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CNN Live Today

Mount St. Helens Spews Out; Tsunami Photo Mystery

Aired March 09, 2005 - 10:27   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk a little bit more about the tsunami, though. We might never know how many people actually died in the tsunami and relatives of those believed dead may never get the proof they need. But there is one Baptist missionary out there who's doing his part trying to help a few of those people gain closure. And our Frank Buckley has his story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amidst the tons of debris left behind by the tsunami, a smashed-up digital camera found near this spot by Baptist missionary Christian Pilet and his friend, Cameron Craig. They were about to throw it away.

CHRISTIAN PILET, BAPTIST MISSIONARY: Cameron was the one who had the forethought to say, hey, wait, it has the chip in it still. And you never know. Something might be recorded on the card. And so he pulled it. We put it in our pocket and on we went.

BUCKLEY: Something was there, what appeared to be a record of the final days in the life of this happy couple. But who were they? And then there was this. Taken on December 26, the wave in the distance is the tsunami before it hit. It was among a disturbing sequence of images that captured the moments of terror as the waters rushed ashore.

First, the waters go out, then a change. The water is rushing back. The wave is getting closer. Some begin to sense danger.

C. PILET: Then you see a Thai woman starting to run.

BUCKLEY: One person just stares as the wave approaches.

C. PILET: And the last picture, as best I can figure, it was probably only 100 feet in front of them as they took this picture. And it fills, it fills the horizon. It just fills the whole picture.

BUCKLEY: The photos, they determined, must have been taken by that couple in the pictures.

C. PILET: Cameron and I were -- I think the only word is devastated. Up to that point, we had been looking mainly at rubble, mainly at things that had been destroyed. But somehow now we felt a connection with some people who had been there. And it was as if we had inadvertently heard their last comments, their last conversation and then heard it suddenly stopped. BUCKLEY: Pilet was determined to find out who these people were. He searched the disaster area. These are his pictures. He went to embassies, but no one could identify this couple, whose lives, like so many others, suddenly ended.

Weeks after the disaster, Pilet arrived home to his own family in North Bend, Washington. He was jet-lagged and exhausted, but still determined to identify the couple in the pictures. And now he had his wife, Nicole, at his side. On the very day Christian arrived home with the photos, Nicole went on the Internet to search.

NICOLE PILET, WIFE OF CHRISTIAN: First, I went to Google.

BUCKLEY: She showed us what she did, which keyword she typed in. And before Pilet had even fallen asleep, she had a hit.

N. PILET: It was the very first Web site I found.

C. PILET: I remember kind of falling asleep as I heard her clicking and her saying, I think that's the guy.

N. PILET: If it isn't him, it's his twin, because it looks just like the man from the pictures.

BUCKLEY: When Christian saw this photo on a tsunami missing persons Web site, he agreed. It said the couple was John and Jackie Knill of Vancouver, British Columbia.

(on camera): The Pilets discovered that, incredibly, the couple in the photographs found halfway around the world had lived just a few hours up the road in Vancouver. Almost immediately, Christian got into his car and drove to Canada to deliver those photographs.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): Pilet knew how important that would be to those who loved John and Jackie Knill, because, once, Pilet himself had experienced a sudden loss.

C. PILET: My first wife passed away suddenly from an aneurysm several years ago. And after she passed away, somebody came up to me within half a day and told me, did you know that the message she was given, the speech she was giving at that moment had been recorded? And then they handed me a copy of this tape.

And, for me, hearing my wife's voice and hearing her last comments before she fell down and was no more were breathtaking and comforting and awesome.

BUCKLEY: Pilet hoped he could provide a similar comfort to the rightful owners of these photographs, and he did. These are the sons of John and Jackie Knill.

PATRICK KNILL, SON: And I know they were together because they were always together.

BUCKLEY: To this Baptist missionary, the photos were a gift from God and a gift from two parents to their children. C. PILET: I think John and Jackie, by doing this, actually gave their sons something and their family something that is priceless.

BUCKLEY: But the story isn't over, because the Knills' camera also captured these images of others who were there when the tsunami hit, a Thai father and his two daughters, a young couple and others people the Knills befriended.

C. PILET: We very much would like to identify them just to be able to get this kind of closure as well to their families.

BUCKLEY: Maybe they survived, but, if they didn't, someone is out there wondering how their loved ones spent their final hours. Maybe the photos will speak to them, the way John and Jackie Knill spoke to their sons one last time.

Frank Buckley, CNN, North Bend, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: We're at the half hour point, so let's bring you up-to-date on the stories making news at this time.

