Falcon and the Snowman

Yes Virginia, it snowed in the Carolinas. You know what that means: bedlam in the checkout aisle, a rash of bent sheet metal, flash-frozen lens-meat in matching logowear. Why, it's enough to make one swear off the icy overpass. In fact, that's exactly what I did today: forego my role in the continuous team smotherage by shooting a franchise piece instead. Trouble was, I wasn't 100% sure my scheduled expert would be in his office when I arrived. So I did what any crusty news shooter would do: I prepared for the weather. Boots, a couple pair of socks, thermal underwear above and below the Mason-Dixon line. By the time I waddled out of my house, I looked more like the Michelin Man than the dashing lenslinger I so pretend to be.

Of course, all this sartorial layering could only mean one thing: My guy was where he said he would be: ensconsed in his lawyerly lair, a fourth story perch he was apparently trying to burn down with a thermostat set on 'Smother'. You ever interviewed a bankruptcy attorney while dressed like an icebound lumberjack? It's a special kind of hell usually reserved for those greasy drifter types who specialize in tri-state crime sprees. I'll spare you the details, but about three questions in I was sweatin' like a high-dollar housewife with a credit-card fetish. As for the counselor in question, he didn't miss a beat; launching into a dissertation on foreclosures while fighting the urge to make me empty my pockets - assuming I could reach them.

But while I sat and squirmed, another photog roamed the local tundra. Chris Weaver, Chief Engineer of Lenslinger Labs, assumed a position I know all too well: hunched over the steering wheel of a moving news unit with suburbia streaking by. You know those obligatory shots of kids sledding in the snow you see on the news? They don't come with engraved invites. No, some plucky photog has to go out and score some of that hillside revelry. Sure, it's never too hard to find, unless you're under deadline - which, of course, Weaver was. He fumbled about at first, but once he realized a photog summit was taking place at a certain Mexican restaurant, he came upon a kid-infested cul-de-sac. Forty five minutes and one taco special later, the Mighty Weave delivered.

Then he returned to the office, snapped the above photo of El Ocho's sat farm and captured a rare shot of my pick-up... Perhaps I should have sprung for lunch.

Naaaaaaaah...