Geoff Fox: My Permanent Record

It’s been a long time since a blog post, a sign I was obsessed with stuff I can’t share. Alas, done.

So, where were we?

I guess I should fill you in on my health. Fine, for me.

2017 Geoff is different than the earlier model. I was re-plumbed last October. I’m more complex. From time-to-time things change or go wrong.

Sunday I noticed blood where there should be none. Not a lot. A slow leak!

There were lots of things it could have been, including cancer. Swell.

H and I hit the circuit Monday, visiting two practices and giving blood twice, including a 7 vial session. Today I went to the hospital and let Dr. Oman have a look.

A little propofol and I was out. Good idea because they then lowered a camera down my throat as far as it would go.

I came to in a recovery room. A few minutes later Dr. Oman walked in with the news. It’s an ulcer! He even had full color pictures.

Helaine and I high fived. Ulcers can be treated. And, oh yeah, it’s not cancer.

It was off to the lab this afternoon. One more vial. Today’s blood draw, a ferritin test. That’s a new one on me and I’ve been poked plenty!

A ferritin test is a laboratory blood test that measures the amount of ferritin in a person’s blood stream. Ferritin is the major iron storage protein in the body, so the ferritin test is ordered as an indirect way to measure the iron stores in the body.

This is all about my fatigue. I am anemic. My blood is short of iron.

But why? Can it be solved by adding iron to my bloodstream? That’s often the solution. Or I could gnaw on a crowbar.

It might also be a capacity problem. My blood might not have enough ferritin to carry the iron I need.

In any event all this is fixable. First we test.

In California, by law, the lab cannot release my test results to me until the ordering physician has had them for two weeks. I guess I’ll get a call in the next few days.

There are moments in my life I remember vividly. It was 1967, a weeknight, a school night. I was already in the kitchen when the phone rang.

“May I speak to Geoff Fox, please?”

It was a woman. A grown-up. Grown-ups didn’t call me at 16½.

“This is he,” I answered.

The woman on the other end was Ethel Burns. She was a TV producer in 1967, but she began as an English teacher. “This is he,” scored points and she told me so. I felt really proud.

Fifty years later I still remember her compliment.

Ethel Burns produced “Dial M for Music,” a WCBS Public Affairs Presentation. It was produced in cooperation with the New York City Board of Education and hosted by a Catholic priest, Father Norman J. O’Connor. It was a showcase for traditional jazz performers.

What did this have to do with the Board of Education? I have no idea, but for every taping a bunch of hand picked public school students were the permanent audience.

We were deemed trustworthy enough for a day of temptation. If you can imagine, on taping days we high school kids were left to wander the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street by ourselves.

Tonight for no reason I went on YouTube to see if Dial M still exists. I found an episode with Gene Krupa I’m pretty sure I attended. And though there are no front shots of the audience, I believe the circled guy is me.

It’s my birthday, July 26th. I told Helaine I wouldn’t say how old… but old.

She and I talked a little about last year at this time. We were still in limbo. Doctors had already found the mass in my pancreas and another in my kidney (very common and benign).

We didn’t know what a biopsy would find. We were scared of what was likely.

We didn’t celebrate my birthday. It didn’t seem right.

A year has passed. It was a tough year, but it produced a miracle. My cancer is gone.

No sooner did my treatment end than Channel 8 called asking what I was doing for the summer?

I’m looking for less drama this year. I didn’t mind the happy ending.

I love my TriCaster. Let me say that upfront. It’s my control room. Without it, no studio. Its power can’t be overestimated.

And the people from TriCaster (NewTek is the actual company) have been very nice to deal with. Unfortunately, my expertise comes from too much dealing.

Today I spent the better part of an hour online with two guys who can help me. We talked mostly about macros.

Macros are created by recording my keystrokes. I then go back and edit, often adding short pauses to allow my machine to keep up. A macro should playback exactly as recorded.

They should. They don’t.

We shared screens so the guys in Texas could watch. They seemed to get it. They want to make it right. I hope they do, please.

Overnight I sent 1.1Gb of files to the home office. They can now replicate my setup exactly.

The only way I can control my show while standing in front of the camera is with macros. They’ve got to do what they’re supposed to do and consistently or they’re not much use.

I’ve been back on-air in Connecticut nearly three weeks. When it works right (and there have been technical hiccups we’re working to fix) it is incredibly pleasurable. It’s my drug. I am hooked.

