Sitting on a Bus

I know you haven't heard from me in a few days and that's because I've been busy, busy, busy and with nothing all that exciting. Let me give you a general rundown of my days. Wake up when the alarm clock starts with a 3. Then walk to work. Then produce liveshots every hour on the hour for the next umpteen hours. Many hours we had multiple liveshots. Then find something to eat for dinner. Then crash. Pretty exciting, huh? My correspondent has been on TV a ton in the past few days. Meanwhile, the most exciting thing that PEOTUS has done is go grab lunch yesterday at a local restaurant. I wasn't there for that. I had to grab lunch for myself as quickly as possible because I had another liveshot within minutes.

Today, I'm back in travel pool for PEOTUS and let's just say that I am getting really good at sitting on a bus. We had a gather time this morning at 6a which was rather brutal considering I didn't go to bed until about 1a. The worst part is that we were just waiting for PEOTUS to go to the gym and he ended up not leaving his house until 9a. That meant we sat on a bus for three hours just to ride 7 minutes to the gym and then wait on the bus again. This morning, our USSS sweep was quite thorough in that our agent took his sweet time hand wanding us. I had to mention to him that it was freakin' cold outside and it really doesn't take five minutes to run a hand magnetometer over each individual. During my search, he even wanded my hair which I assured him that it's rather small in comparison to what it could be and there was nothing in my hair and I am not smart enough to even think of figuring out something dangerous to put in my hair. The other curious part was when my butt set off the magnetometer. He insisted on me taking off my coat (which did I mention it was 20 degrees with a strong windchill?) and running my hand down my back which I couldn't figure out what that was helping. I've never had my butt set the thing off before and I have been wanded a bazillion times. I'm thinking I have buns of steel and didn't know it. :)

Anyway, then we came to where PEOTUS works out and while he's up there, we get to go to a nearby cafe. For some reason, I was convinced that getting some gelato would be a great idea and while it was really yummy, it might not have been the best idea for breakfast in the cold.

So now we wait while he finishes working out and then hopefully I have some down time this afternoon to go shopping and take a nap. I hear PEOTUS is going to dinner tonight which means even more time sitting on a bus. I feel like all of my life skills have prepared me for this moment! :) See what a college degree can get you? A totally glamorous lifestyle I tell ya!

International Star

As you know, I'm in the Windy City and covering PEOTUS for this week. I have quickly learned two things about Chicago. It's much, much colder in Chicago than Crawford. Apparently I am lucky enough to show up in Chi-town right when the cold weather arrived. I have been doing liveshots from my network's huge election bus and this morning it was 18 degrees outside and about 38 inside the bus. I was not quite prepared for it to be THAT cold. I do have long johns with me but I'm running out since I've been here two days and I have two pairs. I think I need to go shopping this afternoon and purchase some under "travel-other" for my expense report. Once they figured out to turn on the heat on the bus, it's now all the way up to 60 degrees. Luckily there is a Corner Bakery a few blocks away which also has a bathroom (I'm afraid to use the one on the bus!) Hopefully I will thaw out eventually!

The other thing I've learned about Chicago compared to Crawford is that the food options abound. In Crawford and Waco there were options but nothing like Chicago! The food here is great! And there are more options for hotels. Not that I had a choice on this trip but I'm thinking about future trips and how I will never have the problem of finding hotel rooms for a Presidential trip again.

But on the exciting part about my trip so far. Yesterday, I was in PEOTUS travel pool for the first time and I discovered that it's much the same as a POTUS travel pool. A lot of hurrying up and waiting. The major difference is that all of the pool is one short bus (read into that as you wish) instead of a series of vans. It has its benefits as it's easier to get in and out of. But there are more people on there so potentially it could be a lot louder. And we spent quality AND quantity of time on the bus yesterday. We were allowed to go to a cafe while PEOTUS was at the gym and get something to eat. But then bathrooms are off limits because once we've been reswept by the USSS, interacting with the common man is off-limits. It's not a bad thing when there's not a bathroom around because you don't think about it. But when you have to go and you can see a bathroom in a restaurant or shop and you know you can't get there, it makes life more difficult. You'll be happy to know that I have been able to add to my Becky Protective Detail off of PEOTUS's detail as my BPD has increased even here. I had my agent yesterday stopping the traffic of Chicago's streets so I could cross in the middle of the road.

