, but the school wouldn’t confirm it with ESPN until Noon. Since I couldn’t wait until them to leave, I had to go ahead and head out.

It takes me about 1 hour and 40 minutes to get to Cincinnati, but considering the alleged road conditions, I allowed myself double that. Worst case scenario is I get there early and go hang out at Panera and have some coffee.

Here is what it looked like as I was leaving the neighborhood:

Not the greatest, but not so bad.

It got worse with every mile.


That is what it looked like for 100+ miles. The average speed was 35 mph.
Not fun!

Cincinnati, as well as much of the area I was traveling in, was under a “Level 3 Snow Emergency” – which means you are not allowed to be driving and risk being arrested if found on the streets.

But, ya gotta get to work!
Ended up taking all the time I allotted – about 3 hours & 20 minutes.

It was by far the worst conditions I have ever driven in. But I remained patient and just took it slow.

The game went well and I stayed the night at the Marriott Kingsgate (my Cincinnati ‘home away from home’)

On Thursday morning, I worked out, had breakfast, etc and then decided to head home around 10am. Assuming, rush hour was over and the roads were good and cleared.

Apparently, the state of Ohio hadn’t heard about the storm yet (24 hours later) as I-71 was a solid sheet of ice from mile marker 3 to 40. It was horrible!

The ride home got better after mile marker 40 and ended up taking about 2.5 hours, so not the end of the world.

Champaign, IL

January 23rd – 25th

Wisconsin vs 24 Illinois - College Basketball (CBB) – ESPN2 – 4pm

It took pretty much all day on Friday to get to Champaign, IL. Flight options are limited, so I was stuck with a 4 hour layover in Detroit. However, that allowed me to catch up on some emails.

This weekend was a reunion of sorts – Amy, the other graphics operator that started the football season with me, was the other operator this weekend. She did Viz and I did Duet. (Some higher profile CBB games have 2 graphics operators on them still)

Jason, my football AP, was also our AP for this game. So it was very nice for the 3 of us to work together again!

On Friday night, Amy and I had dinner and spent some time catching up.

Since the alarm was going off at 3:30am, I was in bed by 8:05pm Friday night. I was so obsessed about falling asleep, that I didn’t until well after 11pm. Ugh!

Game day went really well. Other than we had to be in a 5am for a 3pm game. Ugh! That part wasn’t fun!


But it allowed for Amy, Jason and I to take a real lunch break for once. We went to this place called “LePeep” – it was fantastic! It’s a lot like a “First Watch”.

Over the years, I have stayed in some of the worst hotels in the entire country while visiting Champaign. The “Historical Lincoln” was cross between a Scooby Doo Haunted Mansion and the set of the movie “The Shining”. I believe that was during football season of 2004.

There was carpet, velvet & tapestries EVERYWHERE!

I actually sent a complaint into the ESPN Travel Dept. begging them to never book this hotel again. It was winter time and I had to leave my window open in order to breathe. The ventilation system was so outdated that it was as if there was lit cigarette in my room the entire stay (or maybe it was the ghost in the corner smoking?)

It was a nice hotel, when it was renovated back in the early 80s!
Just so creepy now!

It defienately added entertainment value for our crew and gave us something to compare future hotels with. (See, 5 years later and I'm still talking about it!)

Then there was this other one – I don’t remember the name – maybe “America’s Inn” or something ? I think it was during the 2005 football season that we experienced this gem.

It’s feature was the sign at the check in desk:
“If illegal drugs or activities are conducted in your room, you will be asked to leave without refund. If you don’t leave, we will call the police.”

NICE!

Actually, if I remember correctly, the Illinois football team was doing so poorly at the time, the coaches made the team stay at the hotel the night before the game as punishment.

ANYWAY, back to this trip!
I am happy to report that Champaign has a brand new hotel!
It’s called “I Hotel” and it is located 1 block behind Assembly Hall.
Great hotel!! Just a lot of nice little touches.

This one was my favorite
(yes, actual books)

Happy National Squirrel Appreciation Day!

January 21st

Happy National Squirrel Appreciation Day!

These are the little squirrel (sugar) cookies I made to honor the holiday.

Columbus, OH

January 17th – 18th

Again, this weekend I was “on call”. No other Duet ops got sick or had travel emergencies, so I got to stay home.

I flew mom up for the weekend and we pretty much never left the house. A lot of cleaning got done!