There have been some interesting and unexpected side effects of doing News 8’s 5, 6, 10 and 11 this week. I am living on EDT!

It’s crazy. The news is over at 11:35p EDT. That’s how it feels to me, though the clock says 8:35p and the sky is still bright. And I’m exhausted!

The exhaustion is more linked to chemo, now four weeks past tense. It will take a while for my blood to rebuild its full complement of platelets and blood cells. Until then I’m sleeping/napping 10-11 hours a day.

The more interesting quirk is how easy it’s been for me to “feel” Connecticut’s weather without being there. I look at a temperature/dew point combo and understand how it feels. It’s not a skill acquired on purpose. Thirty plus year of number looking has paid off.

The amount of data available today is mind boggling. It’s much easier for me to know what’s going on in Connecticut from California than it was when I lived there!

Es la cosa real, it’s the real thing. Yes, there are single serve, glass bottle Cokes in the Fox fridge.

This being SoCal it’s a thing: Coca Cola, hecho en Mexico!

What’s the diff? The Mexican version uses cane sugar. The US version uses high fructose corn syrup.

Do I taste the diff? I do not.

However, the Mexican Cokes aren’t made to be returned. California forces a deposit, there’s none in Mexico. The glass is thick and brings back memories. This is the way a Coke was meant to be consumed.

Soda tastes better in glass. Coke is no exception. I treat myself to a bottle a day. Don’t tell any of my doctors.

My next on-air appearance isn’t until Monday evening. I’m looking at weather maps anyway. It’s what I do.

Like so much else in life, becoming a meteorologist was a sort of random occurrence. Most meteorologists I know were fascinated by weather growing up. Not me. I was a city boy. The buses always ran. The subways always ran. In New York City you look down.

Growing up I wanted to be on radio and was for eleven years. TV didn’t attract me until I was around 30.

My first TV job was co-hosting PM Magazine/Buffalo. We began in late August, when Buffalo is its most charming. It really is a lovely city until about Thanksgiving.

Everything you think you know about Buffalo weather is correct.

PM Magazine was an ‘on location’ show. It was one of the first to take advantage of the change from film to tape.

1980 was before the ubiquity of four wheel drive. We drove Buffalo’s winter in a large Dodge van.

It didn’t take long to realize this wasn’t a good career choice. I remember doing ins-and-outs in front of Army helicopters at Niagara Falls International. It was so cold my lips couldn’t properly pronounce words!

A weekend weather job opened up at the station. Two days a week I could stay off the road. Of course I knew zero about meteorology.

I started to look into weather and was quickly hooked. I’m a math guy. I like maps and charts and graphs. Weather was full of those.

It didn’t take long for Helaine and me to drive to Toronto scouring for books on meteorology. I made friends with the guys at the Buffalo Weather Service Office. I took it all seriously.

Later I took 53 credits from Mississippi State University and received their certification. That qualifies me to join the American Meteorological Society and call myself a meteorologist.

The maps and charts really do talk to me. I look at my tools and feel the weather. It’s pretty cool.

Another lucky choice.

I just walked over where the Tweet family used to live. They’re empty nesters now, literally! They’ve flown the coup.

We read up on Mourning Doves. All this is expected. The Tweets took a day or two longer at each stage than most. More time for us to observe. There is a stepladder positioned in front of the tree. We were dedicated.

The doves were still in the neighborhood a few days ago. I saw the kids up on a wall. Two days ago the four of them were on-the-ground. The twins were being taught to find and eat seeds. Mourning Doves spend lots of time walking.

The nest is is good shape. It’s possible mom will be back to lay her next clutch of eggs. It’s also possible she felt the Foxes were a little intrusive and they’ll search elsewhere.

Having birds choose our easily accessible tree to build a nest and raise chicks was really, really cool.

I just got off the phone with my dad. He’s good.

“I’m a Brewers fan now,” he said.

Why not? He’s in Milwaukee. He watches every game. My dad’s loaded with spare time.

He told me about the Brewers’ win in spite of five errors and their over-the-top double play.

Sorry Yankee fans, he’s turned on you.

We talked about work and this last week for me on Channel 8. “There are few people who can say they like what they do.”

He’s right. I’m very lucky.

