as he saw his life run away from him thousands ran along chanting words from a psalm....
The update:
It's been a while since I talked to you. I hope this update finds you well in all of life's endeavors. It certainly does for me.
I've decided this will be the debate update. Debate...update...I'm a poet, and I didn't even kn.....alright, I had a vague idea.
So....the debate. I was supposed to work for CNN starting Wednesday....alright, I'm sick of caps....they're over.
so, i was supposed to work for cnn starting wednesday, and then all day thursday. so i went monday morning and filled out the credential form so they could do a background check and i could get my credential on tuesday for work on weds. well, tuesday they didn't have my credential ready. they'd lost a bunch of forms and needed me to fill out my information again. gave me a day pass for weds and told me to come back then to pick up my credential. went over there early in the morning because i was expecting a call from cnn. the credentialing office explained that they had lost an email containing all the names for the background checks, and my credential wasn't ready. i threw a little hissy fit, namedropping and explaining how important i was. finally the guy in charge walked up and handed me my credential and said "i'm not sure why they couldn't find this...." so i got my credential...but no phonecall yet from cnn. finally about 1:00 the woman called me. she was a producer (that can mean so much) and asked me to come by the trailer at 2ish to talk about what was going on thursday.
so i headed over there around 2:00. she was a booker, meaning she was in charge of booking the guests for all the shows, along with two other people and the producer of the individual show. mainly they were focusing on the morning show, from 7:00 to 10:00. because i knew a lot about where things were and who to talk to, i ended up working until about 9:00 that night. i dealt with getting credentials for people like al sharpton and madeliene albright, talked with the secret service about security...basically i worked hand in hand with the morning show producer nailing down her entire show. at 9 we agreed to meet at 5 the next morning, and we both left.
5:00 i dragged my tired ass out of bed and walked over to the main stage where we were shooting all day. met up with her and the talent, bill hemmer. really nice guy, very concentrated on what he was doing and very hands on. he explained he had a friend trevor back home that he called t-bone, so he called me t-bone all day. it was funny. my first job was to figure out what security was doing. basically it was not much at the stage, but there were some checkpoints that had to be navigated. our first guest, madeliene albright, came in the wrong way to campus, so i had to scramble to figure out where she was and fix it. but we got her there. she was a very nice person, smartest person i've ever met in my life.
much of the morning continued in the same way. because i had devised the plan for guests to arrive, i slowly became the person they were dealing with. all the guests showed up with assistants of some sort, and usually drivers as well. these people would be given my number, and they called me when they were getting close to the set. i would go meet them, introduce myself, bring them to makeup, inform the producer they were there. sometimes the producer would want to meet them, usually not. i would bring the guest to the stage when we were ready for them, and get them back to the cars when they were done. essentially i was their only physical contact with cnn other than the talent.
after the morning show a new producer came on, and we did the whole thing over again, but with many less guests. i spent a lot of that time trying to deal with ralph nader. we had him scheduled in the evening block, and he didn't have credentials. so again i was on the phone with secret service and police, making sure it wouldn't be an issue. then i had to drive over to the credentialing office because al sharpton was there and his assistants' credentials weren't ready. so i went over there and we got it all figured out.
at 5:00 most of our massive coverage began, with wolf blitzer on the stage. we had al sharpton on at 5:30, then ralph nader was supposed to come on at 7:15. i was supposed to meet his car at the checkpoint at 6:30 and ride with him to the stage. well at 5:25 nader came walking up from the wrong direction. i was standing watching the show when i heard the crowd start saying "hey, it's ralph nader!" so i looked and he's there with two security guards and a secret service guy. i went over to him and introduced myself and explained that he was two hours early. he said he was just wandering around and he'd be back. wolf's producers tried to get him on, but i put a stop to that. i called anderson cooper's producer (the show he was on) and explained that he probably wasn't going to be in the car.
so at 6:30, we're scheduled to have nader and albright coming to the show. only the secret service decides to clear the entire area so that they can do a bomb sweep, including all of our staff too. i go to tell the producer i'm gonna stay with nader so we don't lose him again, only by this time, he's gone again. so i run off to find him. how hard can it be to find a weird looking tall guy with three massive guys in suits? can't find him. turns out he went into the faculty lounge portion of the food court, but i didn't know that at the time. so i'm running around looking for him, and i see albright come around a corner. her assistant recognizes me from earlier, and asks me to help her keep the crowds away. so i talk the police into letting us get back to the stage where they've let only cnn back in to do our live show. we find nader. all is good.
