First Week as a Cheesehead

Now that I've been in the Badger State for an entire week, I figured I'd take a look back at how it all went.

We had breaking news on Thursday, the last day of training for me. NBC 15 has newscasts at 4, 5 and 6 p.m. Around 3:50, our Web Producer, Abby, was reading over a news release that said police in Minnesota made an arrest of a suspect in connection with a high-profile murder that happened in Madison a few months ago.

The newsroom went into crazy mode. Abby printed the news release and our news director ran it to the 4 p.m. anchor to read immediately off the top of the newscast (she had about a minute to gather what the heck was going on). We pulled a reporter from a live shot at another story to come back to Madison and work on an angle of the murder arrest story. A different reporter stuck around and reported ANOTHER story instead of leaving after the 6 p.m. newscast like he usually does (putting in a day of around 11 hours).

Meanwhile, I had no clue who Joel Marino (the murder victim) was or who we could call to get more information or interviews for stories. But I learned a ton within the short time that I was there that night. It was a good thing to see how breaking news works within the station BEFORE having to deal with it on my own.

My first solo-produced newscasts were Friday, when I tackled the 6 and the 10 (which I'll do on every Friday from here on out). Luckily for my "first day," there wasn't anything that tried my skills immediately.

Otherwise, my first week was pretty uneventful. I spent over an hour the first day doing paperwork and reading company policies. The IT guy was on vacation, so I still don't have a station e-mail or computer user name or user name for posting stories to the web. That difficulty should be gone on Monday, thankfully.

There's a possibility I might have a blog on nbc15.com in the coming weeks, but that's not for sure at this point. I want to have a few posts in the can before I have the opportunity to start one up. If you have any ideas, let me know!!
-------------------------------------------------------
Where has the Indians' lineup gone this season?? Unless I make a daily trip to a sports bar, I can no longer watch the Tribe games live. But that's OK with me at this point considering this was their batting order against the Cincinnati Reds in the third game of their series in Cleveland...

Grady Sizemore
Casey Blake
Ben Francisco
Jhonny Peralta
Shin Soo Choo
Kelly Shoppach
David Dellucci
Andy Marte
Jorge Velandia

Are you kidding me?? Marte needs to play everyday or get designated for assignment. Choo is hitting well, but should NEVER have to be a designated hitter in any Cleveland lineup. When Jorge Velandia started at shortstop on Wednesday night, it was the 65th DIFFERENT lineup used by Eric Wedge in 78 games.

It's a tough season for everyone on this team for various reasons, many of which are injuries. But even before the injuries there were underperformances. Cleveland couldn't score runs if its life depended on it for a stretch of about two months. But I'm done with this season. If C.C. Sabathia isn't traded soon (well before the trade deadline, when teams are willing to give a little more to have him sooner.

Bring on the Browns and, maybe even a little bit, the Irish.

Swing and a Drive...