A gaping hole in a Baghdad street shows where suicide bombers detonated a garbage truck this morning. At least two people were killed. 22 others were wounded. The massive bomb exploded near the ministry of agriculture, but some officials expect it was en route to a nearby hotel widely used by Westerners.

Health officials in the Philippines are investigating a case of mass food poisoning. At least 27 elementary school children have died. Another 100 are hospitalized after eating a snack of fried cassava. That root can be poisonous if not prepared correctly.

Retired baseball slugger Mark McGwire and Jason Giambi could join former big leaguer Jose Canseco on Capitol Hill. There are reports that they and other power hitters could be subpoenaed to testify next week on steroid use. The "Baltimore Sun" reports that subpoenas are going to start going out today as the House Government Reform Committee prepares for its hearing into performance-enhancing drugs.

Mount St. Helens has belched its most significant emission in months. Scientists say the ash has spewed seven miles into the air and falling some 75 miles away in some places. Experts say this does not necessarily mean a more powerful eruption is imminent. Stay with us. We're going have a live report in just a bit from Mount St. Helens.

KAGAN: Also this hour, have you seen the prices at the gas pump? Have you have filled up? It's going up. Lot of people are calling it outrageous. What you can do to avoid the pain at the pump. Stick around. Our next guest has some gas tips that can save you money.

SANCHEZ: He is filled with information. And later, they are engulfed with computers, DVDs, video games, i-pods and the list goes on and on. So are children submerged in a media overhaul these days? Parents, listen up. Insight as CNN LIVE TODAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Scientists are saying that Mount St. Helens is calmer this morning following its most powerful blast in recent months. Now, does yesterday's activity signal a bigger eruption is on the way? Katherine Barrett is covering the story for us. She's in Vancouver, Washington, and joining us now live. What's the scoop there, Katharine?

KATHERINE BARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rick, calmer overnight, seismically anyway, but still letting off steam. Just a few moments ago on the distant horizon, where we can see the mountain from where are, we did see just a small jet puff of white steam coming up this morning, but nothing like Tuesday's explosion, which sent ash, as you said, 36,000 feet into the air. And as of 2:00 this morning that ash plume had traveled all the way across Washington state, as far as western Montana and ash fall was reported on the ground in towns as much as 90 miles to the north and northeast of the mountain.

Now, as you said, it's been a relatively quiet night, seismically speaking. Scientist are eager this morning, now that sun is up, to get up in a helicopter and and take a visual assessment of the crater, of exactly where that explosion came from, and also to check on the status of their instruments, which pretty much stopped working at the instant that explosion shot up through the crater floor.

They lost or knocked out signals from about five of seven seismometers and instrument packages in the crater. So they're going to go see if those are salvageable and again, exactly where yesterday's explosion came from. They're going to hold a press conference in about two and a half hours to give their latest analysis. They do still call what happened yesterday a small explosive event -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: And from what they're saying, and you correct me if I'm wrong, if this thing were to blow, and of course that's a relative term, it would not be anything in comparison to what happened in 1980, correct?

BARRETT: No, they think what we are in now is still a phase of very gradual building of a, relative to the 1980 bulge in the volcano, a small lava dome in the center of the crater that will grow by various explosions, some of which could be quite powerful but, again, nothing on the scale of 1980. Remember this mountain is about one- third smaller than it was then. So it simply doesn't have the mass with which to blow up.

SANCHEZ: We thank so you much for bringing us up to date on that. We'll certainly check back with you -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Now if you want to blow your top, check out the gas prices. Proceed very carefully the next time you go to the pump. Gas prices are soaring. They are already up more than a quarter from this time last year against the backdrop of the skyrocketing prices. Today President Bush will head to Ohio to discuss his national energy policy. Mr. Bush wants to develop alternate sources of energy, a timely subject since forecasts predict that gasoline prices will stay above $2 a gallon through summer.

SANCHEZ: So here's the question that we know you're asking yourself, so let us ask it for it. How high will they go? The national average is now just over $2 a gallon. But look at this thing we put together. It's a nice little map where you can see how different prices vary in different parts of the country. California, for example, you can pay up to $2.79 a gallon, but look at parts of the East Coast, a buck seventy-two in some places.

So, we don't want to pump-and-run or gas-and-dash like some drivers are doing in some of the reports we've been seeing. But you don't have to settle for the pump price at your neighborhood gas station either.

Joining us with tips on finding the best deals is Brad Proctor. He's the CEO and founder of gaspricewatch.com.

And let's start with this. We have a limited amount of time, so we'll try and get through it as quick as we can. First of all, how high is the price going to go and when is it going to get there?

