MBTA musings

Sometimes municipal organizations crack me up. Here's something from a press release the MBTA sent to the station about New Year's Eve/Day transportation:

Sunday, January 1st- New Year's Day

*Blue, Orange, Green, and Red Line trains will operate on a Sunday schedule
*Buses and trackless trolleys will operate on a Sunday schedule

Umm...it's Sunday anyway... I wonder if anyone would've noticed anything different?

Frustration ensues

I'm back at work, on another late night shift before a very early morning shift. I am overtired and frustrated. The person who was here during the day shift had a problem with sounds during the B black of the 4 p.m. show. This means that s/he never posted a particular story and now I have to do it. S/he didn't think to go get a copy of the tape from ENG or Master Control and manually record it to post it. Now I have to clean up the mess. Wonderful. The same person also managed to note that there was a 6 p.m. show (after I was told that there wasn't), s/he did not bother to set up the computer to record the show. Luckily it's not too different from the 9 p.m. show. S/he has also (again) forgotten to update the associated newspaper website with video. But still...... Let's try to be a bit more responsible. (This is not the first time that I've had to clean up after this person).

OK. I feel a bit better after venting.

Place blogging

This project fascinates me. More later....Work calls....

Merry Sunday!

I'm downright domestic today. I am baking blueberry muffins to bring into work later. Not very Christmassy or Hanukkah-ish, I know, but they were all I really had in the house. Some wonderful people brought in some very yummy treats last night. And we had Chinese food, courtesy of the bosses. There goes the timer.....I'm off to play Donna Reed.

Tags: holiday, work

The PJs, take II

I've been thinking about my apartment complex in relation to last weekend's incident. It's not that I dislike the people in the complex. Most of the people that I've met are quite neighborly and friendly. It's just that no one wants to live in an environment of fear and/or worry. Especially when things have been going smoothly for a while(or so I am told, I haven't lived there for that long).

Yankees show Damon the $$$

Since I now live in Boston I suppose that I should comment on the Johnny Damon departure, after all everyone else in town has. He went where the money was. I'm not sure why people seem so shocked by this.

Crimes & misdemeanors

An update to the shooting thing that I recently found out:

A friend was waiting at my apartment for me to be finished with work so that we could go out after. He said that around 10:30 PM (about when I was due home) he heard a lot of yelling and angry sounds coming from the driveway to the complex and was worried that I would drive in and there might be some sort of unpleasant result. What came to mind was that some kids might be in the driveway, I'd get pissed (as I am not the most patient person when it comes to idiotic pedestrians), honk at them or something, and get shot at or have some other unpleasant confrontational experience.

Hearing that there was some sort of beef or whatever earlier in the night makes me think that the person with the weapon was, as my roommate suggested, an uninvited guest to a party in one of the buildings. Hopefully it was not someone who lives here. Hopefully. Roomie also found out from a friend of his who is the Gang Unit Coordinator on the police force in a nearby town, who upon being told about what happened here over the weekend, said that about 10 years ago in Boston crime was way up (in fact, the city is experiencing the highest rate of crime since then) and that gangs are recruiting kids younger and younger these days. I'm not jumping to the conclusion that there is a gang problem in the area that I live in. I'm just mulling over the information that I was given.

I wish that I could afford to live someplace better. A problem for me is that I need an assigned parking spot in the immediate vicinity of my house. I'm not going to wander around a dark street in the pre-dawn hours to find my car. That's not so safe either.

But I don't want to have to worry about stray bullets. And I don't want anyone visiting us to have to take that risk either. I know that I live in a city and that there are many risks that we take every single day. Just getting into a car in this city is a risk because of all the people who obviously got their driver's licenses at Sears, as my grandfather would say. But I'd like to do all that I can to lessen the risk to myself, whether it means using my turn signals or moving for a second time in less than 3 months.

Tags: moving, home, stress

Churchly goodness, for Jews

(via the Church Sign Generator)

Tags: religion

Holiday treats

One of the anchors of the early morning show made fudge and packaged it in these cute little tins to give to all of us as a holiday treat. I had no idea that he could cook, much less make his own fudge.
I am finding that sometimes a newsroom can be a caring place. (Sometimes it's cold and filled with the scent of paranoia, but that's a topic for another post....).

Tags: work

Shots fired

I'd never heard a gunshot before. It really does sound a lot like a car backfiring. The following happened outside my apartment complex on very early Sunday morning. I am so moving.

Gun Recovered, Suspects Arrested after Shots Fired in xxxx xxxxx

Around 2:45am officers from District 13 responded to a shots fired call in the area of 133 xxxxxxx xxxxxx Street. Three suspects were arrested in connection with the incident. One suspect, a juvenile male attempted to run from police but was apprehended a short distance away. The juvenile was found to be in the possession of a .38 caliber black handgun. Other ballistic evidence was recovered from the scene. Arraignment will be in West xxxx District Court. The juvenile is charged with Resisting Arrest, Assault with Intent to Murder, Unlawful Possession of a Firearm/Ammunition, and Firearm Discharged within 500 feet of Dwelling.
(courtesy of BPDNews)

I no longer feel safe in my own home. I am suddenly much more empathetic to the residents of (insert name of ghetto neighborhod here). I can't imagine what life is like when the bullets fly on a nightly basis.

My roommate says that this is the first time anything like this has ever happened in the seven years that he's lived in this apartment.And I do comprehend the fact that I live in a city. But I happen to think that even one shooting outside your apartment complex (even if no one dies and the person responsible is arrested) is still one time too many.

