I love messing with customer service representatives. I just got a call from Comcast asking me a series of questions, which I was suppose to answer on a 1-10 scale. The call was to rate my experience with their billing department when I called a week ago. I had originally called because my bill was much higher than expected, so I wanted to test their math.

I started answering with decimal points (for example 3.675 instead of 3) and making her round to the nearest number. Then I went to division, multiplication, irrational numbers, square roots, cube roots and powers. I asked her to answer the math problems to make sure she could accurately rate my dissatisfaction their service. She did ok, but I still don't trust them to bill me correctly.

Yesterday was hectic. We arrived at the Denver athletic club at 7:00 am to shoot our morning breakfast panel. Our guest was Nancy Pelosi and she had other commitments, so it only lasted 30 minutes. I came back to the workspace and edited the videos for Yahoo and Politico. In the afternoon, we had an hour and fifteen minutes to shoot two 2-camera interviews and a live shot. It all had to be done in the workspace and the live shot was between the 2-camera shoots. So we had to tear down and rebuild the set between each shoot. The first interview was with Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans. He came in with a whole group of assistants, who proceeded to take up every remaining foot of space in the studio. After Simon's live shot we interviewed Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco. He seemed like a nice guy and I agreed with much of what he said, but I couldn't get past the size of his hair. I wanted to touch it to see what was sticking it up.

This morning our Yahoo / Politico coverage included the governors of Arizona and Montana, as well as a senator from Colorado. The videos made the Yahoo homepage both days. I missed it yesterday, but here is a link to today's video. Tonight we are in the process of packing all of our gear and shipping it to St. Paul for the Republican National Convention. We will go out tonight to celebrate the end of the DNC.

We had a classic media road trip moment last night. We finished at the DNC around 9:00. By 9:30 the "Pimp Mobile" (our huge SUV) was packed full of people and pizza. We were heading back to the hotel. Emily was driving, Steve was getting directions on his GPS and yelling them to her from the back seat. Suddenly, Olly received a call from one of our radio clients to do an analysis of the presidential race. He eloquently answered all of the questions, while balancing a pizza on his lap and ignoring Steve's audible GPS. We gave him a nice round of applause when he was done.

This morning we started our series of 4 camera shoots for Yahoo and Politico. It went relatively smoothly, but the audio people were causing huge problems. They have not showed up to any of the meetings and had no clue what they were doing. They clearly did not test anything before the show, so the microphones were causing feedback the entire time. CSPAN was broadcasting the event live, but they were forced to stop because the audio was so bad.

Emily and I arrived in Denver on Friday. After renting a car, we checked into our hotel and went to the site of the Democratic National Convention. Our workspace is within the vast Newshour complex and we have had to cram in all ten of us plus the video studio. There is hardly room to walk. Meanwhile, the rest of the Newshour space is neat and spacious. Dennis, our cameraman from Moscow, arrived Friday afternoon (without his luggage). We went out to dinner with him, Jen, and Todd. He was so excited about the American food and service that he giggled like a schoolboy every time a waitress came to our table.

Saturday the rest of the FSN crew showed up and we spent a few hours arranging the video set, before going out to dinner. We were all too tired and jet lagged to stay out late, so we were in bed by 10:30.

Today was hectic. We left the hotel at 7:30am and spent the morning trying to get our equipment to work (unsuccessfully). At 1:00 we had a practice run for our Politico coverage, which went surprisingly well. The Politico shoot is going to be our most complicated gig of the conventions. We must set it up from scratch every morning and shoot a panel discussion with 4 cameras and live switching. When we came back to the office, Simon was about to go live on Chanel News Asia. We were having trouble connecting the camera to the live video broadcasting unit. Ten minutes before he went live, we propped up the live video unit on cardboard boxes and used the built in camera (which is used for video conferencing) to shoot.

It was an exhausting weekend. Emily and I took the 6:00am bus to NYC to help Kat move. Her apartment was mostly packed when we arrived, so her and Emily picked up the truck and we started loading. It didn't take as long as expected, but a couple hours of heavy lifting wore us out. Just as we were heading out for lunch, Kat realized that her keys were locked in the apartment. The apartment next door was undergoing renovation, so we were able to climb onto the shared fire escape. Unfortunately her a/c was screwed into the window and we were not able to move it. I noticed a small (12" x 6") window into her kitchen. I squeezed through the window suffering only minor cuts on my arms and ribs and unlocked the door. We ate lunch at a cool little Mexican restaurant near Kat's house in Brooklyn. Then Emily and Kat drove the truck and I took the bus back to DC. We got home around 10:30.

