The CNN Studio Tour

This is the actual Humvee used by CNN during the first Gulf War

Earlier this month (July, 2014) my son flew our plane up to Atlanta to log his longest cross-country flight and to experience landing at an airfield whose elevation was 998 feet MSL.  Considering the all of his prior landings in Florida were at 30 feet MSL, he found it a different approach to say the least.

CNN World HQ - food court and flags

Allegedly, this is the longest indoor escalator going 8 stories high

This is where the "news" (at least as CNN sees it) comes in, and is massaged into the message they air to the world

Well, we made it (obviously) and he visited with friends from his college days, and I visited with my cousin Bill, my aunt Marg and Bill's wife Barb.

A highlight of the trip was on Sunday, when we ventured downtown to visit the HQ of CNN and to take the tour.  Typical of me, I asked the girl at the ticket stand if they had any special pricing, for seniors or veterans.  It turned out they did - FREE for vets with ID (which my VA card sufficed to prove) and.....get this...my son John Benjamin (JB) got three dollars off the regular $15 adult rate for accompanying me.  He at least didn't ask for a wheel chair, considering it would have been a bumpy ride up the eight story escalator, followed by walking down seven floors during which time we saw a lot.

While the escalator seemed tall, I'm not sure the one in Rosslyn, VA on the D.C. Metro isn't longer or the one at the National Zoo, but I digress.

This is one of three facilities where CNN does its live news feeds, the others being New York and Washington.  One of my fellow AFN veterans works for CNN in Washington, D.C., as a producer for Wolf Blitzer, on The Situation Room.  Wolf is paid $3 million, Anderson Cooper gets $11 million, my buddy as producer far less.  Clearly, Mr. Cooper has a better agent.  I included a picture (below) of a Satellite phone from the same period as the Humvee - that would be twenty year old technology now, so I'm sure today's is far more man portable.   Another digression: ManPads = a military term for Man Portable Air Defense Systems.  That would be something you shoot into the air, as opposed to a report you make to put "on the air".

Ultimately, technology of reporting has changed from my days in military, and later civilian television. Back in 1972 through 1975, I worked at Channel 13 in Indianapolis, as a weekend floor director.  I was the guy with the headset plugged into one of the two manned cameras in our news studio.  I was there to relay signals to the anchor John Lindsey and the sports guy Jerry Harkness, and the weekend weatherman Dave Letterman (yeah, that's the same guy).  Boy, have things changed.

Yes, they still have anchors, but the studio cameras are not operated by camera people in the studio - they're robotic and operated with a joystick from the control room.  No more "floor directors" either, instead the anchors wear earbuds that can hear the director's cues from the control room.  No more "chromakey", but now a "green screen" for weather maps.  The world changes, while mankind seeming refuses to evolve.  We still have wars at least to report on, and television like the military continues to go into harms way.   Oh, do I watch CNN?  Not much, I think the women on Fox(y) News Channel are far easier on these old eyes.

Satellite Phone -E.T. Call Home
Anybody want to lug this around?

Fourth of July weekend

Here's my now Canopy Cover installed

Ripley takes his seat on the center console

This past weekend was one where

both Elizabeth and I were busy, 

starting out early on the Fourth of

July participating in the LBK Town

Freedom Festival Parade.

Not much of a parade, of course, with a distance of about one quarter of a mile, from the bank down to the post office turnaround, and back to the bank.  We had far more people than last year (which included my wife who didn't go in 2013).  So many people more that next year they might have to extend the parade 

route to include the turn-around at

the Jewish Temple.

In fact, it's billed as the shortest parade in the nation, and after the parade there are kids games, food, and a butterfly release.  Parade started at 0900, line up was

more like 0830.

By the time I arrived at 8:35, there  were already two brand new

2014 seventh generation C-7 Corvettes in attendance.  My C-6 as situated between a John Deere Tractor and a U.S. Tow boat 

on a trailer.  My buddies' C-5 was pretty much bringing up the rear of the rolling stock

After the parade, I went out to the airport and with J.B. Wild's help, put the new Canopy Cover on our airplane.  I also (prior to putting the cover on, naturally) managed to do some touch-and-go's at KSRQ (Sarasota) for about .8 hours on the Hobbs.  That's the meter that tracks engine hours and in this case translated to probably taxi out, take off, shoot four Touch and Go's, and then one full stop landing.

Susan riding "back seat" on Steve's tractor

After I came back from the airport we fixed some dinner and
I did a bit of studying for my pilots written exam, and then we drove over to the peninsula behind the Marina at the LBK Club Harbourside to watch the fireworks from afar.

Ripley was sniffing, not interested in cooperating.

The outfits chosen were all my wife's work, having purchased my teeshirt, and making
her own with rick-rack and ribbons. The umbrella came from an earlier outing with the Corvette Club, where fellow
veterans were given one free from a vets
organization in Lakewood Ranch.