The Election Night 2006 Liveblogging Adventure

12:54pm-- Have arrived at work for my 1pm call time. Todd the photog is already grumpy. He went to The Omni, where we are stationed tonight, to mark off our riser position. Too bad the riser positions are about the size of a large shoebox. (WHY can't the Texas GOP get this straight?) Todd says I will be basically butting up against the competition's photogs all night long. Glad I showered today.

1:38pm-- Off to the Omni!

3:11pm-- Todd was right to be frustrated. Reporters and photos will be piled on top of each other, and it's gonna be real interesting when we're all going live at the same time. Meanwhile, Dallas CBS is getting some sort of hum in their audio, and they are threatening to unplug everyone's audio until they get rid of the hum. Party on! It's election day.

4:47pm-- Gotta go do live shot. But I just wanted to update - State Rep. Patrick Rose got punched out at a polling place today by Rick Green, the Republican he defeated in 2002. Yikes.

5:33pm-- They need to do a security sweep. There are 26 camera crews packed in here on two risers, and we all have to evacuate the ballroom in an hour. This doesn't pose any problems for our cut ins or anything...

6:00ish-- I receive an email from Stiles with some serious breaking news: Britney has filed for divorce! WHAT? This totally blindsided me! Convenient timing, Brit Brit.

8:37pm-- Have been very curious about the US House and Senate but don't have time to read anything. Shoot, Lt. Gov David Dewhurst's taking the stage, gotta go....

9:34pm-- Getting very HOT in this room. This is the smallest GOP victory party room I have ever been in, though Jim Talent's victory ballroom in 2002 could compete. The band is playing "Margaritaville", but that's a Jimmy Buffett song. And Buffett is a big Kinky supporter. I guess no one really cares.

Oh yeah, the GOP swept all the statewide offices here. Not a surprise. Perry's about to come out and make his victory speech.

10:21pm-- Perry's done talking. I, however, am not done talking. We're on for an extended one-hour newscast, where I will do my 17th liveshot. All the reporters are fanning themselves, like I said, it's gotten very warm in here.

2:28am-- Finally home to watch returns (we detoured after wrapping up to get drinks with our friends). And whoa, the Dems picked up Missouri?!?!? Frankly I thought Talent would hang on. Also realized that when you're a political reporter on election night, you can't effectively live blog because you have to be on the air a lot. Hey, I tried.