Golf - outside the ropes

A few thousand of us traipsed through the desert northwest of Tucson at a golf event the last few days. It was one of the Accenture World Golf Championships - this one was Match Play. Wednesday 64 of the worlds best played, 32 lost and went home, Thursday 32 became 16, Friday 16 became 8...get the story...



Sunday, there remained but 2 players for the $1,400,000 championship. Hunter Mahan, who I hear is building a 19,000 square foot "house" near Dallas, and the popular new young gun, Rory McIlroy. Mahan won. McIlroy came in second and had to settle for $600,000.



But, that's not the point. Golf is an amazing experience...as a player...and as a viewer. It's a terrific place to spend some time outdoors...and there is a little exercise to go along with it.

The pictures I've posted here were taken "illegally" with my camera phone - no cameras allowed during play...but the folks were pretty good about it. As you can see, it's not all grass, it's still desert with some enhancements. And letting the audience follow along, walking down the fairway after the championship group was a great thing. I didn't realize how short they cut the grass, and how spongy the turf.



Communities such as Tucson should say a special thanks to the folks seen here wearing the black blazers and white hats...The Conquistadores...community leaders who have organized and help come up with financing for a class event. They took over in 1966 from fledgling attempts since 1945. And it hasn't been easy. Through it all the community has stepped up. Click here to read more. That's great.

On the plane coming home I overheard a few other folks who, like me, had gone over to watch the tournament. That's economic development of the best kind.

Tucson is nervous they'll lose the tournament in a couple years. I hope not.

And, while the world golf tournament was going on, the Tucson Rodeo was underway and there was Major League Soccer (including Beckham who was spotted in town).

Tucson is fortunate to have a community that understands community pride and economic impact.

Here's more from the local newspaper.

Fly Fly Fly

Yesterday the USA recognized a monumental achievement.

John Glenn's orbital missions.

Since then we went to the moon, and built reusable spacecraft. One year ago this week I took this picture, the last flight of Space Shuttle Discovery prior to her retirement. Now, the USA has none of it's own manned spaceflight programs. If we want to go we have to hitch a ride with the Russians.






Here's the next step...and hopefully it's going to happen at Spaceport America in New Mexico sometime in the next 18 months.


There may be one small challenge, in New Mexico the greedy trial lawyers - the folks who make all of the money when someone sues on behalf of a client to has been "wronged" by an evil deed - have defeated proposals to provide some protection to the manufacturer of some parts of the flight equipment - as I understand it.

Meanwhile, some other states competing with New Mexico for future private space travel have agreed to the limited liability protection. They could take business away from New Mexico, and that would be a shame - just because some greedy trial lawyers - are hoping something goes wrong so they can sue the deep pockets, win the lawsuit, and then make enough from the settlement to buy their own private plane.

The Happy Warrior

It was my first exposure to big time politicos in my new job at Channel 7.

The Happy Warrior, Hubert Horatio Humphrey, came to town.

The credential process was nothing like it is now. I think somebody wanted a list of who might be close to the Veep and then they typed it on a blue card that had been stamped with a number. I'm not even sure why he was here.

In Albuquerque, we have an elementary school named for HHH. Don't know how that happened, I do hope there's a plaque inside to tell of his many contributions to our society.


More of HHH's contributions are outlined here in part of a documentary that features some comments from Bill Moyers.

2012

What a start.

First, for the good news. Newt has been newtered and the elephants are eating their own.

Now, the sad news. An adopted New Mexican who made a tremendous impact on the lives of thousands in the Land of Enchantment has gone to Heaven. Mike Cerletti, our longest serving Tourism Secretary and ambitious Santa Fe and New Mexico promotions chief (with whom I worked for more than a year at the New Mexico State Fair) was overtaken by brain cancer on January 3rd.

I hope Mike had one last chance to see the Rose Parade on TV and recall some glorious moments in Hollywood – when New Mexico actually tried to promote itself outside the state lines. The state found sponsors to help pay for a float in the Rose Parade for 3 years. And, there was the New Year’s Eve party somewhere in the hills above Beverly Hills that included a “star” that no-one recognized but was outfitted for the evening in the appropriate garb.

It was quite a ride Mr. Cerletti… including the day we rode out of Tingley Coliseum on the Budweiser Clydesdale hitch – and the hitch broke.

Good travels my friend!

Ain't Richmond

Saw the other day on the TV that Richmond has become notorious (in a good way) for having some of the most fantabulous Christmas light displays. Good for them.

We’ve got some nice light displays around Albuquerque – but I don’t think anyone here has gone that extra mile to get network TV coverage.

A friend has a pretty spectacular display. As we would give directions in a small town, “It’s right behind Hoffmantown Center, you know by the Albuquerque Library and rose garden, in that area. You just turn south off Menaul just before you get to Wyoming and there it is.” It takes a certain talent to secure Santa on a surfboard.

Here are a couple of views of our front yard. A bright display for our conservative neighborhood! Plans are underway for next year. To make it easier, when we landscaped this fall I had a couple empty 2” conduit pipes put underground to serve as the major extension cord avenue to the house.

Merry Christmas

Here's the photo from the White House Christmas card this year.






Some folks (including that woman from Alaska) have gone nuts because it's not "traditional enough".

What can be more traditional that a dog, a fire in the fireplace, red and green garland, books and a flower?


Merry Christmas everyone!

Sweeping the Ratings

There’s a dustup going on in every TV market in the country this time of year.
The ratings are back, and everyone is trying to figure out some way of promoting the fact that “we’re #1”.

It’s important to be #1. It allows the #1 station to set the bar for advertising rates. And advertising brings in the bucks. If #1 charges $1,000 a spot, then #2 has to charge less…etc.

You might have noticed during November there were a lot of shows with guest stars and news programs uncovered all kinds of issues that were promotable. The stations and networks tried to get people to watch. Lots of people watching meant a win in the ratings, which translated to cash in the pocketbooks.
A bit of ratings history –

In the mid-1960’s, the Albuquerque TV news market was dominated by KOB-TV-4. Tom Doyle (That’s it, that’s The News in Sight, thank you for tuning in and (wink) good night!) At KOAT-TV-7, we tried like hell to win with The Big Seven News – our hopes rested with anchorman George Morrison and soon to be anchor Dick Knipfing. KGGM-TV-13 lagged behind with Clyde Jay and numerous other anchors including Linda Thorne and John Andrews, children of the owner.

KOAT finally won the ratings war in the early 1970’s after Tom Doyle and George Morrison left the scene. Since then each station has taken its turn at being on top of the heap.

Numbers are important to the front office and the sales teams. They must have facts & figures to sell time.

To those of us on the street, covering the news – we knew when people were watching – because they’d recognize us in the grocery store (or across the counter at the package store that was selling us beer on Sunday before it was legal).

I call that, The Recognition Rating. It still exists for anchors and other on-air folks who have been around for more than a year.

The Recognition Rating lasts a long time…I haven’t been on the air regularly in almost 30 years and last week on two different occasions people stopped me to say hi, and wonder why I left TV.

Times change. For the most part now, field reporters come and go – with little sense of duty to inform the community (they'd rather look good for the live shot). For that, the viewing public, we all suffer.

Some of the field reporters are good and go on to bigger & better things -remember David Gregory working at TV-13 in Albuquerque and Kate Snow working at TV-7?

Other field reporters just go; to another market that will pay them a little bit more – many hoping that someday they too might benefit from The Recognition Ratings.