The Computer Came Back. Disaster Averted.

My computer has a CD-RW which means that I can burn CD's. I need that to do Progressive Radio disks and to do a backup of some of the audio files that are taking up a huge amount of disk space. The burner portion of the drive does not work. Or it doesn't work for me. I took my computer over to MicroAge on Tuesday to get the thing fixed. Wednesday evening I got a call from MicroAge. The drive worked great for the tech in a set of software that came with the drive called Nero. I had tried Nero. It had not worked for me. I told him that RealPlayer and Easy CD were the software I had tried and neither could recognize the drive as CD-RW. The tech just called and the computer is now ready. RealPlayer works, but Easy CD does not. I'll dump Roxio and use Nero. I now have to get a ride over there and take care of this.

I have been using a backup computer I pulled out of a closet. It has a bad CMOS battery. I'm not sure I care. I have been debating just giving it up. It kind of irritates me that the software I use most often seems to run faster on this one than on the newer one. The older computer uses Windows NT and I must say that Windows NT seems saner than Windows 98.

It's been kind of tough not having Internet access. I started rereading a book by S.M. Sterling called Island in the Sea of Time. It's a series of books about an entire island, Nantucket, moving back in time to 1250BC. It's very well done.

Monday I did Afternoon Musica in a strange frame of mind. I did an all cassette version of the show. It took more than the cassettes I had put aside. A two hour show normally takes 24 tracks. Three of the tracks I had set aside to play were bad, so I was left with playing some of my CD's. It seemed to take forever to cue up each cassette. I got it done before I had to start. The playlist for Afternoon Musica on Monday, December 26, 2005 was:

Artist or Band[Song]
The Cars[Tonight She Comes]
Ronnie Milsap[I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World]
Prince[PartyUp]
Jimi Hendrix[Castles Made of Sand]
Ski Row[Big Guns]
.38 Special[Caught Up In You]
Alice Cooper[School's Out]
Rod Stewart[Maggie May]
Billy Squier[All Night Long]
Led Zepplin[Immigrants Song]
Duran Duran[Is There Something I should Know?]
Def Leppard[Billy's Got a Gun]
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band[Modern Romance]
Linda Ronstadt[Trouble Again]
Ozzy Ozbourne[Changes]
Maddonna[Cherish]
The Black Crowes[Darling of the Underground Press]
Robert Plant[Tall Cool One]
The Doors[Break on Through to the Other Side]
Joe Croce[Bad Bad Leroy Brown]
N2Deep[Back to the Hotel]
Lynyrd Skynyrd[Down South Junkin']
Faith NoMore[From Out of Nowhere]
Paul Simon[You Can Call Me Al]

I reviewed a CD by Rosanne Cash that said it was from 2001. The copyright was from 2005. What irritated me was that I did not think it was such a great album. I mean Roseanne Cash is big, yet I did not much like the album. That means to me that I am hopeless as far as music.

After the show ended, I went through and put up the tapes up and re-arranged them to be easier to work with for next Monday.

I got home and finished up the script for the Master CraftsMon. I was unable to burn the CD for Progressive Radio. I just could not get up enough energy to go onto campus and use their CD burner.

I got to the station about 10:30pm and started to wait for the woman before me to finish up. She kind of irritates me because she takes so long to clear out between shows. She commented that she was impressed that I had gotten the cassettes to cue up so quickly (there is only one cassette player). I pointed out that I had cued them up before the program. To pass the time, I started reviewing another CD album from 2004.

When the woman before me finally cleared out. I started my show. Getting things going when there's a lot of clutter around you is always a hassle. I may just play music next week until she is gone. The problem I have here is that if she knows she has to leave at 11pm, why doesn't she start clearing out before then? Not my business really. I decided that it wasn't worth arguing about.

By the way everything irritates me at this time of year. It's the lack of sun. I have always had problems this time of year. Some years worse than others.

The program went okay. I said everything I was going to say and left.