BREAKING NEWS….. at approximately 10:52am on Saturday, January 17, 2009, the final bag from China was unpacked! What’s the rush? It had only been sitting on the guest room floor for 5 months!

Birmingham, Alabama

January 15th – 16th

South Atlanta (GA) vs LeFlore (AL) High School Basketball – ESPN2 – 9pm

I stayed in Cincinnati on Wednesday night after the UC game and flew to Birmingham on Friday morning.

The game was played at Bartow Arena – UAB’s basketball arena.


It’s always difficult doing a high school game – be it football or basketball – due to the lack of information available. Most high schools are not accustomed to dealing with being on TV; so do not know how desperately we need information on the school, team and players. Not to mention the fact that most schools do not keep stats or at least accurate stats.

Even with the challenges of doing HS sports, I always enjoy doing these games as we are there for a reason – one of the players is going to be tomorrow’s star. So that part is cool – getting to see them when they are still a kid.

But the action was not on the court – it apparently was outside the arena – in the parking lot just 50 yards from where the TV truck was parked. After the game, the play-by-play announcer was mugged at gunpoint.

On Friday morning, unbeknownst to me, it was “Be Evil to Nic Day.” All small things, but all annoyed me in a huge way!

First it was the woman in 3C – I was attempting to put my roller board in the overhead bin and it was not fitting “wheels first” as it typically does on that model of aircraft. So I flipped it around to “handle first” and again, it didn’t fit. (By putting getting your bag to fit wheels or handle first, you don’t take up as much room; thus allowing room for more bags; a kind gesture to fellow passengers)

While I was doing this, the woman in 3C was giving me a once over; apparently she didn’t feel that I was first class material. So she proceeded to snear, “It’s not going to fit.” I looked at her and said, “No shit!” She was instantly appalled by my response which made me giggle!

On the flight, I had a much needed nap as I only had gotten 3 hours of sleep.

As I was waiting to get off the plane in Atlanta, the guy in 2C reached into the overhead bin and started to take down my bag. I said, “Actually, that is my bag sir.” His head swiveled around and he said, “Well THAT is where I put MY bag. You must have moved it when you put yours in!” And he being the gentleman, that he obviously was, he shoved my bag back into the overhead bin.

I replied with, “No, I did not touch your bag.” He said, “Yes you did!”
I reached up and grabbed my bag and said, “Whatever dude” and left.

He had made such a scene that when I was on the jet bridge a lady came up to me and said, “Be thankful that guy isn’t your husband – what a jerk!”

Then in the elevator in the Crown Room, this old couple started talking about me as I am 8 inches from them. Seriously, it was an elevator for 4 people and the old man whispered
“Will you look at the size of that bag!”

The old lady said, “That is what is wrong today with carry-on luggage. People taking such large items on the plane”
I just stood there with my back to them, attempting to be nice – I am angry at myself for not saying “I CAN HEAR YOU!” Cuz that is what I was saying in my head.

I attribute all 3 scenarios with me being discriminated against. The 1st two things happened in first class, the other in the airline club. As I usually do on early morning flights, I was wearing a sweatshirt and comfy pants, no makeup and less than perfect hair.

Basically, I look homeless, but I am comfortable! All these people didn’t feel that I belonged in first class or in the club – when indeed, I do! Subconsciously, I think I dress worse when I know I will be in first class, just to annoy people.

And yes, I have an enormous backpack that weighs 37 lbs. I may not be able to walk by the time I am 40, but I have everything I could possibly need to do my job. I also carry my roller board suitcase – which is also typically packed until ready to burst. The more crap you have in your bag, the more mad the TSA agents get when they search your stuff. (But that’s another one of the fun games I play – I’ll save TSA stories for another day)

Anyway, to anyone who complains about the amount of stuff I carry on a plane I have a simple response – “I challenge you to live my life for one week and see how you pack afterwards”

I guarantee you, after you are buying underwear at WalMart at 1am because an airline lost your luggage and you have to be to work in 5 hours, I bet you won’t check your luggage next time!

Ok… so back to my trip home.
On the flight from Atlanta to Columbus, the guy next to me passed out after 1 bloody mary.

He sat hunched over the entire flight. I just thought it was funny.

Cincinnati, Ohio

January 14th

University of Cincinnati Basketball

It actually snowed last night in Columbus! So it took me an extra 30 minutes to get out of town since the roads inside of I-270 were actually pretty bad.

Other than that – nothing to report.

Waterloo/Cedar Falls/Cedar Rapids, Iowa

January 10th – 12th

College Wrestling – Tape Delayed for ESPNU

Flew into Cedar Rapids (I think) and then drove to Waterloo. For some reason, I was confused all weekend as to where I was. I think it was because our hotels kept changing during the week and I also originally thought our event was at Iowa, but it actually was at Northern Iowa.

Anyway, it was insanely cold where ever I was.

On Sunday morning, the front desk clerk gave me directions to the UNIDome. She said to get off at the “Hudson exit and the dome will be a couple miles down on your left.” So that’s what I did.

However, the road was a dead end. Hmm… I know I didn’t pass a huge dome!

So as I was turning around, I saw “University Ave.” – well I knew that had to lead to a college campus I assumed it would be the one I needed.

Eventually, it was. I eventually came to “Hudson Street” – and what do ya know, the UNIDome was on it, on my left.

Apparently the hotel clerk left out one minor detail…. There is an exit for Hudson (a town) and then an exit for Hudson Street. (I needed the street, not the town)

I was about 40 minutes late to work, but it was okay. It took a couple hours for the truck to warm up enough to turn on the gear.

On Sunday night, I was able to hang out at the bar with a few of my long time freelance friends. It was a lot of fun to catch up with them!

I only had about 4 hours of sleep on Sunday night and wasn’t feeling all that happy about the early flight when I woke up on Monday morning.

The night before, a co-worker and I had decided to sit together on our flight from Iowa to Cincinnati. (It’s better to be squished in together with someone you know)

Unfortunately, the seat next to me was taken and he had the one across the isle. He went ahead and sat next to me and when the guy came up and said, “I think you are in my seat”, Mike said, “I’m on the one across the isle, do you mind switching? I met this girl at the bar last night.”

I laughed so hard and said, “that doesn’t really bode well for you considering I haven’t even brushed my hair yet today.” (Sadly, it was the truth)

When arriving at the gate for the flight to Columbus, I ran into a client. He did a double take when I said hi – he obviously didn’t recognize me wearing sweats and unkempt hair.
Glamorous life I tell ya!

Sorry, no photos this weekend. I honestly forgot.

Cincinnati, OH

January 7th

Providence vs Cincinnati – College Basketball – 9pm ET - ESPNU



It’s nice to be into hoops season. As I have mentioned in the past, college basketball is my favorite sport to do.

Uneventful evening.

Bay Village, Ohio

January 5th

Dave and I went to see our friends in Cleveland to celebrate Christmas and to watch Ohio State play Texas in the Fiesta Bowl.

Cliff & Boo made a fabulous dinner for all of us! Oh my goodness, it was so delicious!

At halftime, we did our “Secret Santa” gift exchange. There are always prank gifts involved and most everyone is in on the joke.

The biggest one this year had to be Dave’s gift to Matty…..
Dave came across a laser disk while shopping at a used record store. So he bought it as a joke. Then when telling one of our friends about it, our friend said, “I have a laser disk player that you can borrow. It’s never been out of the box. But I have to have it back.”

So… poor Matty opened the laser disk first.


Then the laser disk player…



Matt & Cliff

It wasn’t until later in the night that Dave told Matty he could keep the laser disk, but he needed to take the player back.

Okay, not funny to everyone else, I know. But the NTACs have their own unique sense of humor that no one else really understands.

Anyway – Boo is always cold. So one of my gifts to her was the Snuggi – you’ve all seen the terrible TV commercial for it. “Blankets are okay, but they slip & slide”





Another one of the gifts was a toy Jonny had played with during breakfast one day. Apparently, Jonny was mesmerized by this toy and couldn’t stop playing it. Cliff had gotten it for him. And again, Jonny stopped everything and played with the toy for about 40 minutes…


And then we heard… “guys… guys… get the camera guys…”






It was such a fun night, even though the Buckeyes lost. Dave and I miss these guys so much! Long gone are the days of hanging out every weekend (when most of us lived in Columbus).

Oh well… I guess it just makes the few times we do get together even more special.

Amanda, Jonny, Cliff, Boo and Matt – you are the best!
(Bettes & TG too!) Looking so forward to our NTAC vacation in July!!

Columbus, OH

January 3rd

Happy New Year!

This weekend I was “on call”. No other Duet ops got sick or had travel emergencies, so I got to stay home.

It was very nice! I haven’t had a weekend off since July 17th.

I got to get a few things done around the house, watch the Blue Jackets win and actually went and saw a movie – in a theatre! “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” - which by the way, is worth the 2 hours & 40 minutes. Excellent movie!

Dayton, Ohio

December 31st

After 18 weekends of football, one needs a break!

Dave and I pondered many mini-vacation options – and it came down warm & sunny Daytona! Err, I mean Dayton!

Why Dayton you ask?

When we were having a hard time coming up with a destination, he decided to see where our favorite cover band, “The Menus”, were playing that week. They had a package deal at the Dayton Marriott on New Year’s Eve for a room, dinner, concert, open bar, dessert, etc. And the rest is history…


Nic & Dave

For those who have been reading the blog since last summer, you are familiar with “The Menus”. For those who are new to the blog….. "The Menus" are a cover band from Cincinnati. The set list varies from The Beatles to Jethro Tull to Boston to Blood, Sweat & Tears to Neil Diamond and anything in between!. They are entertaining from start to finish. The lead singer has about 15 costume changes during the show – all of which are outrageously mismatched and leave you wondering why?











Dave starting seeing their shows in Columbus in the late 90s, me shortly there after. In recent years, we started going to Put-In-Bay during the summer to go camping and see them play at The Beer Barrel Saloon.



It was on this recent trip that we realized the fans have gotten OLD! (We of course have not aged since first seeing them perform) Seriously, the majority of the people on New Year’s Eve were in their 50s & 60s. If they still handed out awards at the end of their shows (something they used to do), I would of easily won “youngest fan”.



We had a great time! We got our money’s worth on the open bar, BUT, we challenged each other to a glass of water between every drink. It worked – no hangover!


I even wore big girl shoes for the occasion! They had heels and everything!









About 2 hours into the night, Dave had the best suggestion ever – “why don’t you go upstairs and change your shoes.” Music to my piggies!


It may have seemed like an odd place to take a mini-vacation or spend New Years Eve – but it was a perfect match for us!

Shreveport, Louisiana

December 26th – 29th

Independence Bowl – Northern Illinois vs Louisiana Tech -ESPN -8p ET – CFB Week 18

We made it!
Our last week of football!!



I was traveling from Fort Myers this week into Shreveport. Had some issues with delays and ended up switching airlines and routes. However, I was only about 4 hours late into Shreveport… so nothing like last week!

Things were a little hectic on Saturday, our set day, because we were on a different truck this week. We had been spoiled for 17 weeks of having the same truck with the same engineers. So it was kinda like starting all over again!

After the game on Sunday night most of the production crew ended up in the bar; it was supposed to close at 11p, but ended up staying open until well past 1a. I had a few drinks with them and then the technical crew got back. They had anticipated a closed bar and had picked up some beer earlier in the day. So we had our own little party in the hotel lobby.


Saks

A couple people had passes to the Louisiana Tech Hospitality Suite and took shopping bags up and filled them with beer & food and would bring them back down to the lobby.

The lobby decorations quickly began to disappear.
(It was also the team hotel for Louisiana Tech)


At some point a demonstration of Butt Darts began. (A drinking game this crew played in seasons past)



Around 3am it was down to about 6 of us, so we went to the hospitality suite where there was still endless alcohol flowing; including a slushy machine that was making margaritas! (that’s where I went wrong)


Tom


I gave up at 4am and went to bed.

Thankfully, I had a 12:30p flight. It was not a pretty day.



What did I miss this weekend?
On Monday morning - my football crew.

It was a season of new challenges for me, but I learned so much!
I also made some fabulous new friends! I will miss them all over the next 8 months!

Fort Myers, Florida

December 22nd – 26th

On Monday morning, I headed home for a couple days to spend time with the family.

It was a complete whirlwind of a visit – I had to do my shopping still which took up Monday.

On Tuesday, I went to see my grandmother’s new condo and helped hang a few photos, etc.

On Wednesday, my dad and I prepared dinner for our family that was in town.
Followed by a family gift exchange. The photos of the family, as usual didn’t turn out. But that’s ok, the photos always turn out of the 2 most excited kids – Madison & Rizon.


