In July 2009, we headed to Alaska for that long awaited Alaskan Cruise. It was fun for sure and I compiled a series of videos of the trip that can be seen on YouTube. Just click on the "My YouTube Videos" link on the home page if you would like to see them.
But before we left, we learned that CNN was doing a special on back yard grill masters and we thought we would enter something to show how much we enjoy barbecuing and grilling in our own back yard. So I signed up as an iReporter and submitted my version of back yard cooking.
Naturally, I spiced the story up a bit telling about the Chicken Ranch and Coop and Big Green Eggs and Eggheads and anything else I could throw in, along with photos and videos.
Well, wouldn't you know it, we received an email back from the Producer, saying they wanted to do a spin off on just Eggheads, and asked me to send more information.
I didn't have much time to send anything else because we were packing to leave for Alaska, but I threw together some more information and suggested they contact BGE in Atlanta.
Then we left for 10 days.
When we returned home the answering machine was full, there were lots of emails to read and a friend from Florida said she saw the CNN show.
Well, we couldn't figure out how to see anything other than the hard copy on CNN's site but it was fun to read. Here's the link: http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/07/09/eggheads.irpt/
Every once in a while I check to see how many people have clicked on my contribution to the article. As of today, four years later, it has gown to 11,658 hits on mine alone.
But that's not the end of the story. Nope, it was such a hit that the Producer wrote later to ask if I could put together any other newsworthy articles about Eggheads for them. I probably could have but I got wind that the number of hits on the Big Green Egg web site crashed the site, all because of the CNN article. This was confirmed by a BGE executive earlier this year when the subject came up at an Eggfest. Her exact words were, "So YOU'RE the guy!!!....."
Needless to say, I'm sure there were a few, if not thousands of Big Green Eggs sold as a direct result of mine and other Egghead's participation and contribution to the CNN piece. But did we get an 'attaboy' or 'thank you' or maybe even a gift certificate from Big Green Egg? Nope! Not a single word of thanks from them. So there's not a lot of incentive for me to do anything that might further enrich BGE. (although like all Eggheads, we still talk it up a lot).
But I've been thinking on it some, and with the constantly growing popularity of Eggfests, now may be a great time to do another story for CNN.
We'll see....
