The couch fits on the roof

I came home to Ridgepointe from work today and spotted a rather odd sight.

Someone was moving out of their apartment a few buildings down and made the rather unwise decision to put their couch on top of their SUV. And, they put the loveseat on the tailgate.

When a person makes a decision like that, it only makes sense that they use a thin little cheap piece of rope to tie it on.

I was going to wait and see if it fell off when they backed out of the parking space, but I got tired of waiting. I'm thinking there was a good chance though that it fell off before they got out of the parking lot.

A bonus Kenparazzi photo: It appeared that a couple unrelated to the couch on the roof pair that was moving out of their apartment was in some sort of disagreement that required police attention. Of course I got a photo of that, too.

Couch on the roof
and loveseat on the tailgate.
Safe moving is all the rage.

Tucson Police dealing with a
couple having a disagreement.
Congratulations, your argument
is now internet famous.

Anthony's pumpkin shaped head

Anthony and I had our usual Sunday shopping excursion yesterday. We usually eat dinner out as well, but Anthony brought home Burger King so we ate in front of the TV.

We did go to Target because I needed to buy a new outfit for Lucky to wear in a doggie fashion show he will be appearing in this Saturday. I ended up choosing a sports referee looking outfit that says "Rufferee" on it. I'm sure I'll be more excited that he's wearing it than he will this weekend.

We went grocery shopping after that at the Walmart Neighborhood Market at 22nd and Craycroft. The pumpkin craze is in full swing for fall / Halloween. Even Anthony's head looks like a pumpkin!

I spy with my little eye
an Anthony hiding near the dollar bins
at the Grant and Tanque Verde Target store.

The Rufferee Tee that I chose for Lucky.
"For pets only"

They even have dog food with pumpkin.
Fish, egg, and pumpkin together
must make for nasty dog farts.

Walmart Market at 22nd and Craycroft.
Where you can buy Strawbrainy.
Happy Halloween.

More of the pumpkin craze...
it's now reached Oreos.
Pumpkin Spice Oreos.

Nothing says fall like
Candy Apple M&M's.
It's the scarf that makes it so fall-like.

Twinkies with orange s'cream filling

Kraft Jet-Puffed Pumpkin Spice Marshmallows
They're even in the shape of pumpkins.

You can run but you can't
hide behind that pumpkin.

Happy 30th anniversary Guy Atchley

KGUN 9 news anchor Guy Atchley celebrated his 30th year at the station on Friday. Working 30 years at any job is an amazing feat. It's an especially tough milestone to reach in the competitive business of television news.

Our whole staff had a celebration in the main conference room.  In case you're wondering, it was good cake.

Guy Atchley's 30th anniversary cake(s)

My co-workers wait for Guy...
and for cake.

Guy gets a standing ovation
for 30 years of hard work

Speech! Speech!

Amanda cuts the cake.



Guy also appeared as a guest with
Tina and Maria on the Morning Blend
today (Monday 9/29/14)

Pay phones still exist

I was at the Circle K convenience store at Tanque Verde and Kolb yesterday and parked near a pay phone.

I didn't realize these were still around. I remember when I lived at Kachina Springs Apartments and they removed the pay phones from near the office there about five years ago. At that time, I thought it was the beginning of the end of seeing them.

I saw a recent statistic that there are over four billion wireless phones now on Earth, and six billion people. The same statistic said there are more people with wireless phones than there are with toothbrushes.

The real shock came when I looked more closely at the phone. Four minutes costs one dollar. Holy crap! I remember when you could make a local call on a pay phone for ten cents and talk as long as you wanted. One of the first radio jobs I ever had involved getting a roll of dimes from the business manager so I could take the prize patrol van out. I had to find a pay phone, use a dime (or a few dimes if I was in a town that required a long distance call), and call the radio station to announce where I was so people could come and win a music cassette, t-shirt, or some other prize for showing up. I never used a cell phone doing a radio call-in until about five years into my career.

I now know I need to keep four quarters in change in my car in case my cell phone doesn't work and I need to call someone to tell them something in four minutes or less. And, be lucky enough to find one of these.

