Loose Caboose Festival

It's been several days since we've posted. I'll tell you just a little bit about my day. I started out heading West on I-20. Something I did a couple of times this week, this time I didn't go all the way to Jackson (a little about that in a minute). I stopped at exit 109 - Newton. The third annual Loose Caboose festival had taken over downtown. When I first saw this assignment, I didn't know what to think. I could only assume that it was a downtown festival similar to those in surrounding communities, but the name...it's just so...interesting. Well, when I finally caught up with Angie Burks from the Chamber of Commerce, I just had to know...Where did the name come from? Her answer: Outside of the old train depot (which is now the Chamber office), there is a lone caboose car sitting on the tracks. Makes sense to me.

Upon returning to the Queen City, I headed up to the public meeting regarding the building of a new low-income housing development. There has been a lot of opposition to the new developments, but none have met more conflict than the Meridale property just outside of the city limits. Hundreds of people showed up to voice their concern with this development.

Now, back to Jackson...On Tuesday and Thursday I went over to the Big House to take in a few games (oh, and work). Tuesday saw Newton take an easy win. Everything went pretty smooth in getting the highlights back. Thursday was a much different story. Let me preface this story by explaining how we get our highlights back from Jackson. I think Wade has touched on this to some extent. Most of the television stations in the state have a system to send video to other stations across a T1 line. It's pretty much like a video email and usually the quality is pretty good. It is called Clipmail. Well, we have been teaming up with WLBT to clipmail our highlights back.

Ok, now back to Thursday...It started out very well, until I got to the I-20/59 split. There was an electronic MDOT sign that read "I-20 closed at Jackson, expect long delays." Well, I was already running a little late, but I thought 'I can still make it by tip-off or shortly thereafter.' Nope. At the airport exit (in Brandon), I was forced to exit with no idea of where to go. I took Highway 80 into Jackson and found my way to the Coliseum. Just in time for Halftime. No problem, plenty of basketball to play. Well, I got my highlights shot, interviews done. Now I'm ready to edit. Well, almost...I stayed for the first quarter of the next game (Ripley vs. Collins). Those two teams aren't in our viewing area, but I shot it to send to WTVA and WDAM.

I get to WLBT and am ready to edit, so I patiently wait for an edit booth. I have five things to edit:

• Southeast highlights (for us)
• Southeast post-game (for us)
• Southeast highlights (a different set for WTVA)
• Ripley/Collins highlights (for WTVA)
• Ripley/Collins highlights (a different set for WDAM)

I get our SE highlights cut pretty quick. This is going to be a breeze. I get the tape out so that I can put down another countdown. And then the trouble started. My tape broke. Long story short: an engineer at WLBT was able to salvage my tape and tape it back together (ironically enough), after some clipmail problems I finally got everything sent by 6:00 or so, and time to head home. I-20 was still closed (an overturned tanker truck was the culprit), so my alternate route (and rush hour traffic) took me about 30-45 minutes out of the way.

Sorry for the long post, but it was hopefully a good one. That's for you to decide. I'm tired and ready to go home, so I'm not going to read back over this. Please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors. Thanks and have a great weekend.

(A few terms in this post will make their way into the TV News Glossary when I have a chance to update it...Just a reminder to check it out periodically as we try to keep it up to date by adding new terms when we think of new ones.)