Oh yeah, back to the topic of work. I was in pool so I was the one that represented all five networks in the exciting Obama-McCain meeting. I don't know if it was all that exciting but considering that in the past week, the only time we've seen PEOTUS is going to and from the gym and his office, this was a substantial event. And my first event being face to face with PEOTUS (in this role at least. I've met him before years ago.) It lasted all of about a minute and there wasn't anything substantive from our time in the meeting. They were talking about football. It's just as chaotic as scenes with POTUS except that Obama's people took longer to actually convince us to leave the room than the WH folks do. I guess they'll learn to be more forceful. So that was it. Beyond that, we had a three hour lunch break and then we sat on the bus for about three hours waiting for him to finish up his meetings and go home. Traveling in the motorcade is different here than in other places. First of all the motorcade is shorter and there is more traffic to contend with. But it is a great way to see the city!

About this picture above.... During my three hour lunch break yesterday, my network's international branch asked me to do a quick debrief on the meeting yesterday. Originally it was supposed to be by phone but when they found out that I was in our Chicago bureau, they asked if I would do it on camera. I have only been on TV once and definitely prefer to be behind the camera at all costs. But I figured why not. I really didn't know what I had agreed to. But basically I did a liveshot for this show, Backstory. I was interviewed by the show's anchor in London over IFB and everything. I tried to cobble together a couple of somewhat intelligent-sounding sentences and answered his questions. I really thought they would edit it down but apparently they didn't. And apparently I was the lead of the show!!! What the heck?? So bazillions of people around the world saw little old me pretending to sound smart. Who knows, maybe I will have a following in Kuala Lampur. Actually, I'm pretty sure not that many people actually saw it but who knows! The real irony is that I didn't wash my hair yesterday and barely put make-up on and the Chicago bureau has no make-up person. I figured I didn't look too bad but I was wearing a suit (because I was in travel pool) so I think I looked maybe 20, instead of 16!! I don't think they need to worry about getting my star ready for the Hollywood Walk of Fame any time in the near future!!

The Windy City

Just a short note to let you know I've made it to Chicago for my week of covering PEOTUS. I flew in this afternoon and I was pleasantly surprised that I had a first class ticket!! That never happens! It was great because it was almost the level of service that the charter or Air Force One has. God knew that I needed a little bit of easing back in to the world of commercial travel. Plus, I was sitting next to a man that I have to call and bug from time to time to interview him for some of my pieces. Now I'm golden. The next time I have to call and see if he can do an interview, I'll just say, "remember me? We bonded one row 1 to Chicago." He said he'll help me out no matter what for the rest of time.

It's snowing here in Chicago and I'm not ready for it. I did bring a coat which is different than most trips in my recent past that have involved cold weather. I think I'm actually prepared this time and anything I have forgotten, I'll find somewhere near my hotel. Speaking of which, this is not luxurious but it's nice. The problem is that we don't get Marriott points for our stay because of some deal my network struck with this hotel. This is a total injustice!!

I'm in travel pool for Obama for the first time tomorrow. I'm hoping it's not too different than what I'm used to! I'm sure it's nothing that I can't handle but I'll feel much better when it's over!

