Yesterday was Town Meeting day.  I had not been looking for ward to this, it is such a crazy day.  This year we were determined to make it easier.  Meredith and Kurt went over to the Elementary school on Monday and set up the microphones.  I went to the office and prepped all my equipment, tested the cameras and loaded it all on the Magliner.

Well, the best laid plans of mice and TV producers…  When I got to Hardwick at 7:30 AM Tuesday morning the power was out!  Meredith and I took all our stuff over the school and the power kept coming on and going off.  We wired everything up, but I had to leave at 9 AM to get to Woodbury on time.

So I went to the office – in the dark – and there was my rolling cart all loaded up and no elevator to take it in.  So I got the distinct pleasure of hauling my gear down two flights of stairs, I made it in three trips.

Woodbury school has a generator, so I had power there, but I still had to haul my stuff up those two flights of stairs.

Town Meeting went well, it was odd to be at the Meeting and not be able to vote.  And I miss Woodbury.  It was nice to see the people there again.

Once we were done I got to lug my stuff out to the car and head back to Hardwick.  Meredith got power back late.  The Hardwick town decided to start in the dark, so Meredith issued tapes and batteries to the camera operators.  But when the power did come on, she had no idea how to set up the engineering, so she kept on going the same way.  She has a cluster-ƒµç# to edit.

And in their infinite wisdom, the Vermont Principals Assoc scheduled the first round of playdown games last night!  So I stayed in town and did the game.  The girls were up against Randolph, a tough team.  Coach Bellavance said this team was the one team he didn’t want to have to play.  And sure enough Randolph took an early lead.  They have a bunch of tall, tall girls.  The Hazen girls just couldn’t make a basket.

Finally coach put Alyssa Whitney in.  She had twisted her ankle a couple weeks ago and hadn’t played since.  She came out to play and her first shot on the basket was her spectacular split-kick three pointer – and she nailed it!  The first Hazen points of the game and it was Whitney’s 3-point shot!  (aside: Alyssa has this funny split-kick when she jumps, her left leg goes forward and her right leg goes back)

So the Hazen girls put their star-forward in foul trouble, and then the girls really took off.  By the end of the game they were ahead by more than 10 points.  I don’t recall the actual scores because I am working.  All I know is that they won…

And this means I will go down to Windsor on Friday for their quarter-final game there.  And that will be it for me, the semi-finals and championship games are at Barre Auditorium and I am not allowed to record those games.