Sunday we unloaded the really heavy stuff from the truck while waiting for Lindsey to arrive. She was suppose to come over at 11:30 so we could make it to my cousin's going away party on time. At 11:20 she still hadn't left the house. So I told her that we were leaving at noon regardless of whether or not she was with us. Miraculously she made it on time. So Emily, Lindsey and I drove to my grandmother's house in Baltimore for the party. Emily had a good time talking politics with grandma's friends. We all stuffed ourselves on grandma's food and her amazing (flourless) cupcakes.

My company hired me out to another company this week to edit a PBS documentary. It is a big project, the show is one hour long, and it is fraught with internal politics. (Section deleted at the suggestion of Jen and Todd)

Aside from the politics of the edit, there was some excitement on Wednesday. The office suddenly got very dark. It looked like the lights had been dimmed, but we quickly realized that the sky had blackened. The wind began to roar past our window. I looked down the street to the left and saw trash and debris spiraling upward. We were startled by a loud noise on the other side of the office. Someone suggested we go downstairs in case the (presumed) tornado hit our building. It was over as quickly as it began. We looked out the windows on the other side of the office and noticed that the roof had been blown off the building next to us.

I had an eventful week... Tuesday Emily and I helped the Newshour team with an interview of the Pakistani Prime Minister. We were there to capture the interview live for the web. We arrived early to get past the legions of security and sat around listening to the crew bitching about how hard their job was (despite the fact that they were sitting around for hours bitching about their job).

Wednesday I was at the White House to shoot Bush signing some Aids bill. I had to get there two hours before the event. After sitting around for half an hour in the press briefing room, they escorted all of the cameramen into the East room to set up. Then we had to go back to the press briefing room for another hour while they checked our equipment for bombs and we were finally let back into the East room to shoot the event. The usual path between the briefing center and the East room was blocked, so I got to see a new part of the building, the basement. The White House, like so many federal buildings, looks so nice and new from the outside, but on the inside they really show their age.

Thursday I was on Ted Stevens watch. He is the senator being indicted for concealingly gifts from an oil company. I had to wait for hours outside of the DC courthouse for him to take the "perp walk". After waiting a couple hours, I walked up to shoot the SEC building for the Economist. The security guards at the SEC didn't care, but the ones at the building across the street had a fit. This lady kept trying to call me over to talk to her (ruining my audio), but I wouldn't come and she wouldn't leave her post. Finally she called her supervisor. I explained that it wasn't a crime to film a building, so he called his supervisor, who brought along HIS supervisor. Finally there were a whole group of security guards (each one managing the one below him) discussing what to do with me. So I let them talk, finished shooting and walked away.

Yesterday, Emily and I got new tires for the car and walked around Costco and the Pentagon mall waiting for them to be installed. Last night, I went to the Nationals game with Aaron, which was a lot of fun. It was the first time I had been to the new stadium. We were worried that the game would be rained out, but it ended up being very nice weather.

Emily and I drove to Florida on Friday for a vacation. The drive was easy; it took about 12.5 hours each way. We stayed at my parent's house in Orlando for the first couple nights. Saturday I went to the gun range with my dad, while Emily went to the mall with my mom. That night we had a great dinner at a Lebanese restaurant for Emily's birthday. Afterward, Diane came over with her dog. We had playtime for all the dogs in the backyard.

Sunday we had breakfast at First Watch before driving to the beach. Our friends Serena and Brad came with their daughter Bella. We hung out on the beach all day and burnt ourselves to a crisp. Emily and I wanted to take them to our favorite pizza place, Shroomers, for dinner. It was all boarded up when we arrived. Too bad. I have been eating there every time I visited the beach for the past 12 years. We tried a middle eastern place off International Speedway. It was also closed. We drove up the road looking for a restaurant, but everyone we tried was closed. Finally we ended up at a horrible Chinese buffet which made everyone nauseas.