Tuesday, I spent all morning messing around. I got Progressive Radio burned and the jewel case picture to come out okay. It was a hassle, though because WordPerfect refused to print the jewel case picture twice. I finally had to reboot to get it to come out right.

Before Kiwanis I went over to the station and dropped off the CD for Progressive Radio.

At Kiwanis on Tuesday, a chiropractor made the case that transfats are the cause of the increase in heart disease and cancer in this country, since 1910. I believe his assertions. I am unsure how to implement a healthier diet. He said that coconut oil is better for cooking because it does not have transfats. The problem with transfats is that they injure the insides of your arteries. I have got to say that he made a good case. Starting January 1, transfats have to be listed. I believe that they should be zero not lower. As in we should dispense with transfats completely.

After the Kiwanis meeting, I went home and messed around waiting for my ride to take me over to drop off the computer at MicroAge. When they arrived, I got the computer over there and left it.

I came home and took a nap. After I got up, I reread a book called Do-Gooders. The tone was too strident for me. I discovered that the computer seems to take up too much of my life, because the time seemed to drag without the computer.

Wednesday, I arrived at the station and started messing around verifying that the frequencies were correct and the tapes were in place. I did not have a script to work from. You would not think you would need a script for a music show, but I have all my notes about which program goes on next and which CD needed to be loaded at a given time. World Café had been recorded on a tape that I was unfamiliar with. I couldn't find the old one. There was a knock at the door. It was th guy who'd called on Monday. I had him follow me around as I checked on things. Then I went through and told him about what I had discovered about the Board and other things. We spent Music in the Morning with him kind of watching and me kind of showing him things I had found out. Friday, if he shows up, I will have him do the show. The phone rang twice. He answered it both times. He told me what the second person said, but not the first. I was going to wait him out. He outwaited me. I wonder what it was
about, but do not care enough to ask.

The playlist for Music in the Morning on Wednesday, December 28, was:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Dan Milner[Row, Bullies, Row]Irish Ballads&Song of the Sea
John McCusker[Boys of the Puddle]Heat the Hoose 2
Dick Gaughan[No Gods and Precious Few Heroes]Scotland
Phil Murphy[The Wexford Hornpipe]Come Dance with me in Ireland
Noel McLoughlin&Denis Carey[The Minstrel's Lament]Ireland the Music
Packie Duighan[The House on the Hill]Irish Traditional Music
Sean Keane[The Golden Keyboard]Green Linnet Records/The 20th
Tony Elis&Debbie Norris[Snowdrop]Gaelic Roots
Antoin MacGahhann[Hand Me Down the Tackle]Best of Traditional Music&Ballads from Ireland
Leo Rowsome[The Snowy Brested Pearl]The Gentlemen Pipers
D. McKinnon[The Bonawe Highlanders]Birlin' Fiddlers
Robert Wallace[The Barlinie Highlander]The Great Highland Bagpipe
Tannas[Si Morag]Live from the Lemon Tree-Northern Lights
Maria O'Bryan Alexander&Mary Thompson[Nora]A Celebration the Irish Harp
Frank Murphy[The Mason Apron]Ballinshoe Fair
Francie Byrne[Bag Pipe March]The Brass Fiddle; Traditional Fiddle Music
Mairie MacInnes[Calum Sgaire]Gaelic Women (Our Language and Our Music)
Kinnon&Betty Beaton[Mabou Hall Dance]The Heart of Cape Breton
Sinead O'Connor[He Moved Through the Fair]Faire Celts
Grampian Police Pipe Band[Battle of Somme]The Best of Scottish Pipes and Drums
John Doherty[Roaring Mary]Treasure of My Heart
St. Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band Quartet[The Banks of the Lee]Second Grand Concert of Piping
Ann Mulqueen[A Chomaraigh Aobhina]20 Famous Irish Ballads
Dolores Keane[Have I Told You Lately]Mighty Session
Al Petteway[Wild Mountain Thyme]Celtic Mist
Davie Paton[Bonny Blue Bonnets]Fragments
Jackie Daly[Trip to the Jacks]The Rushy Mountain
Flogging Molly[The Seven Deadly Sins]Within a Mile of Home

There were four more tracks than I had anticipated playing.