All in a Day's Work

Today was not my typical Friday. It's not often that you get a call at home saying that you have an interview with the First Lady to come in for. It was already going to be a very busy day because we were travel pool and it was the beginning of the WH Global Summit on the Economy. I was working the afternoon/late shift at the WH today and surprise, there was an interview with FLOTUS that just happened to come up for the day. Truth be told, by the time I actually got there, my colleague had set everything up but I decided that face time with FLOTUS can never be a bad thing. So I went up to assist. Actually I didn't do much except take notes and pay attention to what was being said so that we could edit it quickly and put it on the air. Ok, I was just there to be there. I admit it. Do you blame me? Our crew guys made beautiful television and I was just there to say hello in person to FLOTUS. She talked about Wednesday's attack in Afghanistan on school girls going to school (which is an incredibly sad, sad story!) and then about meeting with Michelle Obama earlier in the week. FLOTUS was as gracious as ever and she looked at me like she definitely recognized me from somewhere. I have been professionally stalking her and her husband for the past three+ years and this is the third or fourth interview with her that I've been a part of (ok, the other ones I actually contributed in some way).

Then this evening, the real fun began. As I mentioned, the White House Global Summit is this weekend and tonight was the dinner at the White House. I think I might have mentioned this before but I am pool chair right now :) so I have been helping in the planning of coverage of this summit for the past several weeks. I am so happy that it's finally here and I'll be even happier when it's over with and all will have gone smoothly. It's a bit scary that I have been making decisions or coordinating with five networks on things that will affect the entire world's media. Whoa. If they only knew who was running things! :) Anyway, tonight was the dinner and since we were travel pool, we had a part of the ordeal. POTUS greeted all 24 leaders individually outside the WH tonight but I assigned myself and my network something that was indoors (one of the perks in being the pool chair). So we had to go into the White House and just hang out in the Red Room until all the leaders were inside. I've spent time in the Red Room before at previous Christmas parties and at the party, they let you sit on the furniture and everything. With food on a plate. But for some reason, they wouldn't let me sit on the sofa tonight. I finally begged one of the ushers to find me a chair since we had to wait about 90 minutes in that room. It's a beautiful room that I'm sure is completely filled with history. One of our nation's POTUS's was sworn into office in that room. If you know who that is, you'll win a prize. All I wanted to do is sit down. While in there, I was looking out on the South Lawn and it was so foggy that you could barely see the Washington Monument. So I decided to focus my attention on the artwork in the room which was beautiful. But I quickly got distracted in figuring out how if I were POTUS, I would change the Red Room into the Orange and Maroon Room. I think it could work.

Anyway, after waiting for 90 minutes, all 24 world leaders- from President Sarkozy to Prime Minister Brown to President Medvedev to King Abdullah to President Hu- made their way into the State Dining Room. We were the first ones in the room so I watched as POTUS tried to communicate but no one he was talking to spoke English or even the same language as each other so there were several translators involved. And the weirdest thing was that the translators weren't in the room. They were watching on closed-circuit TV from a tent on the roof of the East Wing. Craziness. They all eventually sat down and POTUS made a toast about how the economy would eventually get better and so they should all toast the future and eat the lavish dinner before them. I offered the WH staff to either be a translator (I know enough French to recognize the words for potato and bathing suit) or if that didn't work, I could be the entertainment. I was turned down on both offers. But my entire five minutes in their presence was fairly cool. I had seen most of them back in Japan in July so it just felt like we were all family! :)

Do you see me in the media in the White House photo above? Of course you don't. That's because as you know, I'm short and also I was getting literally stepped on by journalists from around the world. I had a little window that I could peak through to make eye contact with POTUS and the other leaders. But of course I'm short and so I generally don't show up in pictures. But I'm there. I swear. Ask the King of Saudi Arabia. He'll back me up. We go way back. I've been to his palace.

The Glamorous Life.... NOT!

I know most of you think my job is 100% cool 100% of the time but I just wanted to take a moment to point out that it does have its unfortunate moments. Take this morning for example. POTUS departed for NYC for the day and I didn't have to go with him. But I think it would have been better because the alternative was to stay here and have to go to his departure. IN THE RAIN. Imagine the above picture with a lot of rain coming down. I should have taken a new picture today but I didn't know how my camera would hold up in the weather.

