First Day!!

I started work today!  I wasn't entirely sure what my job description was going into this, but I've got a good sense of it now.

In the morning we all met together: the 5 runners, a few producers, several camera men/photographers, and a handful of reporters from all different NBC stations around the US.  They are all in charge of shooting segments and promos for the Olympic Zone and for their home news stations.  Basically what happens is a reporter will decide on a story, run it by a producer, then they will come to one of us runners and have us call the location to set up a time to come and make sure it's ok with them.  Sometimes we will do a little research about the area so that the reporters have some interesting facts to drop in when they are talking on film.  When they are ready to head off to a location, they grab a camera man and a runner, hop into one of our NBC vans and go.  Today I was paired up with with Bruce, a reporter from NYC that usually reports on sports, and Billy, the Chief of Photography back at NBC Chicago but for our purposes, the camera guy.  We went down to Tiananmen Square to shoot a few promos and action shots.  We didn't really have any problems with the soldiers or security guards that are everywhere there.  They were actually quite accommodating and didn't even make us go through security because we have the right badges.  While we were filming, oodles of people would crowd around taking pictures of us.  It's really awkward, or maybe I'm just really awkward and don't know how to act in those situations.  Bruce and Billy were really awesome about it and would stop what they were doing to be in pictures with all these people.

Tonight we had our big dinner party thing with everyone that is working with the Olympic Zone (I guess they call it the O-zone, but not on camera because the ozone is a touchy subject here).  The restaurant we went to was really schnazy with crushed velvet chairs and booths.  We were in this private room with loads of books painted gold, all with the same title, "Furniture."  It was such a good attempt at being ritzy, you had to hand it to them for creativity.  The food was traditional Sichuan food.  There were some pretty strange flavors, Sichuan food is known for being REALLY spicy and also for putting in this weird spice I believe it's called, "wei la."   It's kind of like MSG only it not only adds a kick to the taste, but it also numbs your tongue.  Very odd sensation. Overall, the food was excellent, but very spicy...as the meal progressed the food got less spicy because we kept yelling at them to make it milder and milder.

This whole experience is going to be so crazy!  And this was only day one!!  Let the games begin...