BRAD PROCTOR, FOUNDER AND CEO, GASPRICEWATCH.COM: Well, Rick, we are about 30 days ahead of where we should be in terms of price. We are -- the Department of Energy is predicting about $2.10 a gallon is the national average. We were at $2.05 last summer. Again, Memorial Day is typically the peak. But, our trend over five years to date is showing it's going to be a lot higher than that, about 2.25 as a national average.

SANCHEZ: OK, you are saying it's going to be $2.25 in, what, the next month or so?

PROCTOR: By -- we'll see that probably Memorial Day weekend. The national average will be $2.25, which will be 20 cents over what it was last year.

SANCHEZ: What a coincidence, that's when people do the most driving. Tell me, what else about this situation will we be affected by that we often don't think about? In other words, we're thinking, oh, well, I'm going to have to pay more to fill up my gas tank but we're also going to be paying through the nose in other ways, correct?

PROCTOR: Oh, absolutely. Everything moves in this country by fuel. We're already starting to see the local impact is delivery folks. Those flower delivery, pizza people, are starting to put a surcharge on those deliveries. We're starting to see the airlines start to put a surcharges on -- they went up a good $10 just last week alone.

We're starting to see freight companies -- we will see national freight companies like the overnight people, we love our overnight stuff, but you're going to start to see them having put a fee on there to charge for this. They have been eating the costs under normal competition, but now, with such a big jump, a dramatic jump in a very few days, they're going to have to raise those prices and pass it along.

SANCHEZ: They're going to be sharing the burden with us. If you could keep it to a couple sentences, can you tell us why this is happening?

PROCTOR: Well, real simple. Barrel of oil, raw cost, $55. That's 51 percent of every gallon of gasoline that's out there. It is -- we are switching from the winter grade to the summer grade of fuel, that's driving up our distillation costs. We are now seeing consumption going up. We are seeing global competition for the oil.

SANCHEZ: Well, let me stop you there and ask you this, because I think it's important for consumers to know. Are the oil companies sharing the burden with us or are they making massive profits instead?

PROCTOR: Well, a great point. Massive profits, $25 billion last year, Exxon Mobil. 17 billion, Shell, last year. And $16 billion for BP, and it was a banner year the year before. So, incredible increases.

SANCHEZ: Quick, quickly, anything we can do to get over this hump?

PROCTOR: Simple stuff, keep those -- buy wisely, buy Tuesday mornings, come on out to our website -- gaspricewatch.com -- look for the cheapest gas in your neighborhood. Volunteer to spot a price. Get out there, you know, use them all.

SANCHEZ: All right. Sounds wonderful.

Brad Proctor, we thank you. Checked out your website a little while ago; seems good. Thank you for the information.

PROCTOR: Thank you, Rick.

KAGAN: Tuesday morning? Interesting tip. I had not heard that one before.

SANCHEZ: I guess that's before it goes up again.

KAGAN:: Well, if gas prices aren't ticking you off, perhaps your job is. Perhaps you are not impressed by your boss. Not to worry, still ahead, we have a guest who will tell us the one thing, the one thing he says you need to know to achieve success.

SANCHEZ: And on later, how much TV does your child actually watch? Well, one organization has added the hours, not to mention the video games. The sum of their results coming up, parents.

SANCHEZ: Let's bring you up to date now on something taking place in Italy. A story that caused a bit of a rift between the Italians and the United States. This is the premiere of Italy, you may know, as Silvio Berlusconi. He is addressing parliament and, we should tell you that just before he got ready to present this address, he got a letter signed by the president of the United States, George Bush, saying that they would have a swift and thorough investigation into the killing of the intelligence officer by U.S. troops in Iraq.

So, once again, Silvio Berlusconi addressing his own Parliament but just before going to the podium he received a letter from the U.S. president saying there would be a promise for a swift and thorough investigation.

KAGAN: Let's investigate how the stock market is doing today. It's been open about an hour and 20 minutes, almost. The Dow down 8 points. Nasdaq kind of flat, down, well, less than a single point.

All right. Let's talk success. Not in the stock market but in your personal life. One author now saying it's really not all that difficult.

That's the premise of this new book; it's called "The One Thing You Need To Know About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success." The main plank of the philosophy find out what you don't like doing and stop doing it. It is the work of bestselling author Marcus Buckingham who joins me from New York.

Marcus, good morning.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM, AUTHOR: Morning.

KAGAN: I do like this part of my job where I get to talk to interesting people. So we shall carry on with this part of the interview.

Looking through the book, there is really more than one thing you need to know depending on who you are and what you're doing at work.

