Traveling Miles

ABC's World News Now runs flooding PKG

Covering the floods in Columbia County, FL

This is probably my favorite tease I've ever done for WUFT. Too bad we forgot to rescue the caterpillar. Woops.


And here's the package Patrick and I shot for WUFT. It was supposed to run yesterday, but because of a computer crash it got pushed back to today.

Worm Gruntin' Shoot

Had a great time working with Steve Hartman and Bob Caccamise this weekend on a shoot in Sopchoppy, Fla. (about 45 minutes south of Tallahassee) about worm gruntin'. You may be wondering what, exactly, worm gruntin' is. Well, you'll just have to tune into the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric this Friday at 6:30 to find out! (or you could just Google it -- but I'd recommend the former) -m

SUV catches fire on I-75

So I'm driving back up to Gainesville this afternoon and after only being on the interstate for a few minutes, I see smoke rising in the distance. Traffic in front of me is starting to slow down. Finally I see the source of the smoke: an SUV is on fire. I hear sirens and pull off into the emergency lane as a highway patrol car passes me and then blocks off traffic. Seeing I wasn't going anywhere for a while, I grabbed my camera, got out of the car, and began snapping away. Here are a couple of the photos from today. And this is the story of what happened to the SUV...

Missing UF student's body found

Unfortunately, it is a sad Easter weekend for many in the University of Florida community. As soon as I woke up this morning I looked at my BlackBerry and saw the bad news: Thad Owen's body was found in Africa. I typed up an updated version of the story for ABCNews.com with the limited information I had:

UPDATE at 5:50 P.M. EDT: Added updated information from family spokesman. Click here for the original article on ABCNews.com

Florida Student Dies in Africa River
Man Was Part of Wildlife Study Abroad Program

By MILES DORAN
GAINESVILLE, Fla., April 12, 2009 5:50 P.M. EDT

The body of an American student who was swept away while swimming in a river in southwest Africa has been found.

University of Florida student Thad Owens, 27, went missing April 9 on the Kunene River, which borders Namibia and Angola, UF spokesman Steve Orlando said.

"They were at an area next to a river and he decided to go swimming," Orlando said.

Owens, of Orlando, Fla., was caught in the current and swept downstream.

An intensive search effort was mobilized including local villagers, the Namibian police, the Namibian military, Angolan officials, private search and rescue teams and the U.S. embassy.

Florida Student Swept Away by River in Africa

I've been working the phones all day on this story breaking out of Africa. A UF student went missing there yesterday afternoon after being swept away by a river. Here is the article I wrote for ABCNews.com: 

Florida Student Swept Away by River in Africa
Man Was Part of Wildlife Study Program

By MILES DORAN
GAINESVILLE, Fla., April 10, 2009

An intensive search effort is underway for an American student who was swept away while swimming in a river in southwest Africa.

University of Florida spokesman Steve Orlando said Friday that 27-year-old Thad Owens went missing Thursday afternoon on the Kunene River, which borders Namibia and Angola.

"They were at an area next to a river and he decided to go swimming. He got swept down the river and they haven't seen him since," Orlando said.

This is pretty cool...

Early wake-up, floods, and a shoot

I'm covering my friend Daniel's shift at WRUF tomorrow. The only thing is, it's at 5am. Yikes. I think it has been close to two years since I last worked a morning line shift at the station. Since then, AM850 has changed the way the morning newscasts are handled. Instead of anchoring the newscasts live, everything is pre-recorded. It's a cost-saving measure because instead of having to pay a board op to manually push the button to put us on the air, everything is just sent through the automated system that the station uses overnights and to play commercials.

Steve H. sent me an e-mail today asking if I'll be around tomorrow/Saturday. Turns out he'll be in the Tallahassee area shooting a rather odd AA story for the Evening News.

Here's a clue: dirt.

I'll probably head over there tomorrow night as they are going to start shooting at 8am Saturday. Recent heavy rains have caused the Santa Fe and Suwannee Rivers (among others) to rise, however. This is resulting in many road closures between Gainesville and Tallahassee so I'm hoping I'll be able to get there and then back to Tampa Saturday night without getting stuck. We'll see.

Must be awards season!

WRUF and WUFT have done pretty well with awards over the last few days. First with the Florida AP Broadcasters awards this weekend, then the SPJ regional awards, and just learned today that two of my pieces won regional Edward R. Murrow awards. One was a radio piece on Tropical Storm Fay which won in the 'Breaking News' category. The other was the Guatemala piece Rikki Klaus and I put together, which won in the 'News Documentary' category. WUFT-FM also picked up a few. Congrats to all!

Backwards Swastika

One of the big stories making news here at the University of Florida is the discovery of a swastika painted on the side of a Jewish fraternity house. The Alpha Epsilon Pi house is still under construction, but a fraternity member discovered it last week -- then reported it to police on Sunday. Click here for the story from the Gainesville Sun.

Here's the thing, though. If whoever did this was trying to paint the swastika symbol used by the Nazis (the symbol has been used by many different groups and religions since the Neolithic period), they painted it backwards. Here is a photo of the swastika painted on the side of the house along with a graphic of the swastika used by the Nazis. See the difference?

   Photos from Gainesville Sun and Wikipedia.