I know I must sound completely jaded and I'm trying not to complain but just rather point something out. I don't know if you've ever stood right next to a helicopter landing and taking off in the rain but it tends to pick up every rain drop and molecule of water on the ground and throw them right into your face. Umbrellas are useless in this environment as they would be torn to shreds in the winds. So you get to just stand there and get wet. Here's my strategy that sort of works. I find the biggest guy there (usually my lighting friend Ron) and hide behind him. He blocks at least some of the wind and rain and I just peak around every minute or so to make sure the helicopter isn't crashing or something. Thanks Ron for taking one for the team today and so many other days! I still got my low wave this morning, although there was a small kid fairly close to me so maybe this low wave was really for her. I'll let her mom believe that.

Meanwhile, I'm glad I won't be here this afternoon for the return. I am getting ready for the global economic summit this weekend. I actually am not holding the summit, POTUS is but I have been involved in the planning of the coverage so I'm pretty much paying attention to it for the next two days and then I head to Chicago to cover POTUS-E or should it be PEOTUS? I'll be doing my first travel pool for PEOTUS on Monday. Apparently it's not that much different that what I'm used to for POTUS except instead of hanging out in vans while he bikes, we hang out in vans while he goes to the gym and gets a haircut. I'm looking forward to my time it the Windy City!

A Becky Press Conference

Sorry I haven't blogged this week yet but it's been a weird week. First of all, I know everyone is concerned about how I survived Election Day. So thanks for your concerns but I had the easiest Election Day ever! I'm covering a man that no one wants to campaign with so POTUS had been under the radar since late last week. I was scheduled for the morning shift on Tuesday and there was absolutely nothing going on. I watched Saturday Night Live episodes online. There wasn't even a WH briefing. I had already voted several weeks before so I couldn't even share horror voting stories. At one point, I was so bored that I actually vacuumed the entire WH basement floor. I am not sure when the last time that place had been vacuumed but suffice it to say I would NOT have taken a nap on that floor. But now you can sleep like a baby there. Except that as of Wednesday morning, things got considerably busier in my little world. I thought I would take a few moments to answer some popular questions in a pretend press conference with myself.

Q: Did you survive Election Night, Becky?
A: Since I worked the early shift in the WH booth, I got to leave early in the afternoon and went home and took a long nap. Then I went to an election-results-viewing party at a friend of a friend's house. It was the first Presidential Election Night that I have not worked since 1992 when I was in high school. In 2004, I was working for the White House Unit and worked all night. In 2000, I worked for the political show Inside Politics and was also working all night long. in 1996, I was interning at a local affiliate TV station in the 'Noke and worked that night. It was a strange thing to not be working, especially when I was fairly involved in covering the campaign for a while. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit anti-climatic but I figure I will be working enough in the next six months to more than make up for the easy night. I did, however, enjoy hanging out and actually eating and not having to work. It was quite nice to be watching like a regular American (who had a blackberry with behind-the-scenes information coming through all night.)

Q: What will happen to your job now, Becky? Will you still have a job?
A: I am fine. I don't actually work for the Bush administration. I cover it for my network. So my job is safe. Well at least I think it is. My network generally doesn't make sweeping changes at a transition unless there is real reason to (ex. complete fatigue or burnout) and it doesn't appear that is the case right now. Usually they leave it up to us to say when to move on. You never know with my network but I'm assuming that I will be covering an Obama administration.

Q: How does this affect you, Becky?
A: Well, the short answer (no personal pun intended) for me is that I will most likely be busier. Of course compared to the last couple of months of covering a lame duck president, anything will be busier. For the next 77 days, we will be covering both POTUS and POTUS-E (elect). So I expect to be spending a bit of quality time in Chicago. Hopefully not over either holiday but it is what it is. Anyway, as you will recall, I'm the network pool chair until the end of the year so now I will be coordinating the travel and all the pools of both POTUS and POTUS-E. The slight problem I'm already having is that the POTUS-E side of things is still not organized and really has no plan. Hopefully all of that will be resolved soon. So I have a few things on my plate but it's all good and I fully expect to be able to handle it all without going completely crazy. Let's see, another way my life has been impacted is the sheer volume of e-mail I'm now getting. Before Tuesday, I was averaging about 400 e-mails a day. Today alone I'm over 1000 and it's not even 4pm yet. And I think it's only going to get worse. I needed a break from deleting e-mails so I decided to blog. So if you e-mail me and I don't get right back to you, it's likely that it's caught up in the 2 bazillion e-mails I'm getting on a daily basis. I apologize.