I reminded my dad how he’s always been supportive. Back in the radio days he’d drive along the Belt Parkway from Brooklyn into Queens and listen to me, first on WBT, later on WPEN.

Even now he watches every day. Thank you Internet.

It makes him smile. Me too.

Ann Nyberg asked me to put some video of my dad on TV. Hopefully, this week.

“You know, it really does feel like 11:15.”

That was Helaine’s observation as I passed her on my way upstairs to change into pajamas. She’s right.

It’s Friday. The news runs just 15 minutes with an expanded sportscast next.

I was out of my suit by 8:17 Pacific Time.

This last week on WTNH scrambled my circadian rhythm just a little. It’s now nine thirty. It feels like midnight.

“Maybe we should set all the clocks to Eastern,” she said.

To do this right you need to be immersed, but it probably doesn’t help that I’m Straight Outta Chemo.

I watch a little of the news. I listen to it all. My earpiece is connected to a phone dialed into one of News 8’s IFB lines. The producers and I chat a little before my hits. Most often asked: “How long do you need me to go?”

On most days weather is collapsible or expandable on demand. News breaks. Stuff runs long… or short. I’m very flexible.

Phil is also there. “Mic check, Fox,” Phil will say, then add. “How are the girls?”

Next week I’m going to ask the producers if they do anything different just because I’m far away? I don’t think so.

A week in and as far as I can tell no one really cares that I’m in California. Thank you. I was hoping for that.

Four days into my seven week summer run on News 8 WTNH and I can feel the lingering effects of my cancer treatment. I’m exhausted!

For safety sake with my remote operation I begin work a little early, around 2:00 PM EDT. That gives me three hours to prepare forecasts for Connecticut and my stations in Nebraska. Though there were a few 100º+ readings in Nebraska today, the forecasts for there and Connecticut were fairly easy.

We have lots of computer help nowadays, but those are always my words on the screen.

My TriCaster control room has not been thrilled with the new tasks I’ve asked it to perform. It takes extra time to make sure everything runs close to smoothly. I am constantly worried something that worked an hour ago won’t work now! It’s happened.

I’m on a 10 second live tease at 4:30, then record a few additional teases that run during prime time. I even get to say “Don’t go to sleep yet.”

Five to six thirty is news time. I do seven hits — long and short.

At six thirty I record my cuts for Nebraska (where it’s still 5:30). The first of those runs at the top of-the-hour, so there is a deadline.

Tonight I finished Nebraska, walked upstairs, washed my makeup off and went to bed. I slept around 90 minutes. I needed it.

I was in the studio at 9:00 to begin updates and prep. Phil Zocco and I ran a quick test of my gear at 9:30. He calls me Fox. He always has.

2,492 miles away and it works! My studio is partially powered by magic.

From 10:00 to 11:35 it’s news time. I’m on often. In between each hit the TriCaster is adjusted for its next playout.

I left the studio tonight as the news ended, walked upstairs and changed to pajamas. If there’s a prize for first News 8 employee in PJs, I win!

“It’s like coming out of chemo,” I told Helaine as I came back downstairs. “It’s like Sunday afternoon when the effects are starting to go away.”

My whole body is exhausted. It’s not a sleep tired (though I’d fall asleep in a second). It’s an everything tired.

I remember a similar situation when I started back on News Channel Nebraska after my Whipple surgery. The first week or two was taxing before I regained strength.

Chemo ended on the 22nd, just two weeks ago. I finished my treatments anemic. It’s going to take a while. You can’t just wish yourself strength.

Meanwhile, the rush of being back on Channel 8 is letting me forget about the fatigue while I’m in the studio. It’s all very cool. I’m enjoying the hell out-of-it.

Thanks for taking the ride with me.

My first day back on WTNH from my home studio was not without its hiccups. My hope is it was cleaner going home than my perception.

To explain my day, I first have to explain what’s going on.

I’m back on News 8 WTNH for a little summer weather. I’ll be hanging around on TV for the next seven weeks.

All of this is coming from my studio in California via the Internet. It’s pretty amazing stuff.

Unfortunately, today it failed us briefly, but noticeably. The video froze!

Phil Zocco (who was in Master Control my first day at Channel 8 in 1984) tweaked the recipe that trades lag for dependability. We’re hopeful we’ve fixed the problem or at least moved in the right direction.

My whole day was spent fretting; worrying what would go wrong. My mother called it “eating your kishkas out.”