7:30 amy calls me. "i have an extra ticket to the debate, do you want to go/can you?" i call the booking producer. she says "great, you can do our postshow inside the hall. come get a hall media pass from me and go in there." we have to be seated absolutely no later than 8:15, so i run from the stage all the way around to the secure media checkin (probably a mile). media checkin was kind of crazy. you had to go thru a metal detector and then get on a "secure media shuttle." you drove down ponce (which was closed to all traffic, had those metal things that flipped up in the middle of road, scary stuff) and went to the convocation center. i went to get a hall media "purple pass", but we were all out. so i went in with amy. meanwhile, i'm dealing with gen tommy franks, passing off his pickup and stuff because i didn't have credentials yet, and it was three minutes after the debate ended.
the debate was absolutely breathtaking to be there. i was shocked by how many more seats they could have filled. easily 400. i'm not sure why they didn't, but nothing but the floor was seated, and then there were some volunteers (us) that were sitting on the open end on the other side of the network platforms. but the debate was amazing, really a neat thing to be able to watch live.
after the debate, they didn't let us out of the hall until both candidates were off campus. so we stood at the door waiting. meanwhile, no one can find franks and i'm freaking out. but they found him (8 minutes late, but whatever) and i eventually got my purple pass and went back in to finish up our post show. after that i got paid and went home. on my way home, the morning show producer told me to email her and she'd write me a letter of reccommendation and try to look into jobs, and the anderson cooper producer asked me to send her my resume and she'd try to get me a job. so that's pretty awesome.
post-debate, things have been great. having tons of fun with angela, busy with classes in a good way, just generally having an enjoyable experience. that is all. good night moon.
It's been a while since I talked to you. I hope this update finds you well in all of life's endeavors. It certainly does for me.
I've decided this will be the debate update. Debate...update...I'm a poet, and I didn't even kn.....alright, I had a vague idea.
So....the debate. I was supposed to work for CNN starting Wednesday....alright, I'm sick of caps....they're over.
so, i was supposed to work for cnn starting wednesday, and then all day thursday. so i went monday morning and filled out the credential form so they could do a background check and i could get my credential on tuesday for work on weds. well, tuesday they didn't have my credential ready. they'd lost a bunch of forms and needed me to fill out my information again. gave me a day pass for weds and told me to come back then to pick up my credential. went over there early in the morning because i was expecting a call from cnn. the credentialing office explained that they had lost an email containing all the names for the background checks, and my credential wasn't ready. i threw a little hissy fit, namedropping and explaining how important i was. finally the guy in charge walked up and handed me my credential and said "i'm not sure why they couldn't find this...." so i got my credential...but no phonecall yet from cnn. finally about 1:00 the woman called me. she was a producer (that can mean so much) and asked me to come by the trailer at 2ish to talk about what was going on thursday.
so i headed over there around 2:00. she was a booker, meaning she was in charge of booking the guests for all the shows, along with two other people and the producer of the individual show. mainly they were focusing on the morning show, from 7:00 to 10:00. because i knew a lot about where things were and who to talk to, i ended up working until about 9:00 that night. i dealt with getting credentials for people like al sharpton and madeliene albright, talked with the secret service about security...basically i worked hand in hand with the morning show producer nailing down her entire show. at 9 we agreed to meet at 5 the next morning, and we both left.
