quantico's Blog

     I watched most of the harley ride from my laptop sitting in a coffee shop here in Laguna Beach California. It was great seeing the bikes and the city looks nice on a sunny day too!.  I have not been home to Milwaukee in a while and I miss many things from my friends and family to attending Brewer games.  
    I read the blogs and looked at the pictures from ted and Vince and their rides. I have to say that Ted and his crew seemed to always be smiling and having a great time. It seemed like a family on the road having fun, The Vince crew looked like they were more serious and working, and not many smiles that I saw. Not sure if the rain Vince rode thru was part of that or not, but in any case I would have loved to be with the ted ride. I did love the picture of the woman with writing on her arm and a bandana every day, she seemed like a really cool person to me by the pictures,   
    Glad to see many women riding bikes. I learned to ride as a young girl with mini-bikes and dirt bikes. I guess I was not much of a girly girl growing up.  In any case I am glad to see more women riding their own bikes.  
     Nicole was really cool to hear from during todays coverage. It is awesome that she had been in a past parade and was not even living or working in milwaukee then. The commercials went black but it was interesting to hear the reporters talking during the parts that must have been commercials on the air. 
   Thanks for the great coverage and awesome web site about the rides and pictures. I was a couple thousand miles away, but still felt connected to Milwaukee today.  wendy in Laguna Beach CA

I have been getting everything in order to start law school and will be keeping an eye on the boards to keep up with what is going on in Milwaukee since I am a couple thousand miles away now. I have had a lot of interesting experiences getting moved and may write about some of them soon. The Weather in California is surprisingly very similar to waht I left in Milwaukee , except that it has been kind of dry here. Hope the rains and floods have not been too bad, I have seen some news reports from the midwest and wish you all the best.

I was interested in watching the news story about the election in Glendale being an advisory on keeping the North Shore Fire Dept or contracting with Milwaukee for fire services. My family lives in the North Shore and although they are not in Glendale, the impact on Glendale leaving that fire department would be huge. My dad called me and told me that he thought that the coverage on TV-6 was very slanted in favor of the Milwaukee taking over side. My dad had the story recorded because he was at the meeting and saw the TV-6 camera there. ( I think he wanted to see if he was in the background ).The most striking and revealing failure was the failure to report that it seemed like everyone at the meeting was in favor of keeping the North Shore fire dept in tact because of the excellent service. I also don't remember seeing a a firefighter in the report. That would be really strange since the firefighters sponsored the meeting. I generally can see the liberal views from many TV-6 reporters, but usually at least both sides get reported and expressed. In this case I don't think Tv-6 captured the real feeling of the residents or the meeting.

Trying to be balanced in coverage is really important to me, I don't think that that happened in this case. I understand that in many cases half the people have one opinion, and half the other... in that case putting on both sides makes perfect sense. When a community is really on one side of an issue you need to still show both sides, but you need to also describe that the community is really 95 percent going in one direction. That is important to telling the story.

I don't know if there were even a few people at the meeting that were in favor of changing over to Milwaukee for fire coverage, but my dad was stunned that the story came away in favor of that decision. If you find that say 130 people at a meeting wanted to stay with the North Shore service, and you can find only two or three people in favor of Milwaukee taking over would you not want to include that information in the report. ??

Being a girl that is in college means that money is always an issue. Working helps keep the balance in check, but from time to time a "surprise " takes your breath away. I hit a couple big potholes in the burbs over the last week and the X3 is no longer going where it is aimed. I stopped at Concours where I bought the car and have always had great things to say about the service guys. They managed to leave me with no words when the estimate to repair a broken and bent part or parts was 700 dollars. I am having it fixed and the ole plastic will bridge the shortfall until I fully pay it off.

The cost of living in a state where road repair is a joke is very high. Considering the high gasoline tax and the overall high tax climate why can't we have roads that don't destroy our vehicles ? I know the winter freeze and thaw cycle is tough on roads, but I don't think the burbs or Milwaukee cities try to keep even either.

Why do we put up with horrible roads and streets without line markers ? I have lived in several cities over the years and Wisconsin has the worst roads of anywhere that I have driven.

I don't own a house or snow shovel for that matter. I do have to drive around in the icky stuff, but four wheel drive and heated seats makes for a fairly nice winter drive. I guess I don't quite understand the panic and interest in snowfall here in Wisconsin. We live here and get snow from time to time. Despite the news coverage and people cleaning off the store shelves I consider a snow storm a minor issue.