The sky fell in around 4:00 PM EDT. The maps and charts for my longer weather hits were failing. Macro programs that worked perfectly last night didn’t today! It had to be something I’d done, but what?

Sam Kantrow and I shared the 5:00 o’clock weather was I worked the problem. He took the long hits, I took the short ones.

By the top of the six I’d come up with a solution. I spoke to the boss on the phone and assured him we’d be OK. And, we were.

There were a few other tiny problems you probably wouldn’t notice. An improperly set default skewed the colors on all my maps. Fixed.

I’m going to Home Depot to buy sandbags to keep me from moving all the way back to the wall. That should eliminate a few chroma key shadow problems.

It’s Day One. If bad stuff’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen today.

Meanwhile, I have more macros to write.

Spoiler alert: The day was a great success. It was getting there which was no fun.

In order to play TV station my studio has to make some unusual requests of the Internet. This includes opening ports and exposing some of my equipment directly to the outside world.

You’ve heard of a firewall? These are purposely punched holes in that wall!

One hole was needed in order to see the feed being sent from Connecticut. It worked perfectly, but I thought it would work better on another computer.

That’s when all my specially routed ports failed. I fixed it until it stopped working. I’ve committed this sin before.

The file server which sits under my studio desk started rejecting everything sent its way. No maps.

The feed from Connecticut vanished. Not good.

It took hours to get it fixed and I seriously can’t tell you how! I did everything right no less than a dozen times to no avail.

Really. I have no idea.

What was good about the day? Larry Fitzgerald came by. First, he helped set up the lights. We used little lasers pointing toward the ceiling to make sure they’re aimed correctly.

Then he consoled me as we worked our way across India on our way through AT&T tech support hell.

Larry was happy sitting and watching as Sam Kantrow and I (mostly Sam) converted Channel 8’s maps to my special requirements. Most of the night we were on Skype and Team Viewer simultaneously, often sharing three screens at once. We could see cause and effect instantly though separated by 2,493 miles.

Sam was super helpful as he drove WTNH’s Weather MAX. Each map consists of multiple layers of artwork, animation, navigated borders and weather data. We were assembling frameworks which would later be robotically populated and pushed to me.

One-by-one they zipped to my server. Even for the biggest files Connecticut’s just a few seconds away.

Tomorrow I’ll put together some dummy lineups and run through some shows. That means macro writing. Lots to do.

I can’t believe I haven’t written about this yet. I start on WTNH, News 8, Monday at 5:00 PM. It’s a summer gig like I had in high school.

No one’s leaving. Fred will be hitting the road at five and six and I’ll be handling the maps.

For this coming week he’s on vacation, so I’ll do all the shows… and my forecasts for Nebraska. Busy week.

Working for WTNH requires funneling specially prepared graphics to my server here in Irvine. I worked this afternoon with Sam Kantrow, setting up an FTP connection between the station’s maps and my control room. We created accounts and had holes punched in firewalls.

Nearly everything will be produced using timers and triggers. When new data arrives new maps are made. It’s all the same equipment and maps they’re using in New Haven. They’re just produced in a slightly different way for my very different setup.

Sam and I had to overcome a few bumps. Expected. Everything is working. Adjustments will be needed. This weekend he and I will finish the graphics.

Earlier, Channel 8’s chief engineer, McKenzie Kotuby, and I worked on the outbound video link connecting my studio to Connecticut. It’s all done with high speed Internet and special computers seamlessly compressing video on-the-fly. It’s magical.

Three companies make these video compressors. I have all three here! It’s not exactly an honor.

I’m also getting a slightly lower quality backhaul from a router inside WTNH. I can watch air in near real time. The term in the business is “confidence monitor.” And it gives me access to nearly every video source in their building plus live beauty shot cameras. This is a real plus.

McKenzie’s doing 100%. Exceptionally geekariffic.

My goal is to make the broadcast look as if it’s coming from Connecticut. I don’t want to fool anyone. I’m being 100% upfront. The fact that I’m here shouldn’t really matter. I’d rather you weren’t distracted from that. You’ll see.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is tweak day at Studio 5E. All around production maven Larry Fitzgerald is coming. Everything will be tip-top. He’s a very good influence.

It all starts Monday. I’m not normally nervous or apprehensive and maybe I’m not now. I just don’t want to disappoint.