Love Like This Life: Sunday

Phew. Exhausted yet? Because I am. But I'm having a blast, blogging all the way... I will feel much better when I get all caught up. And right now is a good time to do that... because I'm pretty much stuck in my hotel room, waiting for Gustav to do whatever he's going to do... so we can all get on with our lives!

Okay, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!!! (cue the Al Roker voice!)

First thing's first.

Sally had to get her Diet Coke. Secret Service wouldn't let cans in, only bottles. Of course, we had cans.

So Sally managed to scrounge up $3.00 in change for a bottle of Diet Coke. Love. True Love.

We all took shameless pictures at our home states' signs.

Justin grew up all over, but he went to high school in Florida, that's how I decide where you're from.. where you went to high school, mmmkay?

Sally is technically from Louisiana - but the Florida sign was closer, and well, she did work in Orlando for like 7 years....

Salty: mic check.

Scoop is apparently New Mexican.

I told you, he does everything we do!

Where John McCain is supposed to officially accept the Republican nomination!

This will be the view from the front row.

We shot a cool "behind the scenes" story Sunday that we aired Monday morning.

Thanks to us, Scoop has an all-access pass!

Talk about one lucky elephant!

Ironing out some technical problem...

Thousands of balloons are tied up in the ceiling of the Xcel Center - I'm still praying they have the opportunity to fall!

I was really looking forward to that quintessential "convention moment" with the confetti and all.

4 Balloon casualties.

So sorry for the loss.

Looks like crime tape and everything, Ha!

The ticket on the jumbo screen.

(teleprompter in the foreground)

So cool!

We shot our behind the scenes story...

And made random strangers take pictures of us....

On our way back up to the skybox to edit, we ran into Ann Compton! (of ABC News for those of you tired of googling)

She was so kind and posed for a picture with me!

Yay!

Let me introduce you to some of my other co-workers.

This is Wes.

Photographer extraordinaire.

This is Larry.

Computer hooker-upper/fixer extraordinaire.

And this is Naz. Assistant News Director extraordinaire.

And just an all around nice guy!!

(side note: that is the most gigantic credential bib I think I've ever seen in my life!)

Sally and I had a little more fun with Scoop. Setting him up in the live shot position.

(Please, no comments on the obvious need for photoshop in this picture, thanks.)

I have a couple of videos that also go with Sunday, but I'm still learning how to post them. Let's see.... Oh, here's a 360 video view from our skybox:

And here's a little something that didn't work out how we would have liked it to work out in a dream world, but it was still fun. (side note: I don't really talk like this - the audio quality on my digital camera is crap)

We didn't end up getting that interview with Pawlenty (we're still hopeful for perhaps another opportunity later in the week) but Sally did shoot some sideways video of him in the hallway:

Also - unfortunately, we weren't fast enough with the camera for this, but we did see Mika (apparently post work-out) and a handler walk by. I love Mika!!! She smiled and said hello. Good for her for working out!

I also shot some video of Sally & Eric interviewing the CIO for the convention about all of the technology they're using for the first time at an RNC convention. (the story never actually made air because of Gustav, travesty.)

Okay, still with me? And this was our SHORT day! Hahaha. We finished editing our stuff for Monday morning, then we were off to eat at the MALL OF AMERICA!

I have to say, it was HUGE and all - but I think so many other malls have grown up so much - they're so big that they take the "wow" factor out of the Mall of America.

The mall Michael and I went to in Dallas was pretty amazing, for example.

It had an ice skating rink.

Oh - but the parking was FREE at the MoA. I thought that was pretty sweet!