'Real' dress rehearsal

March has not disappointed! In a recent entry I sensed an exciting month ahead....and it's been absolutely nothing but action-packed!

On a personal note, I recently had a day off...yet work always seems to weave into the course of the day, even an off day.

During my day off, a very rainy day, I needed to drive over the Valleyview bridge not once, but twice! Holy cow. In light of the fatal accident just a few weeks ago, it is quite frightening driving over that bridge, let alone in a torrential rain storm. Even during off time, newsie events loom in the back of an assignment editor's mind!

I usually work every St. Patrick's Day --St. Pat's Day 2011 off the charts. OK, let me preface what I am about to say with this --I understand St. Paddy's Day can be crazy, zany, with thousands of obnoxious drunk people everywhere. But for some reason, 2011 stepped it up a few notches. I can not believe the constant calls on the scanners for public intoxication, people just laying in the streets passed out, broken limb calls, and then shortly before 6pm, a massive fight broke out in front of Tower City. A Cleveland Police officer broke his foot as patrol cars from everywhere zoomed to Public Square.

We were in the thick of things but honestly, it actually sounded much worse than it was....at the time, it seemed it could go either way and balloon into something much worse. After the fact, it was a typical St. Patrick's Day melee.

Closing out the week with a bang! OSU vs UTSA at Quicken Loans Arena! OSU blew the covers off this game winning 75-46. And with all of the NCAA festivities in town, wkyc took the Friday 11pm show on the road. Romona has been ill much of the week with an awful virus. (Sidebar --the news desk has been receiving call after call all week long asking where Ro is --she's just been sick everyone!! She will be back very soon!!)....

So the new 7pm team of Robin Swoboda, Chris Tye, Jim Donovan, and Betsy Kling had a 'real' dress rehearsal leading up to Monday's 7pm debut. Robin anchored from the studio as Chris Tye, Jim Donovan, and Jennifer Lindgren were all live outside Q Arena for various OSU /Sports stories. Add in Betsy and Maureen back in studio and you have a blockbuster show! The 11pm news rocked big time. It was so fun to watch and be a part of the entire production.

Perfect end to what has been a pretty perfect week so far......

Be sure you get outside this weekend to witness the Superbig Moon! A big end to what has been an enormously successful week!

Time to make the paczkis

Looking ahead into the wkyc crystal ball during the month of March and beyond should prove to be quite exciting!

Not only are we approaching March Madness, always an exhilarating time of the year, but I'm seeing more and more STO people roaming around the building as Spring Training winds down leading up to Cleveland Indians' Opening Day on April 1, 2011.

The time change always perks people up as the days begin getting longer and longer....

Spring is right around the corner.

And a transformation for our 7pm show as Robin Swoboda and Chris Tye take the helm with some wonderful new ideas and segments....

A few days ago many celebrated Fat Tuesday --a precursor for Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Season.

But Fat Tuesday also means something else: Paczkis!

Personally, I prefer the plain, empty paczkis (which I guess are more like fried dough!)....the authentic New Orleans beignets are magnificent!

In honor of Paczki Day, we sent Betsy Kling out to whip up some tasty treats.....and she came back with a whole slew of authentic eats she made with her own hands! Delicious!

February 2011--Great month for stories

Yes, it is winter in Cleveland.

Everytime we go out to do a 'snow' story or I'm asked to have a crew shoot snow, I keep reminding myself, it's just winter in Cleveland.

But even I must admit, we've been dumped on moreso this year than in years past.

The great thing about modern technology, wkyc.com, facebook, and even twitter is the immediacy of sharing pictures and video. As a member of the wkyc facebook weather warriors page, I upload lots of pictures during snow storms to share what's happening in my neck of the woods. Hopefully, viewers from our entire viewing area are doing the same! We sure do love to see what's happening in your neighborhood, especially if we can not get there ourselves!

