Long distance reception has been slim this past month, so I figured that if the stations won’t come to me – I’ll come to them! My friends Mr. A and Chantal proposed a road trip for some cross-border shopping, which turned into an opportunity to visit some of my favourite TV stations in Buffalo and Erie! When we went to Erie’s WICU I was only expecting to take some pictures outside the station. But as luck would have it, we got to meet WSEE’s weatherman Joey Stevens! It was an amazing experience! So sit back and tune in for this recap of TV Garth on the road to Buffalo and Erie! (Part travelogue, part TV-log!)
Click here for Mr. A’s Flickr Set (including pics of our whole trip.)
Click here to visit Chantal’s blog with trip related videos!
Mr. A picked up Chantal and I in the morning, and as our journey began I got some neat shots of CBC and City TV billboards in downtown Toronto. (Including the shot below advertising the Rick Mercer Report! I met Rick Mercer back in June and he was very nice and let me take a pic with him!)
City TV was offering up a promo for the Diva-tastic Cougar Town starring Courteney Cox!
After crossing the border, I saw a billboard for First Night Buffalo which is an annual celebration that they show live on WKBW at 11:30-12am. (They overlap at 12am with Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and then switch over. I was complaining to both Mr. A & Chantal that when it’s time for the famous ball drop, they do a split screen between the Buffalo event and the New York ball drop!)
Chantal and Mr. A eating with me at Old Country Buffet in Buffalo. Mr. A is already bored with all the TV factoids he’ll be hearing throughout the trip!
Here’s a look at the Old Country Buffet we ate at, followed an ad that I captured when it was advertised on Erie’s WICU back in November! (I didn’t even realize they were a chain, and that I’d previously captured an ad from them until I went through my TV pics!)
Across from the Old Country Buffet was Dunn Tire. I recognized them from ads I’d seen on Buffalo and Rochester TV stations! (The second pic was captured from Rochester’s WROC back in October!)
While we were driving I saw Raymour & Flanigan. (Their commercials are so ever present that Mr. A groaned “Great…..Raymour & Flanigan!) They advertise heavily across Western & Central New York. (The second pic was seen on Utica’s WKTV back in September!)
I experienced some live “CanCon In The US,” when I saw the first of many Tim Horton’s locations in Buffalo! I’ll take this opportunity to reprise one of my favourite moments seen on WIVB back in March when a giant dancing Tim Horton’s cup helped a guy celebrate winning a new car!
We headed to the Walden Galleria mall, which is a fantastic shopping mecca located in Cheektowaga, NY.
This Blood Donor ad near the Galleria food court caught my attention! Note the WGRZ 2 On Your Side sponsorship. (Plus the awesome Star 102.5, which was playing a great lineup of Christmas music throughout Nov-Dec. My parents, as well as Chantal, had this programmed into their cars for the season!)
After the Galleria, we did some more shopping at Target. But soon after that, our next travel target was Erie, PA’s WICU! I was quite excited when we crossed over from NY state into Pennsylvania!
Chantal made a great video showcasing my wide eyed excitement as I channeled Vanna White and talked about hoping to visit WICU. (I prefer “wide eyed excitement” to “crazy looking TV geek”!) Check out Chantal’s blog here!
TV Garth in Pennsylvania from chantalsunita on Vimeo.
It was snowing, but even the wetness of Winter couldn’t dampen the excitement I had in visiting WICU! They’re one of my favourite TV stations and I watch whenever reception allows! The pic below is of the main entrance and you can see their classic letters in silver at the top!
Close up of WICU call letters on the window!
Close up of “12” logo on door, and you can see part of the lobby where they have a new TV set up next to a vintage TV. Their mail box also displays the Erie Times-News logo on it!
In honour of TV Garth, Mr. A took a picture of WICU on their lobby TV in the same manner I would if I was picking up the station at home!
Zoomed out shot of WICU’s TV, with a cute snowman in the background, and it appears they’re using a Zenith Digital Box to convert the signal that’s running on the TV! (I use a Zenith DTT901 box at home too!)
All of our picture taking caught the attention of someone who was working in the building. When he came to the door, my jaw dropped when I recognized him and said “You’re Joey Stevens!” (Joey Stevens is WSEE’s well known weatherman! Click here for a NY Times article about him! Click here for his WSEE bio!) He then shook my hand and I completely blanked in saying why we were there. I think Mr. A did most of the talking, explaining that I was a big TV fan, and that I love long distance reception that I pull in with my antenna at home in Canada. (Especially stations like WICU, which is one of the first long distance channels I remember picking up as a kid!)
I don’t think I can properly describe how much of a gentleman Mr. Stevens was! He told us he couldn’t let us into the studios, but did let us take some pictures with him, and let us take some pictures inside the station’s lobby! He also chatted with us for a few minutes about WICU and his own station WSEE. He was a complete professional, and was very friendly to us! (The pic below is Joey’s Stormteam promo seen late July on WSEE!)
I tried to show him that I take pictures of my long distance reception, but was so flabbergasted that I wasn’t sure if I made any sense. (Plus I had trouble finding the WSEE pics on my camera!) I had no idea I would actually meet any of the stations’ on air talent in person!
Before we left, Mr. A was trying to give him the gears about WICU’s Jill McCormick being let go. (Mr. A, not having quite the same level of TV obsession I do, thought he was the station manager.) This is when Mr. A pointed to a portrait of Kristin Kane, thinking it was Jill McCormick.
Since Mr. A misidentified Jill, I completely geeked out and started to name almost every personality on the station wall. (Hopefully that didn’t freak out Mr. Stevens too much, but what was really neat is that he filled in all the names I was missing as I went along!)
