Facebook
A to Z in the USA
A St. Louis real estate agent emailed me about a journalist moving from Los Angeles to Knoxville. I’ve known Bruce Butler, the real estate agent selling Aunt Dee’s condo, since the days when he worked for a radio syndication company in L.A. He wrote to me to say that he had a St. Louis friend whose daughter had graduated from the University of Southern California and was moving to Knoxville to start a new job at the ABC affiliate. He asked if I could suggest any places downtown where she might want to live.
I was reminded of a loft-warming party my wife and I attended several years ago. Larsen Jay had moved into the then-new Sterchi Lofts. One of the other guests was Larsen’s future wife, Adrian MacLean, who was a reporter for WATE. They had only just met a few days earlier when Adrian did a live shot from the grand opening of the Sterchi Lofts.
A couple of weeks after receiving Bruce Butler’s email, I got an email from Alexis Zotos, immediately followed by a notification from Twitter that she was now following me. Alexis wrote that she was getting settled in her new place and her new job at WATE. As it turned out, she chose not to live downtown. She’d found a place near where some of the other reporters lived.
I followed her back on Twitter, which is how I knew to keep an eye out for her report on Ole Smoky Moonshine during last week’s “6 Around Town” episode on East Tennessee History. Having lived in California and being familiar with Ole Smoky, I was amused by the thought of what Alexis’ SoCal friends must have thought.
Chesapeake-a-boo
The kids and I decided to do something big for my wife’s milestone birthday this year. We began our plotting at Christmas when we elected to pool our resources and buy her an expensive mixer. That was the easy part. My son and daughter each purchased an Amazon.com gift certificate and sent me the redemption codes. All I had to do was place the order and pay the difference. My daughter sent a text in the style of “Mission: Impossible” telling me to wrap the gift. She followed it up with a text that read: “dundun dun dun DUN DUN dundun dun dun dun dun dundun… bleedoodoo… bleedoodoo… bleedooodoooooooo… doodoo.”
The real fun came when the kids decided to travel to Knoxville as a surprise. My son bought an airline ticket to Washington while my daughter purchased two Megabus tickets to Knoxville. I made dinner reservations at Chesapeake’s for three reasons: my wife could get a birthday lobster, it was one of the restaurants for which I had a gift card, and it is walking distance from the Megabus stop.
The bus was scheduled to arrive at 6:50 p.m. I made the reservations for 7:30 to allow a little cushion. They were still on I-66, barely an hour into their trip, when the bus got a flat tire and had to pull over at the nearest rest stop. It took about two hours for a replacement bus to arrive. The driver said, “to avoid any animosity between passengers, please just take the same seats.”
Meanwhile back in Knoxville, I was trying to keep my wife distracted with other birthday festivities. I dropped by her office unannounced with a cupcake and a birthday card. Then I went home to nap before dinner, hoping that the Megabus would make up some time by shortening the planned rest stop in Wytheville. My daughter sent some texts that would look innocent if my wife saw them but contained hidden phrases I would recognize as estimates of their time of arrival.
The staff at the restaurant knew about the surprise. They were expecting to seat my son and daughter first and then lead my wife and me to the same table. I called and pushed our reservations back to 8:00 p.m. As it became obvious that the plan would have to be changed, my daughter called Chesapeake’s and told them to remove two place settings and to seat her parents first. My wife and I took our seats and started studying the menu. We noticed that they had printed “Happy Birthday Jere” on the top of the daily specials menu.
I realized that I had inadvertently left a $5 coupon from the school coupon book in my car. I ran out to the parking lot to get it and used the opportunity to call my daughter. She was still speaking in code in case my wife was listening. I told her she could speak freely and she told me that they were getting off the bus and would be there in about ten minutes.
Once I got back to my seat, I told my wife I wanted to take her picture. She innocently touched up her lipstick while I nervously fumbled with the camera. The kids sneaked up behind her and said “happy birthday.” My wife was completely shocked. I felt good that I was able to fool her with a stunt similar to one I pulled several years ago. I’ll tell you that story in an upcoming post.
ASPCH
The camels, horses, dogs and elephants had it easy compared to strongman Dmytrio Khaladzhy. The circus animals did a few tricks and got treats. I didn’t see Dmytrio receive anything after he bent rebar, juggled weights or after they drove a car over him at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Presents Barnum Bash. They could have had the Ringlettes toss him a bon-bon or two.
The animals trained by Brett and Cathy Carden were my favorite part of the show. A father and son comedy act was also great. Anton and Victor Franke played a ringmaster and over-zealous audience member. In the past, I would have expected to see an act like theirs done in full clown garb. Instead, they wore tuxedos and no makeup.
My wife purchased four circus tickets in a silent auction at St. Joseph School. We used two and gave the other pair to a friend who is on Twitter as @FranksNeighbor. At the end of the show they fired confetti into the audience. When a little bit of it landed on my head, I grabbed the streamers that landed on my wife and our neighbor for a photo op.
Dance Scene Investigation
An unexpected opportunity presented itself at “Star 102.1’s Dancing with the Knoxville Stars” last night. I had a few extra minutes to chat backstage with Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel. Jamie, who specializes in covering crime and the law, wrote an excellent account of her experience in the FBI Citizens Academy last Fall. I asked Jamie to consider joining the FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association, even if only to be eligible for our trip to Quantico in August. I loved what she posted on Facebook in reply to my congratulations: “It was an amazing experience. Thanks for all you do to for this cause and so many more. Hope to join you soon in the FBI Citizens Academy Alumni Association, Mr. President.”