BUCKINGHAM: Well, yes, but if you want to really narrow it down to what most of us need to know in order to sustain our success, it would be find out what you don't like doing and stop doing it. I mean, obviously, if you find a role that plays to some of your strengths, you will experience some initial success, but the tricky thing about success is it brings with it more complexity, more opportunity, more choice. Some of those choices are going to play to your strengths but many won't, and if you're not quite careful you could wind up spending most of your job doing things you really don't like to do.

So if you want to sustain your success for the long haul, you got to identify which activities play to your strengths, which don't, and then really have the self-discipline to cut out the ones that don't.

KAGAN:: All right, let's break this down to different worker-bee categories. First of all, for most of us who are just the worker bee, how do you be a top performer? I think we just covered that: don't do what you don't like to do.

BUCKINGHAM: Right. And you know, by the way, it's amazing how few of us really manage to do that. When you ask Americans what percentage of your working day do you spend doing things you really love to do, only 17 percent of Americans can say they spend most of their day doing things they love to do. So, the sad fact is there are many of us go to work every day, spending a disproportionate amount of time doing things we really don't like to do.

KAGAN: Actually, it kind of brings me to an interesting point if we can go off our list here for a minute. I think a lot of people might be wondering, Marcus, what's a young British guy like you doing coming over to America to tell us how to work? Isn't it usually the other way around?

BUCKINGHAM: Well, I'm not even sure that is true. But it's certainly rare...

KAGAN: You must hear it, though.

BUCKINGHAM: Yes, I do.

No, I came over about 17 years ago and had the great good fortune to work with the Gallup organization for about 17 years. I was studying psychology at Cambridge and we spent most of that time studying pathology, neurosis, psychosis, and Gallup was doing that so intrigued me was they were studying success. They were studying the best sales people, the best doctors, the best teachers. And so, it was a really different, really, in my mind, optimistic view of what it takes to learn about excellence.

So, really, that was 17 years ago now, and it's been a fascinating last couple of decades, just studying what makes the best do what they do.

KAGAN: Big question in a small amount of time - you're talking about success, you speak about success. Do you think success equals happiness?

BUCKINGHAM: I think you can be very happy doing something and actually not be that successful at it. But I think in terms of actually leaping -- making the leap from something you are good at to something that you are great at is not just a function of your ability, it's also a function of your appetite. It's a function of what you have a yearning for. And I think yearning will make you have that leap from good to great. Of course yearning is tied to happiness. So those two things are undoubtedly intertwined.

KAGAN: I have the appetite to talk to you much more about this topic but the clock says differently. But thank you for your time. Marcus Buckingham, the one thing you need to know. Thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: I guess that's what adults would be looking for, but how about kids. Here's one. Should you turn the TV off? Not now, because we have some information for you to know about. There's a new survey that logs the time that kids, youngsters spend in front of the tube, and they are revealing findings. I should have spent less time in front of the TV; I would have been able to pronounce that word better.

We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: All right. Folks in Florida who are complaining today this morning to me about the weather. Look at this. This is the East Coast, northern east coast. Two weeks before spring, winter still on the march. In Philadelphia, umbrellas are still no match for another storm. An inch of snow fell on Monday. Today's temperatures will be near freezing. Then there's Massachusetts, the storm is over, the ice, the wind, the sub-zero chill, it remains. Thousands are without power, and officials say the strong winds are causing delays and cancellations at Boston's Logan Airport. Forecasters expect wind gusts to be up to 35 miles an hour.

Today twice as much snow as normal for the city of Boston.

SANCHEZ: Who is complaining, by the way? I saw you look at me when you said that, folks from Florida.

KAGAN: No, you weren't. I talked to some other friends down in Florida. I think it's 58 and the sun is not out.

(WEATHER REPORT)

SANCHEZ: Here's the familiar sight for too many parents a child is in their bedroom. A child is in their bedroom. Their either listening to an iPod, or surfing on the laptop, playing a video game or watching TV. A new study has a name for all of this, media multitasking for "Generation M." It's a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It says kids between 8 and 18 years old are spending way too much time, in fact, 44 hours a week using video games, computers and other media. That's almost a full-time job. Think about it. It also says that 53 percent of the parents have no rules about watching TV or doing any of these other things, and that those parents who do, only 20 percent of those parents who have the rules even enforce them.

KAGAN: You have rules at your house?

SANCHEZ: We do.

KAGAN: Do you enforce them?

SANCHEZ: Sometimes.

KAGAN: Yes.

We have another kind of report coming up. This one is a disturbing report from the GAO, the Government Accountability Office. Apparently dozens of individuals on the terror watch are buying guns in the U.S., and they're doing it legally. We're going to talk to Senator Frank Lautenberg.

SANCHEZ: Also, a link between secondhand smoke and one of the deadliest forms of cancer.