When I got home, I puttered around and worked on this and that on the old computer. I wanted to see whether there was anything on the old one that I needed on th new one. Besides Windows NT, I do not see anything worth keeping. I decided to finish the first chapter of The Deprived. Then I discovered that the A-drive was not registering because the CMOS was dead. I rebooted and got the A-drive registered and added the file to it.

Thursday, this morning, MicroAge called and I went over and got the computer. I am typing on it now. $129. I could have bought a new external CD-RW for that and been served better. In short, when my old CD-RW died, I should have bought an external USB CD-RW and been done with it. As it is, I spent $34 for the drive, $40 to install, and $129 to repair. I know for a fact that external CD-RW's are going for less than that.

Ah, well, I have said enough. Tomorrow or the next day, I shall return.

Too much sloth? Maybe.

I spent Thursday morning trying to get some work done. No luck. The data base from China cannot be opened easily. I sent off email to SAS and WRDS. SAS was polite and said that there might be a way, but they did not know exactly. WRDS said get lost. I told the researchers that they had to get the GTA software to work or they could not get the data.

My sister showed up and give me a Christmas gift. I gave her this four part Johnny Cash program I had aired a while back. Or rather a guy up at KEOS got the CD's and I aired two hours of it. He gave me the CD's. I gave them to my sister. My Christmas gift was a set of long sleeved shirts. This is the only time of year in Texas when you can wear long sleeved shirts. Oh, I guess people wearing suits wear long sleeved shirts. Not me. Anyway. The shirts came in handy because the station has lost its heater in the studio, so I wore one of the shirts on Friday.

I had a great lunch over at the Golden Corral. Aht, the food is always good there by my standards. I talked to my sister. My brother-in-law knew two guys on the Maddox who participated in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Vietnam is still a sore point with him after all these years. His opinion is that the South Vietnamese didn't want freedom badly enough to fight for it. Basically they were not worth 58000 American lives. I have no idea yet whether he is right.

I started in on The Deprived Thursday night. I settled on the Ford Taurus as the engine block and electronics under the hood for J.J.'s car, but a different shell. I had Lucy change the arrangement of component and make the car "better". In other words, the car uses Taurus parts, but isn't arranged inside like a Taurus. No, I don't know why I chose that car. Ford has shops all over the country, so could provide logistic support. That was the goal of this device: to show that logistics is everything in conflict. I did not describe the car. J.J. has this weird way of looking at the world so cool cars are not high on his list of priorities because he is convinced that the car will get destroyed by vandals. Why do you have a cool car? To attract chicks. He doesn't have that problem. I don't own a car, so it doesn't matter.

Friday came too early. Another volunteer was there trying to do something. He left me a donut and left for his first day back at "work". He wasn't sure whether he was going to have to do anything, because his the injury to his knee may not have healed according to his employer. I said, "Merry Christmas, ya'll."

There was no traffic log. The printer had run out of ink.

I did the Morning Air show using Blues and Jazz tracks. I told them about the radical fringe group I had joined. We believe in "Say no to The Holidays, say Merry Christmas, ya'll." Silly joke.

The station engineer showed up. He repaired a problem with CD1 that I could not hear. I mean, the left channel was almost off, but I could not detect it. I had found the same problem with Turntable 1. He said that he had fixed Turntable 1 already. I don't use vinyl on Morning Air, so I said I would test the turntable on Open Air Live with a Christmas song on vinyl.

I had him go over how to use the time delay on the signal. He was very, very literal in how he described the operations. Kind of weird.

He puttered around for a while and went off to buy a cartridge to put in the printer. He never returned while I was there.

The programming manager came in and wished me a Merry Christmas. He was taken aback that I used a script for the show, so I did not really need a traffic log.