Pay phone at Circle K.
Finding one of these is like
spotting a nearly extinct animal
in the wild.

Meeting James Van Praagh

I booked James Van Praagh, known as the "ghost whisperer", on the show Thursday. He was in town doing pre-promotion for a show he's performing at the Fox Theatre on November 7.

I knew a little about who he is. Anthony knew a lot. I mentioned that I had booked him and he got very excited. He tried to get the day off work to come with me to the station to meet him. When that wasn't successful, he sent along a book he has had for years for James to sign.

I had to run the show from the control booth on Thursday but I did manage to get out for a couple of minutes -- long enough to get a picture with him.

Like you'd expect anything less.

James Van Praagh with Ken Carr
One of us talks to the dead.
The other has fabulous hair.

Goodbye Amanda

A pretty rare moment occurred this week and if you watch the TV show I work on, you've probably noticed that something is different: We've had almost a total staff turnover in the last few months.

It was not by design. Everyone (but me) left to pursue other career opportunities in a relatively short window of time. It could be that they were all tired of smelling my cologne everyday but no one said anything so I'm thinking it was just coincidence. It happens in broadcast media like this sometimes.

As we usually do when a host or staff member leaves, we take a couple of minutes on the air to acknowledge the departure, have a cake (which is often generously provided by the crew at Cakes For Causes, who is a regular guest), and a video presentation looking back at their time on the show.

Amanda was the host that left this week and Cakes for Causes outdid themselves. The cake was amazing. It had a southwest theme complete with chocolate rocks and sugar sahuaros (cactus) on top. A few tears were shed. She'll be missed -- I enjoyed working with her the last two years.

I've mentioned this before -- the one odd thing about my workplace is that we tend to do a lot of celebrating when people leave. Cakes, happy hours, dinners, lunches. But, we don't do that when people start their jobs. I have always wondered why it works like that. You'd think we'd be celebrating more at the beginning.

Any excuse to eat, have cocktails, and consume cake.

Cakes for Causes created this amazing
cake for Amanda's last day.
It was 100 percent edible.

Rene from Cakes for Causes, Amanda,
and Maria

The Morning Blend crew says goodbye to Amanda.
That's me flapping my big arms in the back.

Mr Magoo, Seabrooke, and Lucy

I had to go to a meeting at the Humane Society shelter on Kelvin Blvd. yesterday.

Terri, the account executive from the station that was also there, wanted to go look at the dogs up for adoption.  I have a soft spot for the animals at the Humane Society since that is where I got Lucky.

I did see two cute five year old Schnauzer dogs who were billed as a "bonded pair".  They have to be adopted together. I often wonder if Lucky would be happier with another dog in our apartment but it doesn't make much sense at this point to get more. I think if I suggested it that Anthony would strangle me in my sleep.

But, it's like driving by a new car dealership. It's fun to look.

Mr. Magoo and Seabrooke
The bonded pair up for adoption
at the Humane Society

This is Lucy.
She was wearing a cone and Terri
had her eye on this dog.
She didn't adopt her, but she
sure seemed to like her.

A Cokeless Burger King and a poo colored hat

It's Sunday -- which is the weekly dinner and grocery shopping day for Anthony and I. Today had a bonus, a trip to Ross because I needed a new dress shirt for a show photo shoot coming up on Wednesday.

I didn't think Anthony was going to go because he hurt his back carrying a case of water up the stairs to our apartment. But, he's a trooper, and didn't even complain as much as I expected.

Dinner was at Burger King at Grant and Craycroft. We've eaten there many times but today had a bit of a twist:  They were out of Coke. They were also out of lemonade, and according to a Tweet I was sent on Twitter from one of my followers they were also out of Chicken Fries. Hopefully that is just a sign that a manager wasn't doing their job correctly ordering and not a sign that the restaurant is in trouble.

We went across the parking lot to Ross after dinner and I ended up buying six dress shirts, a bin to put Lucky's toys in, and a hat for Anthony for a total of a hundred bucks. Ten dollar dress shirts really excite me.

