Distant video replay of 2013 #4; Stevie Wonder's "Go Home"

Distant video replay of 2013 #3; Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up"

01.07.2013 Zach Irwin Sports Update 1

Distant Video replay of 2013 #2: Robert Tepper's "No Easy Way Out"

Distant video replay of 2013 #1: Paul Davis' Sweet Life

Two dreams about California

On Tuesday morning, I had a dream that I was watching the Holiday Bowl from San Diego's Petco Park. Later on in that dream, I was hovering over Downtown San Diego listening to Sean McDonough call play-by-play of the game between two undetermined teams. Moments later, I was hovering over the streets of Downtown San Diego in an industrial part of town where hundreds of cars were all moving in perfect harmony in and out of various parking garages and freeway on-ramps and off-ramps. In reality, I wake up and find that The Holiday Bowl as always been played at Qualcomm Stadium. There has never been a playing of that game at Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres. In recent years, there have been a few bowl games that have been staged at baseball stadiums. There was the one playing of the Seattle Bowl at Safeco Field in 2001. The Insight Bowl was staged at Phoenix's Bank One Ballpark from 2002-2005. The New Era Pinstripe Bowl is at Yankee Stadium, and the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is housed at San Francisco's AT&T Park. My Arizona State Sun Devils beat Navy in the Fight Hunger Bowl last weekend. This morning, I had a dream where I was back in Southern California's Imperial Valley. In the dream, the city of El Centro looked like a bustling metropolis complete with not one, but two East-West freeways. There's the longstanding Interstate 8 and another not named freeway north of Interstate 8. The Imperial Valley just East of San Diego looked like Eastern San Diego County with multiple exits within a mile of each other and restaurants like Denny's on the side of the freeway. Too bad in my dream I did not see a Cracker Barrel off the road. I saw exit signs for U.S. Highway routes like U.S. 19 and U.S. 41 and thought about how they connected from California to the Midwest. In reality, California's Imperial Valley looks nothing like a busy metropolitan area. El Centro, California is a nice go-between from Yuma to San Diego. There was a Denny's off Imperial Avenue and I-8. There are no U.S. Highways in the Imperial Valley. There is only one freeway in the Imperial Valley, and that freeway is Interstate 8. I have driven on Interstate 8 many times when I lived in Arizona and for a few times since I moved to Georgia in 2000. One day, I hope to visit San Diego and Los Angeles again and go on vacation with my wife. I want to show her Petco Park for a Padres game, the Ghirardelli Ice Cream shop for another chocolate-caramel ice cream, and take her to the beach again.

Dreams come true, a look back at 2012

Today marks the end of 2012, and marks the first full year that I have lived in Atlanta and didn’t work for CNN. It was a journey that I couldn’t have gotten through without my friends, family, and some of my former CNN colleagues. I started 2012 freelancing as an editor for The Weather Channel. I started my first full shift over there on January 17th, the day after my birthday. In the beginning of the year, work was scarce. I would have 0 or 1 shift to work on any given week. Sometimes if I was lucky, I would have at least three shifts in any given week. One thing I was surprised about was that I didn't lose my touch on editing when it came to using Final Cut Pro. Even though I didn't touch a non-linear editing machine for two months, I was able to edit VOs, SOTs, and packages for The Weather Channel after using it for more than a year at CNN. Along the way, looked for other jobs and continued my quest for full-time employment. I applied for and interviewed for an editing position at WSB-TV and for an Associate Producer position for Fox Sports South/SportSouth. I felt that the interviews went pretty well and I got a tour of both facilities along the way. I felt like I had hope for either one of those positions. Unfortunately, both of those positions were put on hold. I never got an answer on whether or not I would have been offered one of those positions. All I could do was press on and find a new place to work again. I also applied for a full-time position for one of the six video producer jobs at The Weather Channel. I did not waste time and I got to work on my application for it in January. After a month of waiting in February, I did not hear anything. Half of March went by, nothing again. I waited, waited, and waited some more to see if I was going to get an interview. Unfortunately, all six positions got filled and I didn’t even get an interview. At the time that was discouraging news to me. I didn't know what to think. All I could do was keep working hard at The Weather Channel and hope that someone would see how good I was. Looking back, I might not have been the right fit for that position in the long run. I think my lack of producer experience hurt me in applying for the position. I was still a freelancer at The Weather Channel going into late March. I moved from an edit bay to the newsroom where I edited and produced some videos and averaged at least three shifts a week. Most of the time, I provided some editing support for shows. Occasionally, I would tap in to iWitness from weather.com and produce and edit videos from that user generated website. I wrote my own scripts and offered those segments for air on any show that wanted them. I edited Packages, VOs, SOTs, SOT/VOs, stillstrings, all the usual things I used to edit for CNN. In July, I interviewed for the temporary video editor position here at WGCL and got it. I was a temp for a month before I earned full-time status here. I thank my former CNN colleague Katharine Dorsett for e-mailing me the link to apply for the temp position to get me where I’m at today. Before I accepted my temporary position here at WGCL, I interviewed for the AP position for HLN’s Weekend Express. I interviewed on the same day the Colorado movie theatre shooting happened. I interviewed with Executive Producer Valerie Butler and it felt very comfortable. I felt like we were having a conversation the whole time I was interviewing for a job. Needless to say, I lost out on the position to an internal candidate, but I am happy with where I am here at WGCL. Had I got an offer to work for HLN, it would have marked the first time in my life that I successfully returned to a place that I left behind or moved away from. My regrets are few, but here they are. I regret that I didn’t get a chance to show enough people at CNN that I have changed. I didn’t get a chance to show people that I could become a better, more creative editor. I didn’t get a chance to show the right people that I improved my communication with co-workers and that I was able to work with them better than I did in 2010. I felt that I had left CNN without finishing the job that I started. The dream of full-time employment is realized with CBS Atlanta News/WGCL-TV. I hope to continue on the good things I have done here at the station and for the work that I did for The Weather Channel. Happy new year to all of you and I will be back for more media fun in 2013.

Dreaming of Orlando

As I was sleeping this morning, I was listening to WSB-TV's Bulldog's Gameday. It sounded like the show was previewing the Capital One Bowl matchup versus Nebraska on New Year's Day. In my dream, I was in an Orlando hotel room getting ready to go to the Capital One Bowl and watch Georgia play at night. I ran into a few surfer dues along the way. An old style radio alarm clock woke me up and helped get me ready for the big game. In reality: I'm not going to Orlando on New Year's Day. I'll be here in Atlanta working and trying to catch a glimpse of the Capital One Bowl on ABC.

12.27.2012 Zachary J. Irwin sports update demo B

Zachary J. Irwin 12.27.2012 sports update demo A.