Every other week has had a different weather event playing out...one week it's 50's and rain with tremendous thunderstorms (February 26) and then the next we are in the midst of yet another white out, knuckle clenching snow blizzard.....strap your seat belt on folks, we have a little ways to go before winter is officially over!

Another story stemming from our Cleveland winters began when my package delivery was delayed.....simple idea yet quite funny. We got socked yet again toward the end of February.....I was set to receive a PKG on a Thursday and sure enough the darn snow delayed it for 5 days....well, it was not anything that pressing but does make you think about those people that do wait for supplies which help save their lives and help their quality of life. The weather delays can put them in quite a predicament.

As I checked the UPS website everyday, it had this huge message on their homepage that the bad weather may be delaying deliveries ....the 3 main areas that popped up were OHIO, CALIFORNIA, and LIBYA! Cleveland and Libya in the same sentence quite comical and then the comedians on fb had to get into the act and ask me what I had purchased from Libya!

Whether we want to admit this or not, yet another huge story this month was The Cleveland Cavaliers playing the Los Angeles Clippers and winning 126-119. The Cavs seem to beat the great teams....but more importantly was gathering added information to feed to Chris Tye after the game....when the game ended, social media takes over.

It's a hoot to be on facebook and Twitter and see people from literally all over the world commenting on the same story....maybe friends of yours who have scattered but are still Cleveland Sports fans monitoring the game.....and then if you follow big wigs on Twitter...it's awesome to see the likes of who is commenting at the game's conclusion. ESPN, NBA, Ted Williams the Golden Voice, Drew Carey, Josh Cribbs, Ozzie Guillen, just to name a few, all interjected their congratulatory comments to the Cavs' strong game against LA.....and to add a little flavor to Chris Tye's live shot, we fed him the comments we were reading all over the social media world.....

It's very fun to scream something to the producer who relays to the talent in the field and literally minutes later, it's coming out on the air.....it's that 'Broadcast News' moment!

One other big story for me particularly was the death of my Mother's best friend. Mercedes Karpinski Spotts was a real influence in the legal world in Cleveland...but so much more. She helped those who could not help themselves....I honestly can not do justice in a few words here to praise all this woman stood for and did for Cleveland and beyond as a wonderful trailblazer and humanitarian.

Since I was very close to Mercedes, she imparted on her family that I sing her funeral and I was in the loop almost immediately after her passing. In turn, I wrote a story on wkyc.com way ahead of the competition including Cleveland.com. It all came together in memorializing this wonderful woman who established so much of what Cleveland has become.

At Mercedes' funeral, there were judges and other politicians, religious, and pretty much people from all walks of life. Jimmy DiMora showed up at her funeral. No matter what you think of this man, I find this moment very telling and heart warming. This man who is certainly in the spotlight now more than ever chose to honor his friend above what people may say about him ....I'm sure he was uncomfortable but he exemplified (at this moment) what we all should...the right thing above caring what people may say.

Ah, the smell of blooming gardens & spring!

What a treat to be able to spend part of my afternoon with wkyc meteorologist Bruce Kalinowski and his lovely wife!

In Cleveland, there seems to be a show at the I-X Center every weekend.....we are lucky because throughout the winter -early spring, we actually have 2 home and flower/garden shows to get us primed for spring! This week, a Home and Garden Show has been out at the I-X Center....

wkyc has manned a stand every day to allow our customers to meet our on-air personalities, to acquaint the viewers with our facebook and twitter information as well as allowing people to sign up for an ipad.

While I was on hand, it was a blast seeing how many people came up to Bruce telling him how much they love him and enjoy watching him on the weekends....Bruce was the very first weathercaster on the Weather Channel. Exciting factoid!

I also brought along some candy to pass out to any little kids or adults who were still young at heart!

I liked interacting with the viewers, taking in their comments --good and bad and getting a handful of story ideas as well.

The people you meet. They are tremendous!