Later, I spotted WATE’s Hana Kim in the audience. She and I were classmates in the Citizens Academy but she hasn’t had time to join the Alumni Association. Assistant News Director Jay Quaintance (and FBIKCAAA member), took a picture of me asking her to consider dancing in the future. After the show, Dan Andrews of the Knoxville Focus took a picture of me asking Hana to consider joining the FBIKCAAA too.
Each of the local television stations had a representative in the dance contest. WATE’s Bo Williams scored a perfect 30 but lost to the Dixie Stampede’s Jay Teter in the judges’ tie-breaker deliberations. WVLT’s Lorena Estrada and WBIR’s Kris Budden both did well as the news reports on their respective stations shows.
Houston Problems
Entertainment Tonight’s report on the death of Whitney Houston would have received a failing grade in any journalism class. The audio alone might have passed but the combination of pictures and graphics shown on screen during their “Whitney Houston Death Investigation” was inaccurate.
They recapped the singer’s final days beginning with video of her leaving a nightclub at 1:10 a.m. Friday. Then they showed old footage of Whitney arriving at a party with Clive Davis while saying that she had checked in to the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday for this year’s pre-Grammy party. They had video from Thursday night, when Whitney jumped on stage for an impromptu performance with Kelly Price.
The misleading images started with a slide that read, “Friday Night Heavy Partying?” The accompanying audio said “reports that Whitney and her entourage are heard partying hard in the rooms on the fourth floor of the hotel” but the picture of a sweaty and disheveled Houston was taken by paparazzi out in public.
The next slide read “Saturday 3:43 p.m. 911 Called” with a photo of Whitney looking normal. After that, a slide saying “Saturday 3:55 p.m. Pronounced Dead” with a photo of a body bag on a gurney inside the coroner’s van. That image was nine hours premature.
Next came an accurate slide reading “Sunday 12:49 a.m. Whitney’s Body Goes to Coroner” along with the same photo of a body bag. Anchor Mark Steines hyperbolized: “a media frenzy surrounds the truck but only ET has the sobering shot that proves the sad news is indeed true: we have lost a legend.” In reality, the shot only proved that somebody had died at the hotel.
Houston’s body was still in her hotel room while the pre-Grammy party took place in the ballroom. On Saturday night, I looked at the Twitter feed for the Beverly Hilton. At 9:43 p.m. they wrote, “The Beverly Hilton wishes to extend its profound sympathies to the family and fans of Whitney Houston.” Eleven minutes later they posted, “Arrivals starting for Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala #GRAMMYs pic.twitter.com/neXyyv0I“
In Plain Sight
Allison Kropff left WVLT four months ago. I hadn’t heard any official word about her replacement but I wasn’t looking in the right place. The news has been on Twitter for over a month.
Amanda Hara of Newschannel 5 in Nashville posted a tweet on December 30th stating that she is headed to Knoxville to be the main anchor for WVLT. She starts her new job on February 13. I wonder if they will put her on the air right away or if they will wait until the end of February sweeps. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s in the audience at Star 102.1’s Dancing with the Knoxville Stars to support her colleague Lorena Estrada.
Amanda has posted a few things about visiting the area and house-hunting in Knoxville. She is already familiar with Appalachian moonshine legend Popcorn Sutton.
Amanda displayed a sense of humor while chasing a stray peacock in a 2010 report. Her bio has some jokes in it too:
- Amanda Hara is an Emmy and Associated Press Award winning Journalist whose parents violated child labor laws when they allowed her to start a small neighborhood newspaper at the age of 8.
- In an attempt to ditch Amanda in Seattle, Washington (their hometown) her parents moved to Williamson County six years ago. Much to their dismay, Amanda followed.
Here’s a recent example of her work:
Bacon Power
An article about a cookbook prompted me to buy a cupcake yesterday. The photo on the cover of “The Butch Bakery Cookbook” shows a cupcake topped with bacon. I immediately remembered reading a blurb about maple bacon cupcakes being sold at The Cup this month.
I had some errands to run, one of which put me in the same shopping center as The Cup’s Bearden store. I bought one cupcake to split with my wife, despite the staff’s suggestion that I buy two.
It was a great cupcake, that I would highly recommend. Candied bacon is used as a garnish on top. If there was more bacon under the icing, I didn’t notice it. Pecans were infused into the cake and more were placed on top. The delicious maple icing was the most dominant flavor. The combination of tastes reminded us of breakfast, not dessert. I had poured us each a glass of milk but my wife said she would have enjoyed a glass of orange juice instead.
-
Site Search
-
A Word from Our Sponsors
-
With Humble Appreciation:
-
Connections:
-
Welcome Visitors
-
Olden Days Archives
2005
- August 2005
- September 2005
- October 2005
- November 2005
- December 2005
- January 2006
- February 2006
- March 2006
- April 2006
- May 2006
- June 2006
- July 2006
- August 2006
- September 2006
- October 2006
- November 2006
- December 2006
- January 2007
- February 2007
- March 2007
- April 2007
- May 2007
- June 2007
- July 2007
- August 2007
- September 2007
- October 2007
- November 2007
- December 2007
- January 2008
- February 2008
- March 2008
- April 2008
- May 2008
- June 2008
- July 2008
- August 2008
- September 2008
- October 2008
- November 2008
- December 2008
- January 2009
- February 2009
- March 2009
- April 2009
- May 2009
- June 2009
- July 2009
- August 2009
- September 2009
- October 2009
- November 2009
- December 2009
- January 2010
- February 2010
- March 2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010