It is the second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY. It begins right after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired March 9, 2005 - 10:27   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk a little bit more about the tsunami, though. We might never know how many people actually died in the tsunami and relatives of those believed dead may never get the proof they need. But there is one Baptist missionary out there who's doing his part trying to help a few of those people gain closure. And our Frank Buckley has his story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amidst the tons of debris left behind by the tsunami, a smashed-up digital camera found near this spot by Baptist missionary Christian Pilet and his friend, Cameron Craig. They were about to throw it away.

CHRISTIAN PILET, BAPTIST MISSIONARY: Cameron was the one who had the forethought to say, hey, wait, it has the chip in it still. And you never know. Something might be recorded on the card. And so he pulled it. We put it in our pocket and on we went.

BUCKLEY: Something was there, what appeared to be a record of the final days in the life of this happy couple. But who were they? And then there was this. Taken on December 26, the wave in the distance is the tsunami before it hit. It was among a disturbing sequence of images that captured the moments of terror as the waters rushed ashore.

First, the waters go out, then a change. The water is rushing back. The wave is getting closer. Some begin to sense danger.

C. PILET: Then you see a Thai woman starting to run.

BUCKLEY: One person just stares as the wave approaches.

C. PILET: And the last picture, as best I can figure, it was probably only 100 feet in front of them as they took this picture. And it fills, it fills the horizon. It just fills the whole picture.

BUCKLEY: The photos, they determined, must have been taken by that couple in the pictures.

C. PILET: Cameron and I were -- I think the only word is devastated. Up to that point, we had been looking mainly at rubble, mainly at things that had been destroyed. But somehow now we felt a connection with some people who had been there. And it was as if we had inadvertently heard their last comments, their last conversation and then heard it suddenly stopped. BUCKLEY: Pilet was determined to find out who these people were. He searched the disaster area. These are his pictures. He went to embassies, but no one could identify this couple, whose lives, like so many others, suddenly ended.

Weeks after the disaster, Pilet arrived home to his own family in North Bend, Washington. He was jet-lagged and exhausted, but still determined to identify the couple in the pictures. And now he had his wife, Nicole, at his side. On the very day Christian arrived home with the photos, Nicole went on the Internet to search.

NICOLE PILET, WIFE OF CHRISTIAN: First, I went to Google.

BUCKLEY: She showed us what she did, which keyword she typed in. And before Pilet had even fallen asleep, she had a hit.

N. PILET: It was the very first Web site I found.

C. PILET: I remember kind of falling asleep as I heard her clicking and her saying, I think that's the guy.

N. PILET: If it isn't him, it's his twin, because it looks just like the man from the pictures.

BUCKLEY: When Christian saw this photo on a tsunami missing persons Web site, he agreed. It said the couple was John and Jackie Knill of Vancouver, British Columbia.

(on camera): The Pilets discovered that, incredibly, the couple in the photographs found halfway around the world had lived just a few hours up the road in Vancouver. Almost immediately, Christian got into his car and drove to Canada to deliver those photographs.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): Pilet knew how important that would be to those who loved John and Jackie Knill, because, once, Pilet himself had experienced a sudden loss.

C. PILET: My first wife passed away suddenly from an aneurysm several years ago. And after she passed away, somebody came up to me within half a day and told me, did you know that the message she was given, the speech she was giving at that moment had been recorded? And then they handed me a copy of this tape.

And, for me, hearing my wife's voice and hearing her last comments before she fell down and was no more were breathtaking and comforting and awesome.

BUCKLEY: Pilet hoped he could provide a similar comfort to the rightful owners of these photographs, and he did. These are the sons of John and Jackie Knill.

PATRICK KNILL, SON: And I know they were together because they were always together.

BUCKLEY: To this Baptist missionary, the photos were a gift from God and a gift from two parents to their children. C. PILET: I think John and Jackie, by doing this, actually gave their sons something and their family something that is priceless.

BUCKLEY: But the story isn't over, because the Knills' camera also captured these images of others who were there when the tsunami hit, a Thai father and his two daughters, a young couple and others people the Knills befriended.

C. PILET: We very much would like to identify them just to be able to get this kind of closure as well to their families.

BUCKLEY: Maybe they survived, but, if they didn't, someone is out there wondering how their loved ones spent their final hours. Maybe the photos will speak to them, the way John and Jackie Knill spoke to their sons one last time.

Frank Buckley, CNN, North Bend, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: We're at the half hour point, so let's bring you up-to-date on the stories making news at this time.

A gaping hole in a Baghdad street shows where suicide bombers detonated a garbage truck this morning. At least two people were killed. 22 others were wounded. The massive bomb exploded near the ministry of agriculture, but some officials expect it was en route to a nearby hotel widely used by Westerners.