The downside of being behind the scenes is that people don't know you...though they are still just as nice. And once Bruce left for the day, I still carried on, but it is more difficult when people don't readily know who you are.....nonetheless, I still like volunteering at these events to interact with our viewers!!

I was able to sneak away and take a look at the absolutely beautiful gardens in the gallery...which give such hope that soon, very soon, those same plants and flowers will be blooming outside everywhere around town!

All in all, a very successful day spreading the good news about wkyc, sto, and all of our websites!!

News Desk Nuggets

The winter of 2010-2011 has brought us some kind of snow event, ice or rain storm, or temps in the 40's-50's every couple of weeks. Regardless of what is happening, most days we've had beautiful sunshine, which just makes everything seem better!

As we usher in February 2011, Mother Nature does not disappoint as we welcome yet another approaching winter storm.

With snow storms come hundreds of iAlerts into the Channel 3 Newsroom. The iAlert computers have been hot all winter long spewing out the school closings. There has been so much snow, state legislators are working on expanding the calamity days again to a reasonable number to deal with Cleveland, Ohio winters.

Please, if you have an iAlert account, read over your information packet and follow the easy steps to close your school from home via the phone or computer. It's quite an easy process. And the idea is so that administrators can close their schools wherever and whenever they'd like to throughout the day, night or overnight. However, at times folks have been making it much more difficult than it really is by not typing in the correct day for schools to reopen or the closing to expire.

We are in the midst of February sweeps as we continue cranking out stories our viewers can use to enhance their lives, inform them, help save money, and get healthier in the new year. Added in of course investigative pieces from The Investigator Tom Meyer and special stories from every one of our reporters throughout the month. Be sure to catch teases for upcoming stories on facebook, Twitter, YouTube, wkyc.com as well as on air at Channel 3.

And, unfortunately, for this news desk chick, it will have to be an 'award-less year.' I was quite fortunate last year to win my 8th Emmy award and my 14th Press Club Award. However, in a year with budget & pay cuts and a rocky economy overall, I'm letting the deadlines for the local Emmy Award entries and local Press Club Award entries come and go. I'm very proud of my work from 2010 and could have come up with at least 1/2 dozen stories to enter. However, entries = lots of money! Basically, you have to pay for your membership fee and then an entry fee for each application.

The award rat race will have to get along with one less rat!

Indians' night at the Lake Erie Monsters' game

If you are a regular reader of 'Swing By and Spray' then you know my passion for baseball and 'my' Cleveland Indians.

Well friends, the time has come that we've been waiting for the last 4 months--Indians' baseball is about to return.

The Cleveland Indians are in the midst of their Caravan, which is a week or two where they travel to different places to visit with their fans before they head south to Arizona.

Saturday night they hit Q Arena to greet their fans before the Lake Erie Monsters vs Hamilton Bulldogs hockey game.

Cleveland fans are chomping at the bit for baseball. The game was sold out. True, the Monsters are the most exciting game in town these days and on a win streak...but I think 'my' Tribe had a little bit to do with the electricity in the crowd.

Manager Manny Acta, Outfielders Shin-Soo Choo and Michael Brantley, first baseman Matt LaPorta, and pitcher Tony Sipp signed autographs and shoot hands with their fans about an hour before the game.

Also on hand to sign autographs, take pictures, and bring smiles to the kids' faces were the one and only Slider and Mustard, Ketchup, and Onion!

As if that wasn't enough, the Monsters played an awesome game and beat the division leading Bulldogs 4-1.

Before the game began, a few of the Indians spoke to any media on hand. Not only was it great seeing former co-workers, but it was so exciting to hear how the Indians are revved up for the 2011 season. They are raring to go and 'play ball!'

Manager Manny Acta commented on the number of guys reporting to camp including rehabbing Grady Sizemore and Carlos Santana...."We have a lot of reasons to be excited...the health of Grady Sizemore and Carlos Santana...we have a lot of guys and we're gonna give these guys a fair look. Grady Sizemore is coming along very well. The goal is to have Grady ready for Opening Day. With the addition of Carlos Santana, our offense is gonna be much better."

