No two ways about it, moving is a bitch. So I took a break from blogging last Saturday.
You never know where or when your proverbial 15 minutes of fame will occur. This week the public spotlight fell on Charles Ramsey, the man who gave a colorful interview after helping rescue the three women held captive in Cleveland, and Phyllis "Filomena" Tobias, the ex-wife of a late CNBC commentator/hedge fund manager and apparent Miami Heat fan who flipped the bird inches from the face of Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah. And when the photos of her went viral, fame was thrust on the guy who took the shots.
Story behind photo of Heat fan giving Joakim Noah the finger
More pictures from the photographer who caught the Filomena Tobias flipoff.
Steve Mitchell, USA TODAY SportsIt’s just been one of those days for Steve Mitchell, the USA TODAY Sports Images photographer who snapped the viral photo of Miami Heat fan Filomena Tobias giving Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah the finger.
“I did not think it was going to be like this,” Mitchell told For The Win, when asked about all the attention his picture is getting.
Mitchell was busy transmitting photos to his editors when Noah got thrown out of Game 2 Wednesday night. He said he didn’t even see the play, but once the commotion started, he grabbed his camera and started shooting.
“I see him arguing with the refs, so I quickly jump up and grab my Nikon 600 mm lens,” Mitchell said. “I see him get ejected and I see him walking and I’m just taking pictures, and as I’m taking these pictures, the shutter, which is a Digital SLR, is going so fast I can’t see her hand. I see him walking and I thought she was just trying to touch him.”
As Mitchell’s shutter kept going off, he caught Tobias looking mighty proud of herself, giving the man accompanying her to the game a high-five.
Steve Mitchell, USA TODAY Sports“Then Taj Gibson gets ejected and she does the same thing to him,” Mitchell said.
As Mitchell’s shutter kept going, he caught the man with Tobias in a wonderful action shot.
Steve Mitchell, USA TODAY Sports“And afterwards, during a timeout, I see on the back of my camera what I have and quickly start sending pictures to the desk,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell didn’t notice Tobias’ finger initially because he was working on a small computer on a tight deadline and was cranking out photos as fast as he could.
It wasn’t until after the game when he met up with some colleagues in the media work room that he learned he’d gone viral.
“They were all talking about my photo,” he said.
So was everyone else.
Wimp.com has a great collection of videos. Here's one featuring outtakes of a couple having fun while shooting a commercial for a truck stop restaurant in Maine and trying to get one line right. http://www.wimp.com/couplecommercial/
Warning: this website is highly addictive. Videos include optical illusions, cute pets, and incredible feats of athletics. Once you're on the site, click the "next" link to watch random videos or enter your own search. But trust me, you'll want to finish your chores and errands first.
It's springtime, but an important election is heating up. Our dog Cami (left above) and her running mate Sunny are vying for a spot in the 2014 Petco Foundation calendar. The theme of the campaign is "Life is Better Together" and thankfully they don't have to pose in bathing suits or some other embarrassing outfits.
The competition is open to all pets regardless of class, breed or color. Your vote with a $1 donation and a minimum of five votes (ok, so a $5 donation) helps the charity chosen by the owner of the pet with the most votes. We selected the San Diego Humane Society, as its dogged determination to keep the ailing puppy we initially wanted to adopt fortuitously lead us to Cami at another shelter. A panel of judges will choose the photos for the calendar. Your votes won't necessarily sway the panel, but then again they might.
Voting closes April 29. Click here to go to the voting page. Type "cami" in the search box and look for this photo below. As they campaign, Cami and Sunny promise to lick the face of every voter they meet.
Congratulations to the Louisville Cardinals, the NCAA 2013 Men's College Basketball champions. It's the school's third NCAA basketball title and perhaps the sweetest one in light of the horrific leg injury sustained by guard Kevin Ware.
As the excitement dies down and the moment fades into history, one nagging question remains: What is the correct way to pronounce Louisville?
It's more than an accent or local custom that guides the way you hear it. No, way the word if formed is far more intentional. Some start the word with LOO, others with LOW. Some get midway through and pronounce the S. I might end it with VIL; you might like VUHL. And is it two syllables or three?
I'm fairly certain the correct pronounciation starts with LOO, since the city is named in honor of the French king Louis XVI. Whoever heard of King LOW or King LUH?
And because the name's French, the S at the end of Louis has to be silent. Most of us seem to agree on this point.
Further guidance is furnished at About.com:
The Local Pronunciation of Louisville
(c) 2008 Jessica Elliott
A sign on the front of the Louisville Visitors Center mocks the different ways that people pronounce the name of our city: "Lewisville," "Looeyville," "Looavull," "Looaville," and "Luhvull." Phonetically, it would seem that the "Lewisville" or "Looeyville" pronunciations would be correct. However, pronouncing the name of your new home either of those ways is sure to give you away as an outsider. The pronunciation that most Louisville residents use is "Looavull," though "Looaville" and "Luhvull" aren’t uncommon.