Q: How long have you been caffeine-free?
A: Ok, I realize that this question is a bit out of place but I thought you would be interested to know (and I'm interested in throwing this out there) that I am celebrating my 13th anniversary of giving up caffeine. That's right. THIRTEEN YEARS without it. I gave it up on a dare in college, had horrendous withdrawal headaches and have not gone back since. Yes, I do eat chocolate from time to time but there's really not a lot of caffeine in small doses of chocolate. I did have caffeine one time by accident when a friend from work brought me some green tea. I assumed since it wasn't a dark tea that it didn't have caffeine. But boy, was I wrong! I had a horrible migraine and learned my lesson. I am not counting that in my caffeine-free streak because a) the tea was a nice gesture from a colleague and b) I didn't know. Please don't count it against me!! I am happy to say that I am never even tempted to have caffeine anymore. Not even cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper. And I am even prouder to say that I have pulled many all-nighters and too many crazy work hours without much sleep (most especially in the last three years), and I have been perfectly awake without the help of drugs.

Q: When will we get to see you or when will you be able to take some time off?
A: You may or may not be asking this but I wanted to proactively apologize if I have been or will be a bad friend in the next six months or so. I have been pretty blessed in the past to have figured out a way to keep things fairly balanced and still work as much as I need to but keep the extra-curricular activities going strong. I am hoping to do the same this time around but realize that this is a bigger assignment than I've ever had before. And I'm literally on a team of 6 who will be bearing the burden for my network for the next six months. So while I have a huge list of people I want to come visit (and many of you are on that list) , it seems more likely that I won't be able to go anywhere until next summer.

Q: How do you feel about covering President Obama?
A: I'm not discussing partisan politics here but I will say that no matter what your political slant is, I think we all realize that this is a historic time in the life of our country. I feel extremely blessed to be where I am right now. I will literally be on the front-row to history and face to face with the first black President. I'm guessing in time, I'll get a low-wave from him too! :) But I'm excited to be covering such a historic time. I also know it's going to be a lot of hard work and that I will be stretched and challenged. POTUS-E will definitely keep us on our toes and there will be unbelievable interest in absolutely everything he does so it will definitely be a challenging time. I am looking forward to the return of the press charter (I am sooo over commercial airlines!) and being in a press corps where more than 10 people travel with the leader of the free world. On a serious note, like I said earlier, I feel completely blessed to be doing what I'm doing and know that I'm here only because it's where God wants me. And if He has a different plan for me, He'll let me know and I'll gladly move on. But in the meantime, I'm going to soak in every moment and appreciate the unique place where I am. I'm looking forward to getting to know a lot of people in the new administration and helping them figure out how to run the country! :) And I'm hopefully going to have a lot of fun along the way experiencing exciting times.

Ok, this press conference is over. If there are any other questions you'd like me to answer, leave them in the comments section and maybe at a future virtual Becky press conference, your question will be answered.

HIGHlight of the Week

So another week has passed and we're getting closer to knowing who will be the next person I will professionally stalk in the role of POTUS. But in the meantime, all's quiet on the western front at the Casa Blanca. Or at least not many people are really paying any attention. I had a fairly routine week of work and POTUS had a fairly quiet week of activities. But on Thursday, I was once again in travel pool. (I think the WH looks to see who is working on my network's WH schedule and then they plan a trip if it's my shift.) We just went down to Quantico so it wasn't a long and grueling trip. We went for the graduation of the FBI Special Agents. The last graduation ceremony I went with POTUS to was the Air Force Academy's graduation last May which took about six hours in the cold and rain. This was so much better because there were only 43 graduates. I joked that I think there used to be 44 or 45 but they thought it would be cool for POTUS 43 to speak to 43 grads so they must have flunked a couple on purpose. Last week he met with 43 Middle Eastern advocates, this week it's 43 graduates. Hhmmmm.