The tracks for Morning Air were:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Don Rich[Have I Got Some News for You]Come Back to Me
Rudresh Mahanthappa[Change of Perspective]Mother Tongue
Ponty Bone[Castle Blues]Dig Us on the Road Somewhere
Kenny Garret Quartet[Wayne's Thang]Casino Light '99
Guy Forsyth[Patient's Blues]Love Songs: For&Against
Jessica Williams[Autumn Leaves]Jazz Focus Records 1994/1995
David Holt w/Sam Bush&Doc[Got No Use for Lonely]Let it Slide
Kelly Doze[Since You've Been Gone]Kelly Doze
Jimmie Dale Court[Son of the Daughter]Jimmie's Texas Blues
Michael B. Sutton[Feeling Down]Hopeless Romantic
Hubert Laws[Let Her Go]Heavy Flute
Earl Kieth[Midnight in San Juan]Best of Smooth Jazz
Boney James[Washington Bridge]Seduction
Benji Porecki[Walking With a News]Oasis Jazz Volume 9
Kevin Sterchi[Talk Not to Me]Fred Tomkins-St. Louis Music
Junior Watson[Two Tacos]If I Had a Genie
Kenny Neal&Billy Branch[Billy&Kenny's Stomp]Double Take
Kazzie Jaxen[Shine the Warrior's Heart]Oasis Jazz Volume 10
Big Mamma Thorton[Hound Dog]In Europe
Pappa Joe Grappa[Them Starbucks Blues]Too White to Sing the Blues
Banyan[At the Blowhole]Banyon
Clusome Trio[The Gig]Alternative Currents
Atlanta Bounce[Piano Red]Essential Blues Piano

All during the show, I wished people, "Merry Christmas, ya'll".

I had already cued up World Café, so I went to it at noon. The changeover to the BBC News update went well. The change back to World Café was even better. Luck.

I went over and bought some sandwiches at Albertsons for lunch. They were very good. I would buy them more often, but they do not keep in my refrigerator.

I reviewed some music from the 2004 stack of unreviewed CD's. One of them was really weird by my standards. I mean, normally singer/songwriter have men who have high whiny voices. The one I looked at had a thin reedy voice that was overpowered by his instrumentals.

Open Air Live was strange this time. I did a set (20 minutes) of Native American music. Then I played some music from the experimental music section. The segments on strange national music went okay. Then I played some Christmas music and the show ended. I screwed up once with one of the underwriter advertisements, but recovered from it. Here is the playlist:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Johnny Mike[Four Songs]Hear Our Prayers
Jerry Alfred&The Medicine Beat[Caribou Stick Gambling Song]Etsi Shon
Rodmilla Cody[Remembering the Taino]Spirit of a Woman
Spirit Sands Singers[Secret Admirer]Eagle Song: Powwows of the Native Americans
Alex E. Smith&Cheevers Toppah[Suave]Intonations
Young Grey Horse[Jingle Press Slide]Thunder Across the Planz
Kind Robot[Did You Know?]The Fragapella EP
Ye-Ye[Bachelor Party]The Beach-St.Topez
Revolution 9[A Better Day]AM/FM
The Jefferson Kaiser OkoDetet[The Stranger's Nose Was No More Heard Of]Themes for a Triskdekaphobe
No Name Given[Zirbaghai Solo]Afghanistan
Tsehaytu Beraki[Medjemerya Fegrey]Ethiopiques: Golden Age Music of Ethiopia
No Name Given[Sunrise Song]Zambia
No Name Given[Babou Cisse]Yan Kuba: Kora Music from Gambia
No Name Given[Kbunse]Uganda&Other African Nations
Tinariwen[Amassakoul 'N' Tenere]Putamayo Presents: Mali
3 Mustaphas 3[Kopanitsa]Fez
No Name Given[Invitation to Shugden]The Music of Tibetan Buddhism
No Name Given[Llarnor]Music from Peru&Ecuador
Rise Stevens[It Came Upon the Midnight Clear]Favorite Christmas Carols
Seamus Kennedy[Think of Someone Out There]Goodwill to Men
Eric Johnson&Van Wilks[What Child Is This?]The Texas Christmas Collection
Kim Gannon[I'll Be Home for Christmas]Greatest Christmas Songs Ever
Slaid Cleaves[Monster In Law]Holiday Sampler
Suzy Buggess[Two Step 'Round the Christmas Tree]Deck the Halls
Woody Phillips[Good King Wenceslas]A Toolbox Christmas
Mannheim Steamroller[Hark! The Herald Angels Sings]A Fresh Aire Christmas
Dusty Wright[Christmas (Is Coming Down)]Holiday Heart

