On a personal note, I'd like to thank Sheriff Carona's media operation for wasting most of my morning.

Let's start with the press conference by Carona consigliere Mike Schroeder. I found out about following my morning ritual of taking the kids to school. I checked out Total Buzz and saw Peggy Lowe's post that there'd be a press conference at 9:00 a.m.

But since the OCSD press office never sent me the press release they'd sent to every other local media outlet, I had no idea where it was. By the time I'd showered, dressed, grabbed the UnSteadiCam and fought morning traffic down to the sheriff's office, it was well past 9:00 a.m. And since I'd been unable to find out where the press conference was, I wandered from one part of the sheriff's HQ to another until I discovered the presser was actually down the street in another office building.

By the time I got there, it was past 9:30 a.m. and the Schroeder presser was nearly over.

Now, it's not like the Sheriff's press office doesn't know how to get a hold of me. After all, a few months ago they'd invited me, Jonathan Constantine and TheLiberalOC.com blogger Chris Prevatt on a tour of the Central Jail.

I mentioned this to Mike Schroeder, who apologized. He'd written the press release but had given it out to the Sheriff's press office to distribute. Mike directed me to OCSD spokesman Jim Ammormino, who said to call Damon Somebody-or-other in the press office and Damon would put me on the list of media lining up for their 5-minute interview with Carona.

After milling around the foyer for a while with the rest of the media, it occurred to me that if the Sheriff's crack media team hadn't sent Red County notification of the press conference, then I might not be on "The List" that was our gateway to 5 magical minutes with Mike.

So I called Damon Whosadigger, got voicemail, and left a message.

After another 20-30 minutes of waiting, I called again.

Someone named Donna answered.

"Hi," I said. "This is Matt Cunningham with Red County. I'm trying to decide whether to stick around and wanted to know if I'm actually on the list of media to interview Sheriff Carona."

"Who are you with again?" Donna replied.

"Red County," I said. "OC Blog."

"Just a minute," she said in that I-have-to-check-with-a-bigger-cheese kind of voice.

Sure enough, she got back on the line one minute later.

"I'm sorry, but I'm told the Sheriff will not be doing interviews with any bloggers, just mainstream media."

"Well," I said, "He can suit himself."

I guess bloggers are good enough when the Sheriff wants to try and use us to buff up the Central Jail's image, but when it comes to 5 minutes of trying to get something other than a choreographed answers, us bloggers don't measure up. That's fine, but next time I'd like to know up-front so I can use my morning productively instead of being jerked around by the Sheriff's media office.

UPDATE (5:34 p.m.): Just to clarify, I don't hold Mike Schroeder responsible for any of this. I think anyone in the media will attest he is readily available and willing to talk to the press. Plus, we're friends and have worked together, so it was some kind of SNAFU amongst some of the OCSD office factotums. Mike even arranged for me to spend a few minutes talking to Sheriff Carona, who had spent nearly all day churning through the one-on-one interviews.