Health officials in the Philippines are investigating a case of mass food poisoning. At least 27 elementary school children have died. Another 100 are hospitalized after eating a snack of fried cassava. That root can be poisonous if not prepared correctly.

Retired baseball slugger Mark McGwire and Jason Giambi could join former big leaguer Jose Canseco on Capitol Hill. There are reports that they and other power hitters could be subpoenaed to testify next week on steroid use. The "Baltimore Sun" reports that subpoenas are going to start going out today as the House Government Reform Committee prepares for its hearing into performance-enhancing drugs.

Mount St. Helens has belched its most significant emission in months. Scientists say the ash has spewed seven miles into the air and falling some 75 miles away in some places. Experts say this does not necessarily mean a more powerful eruption is imminent. Stay with us. We're going have a live report in just a bit from Mount St. Helens.

KAGAN: Also this hour, have you seen the prices at the gas pump? Have you have filled up? It's going up. Lot of people are calling it outrageous. What you can do to avoid the pain at the pump. Stick around. Our next guest has some gas tips that can save you money.

SANCHEZ: He is filled with information. And later, they are engulfed with computers, DVDs, video games, i-pods and the list goes on and on. So are children submerged in a media overhaul these days? Parents, listen up. Insight as CNN LIVE TODAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Scientists are saying that Mount St. Helens is calmer this morning following its most powerful blast in recent months. Now, does yesterday's activity signal a bigger eruption is on the way? Katherine Barrett is covering the story for us. She's in Vancouver, Washington, and joining us now live. What's the scoop there, Katharine?

KATHERINE BARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rick, calmer overnight, seismically anyway, but still letting off steam. Just a few moments ago on the distant horizon, where we can see the mountain from where are, we did see just a small jet puff of white steam coming up this morning, but nothing like Tuesday's explosion, which sent ash, as you said, 36,000 feet into the air. And as of 2:00 this morning that ash plume had traveled all the way across Washington state, as far as western Montana and ash fall was reported on the ground in towns as much as 90 miles to the north and northeast of the mountain.

Now, as you said, it's been a relatively quiet night, seismically speaking. Scientist are eager this morning, now that sun is up, to get up in a helicopter and and take a visual assessment of the crater, of exactly where that explosion came from, and also to check on the status of their instruments, which pretty much stopped working at the instant that explosion shot up through the crater floor.

They lost or knocked out signals from about five of seven seismometers and instrument packages in the crater. So they're going to go see if those are salvageable and again, exactly where yesterday's explosion came from. They're going to hold a press conference in about two and a half hours to give their latest analysis. They do still call what happened yesterday a small explosive event -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: And from what they're saying, and you correct me if I'm wrong, if this thing were to blow, and of course that's a relative term, it would not be anything in comparison to what happened in 1980, correct?

BARRETT: No, they think what we are in now is still a phase of very gradual building of a, relative to the 1980 bulge in the volcano, a small lava dome in the center of the crater that will grow by various explosions, some of which could be quite powerful but, again, nothing on the scale of 1980. Remember this mountain is about one- third smaller than it was then. So it simply doesn't have the mass with which to blow up.

SANCHEZ: We thank so you much for bringing us up to date on that. We'll certainly check back with you -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Now if you want to blow your top, check out the gas prices. Proceed very carefully the next time you go to the pump. Gas prices are soaring. They are already up more than a quarter from this time last year against the backdrop of the skyrocketing prices. Today President Bush will head to Ohio to discuss his national energy policy. Mr. Bush wants to develop alternate sources of energy, a timely subject since forecasts predict that gasoline prices will stay above $2 a gallon through summer.

SANCHEZ: So here's the question that we know you're asking yourself, so let us ask it for it. How high will they go? The national average is now just over $2 a gallon. But look at this thing we put together. It's a nice little map where you can see how different prices vary in different parts of the country. California, for example, you can pay up to $2.79 a gallon, but look at parts of the East Coast, a buck seventy-two in some places.

So, we don't want to pump-and-run or gas-and-dash like some drivers are doing in some of the reports we've been seeing. But you don't have to settle for the pump price at your neighborhood gas station either.

Joining us with tips on finding the best deals is Brad Proctor. He's the CEO and founder of gaspricewatch.com.

And let's start with this. We have a limited amount of time, so we'll try and get through it as quick as we can. First of all, how high is the price going to go and when is it going to get there?