Monday Emily and I spent the day on the beach reading and working on our sunburns. It was just what we needed after working hard for the last few months. We saw the Dark Night in the evening. It was great. I usually don't like comic book films, but this one played like a real movie, with just enough campiness, but not too much.

Tuesday we went to dog beach with Turtle and Piggy. They had a great time playing and digging holes. They kept going in the water, rolling in the sand, then jumping on us and making a big mess. Wednesday we drove home and got caught in the rain for 7 hours.

Why can't we be more like the Swiss?

Ever wonder what my job looks like? Here is a short video with my footage from the recent Lulac convention attended by Barack Obama and John McCain. We had two cameras at the event. One on the riser and another for cutaways. I found myself on a shot from the second camera. Take a look.

I love going to mid-day events. Most think tanks and NGOs will feed the audience and press a free lunch. I've gotten a free lunch every day this week! I tell people that I go to these events for the food, not because I have to film them. Today's lunch was the most ironic. If you can call lunch ironic. I was at a conference about the global food crisis and they had a huge spread. Chicken, beef, salmon, orzo with vegetables, salad, bread, cookies and two tables of drinks.

Friday, I saw Wanted with Emily, Matt and Neetha. It was a ridiculous shoot-um-up movie with an unrealistic plot and a terrible script. Besides that, it was very entertaining and a decent popcorn movie. My dad would probably love it.

Yesterday, Emily and I took the pups to Rock Creek park again. Last time we threw Piggy into the water to make her swim, but this time she waded into the river on her own! Very brave dog. Turtle, who is usually the scared one, likes the water and goes in without a problem. It started raining when we were on the trail, 30 minutes away from the car. The trees kept us from getting too wet, so the rain felt nice in the heat. That night we went to my cousin Lilly's Bat Mitzvah. I haven't seen anyone from her family since my Bar Mitzvah. It was nice to catch up with them. They live just outside DC, so we will probably meet for dinner sometime. I also got to meet my Uncle Ricky's girlfriend, who was lovely. Apparently my grandmother scared away his previous girlfriends, so it is good to see him dating again.

Today Emily and I met my parents and sister for lunch. There was a quite a raucous when we were leaving, because no one wanted to drive with Lindsey (aka Miss Toad's wild ride). We ate at the Cheesecake Factory, home of the enormous portion size. I got a pizza and a side salad. The salad could have fed the entire table. When they were leaving the restaurant, my sister was suppose to take my parents to the airport. My dad insisted on driving and she did not take his request kindly. I'm glad I wasn't riding with her! Emily dropped me off at the metro on the way to her friend Rachel's house. I stopped in Clarendon to check out the new boxing gym. Emily and I use to take kickboxing classes in Orlando and we might start taking them here. Then I met Matt, Neetha and a couple of their friends at Elephant and Castle to watch the Euro-cup finals. The game was fun. We were all (except Kateland) rooting for Spain and they won!

I had an eventful weekend. Saturday, Emily and I took the dogs to Rock Creek park for a hike. I had not explored the park before, so I enjoyed walking along the river and following the paths deep into the woods. Piggy and Turtle had fun too, but Piggy was terrified when a horse rode by on the trail. Afterward, we went to Target and ate at Aladdin's in Shirlington. Always a good place for some Middle Eastern food. We also saw the movie Mongol, about Ghengis Khan. This was Kazakhstan's entry in the foreign language category of the Academy Awards. It was interesting, but seemed to miss important parts of the story. Emily thought it seemed much longer than it really was.

Today, Matt and I went to the national mall for the bar-b-q cook-off. I don't think I will go again next year. They charged us an entry fee which allowed us to look at all the advertising booths, but not eat any bar-b-q from the competition. We met Aaron at RFK stadium for the DC United game. It was fun! Our seats were decent (in the shade); after many sloppy plays and a few good ones, DC won 3 to 1. Next we are going to catch a Nat's game.

Monday I took the bus up to New York for the Venetian Snares concert. Instead of taking the Chinese bus, I took MegaBus which was only $25 round trip. When I got there, I met Aaron in midtown and we took the subway to little Italy for some brick oven pizza. The pizza was good, but we were not yet full. So we walked over to Chinatown and ate dinner again. This time I had vegetable noodle soup and he had dumplings.