For the next three hours, I put on shows, made announcements and reviewed CD's. God, most of them were awful. I had a canister of tea I brought from home so it wasn't too bad. There were some Christmas cookies as well. About 6pm, I went back in the back and double checked that I had found all the year old music. I mean, the music director puts out these albums and people are supposed to review them. I went through the stack on the shelf and verified that I had found all the albums that had been there for a year. For some reason reviewing albums that everyone else has discarded makes me feel okay about doing the job. The CD's are mostly cruddy singer/songwriter albums. Knowing going in that they are probably awful means that I can feel good when I actually find one that is okay. I was surprised to find one CD from 2001 and another from 2003. I thought I had gotten all those. I stuck the four oldest in my box. I will get to the first this afternoon.

When I got home last night someone had left me some cookies. They did not leave a name, just an apartment number. This morning I downloaded a picture of a Christmas tree and built a Christmas card out of some glossy paper I had bought for another project. It didn't turn out very well. I assume it was a girl, but no way of knowing. Going up and saying thank you to a girl much younger than me seems like a good way to have something unpleasant happen. I tacked the card on her door and let it go at that. Girls probably find me a woeful figure.

I don't know what I am going to spend the rest of the day. I really need to work on the script for Monday and I need to update this blog with the scripts from the other three shows.

Well, the pizza is in the oven. I have to be at the station at 5pm. We shall see.

Sunday was about Writing, Monday was about Sloth, Tuesday was about Kiwanis and Wednesday was about nothing

I spent all day Sunday writing up ideas for social change for broadcast on Monday. Basically it was a waste of time.

Monday, I finished up the script for Monday night. I kept thinking that Progressive Radio would be ready for download. It wasn't before I had to leave for the station.

When I got to KEOS, I did all the stuff necessary to get ready by pulling vinyl records and then I decided to play some cassettes. My thinking was that if you are going to play classic rock you should play it from the original media. The playlist for Afternoon Musica for Monday, December 19, 2005 was:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Chicago[Good For Nothing]
Whitney Houston[Thinking About You]
Tina Turner[Total Control]
The Cars[Drive]
Kenny Rogers[A Little More Love]
Jefferson Airplanes[White Rabbit]
Free[All Right Now]
The Alan Parsons Project[Eye in The Sky]
Steve Perry[If Only for the Moment, Girl]
Ted Nugent[Lean, Mean, Rock and Roll Machine]
The Pointer Sisters[Just a Little Closer]
Fleetwood Mac[Dreams]
Bruce Springsting&The E Street Band[Trapped]
John Cougar[Hurst So Good]
Sister Sledge[You're a Friend of Mine]
Genesis[Just a Job to Do]
Bryan Adams[She's Only Happy When She's Dancin']
Scorpions[Can't Live Without You]
Starship[We Built This City]
Bachman-Turner Overdrive[Stayed Awake All Night]
Hall&Oates[private Eyes]
Bob Marley&The Wailers[No Woman, No Cry]
Atlanta Rhythm Section[Free Spirit]

I made a silly comment that none of my audience knew what cassettes were. I described them as boxes about 3"X4" with tapes in them. Making the point that people were so used to CD's they did not know what cassettes were.