Tags: city life

As seen....

...printed on the window of a hair salon on VFW Parkway:

"We service men & children"

Inferior work environment

This post and it's resulting comments got my panties in a knot. I experience many of these frustrations at work and felt frustrated whenever I tried to put my thoughts on paper. This one really gets me annoyed:

The other thing that bothers me is that I am not viewed as a journalist, but rather as a computer geek. Can you help me get this from tape to DVD? How do you add a network printer? How do I get the spam to go away again? Why can't I get this laptop to hook up to the Internet? Those are the kinds of questions I get.

Luckily I've never been asked to fix anyone's computer. But I do get the impression that some a decent number of people at the station view me as inferior because I'm not a 'regular' producer. I think that they are lucky- what they write is not written down for any viewers to see so they can toss grammar out the window if they'd like. I have to make sure I spell things correctly, have proper capitalization, etc.... My job isn't rocket science but it is challenging and I do have to use my brain. Some days I mightt wish that I was a 'regular' because I'm feeling inferior or whatever but then I remind myself that I'm just as good as they are. Unless they make way more $$$. In that case, sign me up.


From the peanut gallery:

Station executives are often all talk about how hot they are for the web, while rank-and-file TV staffers treat the web team like they work in IT.

If they're so hot for the web, why isn't my salary higher? Where's my health insurance?

I'm not sure it's a "news room" problem. It's a business model problem. The Web site at most TV stations aren't taken seriously as a business proposition. An executive-level person with budget responsibilities should be in charge of the Web site, which would give the Web operation leverage to make things happen.

I have news for this commenter- our website/webcenter are run by a guy who has to deal with all that crap....and we still get the short ed of the stick. I'm not blaming him. In fact, I I really wouldn't know who to blame since I haven't been there long enough to know how the machine functions.

work

TV

The war on Christmas

Let me tell you a story.

A friend of mine was asked by his company's art director what he thought of the holiday card that the art director had designed. Friend looks at it and comments that it has a Christmas tree on it. Then he asked the art director if the company was planning to send it to the mayor (they work for a company that has some local government contracts). Art director says that they were. Non-Jewish friend then points out that the mayor of their mid-sized city is Jewish and that many of their clients were non-Christians of some sort. He then had to explain to the art director that Jews don't tend to get completely offend if they get a holiday card that has a more Christmas theme (vs. holiday or seasonal), but that non-Christians do tend to think favorably of you if you opt to send them a more non-denominational greeting. Art director then saw the light.

That is a perfectly reasonable way to explain how non-Christians (and even some Unitarians) might feel about the season. I do not understand how that has turned into a war on Christmas.
Even the president is feeling the heat. Never mind that the first family has to send those cards to many non-Christians, not just Jews. And the New Year is a calendar holiday*, not a religious one, so it's perfectly reasonable to send every American you know a card that says Happy New Year.

I, as a Jew, feel kind of attacked. This is all so silly. So much for that immigrant dream that my grandparents had, that America was for all people. What scares me the most about those who feel that all non-white Christians should not live here is that their families most likely immigrated here too.


*though I did have one rabbi in hs who refused to celebrate it because he insisted it was a celebration of the bris of Jesus since it occurred eight days after Xmas.

religion, holidays , Judaism

Adjustment

I'm adjusting to my new life in the big city. Probably not as quickly as I would've liked, but I am adult enough to know that the world doesn't move at the pace I'd like it to all the time.

New job, which I guess is not so new anymore, is going fine. I like that it challenges me. When I go into work I never know what I might have to write about that day- baseball, obit, politics, natural disasters, the arts, etc.... I guess that's why it's called 'news'....

I wish that I felt more connected with a larger amount of people that I work with. It can be kind of tough since the fluxuating schedules of people who work in a newsroom tend to be about as far from bankers' hours as you can get. As I must've kvetched about before, I dislike the setup of my work area since it leaves me with my back to the newsroom. Not only do I come across as rude and/or unfriendly (or so I worry), but anyone there can read what's up on my nice large flat screen monitor (not that I'm surfing porn or anything, but I do prefer some modicum of privacy, or at least the illusion of it). I am getting used to sharing a desk/computer/workspace with four other people. I do long for my own drawer, so that I could leave some things at the station. Every desk has the same crappy chair that is warping the backs of many staffers. I wish ergonomics mattered to the powers that be.

Enough tired rambling for now.....


moving,work

Pro gear

If so inclined you will now be able to own your own official Weather Channel on-air clothing. The channel is partnering with Maine retailer L.L. Bean so now you too can stand outside during a hurricane or snowstorm and feel like a pro.

HDTV

The DVR arrived Friday. The new roommate came home with an HDTV yesterday. All is well with the TVs in JP. Just the DVR was enough to make me happy as I missed my old TiVo and kept wanting to throw the ancient VCR out the window. I'm a digital gal now.

HDTV is amazing! (Assuming the program you're watching was filmed in HD). Football looked so crisp and clear that I felt like I was actually at the game. I can't wait to watch hockey on it, maybe I'll actually be able to see the puck, not just a fuzzy black thing swirling around the ice. I can now feel better about myself in comparison to celebs, as HDTV makes it easier to see their imperfections. On a related note, I began to watch The Last Samurai on the new TV and Tom Cruise still manages to look amazing.

T-shirt madness

As my (new) roommate says, this is a t-shirt you can only buy for yourself.