Recent Goings-on

The latest randomisms...

+I accepted a job at WMTV NBC 15 in Madison, Wisc. I'll be the producer for the 10 p.m. news Monday through Friday, as well as taking on the producer role for Friday's 6 p.m. newscast. It's a lot to take on right out of school, but I'm excited to get out and try my hand in the real world. I don't get a bio on the station web channel or anything, but I can't wait to try my hand at taking the 10 p.m. news from 2nd to 1st in the Madison market.

As far as made-up rankings go, I move from what used to be the #2 party school up to what used to be #1 in the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Maybe I'll see Bo Ryan or by chance even Barry Alvarez around somewhere. Jim Sorgi is probably an even better possibility, considering he does nothing during the season anyway.

I start there on June 23rd, a solid nine days after graduation. I'm probably going to try and room with some other college students -- easier to meet people as well as split bills. All I continue to hear about Madison is that it's a great town and I can't wait to get out of classes and get started there.

That also may be partially due to the people I met that I'll be working with at NBC 15. They seem like they really care about putting out the news for the day and are willing to work as a team to get the job done right. I'm sure I'll have something to say on here about the Wisconsin accent, but I haven't ventured into it for long enough yet to get a real sense of what it sounds like. Stay tuned.

+It's been awhile since I've had a funny "Kevin Hunt" moment, which is somewhat disappointing considering the fact that just the other day I talked with someone about bringing back the idea Luke and I developed -- a 365-day desk calendar full of funny "Kevin Hunt" moments. Order yours today...

+Setting milestones in life is just a way to keep track of how old you're getting. I can't tell you straight out how many years it's been since my family moved from Wentz Street in Tiffin, Ohio, to Township Road 54 outside of town. What I can tell you is that our first night there was Halloween when I was in third grade. I guess that means it'll be 14 years this October. And yup, now I feel old.

+I almost died on my drive up to Madison on Thursday. The event happened in the ridiculous city of Columbus, where everything that I despise usually turns up -- OSU, getting lost, traffic accidents, etc. I was in decent-but-not-packed morning traffic on I-70 Westbound south of the OSU campus when I thought to myself, "I'm really dependent on this semi in front of me. I pretty much have to react to whatever he does."

About a minute later, my wildest nightmares came true and the semi slammed on his brakes. I could see smoke coming off the tires -- something I had never seen before outside of a race track. I whipped my car onto the left shoulder (I was in the far left lane) where I saw the reason for the slow down. Two cars were stopped on the shoulder and apparently the semi-truck driver didn't see everyone checking up as they passed this accident. When I put my Acura onto the shoulder, I slammed on my brakes as well and stopped about 200 feet short of the two cars.

No one else behind me got rear-ended and I just hopped back into my place in the line of traffic. It wasn't until that night when I told someone else the story that it really hit me that I was almost a goner -- and had the incident happened just seconds later, I probably would have taken those other two drivers with me when I bailed from the fast lane of traffic.

The truck, ironically, had the picture of a McDonald's Big Mac plastered on the back. I always joke that someday I'll have to end my fast food habits or they'll end me. Little did I know McDonald's almost killed me in a completely different way that day.

+Memorial Day weekend was likely the last time I'll be traveling anywhere away from Athens until after my graduation on June 14th. It's going to be an interesting homestretch to what is my entire college career. I thought about doing a countdown or ranked list of different categories referring to my time at OU, but there's no point in figuring it out. I just like to know that I was lucky enough to get to have some great memories -- and there's still time left...
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"Give me some signs that even
I can see.
For a sign not seen is
As good as
No sign at all."
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Being a Human Being

All seriousness aside, there was "excitement" in the air when finding out Cleveland Cavaliers' forward Ben Wallace left Game Two of the Eastern Conference semi-finals after suffering an allergic reaction. You read correctly - the words "seriousness," "suffering" and "excitement" all coming in the same sentence.

Wallace started the game, but with just under four minutes to go in the first quarter, a rebound went to the Celtics and he committed a foul almost immediately. Wallace then stumbled off under the hoop before getting attention from the Cavs medical staff. He continued to sit out, lying down on the floor in front of the bench at times before retiring to the locker room.

What's so great about this?? All of a sudden a 6-foot-9-inch, 240-pound veteran professional athlete was taken out by something that might be bad enough to keep any one of us from going in to work. The guys who steal the show on television -- especially someone like Wallace, who occasionally lets his hair bust out of cornrow bondage -- are as vulnerable to what seem like the most minuscule injuries.

No matter how much we joke or say it in a joking (hopefully) way towards our most hated opponents or players, we don't ever want to see a player lose time to a serious injury. This feeling takes greater presence when we experience a serious injury first-hand.

This isn't a post against Ben Wallace as a person. In fact, it's praising Ben Wallace as a person. Sure he didn't want to get an allergy attack/ear infection during the game. But it goes to show the viewing audience that these huge, iconic athletes are people, too.

Maybe the next post will deal with the number of people citing allergy attacks as valid reasons to take a day off work.