Micro-Blog Boston Strong

I had my own Boston Strong moment, on this, the one-year anniversary of the attack in marathon spectators and subsequent attack on the psyche and safety of the entire town. 

Last night I few to Boston, while sick, barely able to ignore the chills, sneezes and coughing up yellow cement. 

I still managed to handle logistics, research, plan, stakeout, interview in the rain, transcribe, rough edit, and feed to Tokyo the following story for their final cut. If you wanted to know what a television news producer does, this is it, and I don't forget, of course, I couldn't have done it alone. 

http://youtu.be/0Q9O1eFdxx4

Now, just over 24 hours later, I am back in New York (where, by the way, it's SNOWING?!?), and glad to be one closer to my bed and much needed rest, but my thoughts are still with Boston. 

Now I'm 29.

I turned 29 in Boston last month. I traveled back to Boylston Street, where I basically lived the 9 days in February, after the marathon bombing, coordinating, interviewing, editing, running and driving around, producing the news, but I never actually got to see the bombing sites, because they weren't open to the press or public until the day after I got back to New York. So this time, on May 13^th, we went straight there and took a good, slow walk up and down. We looked at where the blasts happened, and where memorials people had previously set up on either side of the finish line have been organized and arranged into a shrine at Copley Square. 

I spent that day interviewing an awesome prosthetic maker. He helped us get permission to interview some of his patients so we could hear about living without one or multiple limbs. It was powerful, moving stuff, and they spoke beautifully! Sadly, it didn't make the final cut. Seems a waste. 

Anyway, he also set us up with another interview the next morning with a Paralympic gold medalist named Joe Lemar. He is an amputee runner, and I don’t mean he lost an arm! 

He too was incredibly inspiring to hear talk about the strength of conviction, because he won his gold medal less than two years after his amputation! The next day, I met three of the actual marathon bombing survivors, but only one had time to grant us an interview. Luckily for him, relatively I mean, he did not lose a leg, but he had some serious hardware screwed into one leg and burns on both. He was training hard at his physical therapy, but as a craft beer bartender, he perked up when I asked him what styles he liked and if he home-brewed (he did!). The hardest part about his convalesces, he said, was not being allowed to enjoy a tasty beer, but by the time his current batch matures, he said happily, he will be well enough again to enjoy it.   

CLICK HERE TO SEE STORY ON BOSTON (in Japanese)

When I came home, I received some very nice birthday gifts from my family and friends, but this year the winner is definitely Wendy, who got me a bike lock to go with the bike I got myself, and of all things… a kit to brew my own beer!

I didn't get to enjoy either one that week, because I needed to buy a helmet for the bike, and an extra pot for brewing my beer, but before that could happen, a huge tornado hit an elementary school in Oklahoma, so once again, I grabbed a change of clothes from my locker and flew out the door!

By 2 a.m. we were broadcasting live from South Oklahoma City, only 2 miles from the path of the F-5 tornado that ripped across Moore, OK, and as the sun came up and we moved to a better position, we could start to see some of the real damage along the path of the tornado.
CLICK HERE FOR THAT STORY (in Japanese)
My words don’t really do it justice so I’ll just throw some pictures in and mention that they are from the area around the Moore Medical Center and Briarwood Elementary School, one of two elementary schools hit. This one had some injuries, but luckily, no loss of life.

Homes across from the Moore Medical Center

Homes across the street from Briarwood Elementary School

Behind what was a nice pond is what's left of Briarwood's gym. The school is to the left behind the man walking by.

When I came home I got to relax a bit. I watched my friend Tim play Paris in Romeo and Juliette, rode my bike, brewed that beer, and just Saturday, we had a pub crawl with other former JETs in Brooklyn and we all wore our yukata and jinbei!

That’s what I've been up to. Hope it was interesting and worth the wait!

My Boston Marathon

Preface: To anyone reading this, I was not a runner, and I was not there during the race. I was pretty close to everything that happened after the initial explosions, including interviewing people who knew both suspects - and not for the first time - a lot of anger directed at the heavy media presence. I empathize, as victims, the last thing they want is a stranger asking questions about such a personal and difficult experience, but everyone quickly forgets: 1) All anyone need say is: "I do not wish to be filmed, and I do not have a comment, thank you for respecting my privacy", and any decent journalist will back off, and 2) when you yourself are not the victim, you sit at home, news on, hoping for answers to those exact questions.The exception being CNN's "Who is Misha", bleh.
Finally, I am proud to say that I and my coworkers maintained the highest level of journalistic integrity, showing restraint in reporting unconfirmed news, and resisting the kind of "ambulance chasing" or harassing questions for which some journalists are rightfully disdained.

