As much as I focus on it here, it’s no secret I one day hope to write myself OUT of the TV news business. Call it a natural progression, a mid-life crisis or delusions of grandeur, it matters not to me. I just know that eventually, I’ll put down the camera for good. It’s no slam toward my gracious employer. I’m still convinced that El Ocho is one of, if not THE best television station in North Carolina. The people I toil alongside are smart, hard-charging competitors and I’m still very proud to share their logo. But the truth is, I’m spent. What started as a burning desire to master all things TV News years ago has turned into a dull throb, a nagging realization that I could continue to push the ‘RECORD’ button every workday until I’m a dottering old relic with a bad back and even worse attitude. I desperately don’t want to be that guy. For years I’ve tried to mask the unsettling feelings I have toward my chosen craft, usually with little success. That’s not wholly unusual, as my line of work is filled with talented expressive people who can deconstruct the vagaries of the business while turning in truly remarkable work. Translation : we all bitch, even when we’re eating the other guy’s lunch.
But lately the inherent stupidity of the form has filled me with a palpable malaise, which goes a long way to explaining why my recent posts have simmered with such existential angst. Maybe its all this navel-gazing. The very act of blogging (especially about one’s job) requires more self-examination than is probably healthy. I’ve never been one to keep my feelings to myself, but ever since I decided to crank out daily dispatches from the news-front, many long-ignored truths have become downright undeniable. That either means I’m doing something right, or wasting forty-plus hours a week punching the wrong clock. Whatever the case, I’m not turning in my two-week notice just yet - not as long as my family continues needing sustenance on a daily basis.
Which brings me to the title of this post. I truly do consider 2005 to be my Year of the Blog. Consider it a self-imposed twelve month excursion into the crusty recesses of one photog’s brain. Or don’t consider it all. Either way, I’m still committed to sharing my world-view with all that stumble across this humble site. I started doing so in hopes of developing a more rigid writing discipline, and for the most part it’s worked! Maintaining such regular output can be lonely, maddening and incredibly rewarding. Whether or not I can walk away from the narcissistic thrill of steady feedback remains to be seen, but something tells me I need to go away for awhile to fashion something of real worth.
Until that time, rest assured I’ll be striving to come up with something to say. Every once in a while, my drivel may have some actual merit. Other times, my seething epistles will be like this one - little more than space-filling filibustering. But what did you expect for nothing? High quality content? Next blog over please…There you’ll surely find more political screeds, consumer warnings and pet photos than you could possible ever process. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose - but I hereby pledge to keep this site on-message and in focus. Save the occasional foray into more esoteric fare, I’ll continue to blather about local TV news in all its shame and glory. Why? Because I feel its what my six and half steady readers come here for, and more importantly, it’s what I feel strangely compelled to write about.
For now, anyway.
Ah, the redemptive qualities of an Easter Egg hunt. No matter how surly you’re feeling, it’s hard not to grin when two year olds are scrambling at your feet for brightly colored candy eggs. This year it was the toddlers of greater Archdale taking part in the pint-sized rite of passage. I’ve probably shot a dozen egg hunts over the past fifteen years. Before I had kids of my own, it was little more than a pleasant interlude. Now that my own girls are well past the pull-ups stage, it’s a chance to reconnect with the Crayon Years. It’s enough to make a burned-out photog forget about all the misery he documented the day before. Almost.
But then again, that’s what life in news is all about. One day you’re lowering your lens as the body-bags roll by, the next you’re tracking a group of adorable infants as they scoop up pastel-colored plastic. In my world, it ain’t gotta make sense - it’s just gotta make deadline. So I got about my reflective way, taking assignments and exceeding expectations. Occasionally, the subject at hand shakes me to the very core - but most days I don’t even stop to notice. Besides, who has the time to pause and ponder when the next outrage or ecstasy is only a cell phone ring away? I sure as hell don’t.
Now, back to the Easter Egg hunt. This I do know. When shooting such an event, chuck all plans of crisply sequenced video. 
As much as I‘d like to regale you with stories of behind the scenes silliness, it just wasn‘t that kind of day. For only an hour after hearing of a fatal four car pile-up on the morning news, I was wiping angry raindrops off my lens as cops and firefighters sifted through the wreckage in question. What followed was a long miserable day of unforgiving deadlines, pouring rain and broken live trucks. I could fill page after page with details from this torturous ten hour day, but it just doesn’t feel right.
Sensing my fate was already sealed by this cataclysmic event, I stormed off to my news unit and headed for the heart of Davidson County. Just past Lexington’s city limits, the unfettered lanes of Business 85 became clogged with traffic. Ahead, unsmiling officers waved motorists onto exit ramps to nowhere as flashing red lights twinkled in the distance. After no small amount of windshield pantomime, I convinced the deputy to allow me past their impromptu barricade.
Parking behind a line of pick-up trucks, I grabbed my gear and schlepped forward on foot. Up ahead, an eighteen wheeler lay on its side, blocking all three southbound lanes. As the wrecker crew moved in with chains and winches, I powered up my camera and stepped into the eyepiece. Scanning from one end of the wreck to the other, I failed to spot a giant ball of yarn. Whatever cartoon image my producers had in mind for this particular story, they’d have to settle for a garden variety highway mishap. Wondering if the footage I was about to shoot would ever make it on-air, I popped off a few shots and looked around.
And that’s when I saw them. Two dozen people if not more, standing outside a nearby shopping strip and hanging on every turn of the tow truck’s winch. ’Had Bigfoot made a break from the nearby tree line, caused the trucker to flip his load and mesmerized these fine citizens in the process’ I asked myself. No, I thought as I zoomed in on the crowd, they were simply enjoying the entertainment value of a good ole American traffic tie-up. Through my lens, I saw grandmothers and adolescents, retirees and construction crews. There was even a family of four sitting on their car, looking much the same way my own brood does at the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. Pulling back from the viewfinder, I searched for a picnic basket in the crowd and red checkered tablecloth, but came up empty.
‘Who would be transfixed over a simple traffic accident?’ I asked myself. Why would a group of strangers loiter en masse to watch a wrecker crew wrestle an eighteen wheeler back over on its round rubber feet? Don’t these people have lives? I was still marveling at the spectator’s fascination with bent sheet metal when I caught a glance of my own reflection in a nearby fire truck. If I considered this idle audience buffoons for being so easily hypnotized, what then did I think of myself? After all, I was the one who’d driven at the maximum allowable speed to take in all this skid mark grandeur. Sure, it’s my job - but is that supposed to make me feel better about myself? If reporters are in fact the first historians, was does that make me - official stenographer of all things trivial?
The good folks at 
Another fellow I use to work with is still in the biz. In fact, his cubicle is a few desks down from mine at work. Not that Bob spends alot of time there. Instead you'll find this most erudite chap traversing the Piedmont Triad, dragging an exhausted photog behind him on a never ending quest for better television. From the ritzy enclaves of a Presidential stop to the most hunkered-down of hurricane encampments, Bob always holds me to a higher standard.