On assignment - weird places you have filed from

Done the McDonalds, and Krystal andWhataburger. Stolen hotel signals too.
I've driven thrugh neighborhoods slowly and refreshing my Wireless configuration.
But I've also found that damn near every Piggly Wiggly has wifi and if you sit outside in the parking lot, you can send.

 

I covered the Beavers this season and they kept the press box open for a long time

 

I filed at the front desk of a hotel I wasn't staying with that night, and I called in my story from the side of the road one night. Other than that and a gas station, nothing out of the ordinary.

 

That is so funny because the same thing happend to me just this past football season. I took the bus with the team and as I left to find the bus it drove away. So I asked the Assistant Principal if he could give me a ride since I used to go to the same school so they know who I am. He did not have enough space so he put me up in the bus with the cheerleaders.

So I am in a bus with nothing but screaming cheerleaders using my phone a sprint just in case anyone care filling my story to the desk with min to spare. The worst part was having the girls over my shoulder looking at what I was writing.

Then the coach had a problem having a male on the bus and said it better not happen again. I am just like shit its not like I pulled my pants or anything. I wrote a story thats it and did not even talk to the girls.

 

A shoe-shine stand on the eighth floor of the Marriott Marquis, in Times Square.

Because there were no other free wireless signals available in Times Square. Go figure.

 

My story's similar to EStreetJoe:
It's the Trash 80 days, and the janitor for the ball park used for the state baseball championship locks up early, and I'm tossed to the street. I've ridden to the game with my photog, who is at the AP office in town developing (remember that?) and filing photos.
Since all I need to do is drop in a couple of quotes and file, I walk a couple of blocks to a pay phone (I had spotted it earlier in the tournament and filed it away as a just in case measure), finish the story, and file via couplers, beating a rapidly approaching thunderstorm. Then I call the office to confirm the story has gone through and tell them to tell my photog where I am so he can double back and pick me up. And he found me before the rain hit.
Ah, the good old days.

 

D&D One-Stop, Locke, NY. I'm throughly convinced that Locke has more cemetaries (seven) than people.

Locke is right down the road from the birth place of Millard Fillmore -- Moravia, NY.

 

Starbuck's, athletic director's office, my parents house...

and my favorite last summer: The lobby/bar of the Cavalier Hotel in South Beach.... Roy Williams was sitting at a table behind me eating lobster. Possibly the most random day of my life.

Edit: I should elaborate. I was working on a story before I went on vacation with some friends. I planned to finish writing it during my layover but the airport didnt have free wifi. When I got to the hotel we just started getting hammered. About three days later I realized I had never turned in the story and it was due that night. A little hungover, I went down to the bar. The bartender starts talking to me about what I'm doing. I tell him I'm a sportswriter.

So he says: There's one of your boys over there, and points to Roy Williams, eating lobster like 10 feet away. I had been completely oblivious to the towering wide receiver right behind me.

 

Parking lot of a K-5 school in Vincennes, Ind. that had a wireless signal just strong enough to get one story transmitted.

 

We should rename this thread: "Reasons why wireless make our job tolerable."

 

These stories -- and I've been in too many similar situations to count (dictating from a pay phone outside the Allsup's in Dalhart, Texas, on a 23-degree night because the pressbox's old rotary phone was frozen) -- are why I splurged for a cell phone that I can plug into my laptop. If I can make a phone call, I can send my story.

 

We were one of the last papers on earth to get a wireless laptop, so this just happened a couple years ago. Covering a football game, I write my story in the coach's office and go to send — only I can't get an outside line. I don't remember what the deal was, but I start freaking out. The head coach says no problem, go to my house and use my phone, I live half a block away. He doesn't take me there, though. He points down the block to it and GIVES ME HIS FREAKING KEYS. I'd talked to this guy on the phone, but don't think I ever met him before in my life. It was a little freaky. I could've robbed the guy blind for all he knew. For the record, I didn't.

Also done the convenience store thing, back in the pre-wireless days. Had to convince some Indian clerk with limited English skills what I was doing, that I wasn't making a long-distance call, and the number we used was toll free. After five minutes or so of haggling, he finally let me use the phone. Fun times.