The Icebreaker Mackinaw

I've had some time off recently and I used it to get out of Toledo and head to my family's cabin in Northern Michigan. One day when I was in town I had the chance to stop by the now-home for the USCG Icebreaker Mackinaw. She's now a piece of history, literally. The ship is now a museum ship docked at a pier in Mackinaw City, Michigan.

Here's some photos I snapped of the Mackinaw while I was up there.







If you're interested, you can find more information on the now retired ship by clicking here.

-Billau

Veterans’ Glass City Skyway

Disclaimer...this photo was edited together from three separate photos.

I'm writing this blog to congratulate all of those involved in the construction of the new Veterans’ Glass City Skyway. I've been with 13ABC for over five and a half years now, so I have covered many of the stories having to do with the construction of the bridge. I felt, as many of you probably did, that the project seemed like it would never finish. But now having seen the finished project, Northwest Ohio has something it can really be proud of.

My wife and I drove over the new bridge, once each way, last night. We could even see the tower's lights as we approached from I-75 and Stickney. It's very impressive at night.

Saturday morning I drove over to the East Side and hopped on a bus that took me up to the deck. Here are some pictures from that trip. (You can left-click on the pictures to see the full size version. After that, if you want to copy them to your computer, just right-click the picture and select save.)





From the bridge you can see Davis Besse (here). You can also see Fermi II in Monroe.

How Festive

Why they let me do it, I don't know. Every once in a while the powers that be have me do something on air. I've been part of several pieces included in the Powers Pack. I did a satellite shot from Houston, Texas shortly after Hurricane Katrina. This time with Theresa Pollick off on a Festival Friday, they asked me to do the story by myself. Here is my report.*


Thanks for watching!
-Billau

*Disclaimer: I'm not ashamed to admit this was put up on this blog for my family members who missed the piece last Friday night...and for your amusement.

The Slowdown, Festival Friday and Awards

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and maybe that’s because of the season. For some reason, summer is always the slow news time of year. I believe it’s a combination of school being out, the fall elections are too far off to demand significant coverage yet, and most businesses are geared down for the summer because their employees are on vacation. The first half of this year has been very busy from a news perspective, so I’m not going to complain about the slowdown.

Festival Friday is undoubtedly my favorite part of work in the summer. Theresa Pollick and I get to travel from town to town to preview the weekend’s coming festivals. If your town has one coming up, please let us know. We’d love to come to your town.

Right now, I’m putting together a DVD composite of our coverage of the 2005 grain fire down by the river. Our Coverage won a Regional Emmy in 2006 and now it has been nominated for a National Emmy. And speaking of awards, I was lucky enough to win the Ohio Associated Press first place award for Spot News Coverage with Alexis Means. 13 ABC won a bunch of AP Awards last Sunday, more than any other station in the state of Ohio. The awards are very satisfying personally, because I’ve spent the better part of January the last two years putting together the compilation pieces for the awards we enter. 13 ABC also won two Edward R. Murrow awards not to long ago, one being for Bill Hormann’s series “Truth Test,” which I edited. (Bill also won a Walter Cronkite Award for the series.)

Go Tigers!

-Billau