Try, try again!

If at first you don't suceed, try, try again. That was pretty much the theme of finding a phoner today for me. I started off trying to contact the Food and Drug Administration about a public hearing they were holding on their policies on salt and salt in food prompted by a letter from sent from a citizens group. I called the main number for the agency but all I got was an endless chain of voice menus and no real person. I then tried the New York state division of the FDA but all I got was a voice mail, all three times I called. I got back on the FDA website and found the number for public relations, but when I called all four representatives were either in the hearing or out of the office. Katie had a back up phoner for me about the public works department in Akron, Ohio using beet juice and salt as a de-icer. I called the Akron public works department, but the manager who knew about the de-icer was at a doctors appointment. Then I called the department of transportation division that Akron is located in and got a voicemail, so I called the the Ohio State Department and got another voicemail. I was running out of time so I called all three again, and the FDA again just to try and got all the same results. I even tried to call Frito-Lay headquarters for their reaction to the public hearing on salt but couldn't get a really person. Finally I checked the run-down to see what other stories we had that I could turn into a phoner. I ended up calling the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerece to get their view on the Syracuse area economy and reaction to the White House's forcast of a poor economy in 2008. I ended up getting good sound about how positive things look for 2008 in Central New York. About ten minutes before we went on air my cell phone started ringing, all three of the people from Ohio called me back in those final minutes.