Madison


Rizon

They both absolutely LOVE Christmas and have to be right in the middle of it all. Opening their presents and playing with the wrap and ribbons like kittens.

On Christmas, Mom, Dad, Grandma and I spent the day on the boat. It was a beautiful day! THIS was my vacation! (unfortunately it only lasted a few hours)

Claude & Smokey Update

Many have asked.... I apologize for the delay.

Finally - here are photos of Claude & Smokey - taken in December.


Claude & Smokey at Auntie Nic’s


Smokey helping Auntie Nic update her ESPN CBB Binder


Smokey napping in Auntie Nic’s office


Bath time!


Nap time!

Salem, Virginia

December 18th – 21st

NCAA Div. III Championship –Wisconsin-Whitewater vs Mount Union -ESPN -11a ET – CFB Week 17



Now this was a trip!

On Friday, I was flying to Roanoke with a connection in Detroit.
Got to Detroit a little late, but with still plenty of time to spare. Met up with a co-worker, Tim, who was on the same flight to Roanoke.

We spent a little time at the gate catching up when they cancelled our flight.

There are so MANY details, I won’t bore you with all of them this week! But here is the short version……

It was around 1:30pm when out flight was cancelled. The next flight to Roanoke was at 9:47pm. So Tim waited in line at the Northwest counter while I sat on the phone with ESPN Emergency Travel trying to figure out a game plan.

I sat with an atlas and tried endlessly to get us to a city within 4 hours of Roanoke at a decent hour.

We conceded and decided to take the 9:47pm flight to Roanoke since any of the other options would involve driving and getting in much later.

So the 3 of us – the color analyst had joined us, headed off to the Northwest World Club to waste the next 7 hours.

It was around 6pm that ESPN decided we needed to get on a plane ASAP as our entire crew was having issues getting to Virginia and there was a blizzard headed to Detroit – if we didn’t get out soon, we would never make it to work.

So, they decided to send us to Charlotte, North Carolina on a 9:15pm flight. In the meantime, we met up with a 4th person from our crew. With numerous trials and tribulations, the 4 of us did indeed make the flight and landed a little after 11 in Charlotte….. on auto pilot because there was 1/8th of mile of visibility.

Tim and I were seated together, ‘comfortably’ in the last row with non-reclining seats. When we landed and looked out the window, we knew there was little chance of us making it to Roanoke in that fog. It was scary bad.

We decided as a group that we would go ahead and start on the 3+ hour drive and see how far we got. As it stood now, it was going to be 3am before we got to the hotel. We wanted to get there, but also knew this is how others in our industry have died – just trying to make crew call.

Tim, being the total rock star that he is, volunteered to be the driver. It totally sucked and I don’t know how he did it! The fog was super thick at times and then gone and back again. Our color analyst shared stories of his days in the NFL and USFL and I think that is what kept us going. We were all beyond exhaustion!

Linda, my nutty GPS, was acting up and telling us to go South when we all knew it was North. Eventually, we programmed the rental car GPS as well and then had dueling GPSs which also added to the entertainment.

We made it to the hotel around 3am. It was at least 4 before I was able to fall asleep. 7am came really fast!

Friday sucked for everyone as we were all extremely tired. Each person on the crew had a story of how they made it to Roanoke, so that at least made the day interesting. Tim and I “won” because we had the longest day of travel on the crew – 17 hours. Most everyone else averaged 12; which is still insane!

The game on Saturday went fine. The weather was far better than the game last year. Speaking of which – I filled in on this crew last year on this exact game. It was my first Viz game; wow!

Speaking of the Viz, this is what it looks like:




Here is Jason, my AP:


This was the last weekend on our truck; so we had to say goodbye to our engineers and generator op. That was sad :(

On Sunday morning, Tim and I were on the same 6am flight. When we got to Detroit we went right to the World Club to check on our connecting flights and to see if Northwest had found his luggage yet (they had lost it there in Detroit on Thursday).

The saga continued …. By the end of Sunday; Tim had spent another day at the Detroit airport after numerous cancellations and I did make it back to Columbus; but my luggage did not!


What did I miss this weekend?
Driving 1 mile to work.

Columbus

December 17th

College Basketball – Jacksonville vs Ohio State – ESPNU – 9pm

It was so much fun to be working an ESPN game at Ohio State again!
It has been almost 2 years since we all did one together!

I had a great time seeing everyone and wish we still did this every week during hoops season!