TechTV: It's What's Left

Happy Derby Day! I realized that it's been too long since I've posted here when my mom complained. OK, mom, and the rest of you, here's what's up with me. Mostly I haven't posted here because I've been working on the book. The first 25% was due on Wednesday and I'm far from done. We have a hard deadline of July 15 to get the book into stores in time for the big back to school selling season. Also I'm just plain lazy. Lots of things have happened since my last entry. TechTV laid off another 50 people. We must be down to under 400 employees now. Still huge, but a lot smaller than our peak. Most of the layoffs were on the TechLive side, but The Screen Savers suffered, too. We lost Starr and Fatty Matty, our jibcam operator, a wonderful production assistant, Allison Pickard, and our director, Miriam. Layoffs suck. But I understand the need to save money in the aftermath of the tech crash. I know the people who lost their jobs will do just fine, but I'm going to miss them. Fortunately, The Screen Savers is as successful as ever. We haven't received the ratings from April, yet, but rumor has it they're even stronger than we had hoped. We're still looking at building a new set in the next few months - it's about time - and Cat is moving to Call for Help, but otherwise the show won't change much. On the home front we're planning a summer vacation in August in Wyoming's Grand Tetons. I'm taking a week off now and two weeks in June, but it's not really vacation. It's for the book. That and Abby's Peter Pan performance next week. I need to be around to chauffeur her to the long tech rehearsals between now and then. I've had a good break from all the travelling I did late last year, but it's about to pick up again. ABC has asked me to do monthly appearances on World News Now, their overnight newscast. I'll probably go to New York City every other month and tape two at once. Since I can tape on Sunday night for a Monday AM airing, I won't miss any Screen Savers episodes. I'll try to squeeze in a Regis appearance while I'm out there, too. That should start in early June. Patrick and I are going to St Louis in a couple of weeks, then we're booked for Baltimore and Prince Georges sometime in September, and Lousiville and Birmingham in November. Dates and locations still to be determined. Let's see, what else. The goats and lambs are doing great, but they're not eating the grass on the farm and it's starting to look like a jungle here, so I'm going to have to break out the weed whacker, high weed mower, and other power tools to duel to the death with the tall green stuff. Abby says we should get a horse, because they eat great quantities of grass. I can't say neigh, so we'll probably get one sooner or later. Well, enough procrastinating. Back to the book. Hope you're satisfied mom... and everyone else. I'll blog again soon. Promise.