The past few days have been action packed. Monday we took our time getting back into work at the station, I mentioned in my previous post that we decided to air another “Best of” show so that we didn’t have to record that evening.

Yesterday was a very busy day for me; I started my new crazy Tuesday schedule. I got up at 6:30am, as usual and worked pretty much straight until 3:00 when I had my first College class in almost 4 years. I’ve enrolled in two classes here; there is a University of Alaska extension service that I’m utilizing. I left for my Sociology class; it meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 3:30 until 5:00. I was the only one in the room other than the professor; everyone else joined us via tele-conference. I went home, Lydia and I recorded our show and at 7:00 I left for my first guitar lesson. That went until around 7:45 and I came home beat, but much to my luck Lydia had dinner waiting….I was very grateful.

Today I started a new show on the AM morning show, its Wednesday mornings from 8:35 until 9, and I call it “Northwest Perspectives”. I wrote about it in a previous entry, by my hope is to get in studio guests each week. The show debuted with my recorded interview with US Senator Lisa Murkowski from last week’s DC trip.

Around 1:00, I went home to get something to eat. I wanted something quick and after looking in the freezer, I decided that I hot dog would be good. I boiled the hot dogs, and started to defrost some frozen hot dog buns. I put them in the microwave for 15 seconds, and it wasn’t long enough…..another 15 seconds, almost there but still some frozenness. 15 more seconds should be just the ticket. I started the microwave for the third time and went back to the station. Upon my arrival home about 7 minutes later, I returned to a house full of smoke, smoke detectors beeping, and an almost on fire microwave. The display on the unit was flashing “END” “END”, but something went wrong, and it obviously didn’t ever stop. The buns were glowing red like charcoal, the plate they were on had broken into a million pieces, the counter was starting to turn black, and parts of the microwave was melting. Praise God that I went back home and was able to turn the microwave off before things got even worse! Everything in our house smells like burnt popcorn now, but my bottle of Febreeze should help things a little bit.

We’re back in Nome and its just as cold as when we left, however it was much lighter!

We had a few days of traveling since my last post, all of it went pretty smooth and it was nice to get another day or so at home before coming back up to Alaska.

I set another “Best of the Edge” to play tonight, Lydia and I will attempt to tackle our first show back tomorrow. It’s going to be a pretty hetic day for me tomorrow as I’ve got my first day of classes and my first guitar lession all in the evening.

I should get going to be now though, I have a morning show to c0-host at 7am tomorrow!

This just in!!! Pictures from Washington DC.

We had a great weeek in Washington DC! Between the Inaguration, the dinners, the family and all the travel its going to be hard to match the last 10 amazing days.

-To view the gallery (click here)
-To read the blog entries (click here)

We had our last day here in Washington DC today, and it was filled with action and excitement. We got to sleep in a bit from previous mornings, and planned to be at the capital at 9:15 or so. I had a press conference with Ted Stevens at 10:00. Once we hit the road, we realized that the tickets for the “tour-mobile” were still back at Chris’ house. We turned around and got them, however we were not able to get into town until right at 10:00.

I went through security at the Senate Hart building, and went into Senator Steven’s office not knowing what to expect. Lydia was going to wait for me outside in the lobby. When I got there, two other journalists had arrived before me, from Anchorage news outlets. This meeting was a regular occurrence for them, but I felt way out of my league. There were about 6 of us total when we went into the senator’s office. We all setup our microphones on his desk, and hit the record button. When one of Senator Stevens’ aids introduced me as a new member of the press gallery, Stevens remembered seeing me two nights before at the Alaska dinner. I was extremely impressed, we didn’t even shake hands, he just greeted us at our table and kept moving along.

Stevens talked about the Inauguration and his roll as 4th in succession, it was simply to hide in a undisclosed location. He then told us about some Commerce Committee issues (of which he is the chairman) and then he told us about some personal investments that he had to sell, and present before the Ethics Committee. I’ll spare the details, but 45 minutes later after many questions and beatings of dead horses we moved on. The conference went about an hour and a half, and about an hour in I started to get bored.

Lydia and I left the office and our next goal was to find a pickup location for this “tour-mobile” deal that we had planned to take us around all day. After a bit of walking, and a cell phone call we were able to find one of their 15 pickup spots. With this tour, they drive you around from location to location, and if you want you can get off at designated spots. Another bus comes in 30 minutes, and you can get back on if you want, or you can wait another 30 minutes. We drove by all the stuff on capital hill that we had seen in earlier days and went straight for the monuments, none of which we had seen already.