And according to Inogolo.com, the online English Pronounciation Guide to the Names of People, Places and Stuff:
Louisville city in Kentucky Name: Louisville
Phonetic Pronunciation: LOO-ih-vuhl
Notes: This is the pronunciation most commonly used by natives. Another common pronunciation widely heard outside of Kentucky is LOO-ee-vil.
So to recap: if you want to fit in with the locals, say it something like LOO-a-vull. LOO-ey-ville is acceptable but you'll tip everyone off that you're not from around there.
But how does a local actually say the name? I decided to ask a real Kentuckian. Diane Sawyer at ABC News hails from the Bluegrass State and as a news anchor she should know as well as anyone the true pronounciation. But my co-worker and former supervisor, Don Morton, was more readily available. He grew up in Kentucky and spent the first 12 years of his life in Elizabethtown just outside Louisville. He's a Wildcats fan first and follows the Cardinals. Don knows Kentucky and he pronounces the city LOO-a-ville, only fast enough to make the middle syllable almost disappear.
So there you have it. Consider the matter settled until the running of the Kentucky Derby, when announcers will once again trot out their self-styled pronounciations. Just listen, someone's gonna pronounce the S, like in St. Louis.
Nearly every day is a holiday or commemoration somewhere on Earth. Today, for instance, is Chakri Day, a national holiday in Thailand commemorating the founding of the Chakri Dynasty, the country's ruling monarch. As the holiday falls on a Saturday, banks, commercial and government offices in Thailand will be closed on Monday.
Tomorrow is World Health Day. The global observance has taken on more significance since it was established by the World Health Organization in 1950. Life expectancy in most countries has advanced to the point where more of us are expected to live longer and require health care, raising the dual study of how to stay healthy and how to pay the bill when we're sick. Each year, a theme is selected to highlight an area of concern in public health. This year's theme is high blood pressure, a topic infinitely more relatable than 2011's "Anti-microbial resistance: no action today, no cure tomorrow".
Seriously, hypertension increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure and if left uncontrolled, high blood pressure can also cause blindness, irregular heartbeat and heart failure. But it's preventable. Doctors advise reducing salt intake, eating a balanced diet, avoiding the harmful use of alcohol, taking regular physical activity, maintaining a healthy body weight and avoiding tobacco use.
World Health Day is a celebration for the common good and you needn't wait a whole year for the next one. Earth Day is April 22.
Here's wishing you good health. And Happy Chakri Day.
If you think everyone who has lived in L.A. has encountered a celebrity or two, you're probably right. This is one of my stories.
When I was growing up I wanted to be a TV weatherman. My friends had the usual childhood ambitions of doctor, lawyer, teacher, cop, fireman, astronaut and athlete. I wanted to wear nice suits and get paid to talk. And as comedian Lewis Black put it: the job of TV weatherman in a place like San Diego is the easiest job in the world.
"What's the forecast, Lou?"
"It's gonna be nice."
I also figured doing the weather at 5, 6 and 11 meant you got to sleep in every morning.
I felt the calling after watching Dr. George Fischbeck, an avuncular former schoolteacher who broke into television as host of an afternoon science show for kids on PBS. His studio set resembled a home garage and each week he tackled the science questions every parent of a precocious child has heard. Why is the sky blue? How do airplanes stay up? How does a tree know to grow an apple? Dr. George gave the answers with cool chemistry experiments, homemade weather instruments, and common household objects. In the days before computer graphics the man could hold children's attention with just cardboard and scissors. His TV weather forecasts were no less compelling and his career at KABC 7 in Los Angeles spanned from 1972 to 1990. He was the king of cumulonimbus.
Across town, the main weekday weatherman at KNBC 4 was Pat Sajak. Before racking up 30+ years as host of Wheel of Fortune, Pat delivered the forecast with a boyish mug and the same wisecracking asides that have been one of the game show's hallmarks. I have to guess that between them Pat and Dr. George dominated the ratings. The CBS affiliate and four independent stations had their own weather anchors and I can't recall the names or faces of any of them.
I knew I needed a connection in this nepotic industry. So when I got a college journalism assignment to write a biographical sketch, I set out to interview someone doing TV weather in Los Angeles and find out how to crack this nut. KABC said Dr. George was on vacation. Pat Sajak promptly took my call. I told him about the assignment and my dream job of TV weatherman. Having landed in the nation's #2 media market by the age of 30, he could probably tell that this nervous college freshman asking to job shadow was no threat to his career and agreed to meet.
The Burbank studio he worked in is a heady environment. The station's newsroom at one time or another has seen the likes of Tom Brokaw, Tom Snyder, Bryant Gumbal, and Nick Clooney (George's dad). Pat's co-workers included consumer advocate David Horowitz, who had a syndicated TV show; Harvey Levin, who'd go on to create TMZ; and sports anchor Stu Nahan, later seen as the ringside announcer in the early Rocky movies. The studio was also the television home of Tonight Show host Johnny Carson.