Acta went on to talk about the pitching staff....he said, "We are very happy about our starting rotation. Fausto Carmona, Justin Masterson, Mitch Talbot, Carlos Carrasco, David Huff and so much more depth in the rotation. We have 3 guys in AAA that are knocking on the door."

He said once he puts the Christmas lights up in the attic, it's time to start Spring Training.

Michael Brantley made a few comments before the lights came down on the game....he's been working on the overall aspect of his whole game and is the same guy with a different attitude.

I can hardly contain myself that baseball season is upon us. February and March is one of the most exciting times of the year with Spring Training, March Madness, Hockey gearing toward the playoffs and NBA heating up as well.

Go Tribe!

A week of breaking news

Don't blink or you'll miss a new, unfolding spot news story.

Holy cow! What a whirlwind since the very beginning of the new year.

Some of this week's highlights include a home invasion/stabbing in, of all places, Pepper Pike. Dave Summers and Randy White started out on this story...which began with a wkyc viewer calling me the minute I stepped on the news assignment desk asking if we were going to do anything on the incident in Pepper Pike overnight? I had not even logged on the computer but took down the man's information...looked in our computer and when I did not see any information tossed a call to Pepper Pike. They were very forthcoming in what happened and immediately faxed over the information. In our effort to be first online, with Twitter, on Facebook and everywhere else, we tipped off the competition to this story. However, they did not get as much as Dave and his crew.

Now normally the aforementioned story would lead the news....unless you wind up stumbling onto a standoff /hostage situation in the Walgreens in Barberton.

Akron wizard extraordinaire Eric Mansfield received a call from a contact telling him about the situation....he made a few calls, pinned down exactly what was happening and we re-routed Dave Summers and his crew Randy out that way. I also dispatched a live truck to meet them in order to feed back video and go live.

In the meantime, we had another soldier killed overseas, and on the lighter side, the story we had been tracking about the Yorkie theft had a break in the case. The suspect was busted and the cute little Yorkie rescued.

While the reporters and producers are writing this all up for air, I'm going as fast as I can to get the ever flowing 'new' news on our website--hopefully before the competition.

If that was not enough, houses and gas lines started catching fire in Fairport Harbor....what an amazing story. I can not even believe how fast this story spread (no pun intended). Our crews were out at the scene for at least 2 days non-stop bringing the latest developments to our viewers on air and on-line. We had so much video coming back to the station and being fed back, it was hard to keep track of every element. We also really implemented our new Mobile 3 Live Gear which we recently put into play. Without getting technical, it's live gear basically in a backpack which allows you to pretty much go live from almost anywhere....Pretty snazzy stuff.

When Dominion East Ohio and the Mayor held their first presser, I listened in while they were feeding it back live.....and immediately put an update on wkyc.com. At the same time, our producer was doing the same to get the story ready for air....

But wait, there is more.....a few days later, Summit County officials uncovered a house having Ricin inside. Hmmm, interesting. For the next few days, officials, FBI, Homeland Security, Sheriff, men in funny HAZMAT suits roamed every inch. Another story Eric Mansfield and Carl Bachtel won hands down. They checked the house each day and were allowed closer than any other tv station. In fact, one day Carl was on the scene solo. No other stations were there. They were digging and searching with all kinds of activity. There was a press conference away from the scene where everyone else did their live shots....then I got the call from Carl saying "I'm here all alone." While he was giving me the lowdown on his scene, I was relaying to the producers and newsroom. For a few minutes, it was quite confusing because the press conference going on simultaneously with the search never mentioned that a concurrent search was happening. But, let's face it. When you have a stellar crew on site, seeing with his own eyes what's shakin' you have to go with it and totally trust your crews in the field.

And folks, all of the above is why I love what I do, where I do it and no day is EVER boring or uneventful!