*************************************************

I was having a slow day at work: some daily tasks, pop by the UN to listen to a press conference, eat lunch, cab back to the office, wait for my cup of coffee to cool to a drinkable temperature -- Suddenly everyone's phones begin pinging with text alerts and one us switches the main TV over to CBS for the breaking news: Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I remember seeing the first photo on my phone and saying "Guys, I think this here is blood", and looking up to see everyone already researching online or eyes fixed on Scott Pelley's news anchor desk. The first cell phone pictures and short videos of the havoc begin looping as more and more monitors displaying other network and 24-hour news channels begin switching to same images until a dissonant harmony takes over our wall of TVs.

Five minutes later, as I walk out of the office with my backpack and plastic bag of emergency clothing to pick up our company car, the TVs now show photos from the moments of explosions - huge, clusters of fireballs caught mid-expansion with black, crusted, smokey edges and people's bodies, twisting this way and that, mid-reaction. My mind kept returning to that image as I worked in the back seat of the car for the four hour drive. I genuinely hoped, at first, the two, relatively small explosions where an accident. A gas line, or something... But as I booked our hotel, read the latest updates, and searched for Japanese participants who might give a first hand account for our audience in Japan, the AM radio updates made it clear this was no accident. The four hour drive flew by, and as our car snaked through nearly-deserted one-way streets of downtown Boston, I worked to track down our satellite truck so our reporter could go live, from Boylston Street. with the latest update for Japan. Later we would find out that, thanks to our hustle and team work, our station ended up being the first of all Japanese channels to go live from the scene.

My reporter and back-up cameraman returned from the live spot. Our main camera had stayed to get footage of the area and send it to Tokyo. We needed to return in less than an hour before the next "live-spot", and I had scheduled an interview with two Japanese runners who were now having dinner near Harvard, but my reporter had heard that another runner, nearby, had been very close to the chaos and also agreed to an interview. We went there and as they hurried to interview him, I sent multiple apologies to the other runners. I still wonder how they were and if we shouldn't have interviewed them instead, but we shall never know.

Back to the satellite truck. This time taking Arlington from the north, we were able to park right across from the park, on the corner of Boylston, and just a few minutes' walk from the finish line, should the police have permitted us. We reported live twice more, and by that point it was past midnight, but mercifully, our second crew had already arrived from D.C. and offered to do the 3 and 4 a.m. spots while we got food, slept, and prepared for the next one.

Bright and early the next morning, we poured over local newspapers while hurrying down breakfast at our hotel in South Boston. Although we returned to the same intersection as the previous night, the corner had gone from a zombie-movie-level absence of human presence, to a media circus of television personalities, satellite trucks and production crews I have not seen since Palestine asked the U.N. for member status, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, or the literal wall of cameras outside Whitney Houston's funeral in New Jersey.

Norah O'Donnell on the left of my cameraman

My reporter, probably deep in thought, before going live next to Brian Williams

Matt Lauer and Lester Holt on Boylston St.

After a few hours reporting live on what new details had surfaced, we met up our other crew for lunch at Legal Seafoods, and then went out to to the apartment of the Saudi National taken into custody the day before. He had already been released, but with all the media in the area, it was no surprise there was no sign of him, but we only really went to check it out and report on it as "something that happened" as part of the ongoing coverage. 

Interestingly, that night after we moved with the satellite truck to a new position off of Boylston St. but technically closer to the finish line, another news producer noticed what looked like a walkie-talkie suspiciously attached to the backside of a street sign. He pointed it out to the local police (they were stationed at every intersection along the closed-off area) and they made a big show of npt knowing what it was and "carefully" climbing on top the man's satellite truck to pull it down before whisking it away inside a serious looking, gun-metal black, tactical vehicle that looked like compact-Hummer. We asked after it the next two days, but got no answer with the police, so I am left to guess that one of the other agencies brought in to help had left it there and no one knew who, when or why. I don't want to add any gasoline to a conspiracy theory, but in the interest of a full openness, here's a photo:     

