Last Friday was the latest interview in Politico's Inside Obama's Washington series. This time it was with White House budget director, Peter Orszag. The interview was conducted in one of the War Rooms in the Old Executive Office Building. This was the third "War Room" we've shot in. The shoot went well, but I made the mistake of telling the producer that I would send her approval copies before finishing the edit. The problem was that I forgot how long it takes to export preview copies. So I started editing in the afternoon, but didn't leave work until 11:30pm.

I've spent all this week editing the Legal Momentum video that I shot in NYC. It has been a long, labor intensive project, as all corporate videos are. Most of the video was pretty easy to edit, but one section has caused a ton of problems. It's a section about domestic violence, but we obviously can't show pictures of spousal abuse. The rest of the video I've been able to use generic shots of women when I didn't know what else to show, but I can't do that for this section. Finally, one of my co-workers had the idea to show closeups of a woman's hands doing domestic chores. So I shot some video of Kate washing dishes and making tea. It sort of worked, but we'll see what the client thinks. I hope they like it, because the video is suppose to be done early next week and I don't have anything else that I can use.

Emily's sister Rebecca got Married in Cincinnati last week. Em, Kat and I left DC on Tuesday, the day of the second big snow storm. We decided that it would be too dangerous to drive north through the blizzard, so we went south instead. Tuesday night we stayed in Knoxville (yeah, we went that far south) and left for Cincinnati the next morning. We stopped for lunch at a small diner in Lexington, Kentucky, which made everyone sick. Emily and Kat then had to check out every little boutique in the city before getting back on the road.

We arrived in Cincinnati in time for them to go to the bridal shower. I ate Gold Star chili (bad idea) and read Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations in the hotel room. Thursday, we helped them set up the reception hall and went to the rehearsal.

Friday, I went to Skyline Chili with Todd, Tom and Dan to avenge my initial experience with Cincinnati chili. This time it was much better. It may have been the fact that the restaurant seemed more hygienic and the people handling the food wore gloves, but it did seem like the food was actually better.

That night was the wedding. The service was held in a church and they decided to do the entire Catholic mass. Emily and I kept ourselves entertained during the service by taking lots of pictures. The reception was held at a site near our hotel. Emily's aunt wasn't feeling well and wanted to go back to her room, but she wouldn't leave until she got a piece of cake. So throughout the toasts, she stood next to the cake with her plate and fork at the ready. I think she got a piece before the bride and groom even got theirs. The rest of the wedding went off without a hitch and everyone had fun.

We took the northerly route home and continued our quest to stop at every Starbucks on the route (or at least that's what it felt like). In West Virginia, we followed the map to what was suppose to be a Starbucks in Wheeling. We ended up at a casino. It was the strangest thing; the people looked like zombies. They were all staring slack-jawed into their slot machines, only moving one finger to press the button. The repetitive tones played by the machines seemed to hypnotize them. I don't think we could have pulled them away from the games if we tried. I met a guy with a custom made, air-brushed shirt that said "Diceman N' Da House".

I spent the last few days shooting in NYC. I love going there, but I hate dragging all the equipment around with me. This trip was worse than usual on the crap-I-had-to-drag-around front. I brought a light kit, two cameras, clothes, a tripod, a bag of peripherals and a laptop. So I had to take the train with a cart piled high with gear, a backpack and a tripod over my shoulder. Where are the sherpas when you need them?

Wednesday I met up with Erin, who works for Legal Momentum, a non profit which deals mostly with women's issues. We drove out to Queens to meet with a woman who works as an electrician and teaches at a local vocational high school. We interviewed her in the classroom and followed her around as she helped the students. The next stop was the Legal Momentum office in Manhattan. It was a huge challenge trying to find a parking spot. Eventually we gave up and paid $26(!) to park in a lot for three hours. I filmed them having a fake staff meeting and interviewed several of them about the organization.

When the shoot was over, I got a call from my office saying that I had to dress up for my shoot at the New York Stock Exchange the next day. Here's the thing, I'm a cameraman. I never have to dress up. I barely have any fancy clothes at home and I certainly didn't bring any of them to New York. So I called my friend Aaron and asked about the dress code at the NYSE. He said that he's always worn jeans when shooting there. I didn't want to take a chance, so I went clothes shopping. Too bad the stores were all closed by the time I started. I ended up going out to Brooklyn to meet Aaron at a bar and borrow a sport-coat from him. Thursday I went down to the NYSE at 8am. I wore the sport-coat and jeans and no one said a word.

I was there to shoot more B-roll to sell through Getty Images. My company has been making a few thousand dollars a month off some old standard definition footage, so we decided to get some new shots in HD. I wasn't suppose to be there until 9:00, but I arrived early because I knew it would take awhile to get through security. By 9:00 I was on a balcony overlooking the trading floor. They let me stay until 9:45, way longer than I expected. I got some great footage that I'm sure will pay my salary for years to come.

After leaving the stock exchange, I walked up to city hall and the courthouse. There wasn't much to shoot over there, so I set up on the Brooklyn Bridge and got some shots of women for the Legal Momentum video. Given the subject of the video it was perfectly acceptable to focus on women, but it still felt creepy.

I met Aaron at the United Nations building for lunch. It was actually harder to get in there than it was to get into the NYSE. Aaron had to carry the gear, because he has a "resident journalist" pass. I had some soup from the horrible little UN cafe and hung out with Sherwin the SABC correspondent, before heading back to Penn Station to catch my train home.