TV, Salmonella, Violent Death, oh my

Posting has been a bit light lately, but it has to compete with everything else that is going on.

Last Friday I was whisked off by a limo to Chicago to do the Nancy Grace Show (about a recent homicide here in the county). There were 2 of us in a small studio in Chicago and it seemed like 10 others in various other places feeding into the story. It is somewhat strange doing these things. You sit in a room that is black walled and ceilinged (actually everything in the room is black except the stools and the wall behind us) and stare at a camera (the camera was robotic and moved at someone’s direction). You have to stare at the camera because you never know ahead of time when they might cut to you or catch you making some sort of face you don’t want on camera. I could listen to all of the conversation and interview, but couldn’t see what anyone looked like or their facial expressions. It is a bit strange talking with someone without that normal feedback. Our segment was about 20 minutes long, I got to answer 3 or 4 questions. I think it went pretty well.

Saturday was a good day, primarily because of what I didn’t do. I went shopping with my 9 year old and we picked up some food for lunch. I had actually picked up chicken pot pies to heat up, but put them back for other selections. Good thing or I might have had a serving of Salmonella I learned on the 10 o’clock news last night.

Monday, Columbus Day (although I have to agree with several folks’ comments that I don’t know why we still celebrate Columbus Day since we know he didn’t discover America and may have been a fairly unsavory character) I sent off a book proposal to an agent who agreed to look at it and consider representing me in that endeavor. We will see what develops.

Yesterday, I went to a meeting in Chicago, the Illinois Violent Death Reporting System Advisory Committee. I got fairly creative about my route down so the trip only took 2 hours each way. They are getting some interesting data from the first 3 counties participating (I will highlight some soon) and I look forward to our being able to join in the project after our county IT department gets the software loading and working here. If you want to see at least part of the data before I put more in the blog you can check out this link.