BRAD PROCTOR, FOUNDER AND CEO, GASPRICEWATCH.COM: Well, Rick, we are about 30 days ahead of where we should be in terms of price. We are -- the Department of Energy is predicting about $2.10 a gallon is the national average. We were at $2.05 last summer. Again, Memorial Day is typically the peak. But, our trend over five years to date is showing it's going to be a lot higher than that, about 2.25 as a national average.

SANCHEZ: OK, you are saying it's going to be $2.25 in, what, the next month or so?

PROCTOR: By -- we'll see that probably Memorial Day weekend. The national average will be $2.25, which will be 20 cents over what it was last year.

SANCHEZ: What a coincidence, that's when people do the most driving. Tell me, what else about this situation will we be affected by that we often don't think about? In other words, we're thinking, oh, well, I'm going to have to pay more to fill up my gas tank but we're also going to be paying through the nose in other ways, correct?

PROCTOR: Oh, absolutely. Everything moves in this country by fuel. We're already starting to see the local impact is delivery folks. Those flower delivery, pizza people, are starting to put a surcharge on those deliveries. We're starting to see the airlines start to put a surcharges on -- they went up a good $10 just last week alone.

We're starting to see freight companies -- we will see national freight companies like the overnight people, we love our overnight stuff, but you're going to start to see them having put a fee on there to charge for this. They have been eating the costs under normal competition, but now, with such a big jump, a dramatic jump in a very few days, they're going to have to raise those prices and pass it along.

SANCHEZ: They're going to be sharing the burden with us. If you could keep it to a couple sentences, can you tell us why this is happening?

PROCTOR: Well, real simple. Barrel of oil, raw cost, $55. That's 51 percent of every gallon of gasoline that's out there. It is -- we are switching from the winter grade to the summer grade of fuel, that's driving up our distillation costs. We are now seeing consumption going up. We are seeing global competition for the oil.

SANCHEZ: Well, let me stop you there and ask you this, because I think it's important for consumers to know. Are the oil companies sharing the burden with us or are they making massive profits instead?

PROCTOR: Well, a great point. Massive profits, $25 billion last year, Exxon Mobil. 17 billion, Shell, last year. And $16 billion for BP, and it was a banner year the year before. So, incredible increases.

SANCHEZ: Quick, quickly, anything we can do to get over this hump?

PROCTOR: Simple stuff, keep those -- buy wisely, buy Tuesday mornings, come on out to our website -- gaspricewatch.com -- look for the cheapest gas in your neighborhood. Volunteer to spot a price. Get out there, you know, use them all.

SANCHEZ: All right. Sounds wonderful.

Brad Proctor, we thank you. Checked out your website a little while ago; seems good. Thank you for the information.

PROCTOR: Thank you, Rick.

KAGAN: Tuesday morning? Interesting tip. I had not heard that one before.

SANCHEZ: I guess that's before it goes up again.

KAGAN:: Well, if gas prices aren't ticking you off, perhaps your job is. Perhaps you are not impressed by your boss. Not to worry, still ahead, we have a guest who will tell us the one thing, the one thing he says you need to know to achieve success.

SANCHEZ: And on later, how much TV does your child actually watch? Well, one organization has added the hours, not to mention the video games. The sum of their results coming up, parents.

SANCHEZ: Let's bring you up to date now on something taking place in Italy. A story that caused a bit of a rift between the Italians and the United States. This is the premiere of Italy, you may know, as Silvio Berlusconi. He is addressing parliament and, we should tell you that just before he got ready to present this address, he got a letter signed by the president of the United States, George Bush, saying that they would have a swift and thorough investigation into the killing of the intelligence officer by U.S. troops in Iraq.

So, once again, Silvio Berlusconi addressing his own Parliament but just before going to the podium he received a letter from the U.S. president saying there would be a promise for a swift and thorough investigation.

KAGAN: Let's investigate how the stock market is doing today. It's been open about an hour and 20 minutes, almost. The Dow down 8 points. Nasdaq kind of flat, down, well, less than a single point.

All right. Let's talk success. Not in the stock market but in your personal life. One author now saying it's really not all that difficult.

That's the premise of this new book; it's called "The One Thing You Need To Know About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success." The main plank of the philosophy find out what you don't like doing and stop doing it. It is the work of bestselling author Marcus Buckingham who joins me from New York.

Marcus, good morning.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM, AUTHOR: Morning.

KAGAN: I do like this part of my job where I get to talk to interesting people. So we shall carry on with this part of the interview.

Looking through the book, there is really more than one thing you need to know depending on who you are and what you're doing at work.

