So I'm Back

So I'm back in Chucktown for the last 14 days.

Mondays and Wednesdays will be spent shooting and editing a story for the 5:30 and then floor managing during the show.

Tuesday and Thursdays will have me news writing and co-anchoring the 5:30.

Fridays will have me assignment editing, and running the audio board for the 5:30.

And on this Friday I'll anchor the two taped cut-ins.


Chicago was cool. It made me miss living in a major city with mass transit :-).

Passing the projects on my way to the South Side made me sing the theme to "Good Times" in my head.

Anyway all worked out, just fine.

I got picked up by my friend Avery at 4:45 (she was there at 4:30 A.M. like really love this chick for sacrificing for me.) Avery dropped me off at 5:00 for the 5:23 train. I made it to Chitown by 9:30.

DIP, "HoTrain" aka Tillman, and Me H.S. Grad 6-11-04
My Host "Ho Train" Reunited After 4 Years

So I made it to Navy Pier very early and had a caramel macchiato from Starbucks and had nuggets and fries at the McDonald's.

I went to the candidate's forum, and met many of the other candidates. Their favorite question: "Where have you been? 'I' haven't seen you on the campaign trail."

Uh thanks folks I was already nervous, now the pressure was really on.

Then one of my fellow candidates says, "I'm really looking forward to hearing a good speech."

Anywho after a 2 minute opening statement, I had 2 minutes to respond to questions posed by the audience.

I was very nervous, but unlike a lot of times, didn't think about the nervousness. I thought about clear, concise, and saying what was core. That's that diversity education training for you. Whenever there's discussion we preach about the 3 C's.

I was first up amongst the candidates for openings and statements which meant I was last up for closing.

After the closing a few people walked up to me and said I did a good job.

One woman was a recruiter for a newspaper (wish it were T.V. but if I remember correctly her company owns atleast one T.V. station). She encouraged me to get print experience, mmmm k, I know all about convergence, but ummm...

I had feared I'd have to take a night train back to the east central Illinois. So I skipped the candidate's cookout.Then my middle school/ high school friend and former roommate "Ho-Train" came through.

Explanation: (He's called that because he was really, really short in high school. Girls always touched him and said he was so little and so cute. Hence the name Ho-Train. Nearly everyone called him Train. I think even some teachers knew about the nickname.)

I hadn't seen him in three years. I took the bus to his house on the south side.

We caught up talked about life. We ate thai food his treat drunken noodle (as my mother concluded since I didn't find it tasty I maybe should have been drunk to enjoy it), and pineapple curry which was not half bad.

We took shots to celebrate us both being 21. He's about two weeks older than me.

I fell asleep as I always do at people's houses.

When I woke up we went to the Sheffield area near DePaul to hang out and walk around.

Because one of the crew was underage we didn't do any bars.

Then we headed home.

I slept.

I woke up.

I took a bus to a cab to the train back to Chucktown.

The End.

:-)

Hope everyone had a good weekend.