The following day (or 24 hours, since I really didn't keep to any kind of "work in the day/sleep at night" schedule) was deceptively quiet, and in that lull, our D.C. crew went back to work on the many, unrelated stories breaking in Washington. That left my team more-or-less on our own - we had an additional producer fly in from our L.A. office to help out, since he knew the city well, but after driving around for a few days I began to get a feel on my own, and really it was the lack of another reporter who could write scripts and handle breaking news that continued to prevent us from forming two shifts to get some decent rest and work reasonable hours. Despite my previous comment about a "lull" there were many new developments, such as learning about those three who lost their lives (Martin Richard (8), Krystle Campbell (29), and Lu Lingzi (23)), the hospitals updating the number of victims, the FBI saying they had photographs, and the announcement that President Obama would attend a Thursday morning inter-faith ceremony. These things kept us running around, busily filming and reporting at all hours of the early morning and late night (daytime in Japan, you know), and leading toward a disastrous sense of impending collapse from exhaustion. 

Wednesday I tried to attend a FBI press conference which ended up being postponed multiple times, and finally cancelled until the following day after President Obama left town. This afternoon press conference, if you couldn't keep the timeline straight in your head, was when on the 18th and marked the police revealing "suspect 1" and "suspect 2", or their more descriptive titles "black hat" and "white hat".

Wed. Afternoon outside the Westin, where CNN was
broadcasting live with John King and Wolf Blitzer

Thursday a.m. outside the Catholic church attended by
Prez. and 1st lady Obama, Mitt Romney, and others

 By Thursday night, despite another fresh crew finally joining us, this time from L.A., they were just in time watch the news helplessly along with us, as the reports of an MIT officer, who was later identified as Sean Collier, was murdered and a shootout ensued. As soon as I heard where, my instinct was to go there, but my reporter told us all to stay put since it wasn't safe. Equally, I'm sure we would have been in the way of the hundreds of authorities flying toward the danger, and I did not object, but there was still news to follow, and live updates to give to on-air in Japan, so we were, by no means, resting. 

Many stories, like the walkie-talkie earlier, were suspicious and the decision of what to report and what not to fell on my reports shoulders. Despite have practically no sleep for almost three straight days, he did an excellent job.

This poor guy happened to be near the shootout, driving a similar car to "White hat" Dzhokhar

By Friday morning it was clear that "white hat" had gotten away. My team rushed to Kenmore Square where we heard reports of two, possibly three arrests. This, again, has yet to be clarified, or perhaps was explained after I stopped following the minute by minute and one of you can tell me in the comments, but while there, and kept a good distance from a suspicious vehicle, we did see a bomb squad do a controlled detonation of a suspicious bag. This is more fodder for conspiracy theorists, I'm sure, but the official word from a member of the Boston PD is that this was done as a precaution and out of an abundance of precaution being taken to hastily secure the area. Even still, that evening's Red Sox game was delayed to the weekend. 

I took this Friday a.m., about 10 minutes before they dragged a small bag (or box - it was hard to see from far away) into the grassy area under a tree to the left of the black bomb squad vehicle in the distance, blowing it up with a dull thud.

About this same time the FBI and Boston PD released the name of "white hat" and my senior producer, back in New York, quickly found their old home address. We drove there, arriving just in time to get close enough to be yelled at by undercover agents staking out the house. More media arrived, and eventually a perimeter formed from where we could safely film, but our backup crew came to relieve us, and we returned to our live spot to report on the mornings' findings.

On the way back we stopped on the opposite end of the secure area on Boylston Street. Friday night, after White hat's surrender, our live-spot moved here, so we were able to report the rest of the weekend with the messages of healing and the actual "Marathon Monday" finish line in the background.

There's much more I could say about our follow-up coverage, which kept me in town working hard for another four nights, but I think you can see why, in a sense, my experience paralleled the actual running of a marathon. I am in no way trying to brag or take attention away from where it is due. This is just one journalist's inside perspective for those who know me, especially my family who worried the whole time I was there. But now, for fifth time since I started writing this blog, I'm going (back) to sleep.

Thanks Gave-ing

Hey! You know who had a great Thanksgiving on a budget? THIS GUY.

This year Wendy and I took up my friend's generous offer to host us in Boston for dinner with his wife and her family, which has grown by one since we spent last Christmas with them!

Meet Dani; she's a Dragon.