BUCKINGHAM: Well, yes, but if you want to really narrow it down to what most of us need to know in order to sustain our success, it would be find out what you don't like doing and stop doing it. I mean, obviously, if you find a role that plays to some of your strengths, you will experience some initial success, but the tricky thing about success is it brings with it more complexity, more opportunity, more choice. Some of those choices are going to play to your strengths but many won't, and if you're not quite careful you could wind up spending most of your job doing things you really don't like to do.

So if you want to sustain your success for the long haul, you got to identify which activities play to your strengths, which don't, and then really have the self-discipline to cut out the ones that don't.

KAGAN:: All right, let's break this down to different worker-bee categories. First of all, for most of us who are just the worker bee, how do you be a top performer? I think we just covered that: don't do what you don't like to do.

BUCKINGHAM: Right. And you know, by the way, it's amazing how few of us really manage to do that. When you ask Americans what percentage of your working day do you spend doing things you really love to do, only 17 percent of Americans can say they spend most of their day doing things they love to do. So, the sad fact is there are many of us go to work every day, spending a disproportionate amount of time doing things we really don't like to do.

KAGAN: Actually, it kind of brings me to an interesting point if we can go off our list here for a minute. I think a lot of people might be wondering, Marcus, what's a young British guy like you doing coming over to America to tell us how to work? Isn't it usually the other way around?

BUCKINGHAM: Well, I'm not even sure that is true. But it's certainly rare...

KAGAN: You must hear it, though.

BUCKINGHAM: Yes, I do.

No, I came over about 17 years ago and had the great good fortune to work with the Gallup organization for about 17 years. I was studying psychology at Cambridge and we spent most of that time studying pathology, neurosis, psychosis, and Gallup was doing that so intrigued me was they were studying success. They were studying the best sales people, the best doctors, the best teachers. And so, it was a really different, really, in my mind, optimistic view of what it takes to learn about excellence.

So, really, that was 17 years ago now, and it's been a fascinating last couple of decades, just studying what makes the best do what they do.

KAGAN: Big question in a small amount of time - you're talking about success, you speak about success. Do you think success equals happiness?

BUCKINGHAM: I think you can be very happy doing something and actually not be that successful at it. But I think in terms of actually leaping -- making the leap from something you are good at to something that you are great at is not just a function of your ability, it's also a function of your appetite. It's a function of what you have a yearning for. And I think yearning will make you have that leap from good to great. Of course yearning is tied to happiness. So those two things are undoubtedly intertwined.

KAGAN: I have the appetite to talk to you much more about this topic but the clock says differently. But thank you for your time. Marcus Buckingham, the one thing you need to know. Thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: I guess that's what adults would be looking for, but how about kids. Here's one. Should you turn the TV off? Not now, because we have some information for you to know about. There's a new survey that logs the time that kids, youngsters spend in front of the tube, and they are revealing findings. I should have spent less time in front of the TV; I would have been able to pronounce that word better.

We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: All right. Folks in Florida who are complaining today this morning to me about the weather. Look at this. This is the East Coast, northern east coast. Two weeks before spring, winter still on the march. In Philadelphia, umbrellas are still no match for another storm. An inch of snow fell on Monday. Today's temperatures will be near freezing. Then there's Massachusetts, the storm is over, the ice, the wind, the sub-zero chill, it remains. Thousands are without power, and officials say the strong winds are causing delays and cancellations at Boston's Logan Airport. Forecasters expect wind gusts to be up to 35 miles an hour.

Today twice as much snow as normal for the city of Boston.

SANCHEZ: Who is complaining, by the way? I saw you look at me when you said that, folks from Florida.

KAGAN: No, you weren't. I talked to some other friends down in Florida. I think it's 58 and the sun is not out.

(WEATHER REPORT)

SANCHEZ: Here's the familiar sight for too many parents a child is in their bedroom. A child is in their bedroom. Their either listening to an iPod, or surfing on the laptop, playing a video game or watching TV. A new study has a name for all of this, media multitasking for "Generation M." It's a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It says kids between 8 and 18 years old are spending way too much time, in fact, 44 hours a week using video games, computers and other media. That's almost a full-time job. Think about it. It also says that 53 percent of the parents have no rules about watching TV or doing any of these other things, and that those parents who do, only 20 percent of those parents who have the rules even enforce them.

KAGAN: You have rules at your house?

SANCHEZ: We do.

KAGAN: Do you enforce them?

SANCHEZ: Sometimes.

KAGAN: Yes.

We have another kind of report coming up. This one is a disturbing report from the GAO, the Government Accountability Office. Apparently dozens of individuals on the terror watch are buying guns in the U.S., and they're doing it legally. We're going to talk to Senator Frank Lautenberg.

SANCHEZ: Also, a link between secondhand smoke and one of the deadliest forms of cancer.

It is the second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY. It begins right after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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