A couple of days ago I posted about setting up a comms link from the Boeing building here in Houston to the International Space Station. That must be one of the coolest things I have worked in my career. It did not come easy however, I had some technical hurdles to work through and up to the moment of making the connections, I knew I had a 50/50 chance of this being successful. To add to the stress, I had a room full of Boeing Management expecting to talk with the Astronauts live on the Space Station. We connected successfully and were able to talk with the Astronauts for almost 20 minutes until they were out of range.

After that day I thought a lot about other times in my career that brought fond memories. I copied and pasted three events I had written about from when I worked for the Associated Press after Hurricane Katrina.

I enjoyed watching Fox go live with Greta Van Susteren each evening. She is a very short person, maybe just over 5 foot nothing. Very nice person. Her sister was her producer for the show, also a very nice person. One evening Greta was on live. I called my Mom and asked her to switch to the Fox News Channel. She did. I asked if she saw Greta or if it was in commercial. She said it just came out of commercial. I told her to watch the background behind Greta. I then walk past and looked at the camera. Instantly I heard mom over my cell phone exclaim she saw me. She then called out to my Dad to hurry up and come see this. When Dad got in the room I walked the other direction. It was fun to have my parents watch me on Live TV! Greta’s sister, the producer then asked me not to do that again. It was all fun!

Another time a group of serious guys came by and stood just outside our production tent, then a young lady came in and asked if she could talk with me. I opened a lawn chair for her and brought another one for me to sit in. She asked if we had up linked to Singapore. I said we had. She asked what they said. I said I only understand English, so I had no idea. She laughed and said that she has family there and was just curious. After she left, I found out that she was Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Labor Cabinet member.

One afternoon we set up a link for a live broadcast with Argentina. When we set these up everyone speaks English so there was no miscommunication but when the reporter went Live they would speak in their own language. I contacted the AP up-link guy in Dallas, he confirmed our signal, then he routed the signal to a satellite over Panama, we got confirmation there then another bounce to hit Argentina’s satellite, then confirmation that the News control room had audio/video. Once we were confirmed in the Newsroom the producer took over the call which he had on speaker phone so the Director could overhear. The reporter was running late, my co-worker was on the phone with her. She was caught in traffic, and it was looking like she was not going to make it. So, to kill time and to keep the connection confirmed, the Producer in Argentina asked what my name was, I responded “Billy”. He then asked where I was from, and I responded that I am from Texas. The producer then said, “What does Billy from Texas look like?” I stepped in front of the camera and over my headset I could hear several people in the News control room in Argentina yell out, “Hello Billy from Texas!” I could not see them, but they saw me in broadcast quality video. I would have to say that was my fondest memory of working for the Associated Press.