The Miss USA Pageant comes to Baltimore. This is arrival day at the hotel. This is a bigger deal than I realized. Donald Trump owns the whole thing and will be out there pimping it big.
These babes are in town for 2 weeks, with so many photo opps that you can literally pick and chose.
They are all dressed to kill and individually each one would turn the heads in the room.

This is Miss Pennsylvania.
I swear I may have to resort to begging the desk to get a little more of this.
So many women...so little time.
But whoever is the lucky Dad that just happens to be eating lunch with his kid at the ESPN Zone when these ladies arrive....
that guy will be SO smilin'.

This girl here...she's the troublemaker.
She's a very bad girl.
How could this sweet young thing from Delaware possibly cause any kind of controversy at a beauty pageant??
Bus-ted!
DUI and drug paraphanelia...a fact that comes out 2 days before the whole shabang starts bringing in crews from Philly to watch her squirm.

Her explanation to the Philly TV station seemed both thoughtful and genuine though.
She had been drinking and there was an incense burner in the car.

C'mon...an incense burner?
What the hell is this...1967?
Didn't Joe Friday warn us about kids like this??

She was embarassed, but this girl could have told me that she was a crack ho' with syphillis and I'd still allow her to strut her bathing suit for all the hard-working men of America who have needs that no honest woman may be able to quench.
You know who you are.

She'd suffered enough the judges decided. And you'll learn more about her troubles when the Trumpster starts plugging I guess.

This is Miss Maryland on the right.
The hometown favorite.
She was smart and incredibly inviting.
If she won...I think she really would do a great job.
What ever the hell Miss USA does for a job.
Miss USA represents America in the Miss Universe Pageant.
Miss Universe??
I don't know man. Some of those ladies from Argentina and shit are knockouts ya know?
I'm thinkin' Miss Iran ain't got a shot this year though.

Have you ever been to the Preakness?
If you have, then you already know what the back of this nearby hardhat's sign says.
Click here to see.

Is this a great country or what?

The Dante Stokes trial in Baltimore. Dante was aquitted of shooting the former priest he said molested him. Now the priest is on trial for the molestation and is convicted.

This is reporter Andy Barth interviewing Ray Lewis at Ray's new restaurant opening.

A barbecue place. I got my full portion of free media food on this one.

Including the cookies. Been a while since I had a nice sit-down freebie. The daily grind has been more or less...freebiefree.

"New guy" Tony M. gathers his gear from his locker in our lounge. Tony has already been initiated with a 4AM shift.

Photog Fred S. has to put his car in the shop. And when that happens you have to remove all your stuff. Here he is with his "stuff".

Maintanance man Tom W. explains to some photogs why you shouldn't do "that".

Loading up cars and vans in the garage so that the fine people of Maryland (at least the few who watch us) will have their daily supply of TV news stories.

Rowhomes like this are everywhere in Baltimore. So when one catches on fire, the whole block is vulnerable.

Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC. I was here for a funeral story of a Maryland soldier killed in Iraq. Beautiful day...sad story.

This soldier's father (a Vietnam vet) had died only a few months earlier. His son was given a traditional military funeral including rifle shots and taps, and was buried only a few feet from his dad.

Several stations from Baltimore were here to do the story. The protocol is very rigid here. We were allowed very little access and kept at a distance requiring doublers and a steady hand.

Patch panel on one of our vans has bad inputs and idiosyncrasies everywhere. Every day is an adventure. I can see many of you nodding your heads.

My van at a double hit & run/stabbing on a main drag in Baltimore. Got there at 12:20. Had a live shot on the air at 12:28.

A day of windy weather fun led to this tree saying howdy to the neighbor's car. Power out all over. Schools closed early. I worked late. God how we love to do the weather stuff.

Baltimore City Council hearing on the sad state of city schools. This council is a joke. By charter they are a weak institution that instills no confidence or interest by the populace. The mayor (Martin O'Malley) holds all the power. He just won with 86% of the vote. I shot 40 minutes of tape here before I was told this wasn't really our story today. The reporter just wanted to get out of the building. Ain't that some shit?