RICHMOND

I've been up nearly 24 hours and it's not a tweaker thing, but more that I've become a work-related casualty, due to a phone call yesterday afternoon, while kicking back to some good vibes on the beach.

"Uh...we need you to come at midnight (7 hrs away) to do liveshots from Richmond (near 2 hrs away) because the governor and mayor of Norfolk are flying to Detroit to plead with the Ford executive division, not to pull the plant out of Norfolk."

"Ummm...yeah...ok...I guess I'll go to bed now..."

Two beers later I crashed, woke anew, made my way to the station, grabbed my reporter, file tapes, coffee, and blazed up I-64 to Richmond, Virginia's capitol.

We arrived at the Day's Inn around 3 am, where our SAT truck operator had arrived earlier in the night. While exiting the blazer, I caught a noise in the air. I took a moment, focused, and realized that some woman on the second floor above my truck was getting a most impressive ride. The volume was deafening.

My reporter wrote the story, I put it together with his audio tracks and file tapes, we set up shop down the road at the Richmond International airport, and got everything in place for our first of four live hits, which would start at 5 am. Unfortunately, the guy who needed to tune us in back at the station was late, and then upon arrival, incapable of finding us amongst the maddening number of coordinates, satellites, paths, channels, positions, etc...you get the picture.

We missed our first hit, but a way was found and we made our next three, getting the mayor live on our last hit for some Q&A, and then an interview with the governor, and pictures of the entourage making its pilgrimage to the auto gods in Detroit.

There isn't much they will be able to do. Corporate America has made an executive decision. The plant will close. It's their plant, and they are bigger than Virginia government. The politicians had to try though. This gives the people, the workers, the families, the six thousand employees and hundreds of businesses affected, hope. A false hope, but they had to try, at least just to give a good show.

Finished, we broke down and loaded up and hit the road. Amazingly, we made it back without traffic delays during the usually precarious morning commute. I headed home, slightly drained with hopes for a quick jaunt to the beach for a bit of early morning surf. That's when the skies turned gray and rain began. Damn. So, I became responsible: pay bills, groceries, library, video store, and beer-a formula for a perfect rainy Friday.

The clouds lingered, drizzling off and on again, generally not too bad, but a fair amount of humidity, making the skin sticky, especially after being up for so long. I had a few beers, a wonderful conversation with a new friend in Germany, and basically just enjoyed the day. Simple.

Simple isn't bad when everything leading up to it has been so hectic, chaotic, and involved. There is nothing more soothing than digging your feet in the sand, even on a rainy day, and doing just...nothing.

Oh, and the politicians returned from Detroit. With their bag full of tricks, also called economic incentives, still no deal. The plant will close.