Monday, January 19, 2009

Getting Started

Last night friends suggested I start a blog about my trip which begins tomorrow.  It's inauguration day - the most historic in my lifetime.  That's where they will be tomorrow.  I will miss it and will be anxious to read their blogs describing the experience.  So, it seems ironic that they suggest I blog about my trip.  For fun I will.  
I've made dozens of trips like this.  I'm a videographer for a great company that manufactures underground mining equipment.  Our photographer and I are off to Green River Wyoming to tape and photograph a longwall mining system.  We then drive to Henderson, KY and go underground at another mine.  
It's interesting work and we see places few people see, but what is probably more remarkable is that two women make up this team.  I don't go underground as much as I used to but our main cameraman, Pete (whose footage you may have seen on Modern Marvels and the History Channel) is working for us in Poland this week.  
If you read this and wonder "what's remarkable about two women going underground", I would be pleased to hear it.  It would be a measure for me about how far things have come since my career began in Armed Forces Radio and Television in 1979.  Then, there were few women in any form of media production and when I reported in, the station manager said, "You should know the broad in broadcasting does not stand for women."  And when I first started going underground nearly 14 years ago, few mines even had a women's bathroom.   I heard, more than once, that it had traditionally been considered unlucky for a woman to be underground.
I've witnessed the evolution of two industries - the media - and mining.  So, join me on this trip and I'll share a little bit of what I've seen and what I'm seeing now.

2 comments:

  1. WoW!! I envy your adventures and I'm proud to have witnessed the changes you're describing--Far from the day when a women "went to university to find a suitable husband"! I'm glad I was able to raise my girls in a diferent mindset--they know they can be whatever they want--and in part by the example their Aunt Linda has set!!!

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  2. I'm just starting to read your blog from the beginning. It's exciting to find it because my husband (Wayne) worked for this company for years and has been to the mine you're visiting many times! I'm looking forward to reading about your experiences there. I'm Nancy -- met you at the last filmfest at the Latonia.

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