Monday, February 20, 2006
06:00 a.m.
Signs You've Been in TV Too Long
Borrowed from the abcabsat.com satellite truck operators' forum... some of them are actually mine.
When your dreams are proceeded by color bars. (Alan Maretsky)

You're invited over a friends house to watch a sporting event - and you wear your credentials. (Alan)

Instead of an intercom to the second floor of your house - it's a biscuit box with a headset. (Alan)

You park in your driveway after work - and you put a "LOT H" card on the dash board. (Alan)

You and your wife are invited over a friends house for dinner - and after getting the calendar, you ask if it's a "Firm Booking." and "What's the rate." (Alan)

The phone rings at home - and you reach for a headset. (Alan)

You sit down to watch a sporting event on TV - and you wear a headset. (Alan)

The phone rings and you answer it before the first ring is complete - and say "UPLINK." (Alan)

When you listen to music at home - it's on a Digi-Cart. (Alan)

On vacation, you hand the cam-corder over to one of the kids - and you say "ROLL TAPE." (Alan)

You get home from vacation and when your family wants to see the home movies - you sit on the sofa with a slow motion controller. (Alan)

You can't watch home movies - without the black time code window display at the bottom. (Alan)

While watching home movies, you want to draw everyone's attention to a person in the background - so you draw a circle around him with a Telestrator. (Alan)

The family wants to watch the tapes from vacation - and you realize you just popped in the latest copy of your "save reel." (oops) (Alan)

The television you're watching the home movies on - has white paper tape on the bottom that says "PROGRAM" in red sharpie. (Alan)

Under the television - you've got a waveform and vectorscope. (Alan)

The family television - is mounted in a 19" equipment rack. (Alan)

The small television in the bedroom - has white paper tape on the says, "BOOTH." (Alan)

Your kids or wife ask you a question and you tell them to "STAND BY." (Alan)

When you get married - you suddenly realize that your wedding ring is worn on your Camera 2 finger. (For TD's) (Alan)

You finish watering in your yard and you put your garden hose away using the "over & under" method. (Alan)

You park your personal car and check for overhead wires and make sure you can see the southern sky..

The top of your washing machine is covered with BNC barrels.

When the cable guy shows up to fix a problem, you show him the issue on your scope. (Tom Lloyd)

Watching two or three different TVs, tuned to different shows doesn't seem odd. (Tom)

Your wedding video is on multiple beta tapes labled: Master, lipstick, cutaway, and jib. (Tom)

The TV in your living room hasn't been turned off since you bought it, and color bars are burnt in. (Tom)

You're driving your personal vehicle & you reach for a pen when crossing a state line. (Melissa Meek)

You're driving your personal vehicle & you feel guilty when you don't stop at a weigh station. And you look in the rear view mirror a couple times. (Melissa)

You start changing lanes trying to get to the right most lane b/c the DOT guy is pointing (at the truck you're next to) you to enter the weigh area as you go through a toll plaza. (Kenneth Ryan)

When you get home and never unpack your suitcase because the phone could ring any minute. (Eddie Hill)

You are home and call in a wake up call only to hear the operator say Sir this is bellsouth we don't give wake up calls. (Eddie)

When you use a Avid to edit the kids birthday videos (ghost - an engineer from Australia)

You are putting 10 dollars worth of gas in your car and you slow down at $9.58, $9.59 - Then stop on $9.60! (SouthFLTruck)

you combine going to a remote job with a romantic getaway with the mrs. (Peter Ferro)

you can't look at your truck without thinking of a project or a way to trick it out. (Peter)

you know all the hurricane regulars on a first name business...especially now (Peter)

when you head to a story in another city and anticipate seeing fellow uplinkers... (All your close friends) (Peter>

You hear/see breaking news on your tv and start calculating how long it takes to get there. (Alan)

You get steamed when you get booked into a hotel that doesn't offer any points or rewards. (Alan)

In order to fall asleep you trace the video signal from the side of your truck to the antenna. (Alan)

You tell your wife that the dinner reservations are firm at 2000 EMT. (Alan)

You offer to repeak the hotels satellite antenna because it looks like crap. (Alan)

When you plan your family vacation when you get the NAB convention brochure. (Dan Rapkoch)

When following directions to a friends new house you mentally note previous uplink locations. (I got off the freeway where the semi crashed, turned right at the sports bar the we go live from during the playoffs, went past the house where the crazy lady with the dogs used to live, and almost to the scenic overlook we use for standups) (Tom)

