Elephant Tuesday

Meet George. George is an engineer for Fox News. He also is their representative to the Convention Communication Committee. That means while walking around the convention doing his daily Fox duties, he's also looking for people like me who may be using wireless microphones. Most television stations around the world use wireless microphones instead of a cable. It's easier, sounds good and you don't have to mess around with the cable. At these conventions with thousands of cameras and frequencies all over the place, you're not allowed to use them unless you're pre-approved by George and his committee. I knew about the rule so Flynn and I have been carrying the trusty green cable around with us all week. In fact, I left the transmitter in the trunk of the rental Mercury since we can't use it.
Shawn and I were about to tape a standup on the convention floor when George came up and introduced himself and his frequency detector. Once he saw the trusty green cable, he was pleased we were following the rules. He showed me the list of offenders. It included locals, video bloggers, and some international offenders. George said the Russians have by far been the worst and don't take kindly to frequency enforcement. If you're out and about and see George, quickly hide your transmitter and produce an XLR cable. You'll thank me later.
Our hotel is in the Seven Corners neighborhood of Minneapolis near the University of Minnesota. There's a bar on every one of those seven corners and we've visited a few post convention. Our new favorite is Bullwinkle's. It looks a bit shady from the outside and looks like a whip ass bar inside. We walked in, I saw the old, wooden bar, a popcorn machine and felt right at home. We drank the local light lager for two bucks a cup and talked about the midwest with the bartender who wanted to know more about the south. After a while Shawn looked up and noticed some weird things on the ceiling.
It's a Bullwinkle's tradition to take a dollar bill, put a thumb tack in the middle, use two quarters to weigh it down a fold it up. Then you use all your strength to hurl the dollar bill hard enough towards the ceiling it sticks there. Flynn nailed it on his second attempt and added another dollar fifty to the ceiling. We don't really get why they do it. It's a ceiling with probably five hundred dollars on it. I like it, though. Weird ceiling and cold beer.