Summer in SoFla

The longest day of the year isn't too bad here.

Game 7 faces

My coworkers.

Memorial Day weekend project

A new study says....

Health care professionals and journalists say there are problems with the health coverage most of us get on our local stations. To avoid oversimplification and reporting heavily based on press releases, says physician and former broadcaster Tom Linden, TV reporters must be critical; "they have to know the language of medicine and science; and they have to have a good grasp of numbers and statistics."

Local TV Needs Rx For Its Health Coverage

My last "short Sunday"

This is my last weekend on the overnight shift.  Next Sunday, I can watch "Mad Men" when it first airs, if I want to.  I won't miss any more evening sporting events on TV, unless I choose to.  (Not seeing the Super Bowl and the NCAA Championship Game was painful!)  I got a change in assignment so for the next three days, I'm still the morning Executive Producer at Local 10 WPLG.

Next week, I move to a day shift and will be the Managing Editor.  Frankly, I'm thrilled.  The past five months have been both challenging and so much fun.  I've stretched brain cells that needed stretching.  

I've learned that I'm probably not ever going to be a great Executive Producer!

It's a REALLY hard job and I have such an appreciation for anyone who works overnights.  One of my talented co-workers, Constance Jones, told me early on that it changes you.  And it does.  

I found myself getting very anxious at around 4pm if I wasn't home so that I could get to bed by 6pm.  Sometimes, when John and I were house-hunting, we would find ourselves in Broward County, stuck in traffic, late in the day.  It really messed me up.  

In the beginning I relied too heavily on Zzzzzquil.  Followed by Monster or 5-Hour-Energy.  Don't even go to that Viet Nam. 

I made mistakes and most of the time, I learned from them.

News stories about how the lack-of-sleep effects always seemed to make it into the health segment of the newscast, probably the result of my own anxiety.

I experienced the AM/PM Freak Out--when you wake up from a nap and have no idea what day it is, let alone the time of day.  And you think you missed your shift and you wonder why nobody called.

But the one thing that I wanted to happen, never did.

I still haven't learned to look at a rundown and see much more than a grid with hieroglyphics that I struggle to understand while my younger co-workers read them like Dick, Jane and Sally.

So this is a good thing.  I'm looking forward to a new challenge.  And to spending evenings with my husband rather than drooling into a pillow while he tries to be quiet in another room.

Life is good.

Stone in love...

Happy 26th anniversary John.  This is a bit later than usual, my days got away from me this year!

Listen to this first, then read the list...


1. “What are you doing here?”  I love how, on the day I got fired from KSHB, you were surprised that I was home early.   You always have faith in me.
2. I loved the 25th anniversary celebration with the kids on the beach in Fort Lauderdale.  Not that I ever expected to be living here a year later…
3. I love that you now know which TV shows or movies I will NEVER watch, no matter how much I hear and read about “True Blood” or “Walking Dead.”
4. I love laughing with you at impatient South Florida drivers.  Beep beep!
5. I love playing in the surf with you and seeing you body surf like a little boy.
6. I love that you went to see “Hunger Games” with me right after it came out even though you had NO INTEREST in the movie.

7. I love that you love South Dakota.
8. I love that you discovered Tree Faces and hope we can find a place to put ours in the new place.
9. I love coffee is ready for me when I get up at 12:05am.
10. I love how we can look back at some of the most stressful times during the past six months and realize that our relationship was tested but never broken.
11. I love that you still like listening to Y-100.  Brittney, bitch.
12. I love packing a lunch, grabbing the umbrella and chairs and just heading out for some sand time.  When we move, we’ll only be six miles from the ocean so let’s promise to keep it up.
13. I love you care about my mom.
14. I love tailgating with you…any sport, any time.
15. I love the Great Toilet Paper Debate.
16. I love exploring with you.
17. I love our daily walks and talks about the people we see while walking.
18. I love that you intently listen to my dad’s stories.

19. I love how we went from a single-family house with a pool to a two-bedroom condo on a golf course.  And how happy we will be! 
20. I love your unreasonable and completely hilarious fear of animals-that-are-more-afraid-of-you like deer, bears and alligators.
21. I love that we figured out early (thanks Priest Lake vacation) that our retirement dream of roving the US in a motor home is probably not grounded in reality…for us, anyway.
22. I love that you protect my sleep schedule.
23. I love that you don’t force me to throw away kindergarten math papers from our kids even though it’s a pain to move the boxes from city to city.
24. I love how you instinctively know when I’m too tired to keep going.
25. I love how you like to be photographed in strange places.

26. I loved getting to the car this morning to find red roses in a plastic bucket along with a note telling me not to drive with the bucket full of water, just in case I was too sleep deprived to figure that out on my own.

He still makes me laugh every day

Watch "VID_20130317_171507.mp4" on YouTube

Why advertisers don't care about baby boomers

You watch plenty of TV, and you’ve got money to spend, but ever since you passed 49, advertisers are just not that into you.