I have to insert this, rather haphazardly, here: The absolute best thing about T's family, besides the obvious warmth, generosity, strength of moral character, etc. is their seemingly endless supply of great stories that always end in everyone busting up laughing! Okay, out-of-sequence-remembrance over, we now resume you're previous blog-cast:

So the first night, T and his father-in-law Vinnie picked us up from our bus (we used go-bus, it was absolutely decent and affordable) and when we got to T's place, went straight to spying on his tiny, sleeping progeny. They warned us she would wake us up crying from the next room, but when she woke up the next morning she was quiet as a mouse! We even got worried at how quiet she was, but she was fine.
Then the men (yes, that includes me!) headed out to do some volunteering with the Knights of Columbus, and I learned the phrase "KofC" sounds a lot like KFC...
We cooked, and then served a some folks thanksgiving dinners for a couple hours, and it was all very warm and good.
Okay, full-disclosure, T is a professional chef, so he cooked! Vinnie and I opened some cans, then went out to set up tables and deliver the first wave of food. It was nice to have some guy time and work up a spiritual, as well as physical appetite before our own over-indulgence, but nearly torture resisting all that delicious, traditional Thanksgiving food while we were serving plates! Some turkey might have find its way to my mouth prematurely, but hey, I'm human.

That's a lot stuffing!

Then it was over to Vinnie's house for some full on tradition-style family Thanksgiving, with cats, dogs, moms, dads, future-in-laws (Marissa, T's sister-in-law, is newly engaged!), football on the TV, and of course: mountains of food that would make you want to cry butter!

After Wendy woke back up from her 100-year food-coma, we went back to T's.
The side story begins here: Massachusetts has some RIDICULOUS laws! Not only did we forget to buy beer the day before (to drink while watching football, of course!) We went on an adventure on the drive home to T's to find beer for the Jets Vs. Patriots game that was about to start. After finding the only place in town that was both open and had alcohol, turns out, it's illegal to sell beer on Thanksgiving Day. Way to punish us poor-planners MA. Yeesh! But for whatever reason, you could still buy beer at a bar so after dropping the ladies off, T and I did get a couple beers and watch the game, which made me cry. *Sancheeeeez!*

You gotta appreciate the BBQ place's sign next door, too!

Awesome Themed Cake made by Courtney

Anywho, I wanna wrap this up, but I can't leave out the last day! T and I went shopping for Marissa and Tim's engagement party that evening and had a fun man-date, then helped decorate the venue with T's mother-in-law (who is so sweet she might fool you into thinking your her child the moment you meet her!). Then we drank and stuffed our faces all over again, but you know what? By some miracle, when I came back to NYC, I hadn't gained any weight! Truly, an all-around epic Thanksgiving for the history-books. Welcome to the world Dani! Lucky your parents kept a close eye on you, cuz I would have stolen you. Oh yes.

And this is T's dad getting a pedicure. Because I promised it would go on the internet, and here it is.

Bring Back That Boston Feeling,

Whoooa that Boston feeeling!

Happy November everybody! Somehow I can't seem to take this blog from monthly to weekly, but hopefully I make up for it with interesting pictures and stories! 

So post-Sandy, the big news was the presidential election. 

I was sent to Boston to cover Romney's election night headquarters at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center... yaaaaay. :-/

In all seriousness, I was-and-still-do feel lucky to get to have gone. This came just a month after finishing my first year as a journalist, and since it only happens once every four years, and plenty of journalists still don't get assigned to it when it does come around, I count myself as extremely fortunate to see the process first-hand, just as I felt for the RNC and DNC. 

So how was the night? Let me go back to the day before election night. 

I took my news team to the national headquarters for Romney's Campaign staff, and found a non-descript building with the doors to the lobby locked. Luckily there were plenty of people coming and going, so I could at least get that far. Inside, a Chinese news team was pleading for even a later appointment with a spokesperson, and as my team waited patiently behind them to do the same thing, a Chinese-American woman from NPR and a European news team also came in and the scene became quite clear:

All of us had emailed the proper address requesting an appointment, all of had called the designated phone number, and all of us left multiple voice-mails on that machine in the weeks leading up to getting there. None of us received a reply. Meanwhile an ABC affiliate's camera crew exited from behind the front desk area, but I must have been the first to see this and reach the conclusion that they were giving interviews, just not to foreign press. So my crew was the first to abandon that and go to the convention center where we did finally find a Romney Campaign spokesperson who gave us an interview. Success! 