Considering the fact that I was floored by being there at WICU and meeting Joey Stevens, it’s appropriate that I got a pic of the gorgeous floor mat that features the station’s logo. He also told us to be very careful on the roads that night, as it was snowing a lot and making things slippery. (Mr. A found that very cool after I explained that he was WSEE’s Chief Forecaster, and not the station manager.)
Chantal made another great video as we left the station, which you can watch below. Check out Chantal’s blog here.
TV Garth Meets Joey Stevens of WSEE from chantalsunita on Vimeo.
Mr. A took some pics of me being interviewed by Chantal where – as I say in her video – I’m still “fluttering” over meeting Joey and being there at the station! It was a truly amazing experience!
We went back on the road, and I was taking pictures of any Erie sights that I’d seen commercials for back home. Below is Hallman Chevrolet, followed by a July pic from WICU advertising Hallman Hyundai (not the same car brand, but it is the same Dave Hallman!)
We also hit a couple of Erie nightspots, including The Zone Dance Club and Craze Night Club. At Craze, I geeked out again when I saw that they had received the “Diamond Dish” award from – wait for it – WICU!!! I’ve seen their Behind The Kitchen Door segments, and usually they report any lackluster conditions in local restaurants and establishments. So Craze must be pretty good to get “Diamond Dish” status (plus that’s a pretty Diva sounding name for an award!)
We went back on the road, as the clubs were pretty empty. (It was a Sunday night and it wasn’t a holiday weekend like it was in Canada.) But I caught a few more Erie events before we left. I immediately recognized the Saint Vincent hospital from advertising on WICU!
Country Fair is everywhere in Erie, much like Tim Horton’s is everywhere in Toronto! It was here that I picked up all the Sunday newspapers in hopes of getting their TV magazines! (I bought the Erie Times-News, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Dealer was so plain, it didn’t include a TV magazine!) The second pic comes from June when I saw Country Fair featured in a WICU news story.
When standing outside the Country Fair, I noticed a sign for Bianchi Honda, which sounded very familiar. I went back into my TV picture archives and realized I’d seen it advertised on WSEE back in late July!
Last, but not least, in Erie events, we saw this beautiful location for Braendel Painting and Services, which is fully decked out in holiday lighting! (Slightly blurry because it was taken from the car while we drove!) This is followed by an ad I saw on WICU back in late July!
This picture has nothing to do with TV, but it’s a beautiful Christmas display from an Erie home! We actually stopped the car to pause and take some pics, since it looked so nice! (Plus it reflects the “Joy” we all felt during this road trip!)
On our way back to Buffalo, we stopped to eat at a “rest stop” McDonald’s. It was the most delicious McDonald’s meal I’ve had in a long time. (We hadn’t eaten since Old Country Buffet in the morning!)
I had the Angus Burger with bacon and cheese. Mr. A was surprised I didn’t get the Chicken Selects, which we both love, but have disappeared from the Canadian McDonald’s menu.
We did some more bar hopping in Buffalo (Chantal and I got to rediscover how Diva Cher is at a bar that was playing the Club 69 video remix of Strong Enough! Great flashback to club anthems of yesteryear!) But after that, I wanted to visit Buffalo’s WGRZ. I’d seen the station on another Buffalo trip back in Feb, but I wanted more pics. I got excited right away when we pulled into the parking lot and saw a giant NBC peacock greeting us! (I tend to love NBC stations the most!)
Then I noticed the WGRZ “rock” which I ran over and posed with! Their epitaph is quite awesome, declaring “Seek The Truth – Be The Voice For The Voiceless.”
My reception of WGRZ isn’t always rock solid, but it does pop up quite often at my home!
Here I am posing in front of the main building, with the wonderful 2 News logo at the top, and the newsroom behind me! (One of the WGRZ workers came to the window with a quizzical look, so Mr. A turned his camera around and showed that we were just taking pics of me posing with the station. The guy then gave a thumbs up and smiled.)
Chantal made another awesome video, with us outside of the WGRZ studios, which you can see below. I was quite excited that it was the second NBC station we had visited in one night! Check out Chantal’s blog here!
TV Garth at WGRZ in Buffalo, New York from chantalsunita on Vimeo.
I thought my TV love was satiated, but then I squealed when we were heading for the border and I saw WKBW out the window! (Mr. A told me not to scream like that while he’s driving….he was worried he hit something!) It was difficult to shoot, because it was snowy and it was nighttime, but I still like the pic below!
It’s here that I’ll mention that WKBW was the only station to respond to my e-mail inquiries about station tours. Manager Bill Ransom wrote back saying that they only give tours to large groups, but wished me a good visit to Buffalo. (I also e-mailed him in April when subchannel WNGS disappeared, and he wrote back just as quickly at that time.) Kudos to Bill for his prompt and friendly replies! (WKBW is a great station, and they even acknowledge their Canadian audience by playing both national anthems at sign off!)
We were very tired, but made our way across the border and eventually back to our respective homes in and around Toronto! But before we were home, we passed through Grimsby, Ontario, and the pic below is here so I can give a shout out to the incredible William Hepburn who is a master DXer from Grimsby, and provides excellent maps that predict when long distance TV reception will be enhanced!
Big thanks to Mr. A, Chantal, and Joey Stevens for a memorable road trip through Buffalo and Erie!
Mr. A’s Blog – http://anksmcskanks.blogspot.com/
Chantal’s Blog – http://chantalsunita.blogspot.com/
Joey Stevens bio - http://www.wsee.tv/stevens.php
Stay tuned to TV Garth for more TV related goodness, including more “Year In Review” recaps! (They’re late, but they’re coming!)