I so agree...I want to work Monday-Thursday in the office and do the fifth day from...the beach

http://www.dilbert.com/

Bits Blog: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many: Yahoo has banned employees from working from home. But an executive at Smule Inc., an app company, disagrees with the idea that workers are always most productive when in the office.

Airball!

Ouch!  This made me reflect on some of the huge mistakes I've made in my life.  Poor fella.

The eyes have it

The Lost Art of Eye Contact:
Trying to build a new relationship? You'll never manage it by staring at a screen. Here's what you need to do instead.
We’ve stopped seeing each other. You and me. All of us.
Our eyes may indeed be windows to our soul, but with our necks craned downward and our eyes focused on tiny handheld screens, who can tell? We hardly make an effort to look at the person we’re talking to anymore. Younger people, in general, find it challenging to maintain eye contact with adults. Video conferencing complicates things further. When is the last time you consciously looked into someone’s eyes and had a meaningful conversation?

Brian Moran's Story

This story is about someone I didn't know.  Brian Moran was my friend Elizabeth's husband.  Brian Moran was my friend Maggie Moran's father.  He died of cancer.  This is his story.

It's important to share this with your friends and family.  I think Brian and his family would appreciate it.

Seriously hilarious.

“You Had One Job!” See The Hilarious Side Of Workplace Incompetence:

The "You Had One Job" website chronicles extreme examples of work-related underachievement.

In light of recent calamities in the corporate world (like, say, too-lax approaches to Twitter security resulting in bruising hacks), we thought we’d take a look at the more entertaining effects of chaos in the workplace.
If victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan, You Had One Job is an orphanage. The website’s sole purpose is to display the wide variety of ways in which people can be staggeringly, amusingly, inept at their sole professional purpose.
Read Full Story

Breath in, breath out.

The 7 Habits of Calmness:

By Leo Babauta

I have come to believe that high stress, constant anxiety over tasks and work and life, social anxiety … is all a part of the modern way of life.

Most people just don’t feel a sense of peace, of calm, of serenity, throughout their day.

I have to admit that I’m the same way some of the time, but I have learned a few things that have helped me create a feeling of calmness much more of the time than ever before.

It’s a series of habits that have developed over the last few years. I’m not perfect at them, but I do practice them, and they are always helpful.

These are habits, not a one-time change in my surroundings or work pattern. Changing your environment is great, but you can’t control the things that happen to you much of the time, and you certainly can’t control how other people act. The only thing you can control is your response — and this response matters. You can respond to the same event with anxiety or anger, or you can respond with peace and calmness.

Let’s figure out how.

The Habits of Calmness

These are the habits to develop that will help you develop calmness (based on my experience):

1. A calm morning ritual. Many people rush through their mornings, starting the day out in a stressful rush. I wake up a little earlier (5 a.m. these days, though that changes), and start with a little meditation, then a few yoga poses. I then start writing, before I let the noise in. Exercise is another component of my morning routine. You don’t need to do the same things, but find the quiet of the morning and make the most of it.
2. Learn to watch your response. When something stressful happens, what is your response? Some people jump into action — though if the stressful situation is another person, sometimes action can be harmful. Others get angry, or overwhelmed. Still others start to feel sorry for themselves, and wish things were different. Why can’t other people behave better? Watch this response — it’s an important habit.
3. Don’t take things personally. Many times the response (that you noticed in Habit 2) is to take things personally. If someone does something we don’t like, often we tend to interpret this as a personal affront. Our kids don’t clean their rooms? They are defying us! Our spouse doesn’t show affection today? He/she must not care as much as he/she should! Someone acts rudely at work? How could they treat us this way?! Some people even think the universe is personally against them. But the truth is, it’s not personal — it’s the other person’s issue that they’re dealing with. They are doing the best they can. You can learn not to interpret events as a personal affront, and instead see it as some non-personal external event (like a leaf falling, a bird flying by) that you can either respond to without a stressful mindset, or not need to respond to at all.
4. Be grateful. Sure, lots of people talk about gratitude … but how often do we apply it to the events of our day? Things are crashing down at work, or our boss is angry, or our co-workers are rude, or our kids are misbehaving, or someone doesn’t love us as we’d like … do these cause anger/anxiety/unhappiness, or can we be grateful? Drop the complaints, and find a way to be grateful, no matter what. And then smile. This unbending habit can change your life.
5. Create stress coping habits. Many times, when we are faced with stress, we have unhealthy responses — anger, feeling overwhelmed and withdrawing, eating junk food, drinking alcohol or taking drugs, shopping or otherwise buying stuff, going to time-wasting sites, procrastinating, and so on. Instead, we need healthy ways to cope with stress, which will come inevitably. When you notice stress, watch how you cope with it, and then replace any unhealthy coping habits with healthier ones. Healthy stress coping habits include: drinking tea, exercise, yoga, meditation, massaging your own neck & shoulders, taking a walk, drinking some water, talking with someone you care about.
6. Single-task. I’ve written numerous times in the past about single-tasking vs. multitasking, but I think people multitask now more than ever. People text while on the train, while walking, while driving. They tweet and post to Facebook and Instagram, they email and read blogs and news, they watch videos while getting things done, they watch TV while eating, they plan their day while doing chores. This is a great way to cause a level of anxiety that runs through everything you do, because you’re always worried you should be doing more, doing something else. What if, instead, you just did one thing, and learned to trust that you shouldn’t be doing anything else? It takes practice: just eat. Just wash your bowl. Just walk. Just talk to someone. Just read one article or book, without switching. Just write. Just do your email, one at a time, until your inbox is empty. You’ll learn that there is peace in just doing one thing, and letting go of everything else.
7. Reduce noise. Our lives are filled with all kinds of noise — visual clutter, notifications, social media, news, all the things we need to read. And truthfully, none of it is necessary. Reduce all these things and more, and create some space, some quiet, in your life.

Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Tea

Speaking of calm habits, I helped create a new guide/course on tea: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Tea. This isn’t an affiliate link and I don’t make any money if you buy it — I just recommend it because Jesse Jacobs is a great tea teacher, and he’s created something wonderful at Samovar Tea Lounge. It’s one of my favorite places in the world, and tea has become a deeply ingrained part of my life.

Check it out, and learn more about tea with me and Jesse: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Tea.

I checked with Alfred E. Newman...

...he said the black spy really does hate the white spy.

And vice versa.

That was my first reaction when I saw Steve Schwaid's Facebook post about the reporter who debunked something from The Onion.

WTF? I wrongly assumed that the reporter was a youngster fresh out of college.

Nope, according to her online bio, she has more than six years experience. It goes on to say that when she's away from the newsroom she spends time with family, friends and her dog. May I kindly suggest she do a bit of reading?

And where oh where was her manager? Did someone assign this story to her? Or did she go rogue, investigate the proposal that the United States sever ties to the state of Alabama, determine the truth and take it upon herself to expose herself and her newsroom to ridicule on social media?

Tsk tsk.

My current theme song

Mike Miller

courtesy AOL sports

It's fairly well-known that while in Memphis, my fan-girl cup was filled to the brim when fellow South Dakotan Mike Miller joined the Grizzlies.  The "fights" I had with BFF Meg Green over him are, of course, legend.  Then he got traded.

In the short time John and I lived in Baltimore, he played for the Wizards so I got to see him on TV often when we lived there.

He got to Miami first, but once again, we are in the same city.  #notacoincidence?

Monday, the Miami Heat was honored at the White House for being NBA champions.  And Mike Miller got a shout out from the president.  Here's the verbatim from his remarks:

In Game Four against the Thunder last year, we saw LeBron carried off the floor with cramps, only to come back a few minutes later and hit a dagger of a three-pointer to put the Heat ahead.  We saw Dwayne Wade, the heart and soul of this team,  continue to do whatever it takes to win, including leading the team in blocks....We saw Chris Bosh get injured, but get healthy right at the perfect time and do outstanding work throughout the rest of the playoffs.

And it wasn’t just the Big Three.  Mike Miller could barely walk.  Mike, you look better now.  (Laughter.)  You looked broke down last year -- (laughter) -- but still hit seven three-pointers in the final game.  I don’t know how he did it because he could not walk.  He looked like an old man.  

 Good job, Old Man.  Good job.

House-hunting hilarity

Here is a feature we have not seen before.  A built-in blender...easy for frosty drinks by the pool!  This house also has a bidet...

We are still looking...

Channeling my inner Edna

I work an early shift.  I get up at midnight and at around 12:45am, I'm generally in contact with the morning team to talk about what incredible stories we intend to put our reporters on.  

There isn't an overnight photographer and we generally don't buy stringer video so when there's breaking news, we have to work the phones and dispatchers, although nice people, aren't always willing to part with meaningful information.

There was a fatal shooting at an Exxon station in Hollywood, about seven miles from the station so I decided to check it out on my way to the office.

Just in case, I instructed Amanda to choose a good photo from my Facebook page for the full-screen (in the event of my death).

Even after talking to the cop and snapping a few photos, I wasn't convinced that it was a huge story worth a reporter:  A bad guy went into a convenience store intending to rob the place.  The clerk shot and killed him.  My concern was that there would be no scene left at 5am and our reporter would be live at a gas station with nothing to show.

I was so wrong.
Turns out, a homeless guy who lives BEHIND the gas station saw the bad guys prepping to rob the place.  He alerted the clerk who had seconds to pull out a weapon.  One bad guy died, the other one ran away but didn't get far before he was arrested.  Thank goodness our reporter did a better job of finding the story than I did!
It was while I was driving back to the station that I thought of Edna Buchanan, a very famous Miami Herald reporter who wrote one of my favorite books.
I obviously spent too much time in the corner office and I need to sharpen my news sense!

Wild parrots on Miami Beach

I haven't been very good about blogging lately even though I see, smell and HEAR things that make me go "hmmm."

Here's one.  John and I were walking to the beach and hear the raucous noise of birds in the trees.  We couldn't see them at all but there were obviously dozens.  Finally, I realized we couldn't see the birds because they are green.  Wild parrots!

Also know as "feral parrots."

I love it here.