It was 8:30 at night and Pat had just returned from a dinner break. We sat in a small office where he studied weather wire copy and typed notes for his 11 o'clock report. In between bursts at the typewriter, he recounted how he landed in L.A.: raised in Chicago, marriage to a college sweetheart, a lead in college to his first overnight gig at an AM radio station, a stint on Armed Forces Radio, and the advances through small markets before catching a break in Nashville as a disc jockey and weatherman. Then KNBC called. I was living at home my first year in college and started asking myself if that nomadic lifestyle was really for me.
After a stint in makeup, Pat was on with the weather halfway through the 11:00 news. His notes crawled on the teleprompter and he pretty much ad libbed the segment. After sports and during a commercial break, he returned to the set to fill his chair while anchorman John Schubeck wrapped up with a feature story and said goodnight. The closing theme grew over his final words, the stage lights dimmed to silhouette the set and everyone in the studio fell silent as the camera shot faded and the station cut to commericals ahead of the Tonight Show. I watched this production and considered the perks of the job: nice clothes, good money, low stress, famous colleagues, a two-hour dinner break, and spending part of each day at work in a hushed temperature-controlled TV studio. OK, maybe I could deal with relocating now and again.
We filed out of the studio and walked toward the guard station at the entrance to the building. Pat said he loved his job and was grateful for it every day. But TV news in any market has no job security. "Someday," he said knowingly, "this is going to end." What then? He said he'd like to host some kind of TV show.
I turned in my guest pass. It was 11:45 p.m. and I had one more question.
"How late do you sleep in?"
"I get up around nine or ten."
I wondered if I could get hired to do the weather in Modesto after college.
We've sold our home. It's a seller's market and we got an offer the first day we listed it. As we head toward closing, I'm feeling nostalgic and having flashbacks like the final episode of a great sitcom.
When we moved in five years ago, the house needed love. It was suitable for keeping pit bulls, which the former occupant did. It was not designed for comfort. There was no carpeting, no grass and no shade except at the darkened doorstep behind a fortress-like front wall that blotted out the sun and the sky and provided privacy for whatever shenanigans were going on inside. The double front doors were fake; one was really the outer wall of the kitchen. The hard tile flooring withstood any abuse you could throw at it and was unforgiving to the occasional ceramic mug or wine glass dropped upon it. The neighbor's yard was lush from his landscaping business, but ours was mostly cement and had three barren rings of stone. A roving Google camera took this picture just after we moved in and had started the upgrades with new windows.
A work in progress
Fortunately, Marilyn has a talent for improving everything in her life. I'm living proof. She gave the home curb appeal and she knows a great handyman, Clint Cable. She ordered carpet, carriage lights, front patio furniture, a new garage opener, crown molding, faucets, mirrors, shelves, windows and coverings and the sliding door to the patio. Clint recommended and installed the new air conditioning, new insulation, new ducts, new registers, a patio cover in the backyard and a beautiful oak front door. His subcontractor cut out a portion of the front wall to expose the kitchen and front porch to natural light and a great view looking west down the street. Two stone rings were demolished and Marilyn converted the third into a vegetable garden. She planted roses, designed a water feature, picked out a birdbath, and had native plants put in. One hot summer morning we cleared out the dead brush from all the flower beds. Slowly but surely, the house became a home.
We sure had some good times. We threw a party when my article was published in Toastmaster magazine and had our 50th birthday parties catered. We took advantage of the location -- the house sits on a hill just east of Mission Valley -- and hosted three annual "Flashlight Hike and Fireworks Night" fests in late-September featuring a walk up a trail to a lookout with a spectacular view of radio KGB's Skyshow. That spot seemed to be San Diego's best kept secret. I don't know why it didn't become more popular over the years. Another night we trapped a wild rabbit in our backyard. For bait we used sliced apples and carrots suspended in pantyhose in a wire cage. (Thanks, eHow.) Then we drove the scared critter to Mission Trails and released it near the visitors center.
It was a slice of country in the city. And just as safe. Any night, you could leave a Mac book and your wallet on the front seat of your car parked unlocked with your keys in the ignition and there's a 99.99% chance both the car and the valuables would be there in the morning. The biggest crime ever at our house occurred the night someone drove by the curb and knocked over one of our trash cans, breaking one of the lid hinges and forcing us to buy a new receptacle from the city. In five years, I've seen police on our street only twice. The neighbors are the greatest; watchful retirees living among working stiffs like me.
I'm going to miss the kitchen and our small dog's trick of turning the kitchen lights on and off. There's a switch on the side of the counter and for Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers she caught on pretty quick.
Now is the right time to go. Marilyn loves the house and would happily live here the rest of her life or until we're escorted to assisted living. But she indulged my wishes to live in a walkable neighborhood closer to our friends and our weekend activities. I suspect her motives aren't entirely altruistic; she'll have a walk-in closet all to herself. The new owner on Laramie lives around the corner and wants the house for her daughter and four-year-old granddaughter. That girl will have great family support growing up and probably befriend the next-door landscaper's twin six-year-old girls. Note to our buyer: if you have a dog, teach it to turn on the lights in the kitchen. It's a cool trick especially when come home at night. And don't worry if you occasionally forget to lock the front door.