Anyway, once again, I digress. It was a quaint ceremony with only about 800-900 people. The travel pool was seated at the bottom of the stairs to the platform so I was the first person they greeted once they had received their badge. I was right next to their instructors who congratulated them. We also must have been in the crying baby section. There were three or four babies/toddlers sitting right next to us who had reached their limit of sitting still right about the time we arrived. I felt bad for those moms who were trying to quiet their 14-month old right as POTUS began to speak and they had run out of Cheerios and goldfish. Since I keep the nursery at church, I knew that they were up against a huge challenge wrapped up into their precious children. It was quite comical because as soon as one would quiet down, another one would start up. POTUS even noticed all the crying and made some comment about how he made people cry. Of course the moms were completely embarrassed that the leader of the free world had called them out but they were a bit helpless. Luckily, the WH had released the speech the day before so we knew he wasn't going to be saying anything all that important. It did provide quite a bit of entertainment to the travel pool to watch the scene.

I noticed that each agent, like USSS agents basically fit into one of a few categories. You have the "Tall white dude with dark hair who wears the generic trench coat and glasses" category. Then there's the "Shorter and bald who can take down someone three times his size" category. You've got the "Chick who could easily snap your head off if she has reason to" category. And then (while unfortunately politically incorrect) "Other who can kill you just by looking at you if necessary" category. Every single one of these men and women looked exactly what you would picture when you hear "FBI Special Agent" and I feel safer knowing they are out there protecting you and me. Some of the grads had their family members present their badges to them and then they would all have their pictures taken with the FBI Director and then POTUS. I was sitting next to one proud father who was so moved by the experience that when I looked at him, I could physically seen the pride in his eyes. It was quite moving.

We had choppered down to Quantico which I decided is really the way to get around up here. We avoided the headache of I-95 and getting stuck in traffic. (Not that we get stuck in traffic with POTUS too often but avoiding all the cars was awesome.) And the helicopter ride is kind of fun. POTUS leaves from the WH but we leave from nearby Ft. McNair and meet him in the air. (I can't say that without thinking of a church hymn.) We catch up with him and he flies beside us the whole way there and then at the end, we speed up and land before he does so we can watch him land. The ride this time was beautiful because you could see all the fall colors. I don't think this year has been a particularly vast display of fall colors on the trees but from the air it is absolutely beautiful. It looks like a patchwork quilt of colors and was so breath taking. I can't see how you see things like that in nature and not immediately think about what an artist God is!

After the FBI ceremony, we choppered to a different part of Quantico (who knew it was that big!) to visit the HMX Marine One Squadron. These are the guys that fly Marine One and the support helicopters wherever we go and POTUS wanted to thank them for their service for the past eight years. I haven't really ever seen them without their helmets and goggles on and I had no idea there were so many in this unit. We didn't actually get to go to the event but when Marine One landed, it pulled up closer than we normally get to the chopper and POTUS went into the party in the hangar. We went to hold in a room in a building nearby.

Then for the third time in less than three hours, we got back in the chopper and flew back to DC. I'm guessing that not many of you have done this before but choppering around DC is really cool. I wish there weren't airspace restrictions and more people could do it. Sometimes we get to land on the WH ellipse which is even cooler but even Ft. McNair is just a neat place to land, right by the water after flying over all the monuments. Very cool! Plus an added bonus is that you get earplugs each trip so just in case I ever need them, I have a huge stash of them in my bag.

Other than that, there wasn't a lot going on this week and I'm sure this next week there will be even less. But it's only a matter of time before things get really crazy again so I'll try to savor each quiet moment!