We started with lunch at Union Station, then saw the Lincoln Memorial and the Mall from that side of town. We saw the Korean War memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and then the White House (and visitor’s center). We hopped back on the bus during its last run, with just enough time to take us to the American History Museum an hour before it closed. There were a number of exhibits that we weren’t able to see the first time around and we got most all of them in.

We walked back to Chris’ office and did some ticket wrangling. We think our flight out early Sunday morning will be cancelled because of a bad snow storm that is supposed to hit the area tomorrow afternoon. After we got our tickets changed, we headed out to old town Annapolis and went to dinner at a *very* nice seafood restaurant where we all got some delicious crab cakes. Then it was back home to confirm ticket changes and to pack! We’ve got to leave the house very early in the morning (4:15), so its off to bed now.

Its almost 11 again this evening, and what a full day we’ve had here in Washington DC. We left the house this morning and arrived at my Aunt Chris’ office around 8:30. Again, she works with Alaska Congressman Don Young, and there was a reception in his committee room. This was a room that you see all the time on C-SPAN. There were desks with microphones for about 50 congressmen with Don Young sitting at the top in the middle as the chair. For the breakfast all the tables on the audience floor were filled with buffet tables, and people were eating everywhere. There were 2 plasma screens on the side walls of the room, and a big huge projector in the front with ABC news on. Lydia and I left the breakfast around 9:30 to start heading to the capital, the inauguration started at 11:30.

One problem that we knew in advance was that Chris’ office building was on the other side of the mall than the entrance to our seats were. We were going to have to walk three blocks down to find an open road. We were then directed another four blocks down, and then when I asked for directions to the specific gate, we were given the advice to take a city bus!! The public gates were PACKED each with well over 5,000 people standing in lines that were blocks and blocks long. We didn’t think at this rate two hours were going to be long enough to get us in. We headed back up to the capital to try and see where we should enter.

We knew that we had an advantage in getting in because of our seat location and that only about 2% of the people there had seats as close as we did. I figured one of the city cops would know which way to direct us. At one point in time after I showed a cop our tickets, and was walking away a lady saw our section color, said “Orange huh…wow let me see those!” and started grabbing for them to “help us”. I pulled the tickets towards my body and kept walking. We walked back the 7 blocks, and were basically where we started when someone gave us some correct and useful information. They told us about a gate on the other side of Chris’ building that was for the media and would let us to our seats.

We got to the red gate, and instead of seeing over 5,000 people in line, there were about 50. We were able to go through security and get to our seats in about 15 minutes. It was AMAZING, and we were thrilled that we would make it in. We found our seats and waited for the ceremony to start. We were seated in the media section, and there was press from all areas of the world there. We saw many Japanese reporters there recording their coverage and giving commentary.

We had a great time taking pictures of the speakers and soaking the entire experience in. We could see the president and members of his family from where we were sitting, and with our camera were able to get some great torso shots of the president while he was giving the inaugural address. The only real disappointing part was our communication with KICY. I had my dad’s cell phone and my aunt’s cell phone. My dad’s phone had a *major* battery issue (it only would last for about 10 minutes), and only while we were at the inauguration did I have a problem with my aunt’s phone. Both of these issues resulted in me not being able to bring any coverage of the event live until after it was over. Apparently there were some issues with the satellite feeds back at the radio station and they were unable to air much of the ceremony as well. All of this was disappointing to me, I made some promos for our coverage before I left Nome, and even heard that people were planning on listening because they were unable to get to a TV. I hope we didn’t let them down.

As we were leaving the capital after the inauguration, there were hundreds of thousands of people all trying to exit out of a few small exits. On our way out of the capital area we saw the only and only Don King in person, not once but we ran into him twice. Our next destination was back to Chris’ office which was just across the street from where we exited. Security into the building as amazingly slow, so Lydia and I decided to look for other routes in. We found another door that actually had a line that was moving, and made it in not to long after.

Back in Don Young’s committee room there was a lunch going on for his supporters. We had a great meal and got to enjoy more time in the fancy governmental room. We decided to head back home around 2:30, and watch the parade on TV. After watching tv and everyone taking quick naps, Chris took us out to dinner at a steak house not far from her neighborhood. We went back and watched the series premier of the apprentice!

Tomorrow will be our last day in DC, and we will be taking a tour of the capital, I’ll have an interview with Alaska Senator (and 4th in succession to the president) Ted Stevens, and then we will be seeing the monuments and sights we haven’t gotten to yet. It should be fun!

Take a look at the article below that I found on the Seattle Times’ website, it talks about some Journalists not being able to make it in!!

I’m glad I made it in the 90%!!!

WASHINGTON (AP) Some reporters and aides to members of Congress had difficulties getting their official credentials in time for today’s inauguration ceremony.

Between 10 percent and 15 percent of the 1,000 television reporters and crew who applied for official passes to be admitted to high security zones did not get them, said Larry Janezich, director of the Senate radio and television press gallery.

A few print reporters planning to cover the first moments of President Bush’s second term also did not receive the proper credential despite being fingerprinted, photographed and going through a security review.

“Anyone who hasn’t, that’s a reporter unable to do his or her job today,” said Jim Drinkard, a political reporter for USA Today and chairman of the correspondents’ committee in charge of daily press and their credentials at the Capitol.

Reporters were not the only people affected. Some Senate staffers, including members of the Senate sergeant-at-arms office and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s office, had problems getting the identification cards before the inauguration.

In several instances, names were wrong. In one case, a man’s name was on a pass with a woman’s photo.

U.S. Capitol Police issued the official passes to media and employees of Congress planning to be in the Capitol the day of inauguration. Michael Lauer, a Capitol Police spokesman, said he could not comment immediately on the problems.

The inaguration was amazing, as were our seats. Things didn’t go quite as planned with the station on my end or theirs, but it was still a worthwhile trip. I’ll recapture the day later on. Now I’ve got to rest!

Well, I think I’ll have to make this another quick blog, Its almost 11 again and we have to get up even earlier tomorrow than we did this morning.

It was another great day in DC, we got about two inches of snow, and it was pretty cold. Hopefully things will clear up tomorrow so we can see the president. I picked up my tickets this morning and are hoping they will be amazing. Apparently tickets this close are pretty hard to come by, so thats a good sign.

We did some more sight seeing today, we started with the Museum of Natural History, and then went on to the American History Museum. We did lots of walking to all these places, and by the time we had finished the second Museum it was past three o’clock. We headed back to my Aunt Chris’ office building and hung out there until my next big plan.

Most of this trip, I’ve been attempting to find cool stuff to talk about on the radio, both via cell phone live from DC, but also in a series of reports that I’m planning for when I get back. I called into the station for the morning show while we were having lunch (now I’m using that time difference to my advantage! Normally I can’t stand not being able to get a hold of people out here during my Nome work afternoon!). On the AM with Lon, I read some history about the inauguration that I had found in a brochure, and gave a synopsis of the dinner the evening before. I also spoke with Neil and the Major on the FM show before that and just told them what was going on out here.

Recording wise I had planned on interviewing a few of the Alaska representatives. My first interview was with Senator Lisa Murkowski whom I have spoken with and interviewed on the phone before. I went over to her office around 5pm and had a nice long 25 minute recorded conversation with her. While I was there and being introduced to some of her staffers, Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor stopped by and when he found out that I was with KICY, offered an interview/sound bytes. Despite the disgust from the Murkowski people at such a lame publicity attempt, I took him up on his offer.

Not to shabby for a first year reporter. Friday I’ve got a small press conference scheduled with one of the most powerful men in Washington, Alaska Senator Ted Stephens. He’s got lots of seniority and it will be a great honor to interview him.

Tomorrow is the big day we are headed in at 7:30, I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures!!!

We had a great time at home, although it was way to short. I’ll have to re-cap blog sometime soon about our experiences home for the first time, but there isn’t enough time tonight.

Today we got in at 6:45am EST, and drove an hour to DC. My aunt picked us up at the airport and once we got to her office (a capital building) we took a 4 hour nap in the back of her Jeep. We got up around 12:30 and after showers in the building basement, we had lunch before going out on our first sight seeing trip of the week. We headed over to the Air and Space Museum, and then looked at one of many art museums. We headed back to the Capital and changed into our “evening wear” for the dinner that we attended. It was held in the old Library of Congress building and was given in Honor of the three Alaska state representatives in the Senate and House. It was very fancy with lots of horderves, and fancy people. Each of the politicians spoke and thanked us for coming, and then it was dinner time! We had salmon, chicken, and lamb. it was all sooo good!

We got to see some pretty cool stuff in one of the most magnificent buildings I’ve ever been in.

Tomorrow there is more!

Take a look at some of the new pictures!

Well, we’re in DC. Here are some pictures from our layover in seattle (click here)