National Young Readers Day

Mahealani and I were among a few KITV staffers who read aloud to classes at Salt Lake Elementary School earlier this month for National Young Readers Day.

Mahealani read to a third grade class. Students also asked her some questions, including “How much money do you make?” and “How come you don’t have any children?”

I read to a second grade class a few days beforehand. I didn’t think of inviting questions (which may have been a good thing), so the only one the keiki had for me was, “Can you read another book?” So you bet I did!

What did we get out of it? Personally, it’s important that kids get interested in reading, especially for pleasure, so I enjoyed the experience — and the manapua in the teachers’ lounge.

By the way, mahalo to Salt Lake First Grade Teacher Traci Takahara for the invitations and the photos!

Aloha,
Ben.

bgutierrez@thehawaiichannel.com

Zipping Around On Kaua’i

I’m always game for a thrill and some adventure, so over the Thanksgiving weekend, my husband, Mike, and me went on the new Zip Line Tour at the Princeville Ranch on Kaua’i’s north shore. What is a Zip Line? Basically you go flying hundreds of feet over trees, cliffs and streams, and the only thing keeping you from falling to the ground is a long wire and a harness.

At first, I was nervous about zipping so high above the ground, but once you get the hang of things, you can jump and practically soar through the air.

Compared to sky diving out of an airplane at Mokule’ia and rappelling down hundreds of feet of cliff in Australia, zipping on Kaua’i wasn’t too scary. It was just an exhilarating way to enjoy nature from a bird’s eye view.

aloha and keep zipping!
Mahealani
mrichardson@thehawaiichannel.com

I’m back baby!

Hello All,

Sorry I haven’t been on the blog. I lost my sign in and yada, yada, yada .. I’m finally back. Which is great because I wanted to talk about one of the funniest moments on the show since I’ve been apart of it. Dave Hisaka is back from his little vacation on the mainland. And he showed us a giant pez dispensing Darth Vader. After showing us and the viewers the giant Darth and telling everyone what it is … Dave looked at it and said, “This is probably why I’m not meeting any women.”

Anywho, hope you all I had a Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for reading.

Dan

A Morning with Jake

As you know, we’ve started having guests on the morning show again. And one person we always like to have for a visit is Jake Shimabukuro.
Now, Jake’s been on the road a lot lately, but stopped in for a visit while he’s back here at home for a series of concerts for Thanksgiving weekend.
Jake, of course, looks a lot different from the last time he was here. Everyone remembers him with the short hair, the glasses and the aloha shirts, but now he’s in jeans and a t-shirt, the glasses are gone (finally got the laser surgery!), he’s lost a bit of weight, and the hair is longer and spiky. (He mentioned to me that he’s never had his hair this long ever in his life.) What you can’t see is that he’s got a new agent, having signed with the William Morris Agency, which also handles Michelle Wie.
I’ve been acquainted with Jake for about four or five years now, and I can tell you one thing that hasn’t changed: He’s still down to earth and friendly, going around and thanking everyone on the crew after the show. He still is happiest when playing his beloved `ukulele, although he now shows a more delicate melodic touch from time to time. He’s still capable of doing his trademark high-speed riffs though.
Hope you enjoyed having him on the program as we did having him as a guest.

Ben.
bgutierrez@thehawaiichannel.com

Brrrrrr Our studio is so cold!

I’m not sure how cold it is in our studio but you can tell it’s freezing by the way the morning crew dresses. Camera operator Aulani Richardson (my cousin) wears a hooded jacket and doggie slippers.

Teleprompter operator Aran Higa wears a towel on his head to keep warm under the air conditioning vent.

Things even get cool for Dan and me under the hot lights.

aloha and stay warm!
Mahealani
mrichardson@thehawaiichannel.com

My Big Blooper — Junk in the Trunk

Here at KITV, I pride myself as being the keeper of the BLOOPER tape, but last week, the joke was on me. On our morning show, Jill Kuramoto did a story about ways to save gas. One of those ways, is to remove the extra stuff you keep in your trunk. The story ended and I said on air to Dan, “Wow! Jill has a lot of junk in her trunk.”