Why is there such a huge interest in snowfall ??? It's not like you can't get around with cars. It's not like you can't get to work or school or out to play on the town. I assume that running a snow blower for most suburban folks takes 30 minutes tops ???? People that shovel might take a bit longer, but again it's not the end of the world.

People !!! It's snow , not killer nerve-gas !!!

Being a woman that is in her twentys and not yet married has it's good and bad points. Valentines day is usually on the dark side, and I don't include dark chocolate in that description. Yesterday my current boyfriend showed up with dinner reservations , wine , and a box of sugar laden chocolate. The restaurant was one of my favorites. The food is good although the portions are too huge. The decor however required me to get really dressed up. Women understand that going out while dressed up is not always the most comfortable thing. Dresses and heels are fun in the summer, but not when it is slushy outside. To make a long story short, I froze and smiled for two hours after standing 45 minutes waiting to be seated. I still can't feel my toes and my ankles will take a couple days off of running to recover.

The chocolate was given to my neighbors in my building because I can't sleep well with it waiting in the kitchen. It's a girl thing... My boyfriend did all that he was supposed to and I made sure that he knew that I appreciated his thoughtful attention. It's hard to tell someone that you care about that you like the attention and thought, but staying home and having a bottle of great wine would be a lot more fun.

I go to the gym every day, and run or rollerblade every day that it is safe to do so in Wisconsin's interesting weather. With many of the problems associated with people being attacked after dark I tend to try to run with other women, and do so in daylight hours.The valentines day dinner will require eating salad for about two weeks to get me back to the shape that I maintain. I don't usually eat much meat, but the restaurant made some temping things that I ended up eating.

There have been valentines days that were sad because I was not dating anyone. There have been some valentines days that defy the sadness of a meryl streep drama. This one was generally a good one. The interesting thing is that I don't think men understand the first thing about us. I don't know that I can even begin to explain it to someone other than another woman. Valentines day is a day to be survived and I managed to survive another one. That feels pretty good. :)

The weather coverage has been good. I am glad that the schools are closed because not all parents know how to send kids to school dressed correctly. I would not want younger kids waiting at the curb for a bus too long in this weather. All in all I love the interesting noises that come from my car when I start it at these temps...

I always keep a couple bottles of water in my car for going to the gym after school. They don't seem to have the same shape that they had a few weeks ago. Nice...

Tv 6 in particular did a great job talking to the police that were injured at the Bradley Tech / Bay View game. Myra Sanchick had the first interviews that I saw with the actual officers involved. It was interesting to learn a bit about what happened that had not yet been covered. That same video of the fight being replayed over and over again is allready getting old however.

I caught some of the coverage on ch 4 Thursday night and they talked to some of the people watching the game inside the school. I caught tv6's earlier shows at five and six, so I don't know what ch 6 had at ten pm. It's hard to compare coverage at times and watch more than one channel at a time... so it is hard to always tell who is getting the best information on a given story.

Fox channel six, thanks for coming to one of my favorite coffee places. When I am not at the gym I am often found at the coffee shop. I was surprised that the news folks showed up minutes before the broadcast, but the tv camera and guys with cables were there a long time before the broadcast started. Fox six brought a security guard to the coffee shop ??? I guess the prospect of twenty year old women drinking coffee and having internet access must be somehow frightening? Next time maybe get to the location a few minutes earlier, and actually meet some people instead of hanging out with your co-workers for the most part.

The internet and bloggers for that matter have been around for more than a decade. Somehow the folks at fox six seem to think that they invented blogging and the internet. I guess Al Gore and Ted Perry will both be found on some future discovery channel special on the creation of the internet. I don't think it will make pay per view.

The crowd was well behaved and looked slightly uncomfortable at the prospect of being on television. This matches the many new hires at fox six that also seem polite, but not quite ready to actually be on television. The exception was Vince Condella. Vince seemed comfortable being in a crowd of strangers, and I assume that comes from him actually enjoying the event. Brad Hicks seemed more like a used car salesman, a smiling neighbor that you would wave too, but secretly hoped would never come by and sit down in your home.

In any case it was a good thing being at a television event where someone was not being shot at, or on trial for some horrible crime.