Jumping to Conclusions

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I am tempted to tell you the name of the man who claims he is a surgeon and left a ranting on my hotel room voicemail on Friday night in Houston. (If I were mean, and not so technically challenged, I would figure out a way to tape the message and pod cast it on this Web site so that you could hear it yourself!)

My only pause in naming the doctor (he named himself) is that I am hopeful in his "other life" he does save people and I don't want to humiliate him. I am hopeful that it was a momentary lapse in judgement that he called a woman's hotel room with half information and ranting. I am hopeful he is more professional in his work as a surgeon. Maybe the stress of being cooped up in a hotel caused him to target me.

But, to give you the behind the scenes, I thought this would amuse you to tell you. His call came, per the recording, at 9:05 p.m. CT. My room was on the top floor of the hotel (which is important to this) and I had gone down the steps to do a "hit" for O'Reilly in front of the hotel where our satellite truck was positioned.

I walked down the flights for two reasons: The elevators were slow from the full house of people and more importantly to get ready for what my colleague told me — that the elevators were going to be turned off in a short period of time. My colleague did not know when that would be, but could have been imminent in her mind. We assumed the reason for turning off the elevators was so that no one got stuck should the hotel lose power. Note: the elevators were never turned off and we never did lose power.

Because I had another hit after my 8:05 p.m. ET hit with O'Reilly, (one at 9:40 p.m. E.T. with "Hannity & Colmes") and because I was going to do a two-hour show beginning at 10p.m. to midnight (20 minutes after my hit with "Hannity & Colmes,") I put on my rain gear (changing my pants in the lobby in front of people after the O'Reilly hit did not seem like a good option.)

After the O'Reilly hit I did not want to have to run up all the stairs to the top floor of the hotel to get my rain gear, since I expected no elevators. I knew I would have no time after "Hannity & Colmes" since that 15 minutes (9:45 p.m. ET to 10 p.m. ET) is our set up time for our show.

As it turned out, as I stood there between 8 p.m. and 8:05 p.m. for the O'Reilly hit, it did begin to sprinkle. That was a surprise to me since it had just been sunny. If you watched my hit on O'Reilly, you would know I made a remark about feeling silly for having a hat on and that it had just begun to rain. I would not have put a hat on had I been simply running to the car to get something, since it was only sprinkling at that point. But, in preparation for my marathon two hours with unexpected weather headed our way, and because I was not feeling so athletic that I wanted to jog to the 8th floor of the hotel between hits, I was dressed for the expected storm. I was simply getting ready for my long night. There is a lot more to covering the news than simply putting on rain pants and I wanted to use my time wisely. And yes, the storm did come to Houston during our two-hour show, but thankfully not as bad as we had been warned. I was glad for that and ended up just standing in the rain and wind for the two-hour show.

And, if the good doctor, who finds time to call strange women's rooms to rant ("I will never watch FOX again") had the entire story, maybe he would not accuse me of "faking the news." Apparently he found my rain gear too much and "faking the news." I wish he had actually listened to what I said on the air. He should have LISTENED (I assume he could not since I stood alone and not within any crowd) instead of jumping to conclusions. I am hopeful — and assume — he is more investigative when he prepares for surgery than he was in making calls to women's rooms. He also said in his rant that he would tell other surgeons in Houston about me. I hope he can find something better to do with his time. In the end, I just think he felt the stress of being stuck in a hotel with uncertainty about a storm coming... he needed someone to yell at.

E-mail No. 1

Greta,
First I have to say that I am a fan of your show, watch it all the time. But I was astonished at your recent blog wherein you wrote about being able to obtain a hotel room in Houston. Don't you and the other members of the media realize that for every hotel room you come into town and take a real person in need of a place to stay is prevented from getting a room? Come on Greta, I thought you are smarter than that. If you insist on coming to town and exploiting tragedy for ratings, at least try not to flaunt it in our faces.
M. Cox
Houston, TX

E-mail No. 2

Greta,
A bit of sad news for some very wonderful firefighters from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Twenty had gone to Mississippi to aide in setting up a tent city for 1500 contractors — they had helped around Hattiesburg, the Gulf coast area and in Slidell, La. They had purchased chain saws to get trees out of yards where the owners were not able to do the job, they cleaned up debris, another words, they worked their tails off. As some of them were returning to Co. with a pick-up and a trailer filled with generators, chain saws, photography equip, (the dept had sent a photographer with them to follow them around) and personal bags of many of the twenty; the truck and the trailer were stolen from the motel in Dallas. The truck was found — it had been hot wired, but no sign of the generator, chain saws, photography equip, or personal items of the firefighters were found that had been in the trailer. You can get the names of these firefighters from the Co. Springs fire department. How sad to end the trip on such a down note. As some of the crew flew through Dallas, they were pulled to stay in Texas to help. The last of the crew are to fly home today — if they are not also pressed into service.
Lois C. Sunriver
OR

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