The show was at the Knitting Factory. We arrived a bit too early, so we had to watch the opening acts. The first two were boring. We stayed in the bar where it was still possible to hold a conversation. Otto Von Schirack played third. I don't really like his music, but he put on a good show. He was dressed up in a funny outfit and wore a robber's mask. There was also a girl on stage with an alligator mask. He spent most of the time screaming into a microphone run through heavy distortion.

Venetian Snares finally took the stage at about 12:30. He blended all of the fast, hard parts of his songs together seamlessly. Everyone went crazy, dancing and jumping around. Aaron stayed in the club for most of the show, but eventually he retreated to the bar because it was too loud. I don't blame him. It was one of the loudest shows I have ever been to. It took 24 hours to regain my hearing.

I stayed the night at Aaron's new Brooklyn apartment. We ate breakfast at a local bagel shop, before heading back into the city. Our company (he also works for FSN) has two offices in New York. He went to the office at the UN and I went to the Brooklyn office. I was suppose to meet Paige there to help with an edit, but I had to leave before she arrived. I met Kat for lunch at an Indian restaurant called Kati. It was nice getting a chance to see her while I was in NYC.

I almost missed my bus home, because I lost the conformation number. I tried pulling up on my cell phone's internet connection, but the browser crashed every time I clicked on the MegaBus e-mail. Finally it worked as the driver was about to shut the door.

Monday I had one of my most difficult shoots ever. It was for a "Save the Tigers" event at the National Zoo. I was working with a correspondent who does not have a very good sense of time. We arrived 10 minutes after the event was suppose to start. I had to run to the tiger enclosure at the very back of the zoo, which took another 10 minutes. I was dripping with sweat by the time I arrived. The event was lead by Robert Zoellick (head of the World Bank) and Harrison Ford. Luckily they were also running late.

The press was squeezed into the narrow walkway used to view the tiger enclosure. The cameramen improvised a riser by climbing onto the wall opposite the enclosure. The wall was almost parallel to the podium, so everyone was right on the edge to get a better angle for their shot. Positions are claimed on a first-come first-serve basis, so I was stuck with horrible profile shot. The background was a bright white wall; it looked awful. Harrison Ford sat next to the wall. I had to lean over the edge to get a shot of him. The entire event was spent jockeying for position behind the CNN cameraman and between the AP guy and the still photographers. The footage was barely usable.

I spent all week working on a corporate video, only to have the assignment canceled just before it was finished. Last week I went to Baltimore to shoot an interview and some b-roll for the corporate video. I shot in the warehouse of a government contractor who makes unmanned boats. They were constructing one of the boats while I was there and I got to climb inside. It became quite obvious that it was not made for passengers. I had to squeeze in between the massive engines to get a shot of the workmen. After filming various workers on the factory floor, the company's owner took the producer and I out on the Baltimore Harbor. Luckily we took a boat that was made for passengers. I tried to get some shots of the harbor and cargo ships, but I could not hold the camera still enough.

I spent all week cutting my footage together with the interviews they had already shot (which looked like crap) and manufacturing b-roll from the FSN library. This type of edit usually takes weeks, but I had to finish the video in four days. Yesterday, the day before it was due, we got a call from the producer saying that the entire project was canceled. Apparently the Deputy Director had planned all of the materials, designs and multimedia presentations for the company's 20 year anniversary without getting approval from the Director. When he finally saw the plans, he hated the entire concept. All of the work that was put into this meeting was dropped. I still had to finish the video and send an approval copy and we will still get paid, but no one will see the finished product.

Emily and I (and the rest of her family) spent the weekend in Steamboat Springs Colorado for Jenny's wedding. Congratulations Jenn and Todd!

Thursday we flew through Dallas and into Denver. The Libertarian Party convention was in Denver this weekend and I thought I recognized someone at the Dallas airport as a potential nominee. So instead of just asking him, I got on the phone with Kat and talked about the convention while standing near him to see if he said anything. He didn't. We got into Denver around 7:00 (after a long delay in Dallas), rented a car and drove three hours to Steamboat. The sun had set by the time we got into the mountains and it became incredibly foggy through the mountain passes. At one point we could only see 10 feet in front of the car. Emily was driving and was terrified. We couldn't even see the side of the road to check how far we would fall if we went over the edge. Finally we made it to the hotel at 10:30.

Friday we went for a jog with Sara. We took a path along the river and marveled at the beautiful scenery. But the altitude and steep inclines took a toll. We made it back to the hotel exhausted an hour after we started. The rest of the day was spent exploring the town and preparing for the wedding. That night we got a huge Mexican feast and ate ourselves into a flatulent bliss.

Saturday the girls woke up early to attend a practice hair styling appointment. They were not particularly happy with the stylist and contemplated firing her. I met up with them around mid-day to attend the family BBQ. The event was held in a local community center and was scheduled to be four hours. We couldn't figure out what we would do for that long. The first hour we mingled with the other guests and met Todd's family and friends. After the food arrived, we ate and spent the rest of the time talking to Emily's sisters.

Sunday was the big day. The service was held at local botanical garden. Everyone was worried about the weather, because thunder storms were predicted. Luckily it was sunny and beautiful outside. The ceremony proceeded without a hitch (or with a hitch, but the good kind) and we stayed afterward for photos. The party was held at the hotel in a nicely decorated ballroom. Emily and I made a photo-slideshow, which played while everyone ate. They had a local A Capella rock group sing after dinner. Todd's cousin assumed responsibility for the music when the group was done and the dance floor eventually filled up.

Then came the only real mistake of the wedding. Todd's friends decided to take tequila shots. One of them pulled Jenny over, opened his mouth and raised the bottle above his and her head. The liquor poured out of the bottle and right into Jenny's eye. She stumbled around holding her eye and it took a while for her to regain vision. Eventually it stopped hurting and she was fine.

After the party, everyone headed to the bar across the street from the hotel. Emily and I only stayed long enough to have dinner. We were exhausted. That night the power went out across Steamboat. We used our cell phone alarm to wake us up at 5:30 to drive to Denver and catch the flight home.

Last weekend Emily, Lindsey, Turtle, Piggy and I went hiking on Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. I had just finished reading "Into Thin Air" about the disastrous 1996 Everest expedition, so I spent most of the time pretending we were on Everest. For example when there was a bottleneck on the trail near the top of the mountain I pretended we were at Hillary Step.

Most of the trials were not very steep, but there was a section where we had to use our hands to help climb. The weather was beautiful at the top. Warm sun and a cool breeze. We brought some lunch and had a picnic on the rocks. It didn't take long to complete the trail, so we drove around the mountain and hiked up the other side.

Tuesday I left for Cleveland with Martin, the US correspondent for the Polish station TVN. After checking into the hotel, we met the Polish doctor who is the focus of the story at a Hungarian restaurant. I had goulash and hot wine, at his recommendation. Both were very tasty; the hot wine was spiced like Chai.

Wednesday we arrived early at the hospital and got suited up from head to toe in surgical scrubs. Oddly enough they didn't do anything to disinfect the camera. I was quite nervous about filming the Gastric Bypass surgery, because I am prone to throwing up or passing out.

When I entered the ER, the patient had four tubes sticking out of her stomach. There was a table beside her holding long metal instruments with handles on one side and various tools on the other. The assistant surgeon inserted a small camera through the lower left hole in her stomach. Her guts immediately flashed up on the three flat screen monitors surrounding the operating table. The doctor then issued a spoken command to the computer to lower the lights. Now the room was only lit by the monitors and two focused surgical lamps.

The doctor proceeded to slide small pinchers into her stomach, move her liver out of the way and sew her stomach to 1/5th of its normal size. I felt queasy at first, but it soon passed. The surgery lasted about two hours. I spent most of the time circling the patient and shooting the surgery. Surprisingly enough, it did not make me sick to watch the doctor's video feed. It was actually quite fascinating to see them cut the small intestine and reattach it to her truncated stomach.

Afterward, we conducted interviews with the doctors and two patients who had received the surgery. We were finished by about 3:00, so we headed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before our flight. The museum is housed in a large building, but the exhibit is relatively small. My favorite items were the Ramones collection, Michael Jackson's red jacket from Thriller and Madonna's pointy bra. Martin liked the Doors section, but was disappointed by the lack of AC/DC paraphernalia.