NancyLoo.net

For the past few years, I’ve organized the annual “Good Day Chicago” Secret Santa gift exchange at Fox Chicago.  For awhile, we jokingly said “SANTA” should stand for:  Secret and Non-denominational Transfer of Assets.  It’s politically correct, ‘eh?  Whatever.  It’s our annual opportunity to thank every hardworking member of our staff for all they do all year. It takes quite a team to put on a newscast and most work behind-the-scenes. So I want to share and show off some of these beautiful people.

Sorry for all the blurry pictures – technically difficulties with my digital camera.  (I think Santa is bringing a new one!)

Also, thanks to my pal Mike Pirozzoli of Wing Stop on N. Milwaukee for providing all the yummy food.

One can never have too many friends!

Like many people, I love facebook.  It’s great for connecting and re-connecting with friends, Fox Chicago viewers, former classmates and all sorts of people.  But I have a friendly dilemma.  I currently have 4,933 friends – not as many as many others but enough to start dreading the facebook limit of 5,000.

Morning anchor Jan Jeffcoat put it plainly, “Once you reach the limit, you’re screwed!  You can start a fan page but it’s not the same.”  Indeed, fan pages seem narcissistic and pretentious – and they don’t allow for the same kind of interaction as profile pages.  Other television news friends have told me to just start another facebook account under another name.

When I ran into a facebook executive at an event over the summer, I asked him about the friend limit.  He urged me to start a fan page as I urged him to lift the limit.  He later emailed to say, “Right now we will not allow users to exceed 5k friends. In the future you will be able to move your friends over to your fan page.  Sorry.”

Perhaps that’s why I’m spending more time making friends over on twitter.  While tweets are limited to 140 characters, I can have an unlimited number of friends.  At times, I feel I can use as many as I can get!

Producers Beth Boylan & Roy Santoro: Jackets required.

I arrived at work this morning to find just about everyone in the Fox Chicago newsroom all bundled up – as if they just walked in from our colder-than-average weather and then plopped down at their computers.  Wait, that’s because they did.  After weeks of relatively comfortable newsroom temperatures, a cold front had moved back in.

Anchor David Novarro makes it clear “I’d like it to go on record.  I don’t like it. I’d prefer to be comfortable.”  Co-anchor Jan Jeffcoat adds, “My fingers are frozen.  I can barely type!”

Roy estimates the room temperature is in the low 60′s.  He tells me, “Even my soul is cold and that’s a dark place.”  Without missing a beat, audio tech George Sarantos walks by and says, “What do you mean?  You have no soul!”

David and Jan in the sauna-like studio.

I figured out one good source of warmth.  After printing out materials for my story assignment, I let everyone know “If you print things, they come out warm!”

Mark tracks the temperatures inside and out!

Soon after, David and Jan walked into another temperature extreme – the studio felt like a sauna.   Meterologist Mark Strehl has his jacket off.  But he keeps it nearby because he knows the newsroom cold front might move faster than anything on his weather radars.

Oooooooo, we have: AAJA National Board Rep Lorene Yue, Chapter Co-President Nancy Loo, Treasurer Sabrina Wu & Secretary Rui Kaneya.

I often wake up with the same anxious feelings I had back in high school and college.  Just like then, I have some kind of activity everyday.  Is this some kind of Asian habit?  It’s still amusing to me that I once served as President of my high school German Club! At the same time, I did cheerleading, gymnastics and student council. At all other times, I had to work at our family restaurant. I suppose watching my parents work so hard for so long made me eager to remain productive outside of work and school.

After work today, I presided over a board meeting for the Asian American Journalists Association.  I’ve been serving as chapter co-president for the past two years along with Rummana Hussain, a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times.  Other board members include Lorene Yue of Crain’s Chicago, freelance journalists Sabrina Wu and Inggrid Yonata and Rui Kaneya of the Chicago Reporter.

2008 Trivia Bowl emcees: Joanie Lum, me, Jan Jeffcoat, Ellee Pai-Hong & Angie Lau.

There is a lot of work to be done. We’re behind in planning our annual Trivia Bowl – pitting media and business people against each other as we raise money for student scholarship programs. The event is always great fun with interesting questions about current events and Chicago history. There’s also a lot of kidding and trash talkin’ between all the media outlets.  And now that the future of the Chicago Sun-Times is a little more secure, the paper’s team is eager to go for a three-peat as champions.

Also on the agenda today, chapter elections.  There will be a call for nominations soon.  I won’t be running.  But I’m already feeling anxious about what I’ll do with more free time.

Richard Marx: Awesome guy, eager to cure Cystic Fibrosis.

Last year, I got to learn firsthand how news anchoring and reporting aren’t nearly as nervewracking as singing in front of a live audience.  So, I was more than happy to just be in the audience Saturday night for Chicago’s Newsapalooza, an annual charity event to benefit the Cystric Fibrosis Foundation. WLS Radio Host Roe Conn and Grammy-winning singer Richard Marx select news personalities to perform “out of their element”.  Indeed, the result is interesting and entertaining.

Roe and Richard are passionate about the cause.  Richard says, “Cystic fibrosis kills way too many people and a cure is imminent. We are very close!”  Soon, we may be even closer because their event raised more than $100,000 for new research.

Sondra Solarte & Jan Jeffcoat performed beautifully. (Look, that's Walt Willey from "All My Children" behind Sondra!)

I was proud to cheer on my “Good Day Chicago” pals Jan Jeffcoat and Sondra Solarte as they sang “Heartache Tonight” by The Eagles.  They were awesome!

I’ll post the Newsapalooza highlights as soon as they’re available.  But here’s Richard Marx and his band performing at the after party at the Hard Rock Hotel: