Lehigh Bar-b-que

Prepare for another long one. But this will be interesting...

After thinking it was going to be an easy weekend after what was a long and tiresome move (I had to wake up early and stay up late at night to get stuff moved out of my old place and into my new one) I thought it was going to be an easy weekend. I was wrong.

2:00 PM--I was heading to Naples, which is about 45 minutes from here with traffic, and when I reached there, I picked up the reporter and was to head to a brush fire in Lehigh Acres, which is near where I started anyways, so it was basically a difficult day from the get go.

4:20 PM--(No pun inteneded) When we got there, it was like the scene of Atlanta burning from "Gone with the Wind". A lot of black smoke and some flames. It was choatic and I did get some good video, although a lot of places were blocked off to us. There were officially four separate brush fires in the area.

5:00 PM--Headed back to the staging area to get the live shot set up for a news cut-in. That went on until 1:30 am. I left the station at 3:00 a.m. Twelve hour day.

Sunday was less messy, as I was to cover the Red Cross shelter. The fire was pretty much contained that day. I tried to go live from the red cross shelter, but something happened with the truck. Got back in a reasonable time.

Then came Monday. I switched days with another photographer who wanted Monday off. I am taking off Sunday. I was asked to get the arrainment of one of the kids who was suspected of starting the brush fire--AT 8:00 PM!!! Which Meant I had to leave my house at 6:30 a.m. after heading to bed about 1:00 a.m. So basically not much sleep. I did however get a great postion and was able to be the only network to get audio from the courtroom. Only one audio plug and since I was there early, I got it. The kid looked sweet, innocent, and scared.

This leads into the ethical debate back at the station--should we show the video of the kid or cover his face. We covered his face because as far as we know, he isn't being tried as an adult. We didn't release his name either. If you saw the story on Fox News Channel the past few days, I shot the video you saw.

Two more kids were arrested yesterday for the fire, and ourselves and the CBS affliate didn't release the names or photos. However, the NBC and ABC (owned by the same company) did release it, and get this--they had a poll asking viewers if they should do it. I found this weird since the cat was out of the bag.

After shooting court, and three or four other stories, I got out about 7:00 pm, so another 12 hour day.

I had Tuesday off, and finally got some rest and was able to unpack a lot of my stuff. Still a few odds and ends to do over the weekend though.

That's it for now. Laters.

-MarQ