FUEL TV

The Romano Crew on set



The New young Guns -- Quicksilver Team -- had you fooled didn't I? It's just our kids....


the Romano girls...

Right before vacation our friend Paul from Fuel TV called to chat about stopping by the studios while we in CA. He said he would send the guest list of who would be taping shows while we were in town, and if we saw anyone special we wanted to watch he would make it happen! so cool.

One particular name caught my eye on the list -- Johnny's too, but he wasn't going to admit it. A fairly new surfer named Mason Ho (I'm sure a relative of Don Ho -- shout out to my Granny if she is reading this!). Who's Mason Ho you ask? Mason is the big brother of another up and coming surfer CoCo Ho -- she's a super cute 14 year old. And Johnny is in love with her.
She's all he talks about. He even downloaded the Hannah Montana album onto his iPod -- because CoCo Ho has it on her iPod. aawww, matching playlists.... he watches a lot of Fuel, but rarely does he download someones playlist.

Unfortunately we couldn't make it that day. I think Johnny was RELIVED with the news.

The day we made it to the studio's, they had Erik Ellington and Braydon Szafranski (both skate for Spitfire wheels -- which is part of Deluxe) and a few surfers -- Dane Reynolds, Clay Marza, and Ry Craike -- (they're on the Quicksilver Surf Team, promoting their new "Young Guns" movie).


Mike and Paul -- classic Mike shot!


Dane Reynolds and Ry Craike -- the well spoken (cough!) sorry, had something stuck in my throat -- Quicksilver Team. I think the public education system is much better in Australia -- where Ry is from. just a hunch though.



Pat (host), Johnny and Ian. Ian is the Talent Coordinator for Fuel. Super cool guy. When everyone left to tape the show, Mike and I hung out with Ian. When his cell phone rang he answered it and said "oh. Hi Jay." , then mouthed to Mike and I "sorry -- Jay Adams...". OMG! Jay Adams?!?! We tried to stay calm. You may have heard of the movies 'Lords of Dogtown' (starring Heath Leger) or 'Dogtown and Z-boys' (narrated by Sean "Spicoli" Penn) -- they are pretty much Jay's life story. Ian is even in one of them. Whoa! Really -- Mike and I tried to stay calm. I'm not joking.



Braydon, Johnny and Erik. One point during the day I was looking for bottled water. Erik, always the consumate gentleman, offered me his and said "you can have mine, I just opened and only took a sip...". Um. I'm good. really. thanks...



Pat and Romano Crew


It was pretty cool to watch them tape a show. My biggest worry was someone from Team Romano knocking over some sort of hyper-expensive equipment or letting loose a loud bodily noise (Joey did during Johnny's commercial for the Blood Center! -- bringing a whole new meaning to the word "CUT!"). Everyone was very well behaved, no one was hurt, nothing was broken, nothing ripped!

Then Paul asked if Johnny was ready for his close up -- Yep! So they took off with the host of the show, Pat Parnell, to go over the questions and to ease Johnny's nerves. If I could have, I would have given the little guy a shot of whiskey -- he was nervous beyond words.

PLACES EVERYONE! (they don't really say that) As everyone got ready I could see the fear mounting in Johnny. But more importantly Mike. I thought the poor guy was going to toss his cookies he was so nervous for Johnny. Pat really made Johnny feel comfortable and in the end, I think he did GREAT!


This was one of the boys highlights of the trip -- skating the set of the Habit. I guess they can use it later in life when they are trying to get a date. "Hey, I skated the set of the Habit, how's 8p sound?"


Any opportunity my kids had to make themselves at home, they did.

If you have Fuel TV you can watch it tonight on channel 111 if you live in Houston. It comes on a special 'sports package', The Speed Channel (racing stuff), Fuel TV, and a Fox sports channel -- boxing or something.


Heath feeling confident enough to deploy finger guns at Fuel HDQ.



Two things I wanted to accomplish while at Fuel. Meet Pinto, the imaginary mascot and Jordan. I met Jor-dan! I met Jor-dan! this was the highlight of my trip. this kid cracks me up!!!



2007 Romano Christmas card? One of the 11 Quiki Marts in the world was just a few blocks from Fuel. We had to stop. It was insane. There were like 50 'Apu's' serving you donuts, squishy's, cops directing traffic in the parking lot, only a certain amount of people allowed in the store for crowd control. News crews filming. Crazy stuff. All of the makings for a classic family portrait.



This was the quietest ride home -- EVER!