Over the last week, Discovery, a cable channel, was filming here at the lab. They brought a busload of people, parked their bus so as to occupy as much space as 20 cars and laid cables all over the parking plot. So far, okay. After all, every occupation has its equipment to deal with. But, they also had a catering truck parked there, preparing lunch for the busy folk who were, presumably, filming all day.
Only, they weren't filming all day. They were sprawling on the couch in our lounge, they were sleeping under the trees around the building, they were having three-hour out-door lunches in the bright sunshine of an Oklahoma afternoon.
We don't have cable, so I don't know, but apparently, they used less than thirty minutes of footage filmed at NSSL after occupying the lab for five working days. Working days? Wrong choice of words. Days when we were working, and they were ... well, what were they doing?
One of my colleagues said he thought we'd been invaded by an army of squatters. Perhaps.
Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, these are my personal opinions, not the official view of the National Severe Storms Laboratory. I'm lucky enough to have to a job, as Michael Feldman would put it, let alone have official stances on lab visitors.
