Nov. 18: What's Jen Clicking On Between Casts

Smoky Joe, and Design Tips .. from the Death Star?

The last few days, almost all my web activity has been fire related.  Today as we come out from under the fog of the fires,  with an end to fire conditions in sight, and I'm back to the more random surfing that always turns up interesting tidbits here and there.

This morning, our lead Today in LA reporter Robert Kovacik sent me an email with a picture of an owl attached which we ended up putting on the air.  Robert has a huge heart when it comes to the creatures who can't help themselves, and actually adopted a dog that he was using sort of as a prop one morning while doing a shelter story.  (His other dog was found wandering the streets, and was lucky enough to be rescued and subsequently spoiled rotten by Robert!)

Anyway, I digress.  This owl picture is compelling, and comes with an even better story: (I always love it when my random web wanderings bring me home to nbclosangeles.com!

Robert forwarded along this picture of  "Smoky Joe" from Brenda at Valley Wildlife Care , and his story:

"This male Great Horned Owl flew right thru an open flame in Sylmar last night. A firefighter spotted him coming thru the heavy black cloud when he noticed that he looked like he could barely fly and was very disoriented.  He thought quick to get his hose on him and down he came.  Thank god for this firefighter; the owl's eye's were completely singed and his eye lids almost burnt off. There was so much debris and ash ain his eyes, nose and throat, I am amazed he was still capable of flight.

"After lots of flushing, fluids, and care he has become alert to his surroundings and is now standing up.  He needs constant oxygen and cool rags on his eyes and face.  What we don't know is if his vision will be affected. After he is stable, he will see a Veterinary opthimoligist to asses his eyes.

"I have 3 owls here from the fires. The other two have oxygen tubes down thier throats and they have virtually no feathers as they burnt completely off. They are in heated incubators trying to survive. So far, so good."

While we were getting ready for the newscast this morning my co-anchor Chris Schauble was giggling about something that he had to share with me.  Our sister station, WNBC in New York, has a new news set.  I noticed it this morning while I was getting ready, because as I've mentioned before, THEY are my morning news; I have a industry waiver on my satellite TV service so I can watch their broadcast here in LA.  I keep in touch with some of the people over there (Michael Gargiulo is my Facebook friend!) and had to forward this link along to them.  It seems everyone's a critic; their new set apparently looks like it got design tips from THE DEATH STAR according to one blogger!

I like the lights they have in those columns on the set, and apparently they change like the pylons at LAX.  Michael messaged me back this morning and said they love the new set, with the real newsroom in the background.  But Chris was right when he looked at that blog pointing out the similarities between the set and the Death Star and said, "who thinks of this kind of stuff?  Who even notices?!"  Even Chris, who has a talking Darth Vader head on his desk and is a Star Wars fanatic, would never have made that observation or connection!

On a more personal note my Facebook page had me searching for the lyrics to a song for my cousin, who is driving his wife to the airport right about now to finish her tour of duty in Iraq.  He's a doctor, she's a nurse, and they've already been apart for the better part of this year.  After two weeks of R&R she's getting on a plane and my cousin's status update was: "does anyone remember the lyrics to that song, "silver wings?"

Of COURSE not!  That's what Google's for.  I found the lyrics here and posted the following on my cousin's page:

Silver wings shining in the sunlight,
roaring engines headed somewhere in flight.
Their taking you away, leaving me lonely,
silver wings slowly fading out of sight.
Don't leave me I cry, don't take that airplane ride.
But you locked me out of your mind. left me
standing here behind.
Silver wings shining in the sunlight,
roaring engines headed somewhere in flight.
They're taking you away, leaving me lonely.
silver wings slowly fading out of sight.
Silver wings shining in the sunlight,
roaring engines headed somewhere in flight,
they're taking you away. Leaving me lonely.
Silver wings slowly fading out of sight.
Slowly fading out of sight.

Those wings hopefully will be bringing her home for GOOD, in the spring!

Find out what else Jen's clicking on..

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