And That's Been A Look At The Weather

Yesterday, I took the kids up to one of our television stations, KNWA, to meet up with local meteorologist Rick Katzfey for a nickel tour of the studios. Jake especially is a HUGE fan of weather related issues and loves to watch any kind of color weather radar on the tube, especially during storms. When the boy walks into his pre-school each day, I'd venture to say at least 2 people ask him what the weather is going to do that day. In fact, last week on his daily progress report, it said that on that particular day, Jake had discussed the weather in class as well as where do cowboys sleep at night.

He's definitely got a mind of his own.

So we got up to the station and were greeted by "Mr. Rick". He took us through the newsroom and sports area where we were able to meet a few of the reporters and anchors. We then proceeded over to his work area where he had at least 8 televisions & monitors to use to get weather updates and watch real-time radar pics of the entire planet.

He then took each of the kids over to the "blue screen" to let them stand and pretend like they were doing the forecast on the air. The "blue screen" is literally that...a piece of blue fabric that the weathermen stand in front of where you see all the computer generated images of your local region, home town, nation and other weather locales. They look off to the side of the screen to see an actual monitor facing them to gauge where to point their hands. It's difficult to try the first few times but once you get it down, it's like second nature.

It reminded me a lot of my early days in college at Arkansas State when I took broadcast televison classes and had to do faux weather reports. Oh, the hilarity...

Anyway, both kids got up there and I was able to snap a few pics of them on monitors. They were both real excited about doing this and talked about it to Mommy later last night when she got home. Who knows? Perhaps one of them will have a career in televison or broadcasting in general. I hope not because I know all about the politics of working in a radio / TV station and all the salary issues and egoes you have to deal with. It's not always a very fun place to be.

I do want to thank Rick for taking the time to show us around. I can remember having to give tours of the radio stations I worked for back in the day and while it was fun seeing the faces of our visitors light up, it could also be a bit of an inconvenience. So we are very appreciative of Rick's willingness to give us a tour.

One of the things I like about him is not only is he quick witted and possesses a dry humor like myself, he's also a brother in Christ. It's not too often in this day & age where your local (or national) news people profess their witness for the Lord. Not Rick though. He's on fire for God and wants to tell everyone about it. We see each other a lot at church and usually take a few minutes out to catch up on things and hopefully we can be an encourager to each other as we all continue our walks with God.