Dan seemed uncomfortable at that point and tossed to Traffic and Weather with Dave Hisaka. Dave then said “Did Mahea say Jill has a lot of junk in her trunk?”

At that point, the whole crew started laughing hysterically. I must admit that I had no idea what I was saying. Dan had to explain to me during a commerical break what the phrase means. If you don’t know what it means, it essentially refers to someone’s back side.

Rich, who works in production said to me, “As a father of two, even I know what that means.”
Brayden, who also works in production, couldn’t believe I didn’t know the phrase. He said, “Geez Mahea! I thought you were hip!”

Anyway, I hang my head in blooper shame. I apologized to Jill and she graciously accepted and laughed about it. I will NEVER say that phrase again, but my blooper is now on MY OWN blooper tape.

aloha,
Mahealani
mrichardson@thehawaiichannel.com

My first blog. I’m scared!

Hello. This is my first blog and it’s been a challenge getting here. I’ll spare you the details, but my co-workers have been rolling their eyes because of my lack of computer skills.
Stay tuned for more info about our show and the gory details of our lives.

aloha,
Mahealani

Good Morning

Good Morning Everyone,

Welcome to the Island Breakfast Blog. This is my first time “Blogging” so please be gentle. But I’m looking forward to the experience. Hope to be hearing from you.

Dan

Waking Up is Hard To Do

One question we constantly get is: What time do you guys wake up? For me, it’s halfway through the newscast (ha!).

Seriously, working on the morning newscast means being in the office at rather bizarre hours. (After all, we have to be up before you are so that when you wake up, we’re already there.) And the hours are more bizarre if you’re more of a night owl, like I am.

So, back to the question. I get out of bed at 3 a.m., and get into the office an hour later to start crunching the weather graphics. I’m actually one of the stragglers: Dan’s here at 2 a.m., while Mahea rolls in sometime around 3 or 3:30 a.m. And we pale in comparison to our producer, who comes in at 11:30 p.m.; the assistant producer starts at 1:30 a.m. And we all work eight hours a day — more on that in a later blog.

So, why so early? My response to that question is usually something a bit glib, like, “Well, the show doesn’t put itself together.” Which it doesn’t. There’s a lot of writing and editing to do, and video feeds to cull, to fill those two hours we’re on the air. Ironically, all that can go out the window when there’s breaking news, and we’re passing on the information to you as we get it, which is a pretty good adrenaline rush and more fun than caffeine.

I thought I’d write about this because our traffic reporter, Dave Hisaka, overslept yesterday, and yes, we gave him a hard time about it on the air. (In Dave’s defense, he has another job at a radio station Sunday nights until 11 p.m. or so. In fact, since he also does the traffic on our 5 p.m. newscast, I wonder when he sleeps, if at all.) But oversleeping is one of the occupational hazards of being part of the morning crew. Dave said he has three alarm clocks; I have two, one of them on batteries in case there’s a power outage. Both of those alarms are LOUD! And if I sleep through both (which hasn’t happened yet, knock on wood), then one of the producers will be calling me on my phone, which I’ve programmed with a particularly annoying ring tone.

It’s a hard slog, but we do it. And when the time comes when we don’t have to do it any more, we’ll probably do what Paul Udell did on his last day on KITV 4 News This Morning: he smashed his little windup alarm clock with a sledgehammer until nothing but little plastic shards remained.

Ben
ben@kitv.com

Welcome!

Well, if you found this, congratulations and welcome to the Island Breakfast Blog from the morning team at KITV 4 Island Television News! Dan, Mahea and I, along with our newscast producers, will post here from time to time on what’s been happening with the newscast, the news we cover — or just what kind of morning we’ve been having.

I can’t guarantee we’ll be here every day. But check in from time to time. And feel free to drop us a line at morningmail@thehawaiichannel.com . One of us will try to respond as quickly as we can.

Aloha!
Ben Gutierrez
ben@kitv.com