The Jay Leno show. Jimmy Kimmel Live. Face it, most of you out there will never appear on one of these shows. But I have the distinction, dubious in my case, of being on BOTH shows the same night. I can laugh about it all now. But I couldn’t at the time.

Rewind time here with me if you will to September of 2003. The network sent me to Virginia Beach, Virgina to cover Hurricane Isabel, which at one point, if my recollection serves me correctly, was classified as a major hurricane, exceeding category 3 strength. As Isabel approached land however, she quickly fell apart. And by the time the storm got to Virginia Beach, Isabel was barely at hurricane strength, with wind gusts hovering around seventy miles per hour. That said, a weak hurricane is still a HURRICANE, and I wanted to demonstrate the power of these storms to our viewers. So, I put some protection over my eyes in the form of goggles, and then ventured in between two buildings on live TV, informing the audience I was about to go into a wind tunnel, so that our viewers could see the strength of Isabel for themselves.

It was not a pretty TV moment. To many out there, it was a snippet straight out of Comedy Central. I not only had trouble standing upright, I had to fight to keep on my pants, and I said so on the air. Some of the “omniscient” TV critics of America would later assail me for what they characterized as a made-for-TV charade. But a lot of people seemed to get a good laugh at my expense.

The day after the storm, my wife called me in my hotel room to tell me that this video snippet had been played on Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel. My response was something like this: “I don’t care. More than 30 people died in this storm. And millions of people don’t have electricity at this moment. I don’t understand why people are making fun of all of this.”

It’s only now that can I laugh about Isabel. And like it or not, it’s been one of the more talked about moments of my career. Heck, even the folks of the FOX Fan web page put together a special spread on the incident. Check it out here. What are your thoughts?

Don’t get me wrong, I do indeed enjoy a good laugh. I just don’t like it to be at the expense of those who are vulnerable. That’s why I think some of my most memorable work at FOX, personally speaking, has come amid situations of incredible hardship for those impacted.

1) Hurricane Katrina. Best way to describe it might be to rip a quote from a blog I filed from New Orleans during the first Mardi Gras after Katrina. Here’s what I wrote at the time.

“Saturday, February 18, 7:30 a.m. —“The Good. The Bad. And the Ugly.” Sure, it’s a classic Clint Eastwood flick, but in my case, I tell people I have covered Katrina in reverse order: the ugly, the bad, and the good. Including the hurricane itself and its catastrophic misery, as this is my fifth trip to New Orleans. In the six months since the storm, I have probably logged about two months here, two months I will never forget.

The Ugly

I have seen the desperate wade through a chest-high stew of water, in the searing late summer heat, with squealing infants on their backs. I have seen guns brandished by people who were not members of the law — they certainly weren’t protecting their property or defending their lives in that empty Ryder truck — and with that assault rifle pointed our way. And I have seen men and women with badges, aimlessly walking through a night of absolute darkness, with supermarket carts full of their few salvageable possessions. Then, there was the bedraggled middle-aged man, whose face I will never forget, who took an empty jug, dipped it into the ornamental pond outside a hotel, and parted his lips as he brought to his mouth that jug filled with the dark filth of a liquid that had survived the same hurricane he did. We stopped the inevitable.”

Here are two more Katrina related blogs of mine if you care to read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185371,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185702,00.html

2) Another story that’s up-front and center for me, encased in that oval dome above my neck: Last summer’s conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hezbollah. Best way to reflect on that experience, might be to dig up a snippet from one of my blogs from then. The date was August 11th. I filed this from Kiryat Shmona, Israel.

“It was a hurried conversation with Mom. I tried to assure her I was okay. It’s a good thing she’s on vacation and far away from her TV. I don’t think she’d be able to stomach the reality of this war, or at least my reality. The air raid siren wailed. I hung up, and raced up the stairs.

Flak jacket. Check. Helmet. Check. Time to hustle out the door.
It happened in an instant.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz. The unmistakable and violent sound of an incoming Katyusha rocket screamed over my head. There was no time to think — just barely enough time to dive. BAM! I don’t remember the next few fractions of a second, as I dropped to the ground, but I do remember picking myself up off the pavement.
It was the closest of calls. A hit 200 yards away. Smoke poured out of a building. Adrenaline coursed through my body.”
Anyway, this journey together in the blog world should be an interesting one. I’m always flattered when viewers take interest in my work and reach out with comments. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. I’ll enjoy interacting with you. After all, thick skin is mandatory in my industry, a career choice where you NEVER want to get caught with your pants down!