Fights with your wife start with "everything looks good from here, it must be a problem on your side" (Tom)

When someone asks you the time you say 2200 GMT, 1400 local. (Tom)

Your toddlers first words are "sat truck" (Tom)

Your pager goes off and your toddler gets your suitcase out of the front closet. (Tom)

my 3 year old has no problem switching a SMT in the truck. (Peter)

Significant other knows the fed ex and SWA cargo counter people on a first name basis. (Peter)

mother calls me and asks "were you just live at (random location)?" (Peter)

you met Randy Johnson while he was running his Born Free uplink. (Peter)

You catch yourself telling somebody about their home video, "You should have white-balanced." (Me)

You can do a site survey without a compass or a local map and be completely accurate. (Me)

While taking your grandmother to the grocery store, you tell her "We're wheels up in fifteen minutes!" (That's for anyone covering governors or the pres.) (Me)

You've ever edited film or 3/4 tape. (Me)

You remember when you had to deliver scripts to the studio straight from your typewriter. (Me)

You still say "CAP THAT CAMERA PLEASE." (Worried the camera would get an image burned into the tubes.) (Me)

You've been in TV too long when what ever station you're watching at home is sitting in black and and you have an overwhelming urge to get up and go to master to find out what's wrong. (Leland Kessler)

You've been in TV too long when you set your cell phone, your pager and the alarm clock to make a 9:00 a.m. dentist appointment. (Leland)

You've been in TV too long when you wonder why you can't hear the confidence beep in your Walkman. (Monica Shuman)

You've been in TV too long when someone tells you that their fixed is broken and their uplink is down and you know what they're talking about. (Karl Zimmerman)

You've been in TV too long when your relatives actually begin to understand exactly what it is that you do. (Leland)

You know you've been in TV too long when your voice mail message begins with "Three, two, one..." (Leland)

You know you've been in TV too long when you see absolutely nothing wrong or out of the oirdinary with having pizza delivered to the scene of a mass casualty disaster. (Leland)

You've been driving the sat truck too long when you try to set the parking brake by reaching for the air brake knob on the dash board of your rental car. (Leland)

You've been driving the sat truck too long when you try to shift the automatic transmission in the rental car. (Leland)

You've been awake too long when you realize you've just spent the last two minutes in the porta-john trying to figure out how to flush it. (Leland)

You've been on the road too long when come home and:
- The cat hides from you.
- The dog barks at you.
- Your mother in law asks, "Who's that?"
- Your spouse replies, "Oh, it's him/her." (Leland)

You've been in TV too long when your child asks for help in math and you take 110-20 and say ":50" (SamG)

You've been driving too when a hotel e-mails you a guest survey, and you remember the jobs around the hotel but not the hotel at all. (Steve Sontag)

..when you wake up in the middle of the night and you don't know where the bathroom is or what city you're in. (Steve)

..when you wake up at home and can't find your own bathroom. (Steve)

Your home improvement projects are named after overtime (The "hanging chad" patio) (Tom)

Your previously named home improvement projects are upgraded (The "hanging chad" patio, with the "2006 Superbowl Run" built-in BBQ) (Tom)

You've been in the business too long when this doesn't strike you as odd or out of place:

Photo Courtesy Leland Kessler

You still wake up from nightmares that involve noises from the air compressor used to run the 2" commercial cart machine. (Me)

You remember when the old "Indian Head Test Pattern" got better ratings that some of the shows these days. (Me)

You find yourself listening to tone for 45 minutes, not because you can't turn it down, but because it hasn't annoyed you in years. (Me)

Less than six people are killed in a multiple homocide and you don't bother to start up the truck because you know there won't be time between the Jackson and Kobe Hearings. (Me)

You remember when "High Definition" meant sixteen lines of resolution. (I'm not quite that old.) (Me)

You remember Bob Barker and Dick Clark before grey hair. (Me)

You remember when people on TV actually had talent. (As American Idol Comes on and I shut the TV off...) (Me)

.... You started shooting news with TK-76 cameras and that "portable" record deck over your other shoulder and a college textbook has it listed as "early ENG equipment" (Colin Bailey)

.... The new employees at the station were not even born when you started working in the business. (Colin)

... running programming off Film (My 1st station ran The Waltons in the AM and Tom and Jerry in the afternoon and switching the film chain so you can use the slides for station ID's.. (Colin)