Media Update

Yesterday evening I came home from work as usual and am wandering around the house, thinking of dinner, and suddenly the phone rings. Caller ID says "WEWS" and so I hand the phone to my dear wife to answer. She answers it, and I hear "Yes. Yes. Yes he is, may I ask who's calling?"

Uh oh.

She hands me the phone and says "WEWS news for you."

Uh oh.

I'm instantly wondering if Carl Monday has been digging through my trash. (ok, yeah, i know -- different channel).

"Hello?"

So as it turns out, it's one of the very nice local anchors, wanting to talk about Hubble. As you may have heard, astronauts are in the process of upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a good thing, since its been many years since the last servicing mission, and Hubble is seriously in need of some attention.

After chatting with him for a bit, he suddenly says "Can we come interview you on camera? We can be there in 30 minutes." Uh.... okay... sure.

So I quickly get in touch with the college's ever-helpful communications director / media relations person who says a) "WHAAAT??", b) "Have you been drinking?" (well, yes), and c) "you should totally wear one of your hawaiian shirts". So I go change into a hawaiian shirt.

A few minutes later, a white van pulls up and the anchor and cameraman get out. Abra runs up, looks at the van, and say "Are we getting a new car?" No such luck, kid.

I ask them where they want to do the interview -- inside or out? They come inside, look around at the house, and quickly say "Let's do it outside." OK, yeah, good call. And so we go outside and do the interview.

These things always throw me off (particularly when I am "off duty" and at home). I feel like a babbling idiot on camera -- I'm not good at talking to newspeople on the fly. Anyway, here's the link to the video. You have to sit through a short ad, and then the story -- I'm close to the end. Evidently there wasn't much useful in my babbling, since they used a very short clip. Don't blink or you'll miss it.