I’m Back And Busy

Sometime soon someone will slip up and say the wrong thing. It’s like writing the wrong year on checks in January

I’m back at work tonight. It’s been a long time since I worked a full week. Some folks were sending email wondering if I was still employed. That’s a reasonable question all things considered.

First I had to take four days off for my mother’s surgery. The next week I was off the early newscasts while I created the maps and graphics we needed for our new look in weather (more on that in a sec). Last week my folks were visiting and I was off again.

I have no away time planned for a while! They’re stuck with me now.

I got to work early today, before 1:00 PM. It was the day of our switch to 16:9. I needed to make sure there was enough time to make the final changes.

I’ve written about this before. 16:9 is the shape TV is headed and, if your set is of recent vintage, what you’re watching today.

All the maps and banners were created before I left. Now I had to enable the newly shaped video on our main and backup weather computers and our engineers had to route them into the control room. Little things I’d forgotten suddenly became obvious, There were some moments when we all threw our hands in the air, but before long it was all working… and it looked good.

Tonight at 5:00 PM the station went live with the new shape and a new look. There’s a whole lot of red going on. The looks is more contemporary and bold.

I was astounded. Not only did everything work, but no one said “News Channel 8” instead of the newly minted “News 8.”

Note to readers: I don’t know why we changed. I’m sure there’s a good reason. OK–I hope there’s a good reason.

Sometime soon someone will slip up and say the wrong thing. It’s like writing the wrong year on checks in January. It will happen and the tension will be broken. Right now no one wants it to come from their mouth! Please, let it not be me.

Hopefully people who were worried about me are now happier. All across Connecticut people were saying, “Look, what’s his name is back.”

3 thoughts on “I’m Back And Busy”

  1. Glad everything went well with your folks. The graphics looked good. And despite most others I’ve talked to, I like the logo!

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