To all the stations I've loved before ...

The television stations where I worked - part one.

KXMC TV - Minot, North Dakota
I worked for a while on the weekends to help my wife. (She was what they call a one man band - shooting and reporting and editing.) This is where I fell in love with the business.

WBBH/WZVN - Fort Myers, Florida
Kristin got a job at the nearby Fox affilliate and we moved down to FLA in 1999. I ended up getting a job at the competiting station - technically, the competiting stations. Waterman Broadcasting had what's known as an LMA - a local management agreement. The two stations shared resources: equipment, staff, management, They did have seperate newscasts and seperate on-air personalities. As a photog, you had make sure that you had both station shirts with you, as you could never predict with whom you'd be shooting.

WFTX - Cape Coral, Florida
With Kristin already working there, it was only a matter of time before I jumped over. I wanted to be with my wife. Eventually, a position opened up and it also got me off weekends.

When I gave my two week notice at Waterman Broadcasting, they asked me to leave the building that day. I guess they were worried I'd give secrets to the enemy. It kind of made me feel like a criminal. What really sucked is that I ended up leaving behind my raw tape of an interview with Regis Philbin. (It took me a while to get past that.)

Fox 4 was where I learned to shoot and edit. There were lots of talented folks who gave me tips and hints, but who also let me run wild. Of particular influence was the great Mark Current, a great editor and a fellow lover of 70's music. Mark was the first guy who made me feel like I could actually do this business. It's been ages since I've heard from Mark - I'd love to track him down.

I've written before about the great times I had in SW Florida. It was one of those times when the stars align and everything works out perfect.

KXJB - Fargo, North Dakota
However, we missed family. Kristin wanted to get closer to home. We discovered a posting on-line and I sent a tape to Fargo, North Dakota. Both Kristin and I got jobs.

In 2001 we moved to Fargo's sister city of Moorhead, Minnesota. I got a job as the chief of photography at CBS 4.

It was like entering a time wrap. The facilities were old, the gear suspect, and the stories slow and featurey - dull compared the fast paced doom and disaster of SWFL. It took a while to get used to. I wasn't experienced enough to know what to do with the limited equipmemt. There was no frame-field setting that made my feature stories look like film. There was no digital format to smoothly slow mo. No mixing board to screw with the sound.

It was like learning all over again.

But I learned to work with what I had. And, after a while, I fell in love with the people the same way I had in Florida.

There were so many different cats in Fargo.

Bruce Asbury - the veteran, hippy dippy noon weather guy with the outrageous sense of humor. Bruce would often whip off his toupee like Rip Taylor. He even did it from time to time in his stories. His regular feature - a travelogue piece called "Trip on A Tankful", was about different people and places in The Red River Valley area.

During the long car rides covering these stories, Bruce and I yakked for hours about baseball and historical events. Bruce was older than I was - I often joked that he was so old he remembered walking out of the Primordial Mist - so he had a larger specturm of reference. I loved hearing about Frank Sinatra and Hank Greenberg and where he was Kennedy was shot. (Or was that when Lincoln was shot?)

Bruce reminded me of a less effeminate Paul Lynnde. He had catch-phrases like "Oh Man" and "Unbelievable".

Norm Bell - former football player and fellow photographer. A very nice man and the only African-American man I know who likes Steely Dan and Jellyfish. (This is because I don't know many African Americans.) He was very kind to my kids and he had a great sense of humor. He was often threatened with being on the receiving end of my hugs!

Wade Iverson - Wade is one of those guys that you swear you've met hundreds of time before. A sweet fellow who was always there was a cigarrette and a joke. Wade and I would get going doing different voices: most popular was one based a street-light repair man we saw often working in the nearby Target parking lot. We never named the Latin-voiced character who constantly bitched at his co-worker "Carlos".

Seth Oeltjebruns - Seth was a good kid with a great sense of humor. He really got into shooting and did a nice job. He too was great with my kids and a good friend.

There were so many good people in Fargo TV. But unfortunately, the marketplace doesn't always dicate things are going to stay good. In 2003, KXJB was taken into an LMA with the local NBC station. When the stations merged, I was going to lose my Chief's title to guy with a wealth of talent and a twenty years experience. (However, I likely wouldn't have lost my job as we were so woefully underpaid at KXJB that I probably was looking at a raise to be just a staff photog at the new company.)

However, Adam had been just born, and Kristin wasn't working. Soon enough, we'd be paying a fortunate in day care if Kristin ever wanted to work. So I decided to feel out the job market around the country. (Besides my teenage ego was rubbed the wrong way with the prospect of being demoted.)

I managed to stumble upon a job oppurtunity in Greensboro, North Carolina where I could basically double my income while working Monday to Friday 9-6! The cost of lving was cheap, the equipment was great, I'd have my own vehicle - albeit a Ford conversion Live truck with a micrwave dish on top - and I got to work with my single favorite human being in the news business ever.

But that's part two!