We went to Walmart Neighborhood Market at 22nd and Craycroft for the grocery shopping to complete our excursion. The store wasn't as busy as it usually is on a Sunday night. It was a pretty routine trip.

The weekend is over... all that's left are the photos.

Walking to the car at Ridgepointe.
Sneaky photo of Anthony from behind.

Burger King at Grant and Craycroft.
We ate in another empty restaurant.
I wonder what the world record is for that...
(eating in empty restaurants)
we've got to have a shot at beating it.

Mushroom and Swiss Big King (delicious!)
plus fries and a cute little squirt of ketchup.

Ross at Grant and Craycroft.
Halloween decorations already for sale.

They're just hanging around

Anthony with his mummy

This hat is way too small for Anthony.
Either that or his head
is way too big.

I finally found a hat
that matches the color of my poo.

Ballpark Park's Finest -
do these plump when you cook 'em?
That was the only reason I ever
bought Ballpark franks.
At Walmart Market at 22nd and Craycroft

Fud.
That's the sound they make
when you drop them on the ground.

Rice Krispies Treats Blasted
I'll bet they taste wonderful
when you are.

Holy crap, they still make Taster's Choice.
This was the coffee choice for romance
back in the 1970's.

It took a whole lot of (now)
neutered popcorns to make these.

Goldfish Grahams S'mores
I fed one to Lucky, and now Anthony
considers them dog treats and
he won't eat them.
Oh well, more for me and the dog.

I like Walmart because it's cheap.
Anthony hates Walmart because he feels the
produce isn't very good.
He did find a box of acceptable peaches.
I think the bag will be used for suffocating
me in my sleep for making him shop there.

Its like the fog in my bathroom

The remnants of Hurricane Odile made for some interesting sights. Even though it barely rained in the Tucson area, it was unusually humid.

One of those sights was really low clouds over the mountains. I put the 300mm lens on my DSLR and shot this photo from the east parking lot of the KGUN building looking north.

Low clouds and fog on
the mountains north of Tucson.
Reminds me of the fog in my bathroom.

I pushed a truck off of a Toyota and saved a family

Sometimes when I'm shooting photos of the TV show hosts, I catch some random hand gestures.

The gestures are interesting photos all by themselves... especially when I write captions that have nothing to do with what they were talking about.

"I pushed the truck off of the
Toyota and saved a family.."

"If I attached giant ears to my head
would I be able to hear Ken Carr better?"

Shooting at Peter Piper Pizza

The headline might be a bit misleading. The shooting I'm referring to is a video shoot we did for the TV show at Peter Piper Pizza today on 22nd Street.

One of the highlights of the visit was meeting the woman who owns the Peter Piper franchise stores in Tucson. I asked her how she got into the business and she explained that her family purchased the franchise territory in the 1980's. A friend of her's owned some McDonald's franchise locations in Southern California. They were impressed by how well their friend was doing and investigated buying McD's franchises in southern Arizona but there were none available. So, she said that they ended up deciding to buy the Peter Piper franchise territory here instead. I wish I could remember her name -- but she was a delight. She said she's enjoyed making families and children happy with pizza and games. I said it is awesome to do that and make a good living for your own family as well.

They've been in the process of remodeling their restaurants in this area and that's why we went to do the video shoot at their location (to show off the new look). They're also launching a Sriracha stuffed crust pizza in October and demonstrated how it's created for the TV camera.

I did have a very Ken moment while I was there. A customer was eating lunch and she was exposing a bit of butt crack. It's not easy to get a photo of such a thing without being noticed but I managed to nail it successfully. A true Kenparazzi moment. I live for this you know.

Peter Piper Pizza on 22nd Street
east of Alvernon

Show host Maria gets ready

Scott shoots close ups of pizza
while Chef Gregory of Peter Piper
and show host Maria wait

Maria chats with Chef Gregory
of Peter Piper Pizza

Pizza!
(I ate a couple of slices)

Employees create the pizzas in here

Dining room

Cash in your tickets
for fabulous prizes

The woman on the right is the
owner of the restaurant
(whose name I can't remember)

Game room

My proudest moment of the day.