5:00 i dragged my tired ass out of bed and walked over to the main stage where we were shooting all day. met up with her and the talent, bill hemmer. really nice guy, very concentrated on what he was doing and very hands on. he explained he had a friend trevor back home that he called t-bone, so he called me t-bone all day. it was funny. my first job was to figure out what security was doing. basically it was not much at the stage, but there were some checkpoints that had to be navigated. our first guest, madeliene albright, came in the wrong way to campus, so i had to scramble to figure out where she was and fix it. but we got her there. she was a very nice person, smartest person i've ever met in my life.
much of the morning continued in the same way. because i had devised the plan for guests to arrive, i slowly became the person they were dealing with. all the guests showed up with assistants of some sort, and usually drivers as well. these people would be given my number, and they called me when they were getting close to the set. i would go meet them, introduce myself, bring them to makeup, inform the producer they were there. sometimes the producer would want to meet them, usually not. i would bring the guest to the stage when we were ready for them, and get them back to the cars when they were done. essentially i was their only physical contact with cnn other than the talent.
after the morning show a new producer came on, and we did the whole thing over again, but with many less guests. i spent a lot of that time trying to deal with ralph nader. we had him scheduled in the evening block, and he didn't have credentials. so again i was on the phone with secret service and police, making sure it wouldn't be an issue. then i had to drive over to the credentialing office because al sharpton was there and his assistants' credentials weren't ready. so i went over there and we got it all figured out.
at 5:00 most of our massive coverage began, with wolf blitzer on the stage. we had al sharpton on at 5:30, then ralph nader was supposed to come on at 7:15. i was supposed to meet his car at the checkpoint at 6:30 and ride with him to the stage. well at 5:25 nader came walking up from the wrong direction. i was standing watching the show when i heard the crowd start saying "hey, it's ralph nader!" so i looked and he's there with two security guards and a secret service guy. i went over to him and introduced myself and explained that he was two hours early. he said he was just wandering around and he'd be back. wolf's producers tried to get him on, but i put a stop to that. i called anderson cooper's producer (the show he was on) and explained that he probably wasn't going to be in the car.
so at 6:30, we're scheduled to have nader and albright coming to the show. only the secret service decides to clear the entire area so that they can do a bomb sweep, including all of our staff too. i go to tell the producer i'm gonna stay with nader so we don't lose him again, only by this time, he's gone again. so i run off to find him. how hard can it be to find a weird looking tall guy with three massive guys in suits? can't find him. turns out he went into the faculty lounge portion of the food court, but i didn't know that at the time. so i'm running around looking for him, and i see albright come around a corner. her assistant recognizes me from earlier, and asks me to help her keep the crowds away. so i talk the police into letting us get back to the stage where they've let only cnn back in to do our live show. we find nader. all is good.
7:30 amy calls me. "i have an extra ticket to the debate, do you want to go/can you?" i call the booking producer. she says "great, you can do our postshow inside the hall. come get a hall media pass from me and go in there." we have to be seated absolutely no later than 8:15, so i run from the stage all the way around to the secure media checkin (probably a mile). media checkin was kind of crazy. you had to go thru a metal detector and then get on a "secure media shuttle." you drove down ponce (which was closed to all traffic, had those metal things that flipped up in the middle of road, scary stuff) and went to the convocation center. i went to get a hall media "purple pass", but we were all out. so i went in with amy. meanwhile, i'm dealing with gen tommy franks, passing off his pickup and stuff because i didn't have credentials yet, and it was three minutes after the debate ended.
the debate was absolutely breathtaking to be there. i was shocked by how many more seats they could have filled. easily 400. i'm not sure why they didn't, but nothing but the floor was seated, and then there were some volunteers (us) that were sitting on the open end on the other side of the network platforms. but the debate was amazing, really a neat thing to be able to watch live.
after the debate, they didn't let us out of the hall until both candidates were off campus. so we stood at the door waiting. meanwhile, no one can find franks and i'm freaking out. but they found him (8 minutes late, but whatever) and i eventually got my purple pass and went back in to finish up our post show. after that i got paid and went home. on my way home, the morning show producer told me to email her and she'd write me a letter of reccommendation and try to look into jobs, and the anderson cooper producer asked me to send her my resume and she'd try to get me a job. so that's pretty awesome.
post-debate, things have been great. having tons of fun with angela, busy with classes in a good way, just generally having an enjoyable experience. that is all. good night moon.