TV again

I'm going to be on TV again. Anyone who happens to be watching the Sacramento NBC affiliate's 11 p.m. news tonight will likely see me talking about my investigation into the planes. (See previous entry.) Locally, that's channel 3. Nationally, I think you're out of luck.

Posted by Layla at 5:15 PM, June 30, 2005. Comments (0)

Plane investigation

It's pretty well-known that I like my job. Of course, that's not always the case, but then there are times when I simply love it. For instance, I loved investigating and writing another story about the planes circling over Lodi. (That link has a photo, but if it wants you to register, try this one.)

Reporting this story was interesting. I ran into dead ends due to government officials who wouldn't/couldn't talk. Then I ran into more dead ends when I could find nothing about a business except for an address in a mailing store. And I came across plenty of loony ideas and suggestions.

Investigating can't last forever, so I began writing in order to figure out just how many gaps I had in my story. It's not a heavy, gloomy subject so I was able to have a little bit of fun with it. Read far enough into the story, and you'll even find a reference to myself.

So the story was finally published today, and then came the bonus: I got responses, just as I had for my first story on the planes. This time, a couple more possible sources came crawling out of the proverbial woodwork and offered information that could even lead to yet another story. Others, from places ranging from Utah to Canada, wrote to say how much they enjoyed my story. Another postive note came from an anonymous person who has e-mailed me a couple of cryptic, negative letters in the past year.

Conclusion: I got paid to ask questions, try to satiate my curiosity, see my story across the front page and then get some good responses. It's fun to play detective and then write about it!

Posted by Layla at 11:55 PM, June 29, 2005. Comments (0)

Unnerving court

So here's what I learned today while on company time: The guy down the street who apparently has an obsession for redheads who walk by his house is currently charged with molesting a 6-year-old. And he has a prior conviction that means he has to register as a sex offender, but it's not one of the offenses that gets his address on the public Megan's Law site, so I had no idea he lived a block or two away from me.

I learned this because he happened to be in court today -- though I haven't even been inside that courtroom for at least a month. It took me a few minutes to place him, but he knew me immediately. And, since the judge wasn't on the bench, the guy said, "Hey, how are you doing? ... You walk by my house sometimes." This was said from across the entire courtroom.

Then I realized he, like me, was waiting for the prosecutor who only handles sex crimes. So I got up and went to check his court file, learned the basics and returned, where I didn't look at him. But that didn't stop him from proceeding to watch me for the remainder of his time in the courtroom. It was so obvious that the court reporter (stenographer-person, not journalist) was mouthing something to me. At the next break, she told me he'd even shifted in his seat and turned toward me.

So there you have it. This might be a mellow town, but there's always something that happens when I walk into court. And that doesn't include all the crazy stuff that happened when I was in the Stockton courthouse earlier today.

Posted by Layla at 8:38 PM, June 20, 2005. Comments (0)

Plane update

Continuing the theme of the previous entry, my aerial friends/fiends are still circling. A plane's been up there for at least a couple hours now, and it's not quite 3 p.m. That's earlier than the normal start time of around 5 p.m., judging by my observations and the comments I'm still getting from people who read my story and also wondered about the planes.

I don't think it's the incessant circling that's bothering me so much as the not-knowing factor. Nobody will tell me what the hell those planes are doing up in the sky, and even the FBI's special agent in charge played dumb.

Posted by Layla at 2:56 PM, June 19, 2005. Comments (0)

Circling planes

Why on earth do those pesky pilots need to circle overhead for hours on end? Does the FBI really need to do that much surveillance on a city of 62,000 people? And this is AFTER they arrested five people, two of whom were allegedly connected to a terrorist training camp. After the arrests made international news, what kind of evidence would be left for planes to find?

Yes, I'm typing this as the planes circle overhead. No, they haven't stopped in days, though they tend to only show up in the evenings.

Posted by Layla at 9:43 PM, June 15, 2005. Comments (0)

Me, celebrity?

The eyes of the nation are on little Lodi, and I haven't even blogged here about the madness. It's so big, I'll be live on FoxNews Friday morning at 8:20 a.m. eastern time. Yes, that's 5:20 a.m. in California -- and I have to get up much earlier. (I'm typing this at 10:35 p.m., so you can figure out how much sleep I'll get.) I'm still not sure why I agreed to spend five to seven minutes live on national TV on some "Friends and Family" show. My editor said it would be good for me, and probably a neat experience, and I have to agree. Plus, maybe I'll get a funny story out of it.

In case you've been completely out of the news loop and have no idea why CNN, the New York Times, Newsweek (yep, they arrived today), etc, etc are here, just go Google "Lodi" or "al-Qaida" or "terrorists." I'm serious.

Posted by Layla at 10:31 PM, June 09, 2005. Comments (0)