Sidenote: remember how god-awful the RNC and DNC security was? The Boston security was down-right pleasant and helpful. Thank you security-gods, thank you. 

So, The Big Night:

We were broadcasting live, from the cramped press-risers in the small auditorium where Romney would eventually take the stage for his concession speech. And when I say broadcasting live, I mean nation-wide (in Japan) and about half-a-dozen times! It was a real, intense, team effort, and time moved like a roller coaster, 30 minutes zipping by in an instant, 10 minutes taking an hour the next. 

It felt like I had just finished interviewing attendees about losing Wisconsin, and getting ready for our next live shot, when the clock struck 11, news channels started calling states, and not 15 minutes later Obama was declared the winner. 

Up until Ohio was called, the mood continued to be festive. Whenever Fox News called a state for Romney, a cheer would go up from the 1000+ in attendance, but states called for Obama were ignored as the guests continued to party. When Ohio was called, probably less than 5 minutes before the whole race was called, an eerie silence spread. The funny thing was, Fox News called it for Obama, then the announcers took it upon themselves to propose how Ohio could still be in play. Some people cheered, but then a graphic, once again calling Obama the winner was displayed full screen, and a deafening boo erupted! The Fox News craziness continued but I had to go back to coordinating. 

That was it, right? I thought for sure at least half the people would go home. BUT EVERYBODY STAYED, and waited over an hour to hear Mitt give his concession speech. I guess until they heard it, they didn't want to believe it was over. Some of the people there were drunk, sleazy-types like the democratic delegate I talked about meeting in North Carolina, but a lot of the people were really level-headed, kind people, who truly and simply disagreed with Obama's ability to improve the economy and had pinned their hopes on Romney. When Romney finished his brief thank you and departed, we went down and interviewed people as they left about how they felt. There were women crying, because Mitt was their hero. Living in NYC, I might see one person in 10 who liked Mitt, but I was... I guess impressed is the word - that people believed in him so passionately. I had heard of those people, but I didn't see it, until that moment. 

Anyway, I guess my point is that not all the Republicans trying to kick Obama out were latent-racists. Then again, who knows, that was just this young journalist's impression from the night. 

Setting up the day before

German News and friendly neighbors

CNN was in front of us

The Media

Mexican News - Azteca

Here's how far I was from the stage. TV Asahi's reporter standing on the left. 

The over-flow area/entrance to the BCEC

The view outside. I've heard Romney's campaign had spent a bunch on fireworks that were never used.

Getting going. Once states started being called the monitors were almost always on Fox News. No surprise.

Changing gears;

My news team had saved a lot of money by deciding to drive to Boston instead of flying, so when work was done, we ate, and we ate well.

Here are some photos that will make ya jealous ;)

This might not make you jealous, but when we were able to take a (ONE) break, we got mini hot dogs at the BCEC on election night =^)

America's oldest restaurant, and JFK's favorite!

Started off with raw oysters and Sam Adams

Grilled oysters were meh, Clam chowder: Amazing

Lobster Linguine, here we go... 

That's was good!

Next stop Giacomo's for pesto, mushroom ravioli

Annnnd dessert. (I'm ready)

Eating right at P.F. Changs. I know it's not fine-dining, but my fish was great!  

The day the Nor'Easter hit we stopped for lunch at Catalyst, where my Mad-Chef and good friend is KILLING IT!

Honey-glazed wings

My first Pate (sp?) was INCREDIBLE 

Seriously... look at this cod. LOOK AT IT!

Dessert. (I brought the cookies home for Wendy)

Back in NYC (New Jersey actually, across the George Washington Bridge) we had Ox-tail soup at a Korean place that stays open 24-hours just to slow cook it. It was alright, I guess.

This is my favorite Korean dish!

I have so much more to tell you about, like Thanksgiving with my Mad-Chef's family, but for now I will leave you with photos of driving home during the Nor'Easter!

It took 4 hours to drive to Boston, 10 hours to drive back! Enjoy! (I didn't)

Hey, the snow is sticking!

This isn't so bad...

Thank God I'm driving...

Aww... crap. Now we're goin nowhere!

3 hours, 6 stalled cars, and 3 miles later, there was this

 Hope you had a great thanksgiving! Later this week I'll try to throw up some photos from mine!
G'night! *Muah!*