Day In the Life of a Trend Reporter – Tampa Day 7

Getting back to Tampa was a relief tonight. I love the palm trees and Florida sun this time of year. The weather has been a cool 70 compared to the 40+ weather I left in Baltimore. I grew up in Florida so as soon as I saw the palm trees, it felt like home.

I’m staying at the Airport Hilton and it’s a really nice hotel. My evening consisted of working over the phone with a computer technician to try to gain me access to the internet. I couldn’t get my web brouser up and finally worked with a young lady by the name of Angel over the phone. She was Asian and displayed unusual patience with me as I fumbled through with her. I am NOT a technically oriented person, and she really seemed to sense that. I just kept patient after her requests and had to repeat the functions over and over at times before I got it right. At the end, the engineer had to bring me a bridge to allow me access. Angel commented on my patience, and I commented on HERS. A sticky situation turned out fine because both of us were willing to keep calm. I think that my son Jeremy has taught me patience. He was never satisfied with his clothes, his shoes, socks, toothpaste, milk or nearly anything as a toddler. I had to just keep trying to get things right over and over until he was satisfied. No amount of disagreeing, yelling, prompting, begging or bargaining would work when he was unhappy. It was purely a matter of “we’re in this together” and we’ll figure it out. It seems my mom had child like that too… so my son must take after one of my siblings! So, tonight I can thank my son for getting me back on line!

I read about Blogging today on the front cover of US Weekly. It’s a good article about the future of it and how it’s affecting business. I am happy to be a part of a growing trend. It seems that it won’t reach the saturation point.. EVER! I’m happy because I really love writing and sharing my ideas with others. The other day I was on the plane and a young woman behind me suddenly asked me, “Excuse me, would you please move out of the way so I can read what you are writing?” I laughed at her boldness and ended up handing her my whole computer so she could read my blogs. She seemed to enjoy them. I hope that my blogs can help other people out.

It’s 3:30 in the AM but I woke up and felt like writing… so now I’m going to hit the hay and head back to bed. I have a 9:30 arrival time at the station and don’t want to be tired when I get there.

Later – I did the segment this morning at the station. The anchors were about as high energy and fun as any I’ve seen. Deborah, the female anchor is a beautiful tall, thin blonde who seemed very casual about her striking looks. Brian, the male, was originally from NJ and has 2 children under 2 and seemed to love talking about them. Both of them seem to have a great job. The show is a very casual, kind of QVC feel.. meaning, they go from set to set to incorporate different guests and stay on live the whole time. They show them walking to the next set and it’s very fun and relaxed conversation.

It’s really amazing to be at the TV stations. There are SO many people working in tandem on a show and you only see the people on camera. The ones that really make it happen are the producers and the tech people all doing a great job pulling the shows together and making it look good. The anchors are the icing on the cake. They are the cherry on top! They complete the package.

It seems in hotter weather climates the stations are a LOT more casual, fun and quirky. The north and the northeast is very conservative and mature. I think that I prefer the warmer client stations, because I think it’s great to have fun with what you are doing and they allow and like the guests’ personalities to really shine. I haven’t had one female anchor try to control the segment or hog the airtime. They’ve all been extremely professional and understand that when the guest is on, they are there to just facilitate.

Today I’m staying in the Hilton at the airport. They have a nice pool so I’m going to go swim some laps and then hit the beautiful mall across the street. They are being so generous to let me stay here and check out at 5PM because I have such a late flight. I’m very appreciative and will recommend to my publicist that they are nice to deal with.

I’ll check in later. I might squeeze in a short nap too! I need to be well rested if I’m going to hit the mall later! Mary