The Weather Channel and Snowman's

A little summary of what took place last night with the Golden Snowball competition and the Weather Channel. Earlier in the week the weather channel contacted me about perhaps doing an interview sometime on the Abrams and Bettes show. I thought about it for about 2 seconds and said sure, it sounds like fun. Well yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from a man named Pete. A super nice guy saying they wanted to do the interview that evening. For the record I did try to pass this off to Dennis Brogan but couldn't reach him. He's use to the media and handles it well :)

Calm, cool and smooth. That's me. NOT! Knowing the show was live panic set in as soon as the phone rang at around 8:42pm. It was Pete telling me to get ready, about a minute to go. I told Pete what a sissy man I am, he laughed and the next thing I know I was talking (stuttering) with Mike Bettes and Stephanie Abrams live on the weather channel. I would of loved to gotten a lot more in about the contest but at least the weather channel knows about it now. It would be fun to hear them mention our contest when they mention our city's during the forecasts.

I mentioned to my forum members that most likely I will be saying Ummm a lot. I did that during the press conference in December when we awarded the trophy to Jeff, the man in charge of our DPW. One of my forum members said to just pause instead. I told him I would try that but if he hears a long pause, that means I probably passed out from the pressure :) The worse thing was that while I was on the phone doing the interview the call waiting was beeping like crazy. Talk about losing concentration.

The biggest screw up (and there were many) other than the heavy breathing which I will explain in a minute was be trying to mention about how we kid and razz each others city's and mentioning how someone from Buffalo made snowmans. 1 snowman + 1 snowman = 2 snowmans Yeah I'm an idiot and normally proud of it except for when it comes to national attention on one of my favorite stations, the Weather Channel. As soon as I said snowmans I just rolled my eyes. I did recover the next sentence though and said snowmen. Have I mentioned yet how attractive Stephanie is and man what a smile. Sorry, I'm wondering off a bit.

As for the heavy breathing on the show I blame that on my back. Really! It's nothing to do with my bad habit of cigarettes. I pulled my back out several days ago from shoveling some of the heavy snow that came down last week. I did send Pete an email apologizing for that and told him that I can't help it I get excited when talking about snow and the Golden Snowball award.

Ok, enough about last night and a big thanks to the Weather Channel, Stephanie, Mike and Pete for giving us a chance to explain what our contest is. In reality the weather channel is on here most of the day. I'm a little skeptical about putting a link up to the video but what the hay. For those of you who missed it last night and need a chuckle check it out at the Abrams and Bettes section on the weather channel at http://www.weather.com/aboutus/television/abramsandbettes/index.html?from=footer Just scroll down to the video section.

Also Sean Kirst from the Post Standard has a new blog now and he is looking for some feedback about the Winterfest and the Golden Snowball contest at http://blog.syracuse.com/kirst/2007/02/the_golden_snowball_and_winter.html You might of heard me mention Sean's name. No doubt he is the person most responsible for getting and keeping this contest in the news and growing. Have a super weekend all!