Boeing has been a part of Seattle's history for a very long time. So when the premire of the brand-spanking new 787 came to pass, we were on it like white on rice. It was a lot of fun hustling against a competing newspaper (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer), as well as other news and wire services and seeing what shook out the next morning. I covered it over two days which included my first experience transmitting from my laptop while I was driving down the highway from one 787 assignment to the next using a Verizon card as well as my first ever helicopter ride.

For the first day, my assignment among other things was to photograph the Boeing 707 as it landed at Boeing Field for all the coporate bigwigs at 7:07 pm on July 7, 2007 (7/7/07 - get it?) I'm still in daily awe of how beautiful Seattle is, and when I saw Mt. Rainer at the end of the runway, I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to frame things up. I can't imagine how many times this photograph has been made, but here's my version. Shot with a 500mm lens in case you're interested in these kinds of things.

Here's the view from my first helicopter ride. The editor wanted the line up of all the planes in formation. By the time I got in the air, they were already taxing away the 707. The editor liked this shot because it had the city skyline in the frame. I was just trying to concentrate on not dropping anything out of the door, including my cameras and myself.

The next day was the rollout. I covered the celebration down at Qwest Field: 25,000 Boeing employees gathered to watch the event on the jumbotron.