I ran out of cassettes and started playing some of my CD's. One of the other volunteers heard my comment and brought in this huge supply of cassettes. Some of the cassettes were in busted up plastic boxes, so he did a mix and match. He handed me a cassette with Bob Marley and the Wailer. I played No Woman, No Cry from the cassette. Next Monday, I shall use many of these cassettes. I'm tired of vinyl. Ah, but cassettes are so hard to cue up. But then so is vinyl.

I went home afterwards and downloaded Progressive Radio, found the cover of the album being discussed and pasted it onto the jewel case cover graphic. The interview was with Dar Williams. I played her The Christians and the Pagans song a while back. I should have written some more for the show at 11pm, but it all seemed so pointless.

All during Monday, I was upset with the lack of response to my show. The lack of it. Yeah. My fault. I won't do the job of advertising it. Well, that's the way it goes.

I messed around from 5-10pm. I spent some time doing a tutorial for mentoring. In it I went over all the idiosyncracies of the board and the various pieces of equipment in the station including the satellites and rewinder in the back room.

I got up to the station about 10pm, much crest fallen. It is turning into a waste of time.

The show went short. Whereas I went 20 minutes over on the first and was under on the second and hit the two hour mark on the third, this time it was under again. I did not care. I need to spend an entire show on each one of the segments I have put out there.

It was not as cold as I thought it was be going home. I crashed. I was so upset with the way things are going.

If you are reading this, you should know that I have the problem many whose ancestors are from northern Europe. The lack of light this time of year causes depression. I've always had to fight that. I lost a marriage because of such a depression.

Tuesday I went to my Kiwanis Club. On the way my ride and I dropped off the orange vests at Public Works. The speaker was Baptist minister. He did a sermon lite. He addressed an issue I had covered the night before: The War on Christmas. Political Correctness almost eradicated the greeting Merry Christmas. Too bad, the backlash has started. After the meeting, I complimented the minister on his "sermon".

The people who take me to and from Kiwanis have their daughter down for Christmas. She said she disagreed with the concept of "Merry Christmas". It started me thinking about many things. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page where the author Robert J. Toth made the point that friendships should not be sundered over politics. I'm going to have to think on that. I've made the point before that political discourse has become rancid in this country and is getting worse as the Liberals try to decide whether they want to compromise. I have been unable to understand that. Both groups have to live in the same country. If the Left would just come up with something that could work in the real world we could debate and come to a compromise. I don't see that happening. Plus I do not see the Right coming up with policy statements that can supplant the policies of the Left.

All during the Monday through Wednesday period I have been trying to resolve a data base question. A set of Chinese data bases was shipped to a professor at A&M along with a set of software to access the data bases. The software was using a SQL technique to extract the data. I thought there was a chance that SQL was also a standardized data format that I was not aware of. In SAS, there is a PROC SQL routine to deal with... something. I do not know what. I read the online documentation and could not find a SQL format for a data base. I asked the principle author what was going on. She passed me to the source of the data bases. I asked her how she had accessed the data bases using SQL. She said that she had NOT accessed the data bases. In fact she had not checked the software that she had sent with the data bases. I wanted to scream WHAT!?, but I was not talking to her on the telephone. So I asked her to install the software, open a data base and tell me how she did it, because none of the other three people on the project had been able to do that simple task. She has not gotten back to me.

The guy from Crete sent me email with the writeup on his songs. I am not sure I want to listen to them. We shall see.

I finished up the tutorial file for the mentoring. I posted a notice that I was available for mentoring. I have gotten only one nibble. I surely want MANY people to get through training and find inner peace... get there own show.

Wednesday morning came too early. I got to the station today and put in the first two VHS tapes. Then I went through and pulled some Celtic music for the show today. I found a couple of new CD's on the review shelf and included them. Then I pulled all the Celtic music from the regular rotation shelf and went on. The show was okay. I only screwed up a few times. I took some glue to fix a set of earphones. Like an idiot, I then dropped them after gluing them. I am not sure Elmers is up to gluing these earphones. The playlist for Wednesday, December 21, 2005 on Morning Air was:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Cahal Dunne990000;">[Scottish Soldier]Shamrock&Heather
Aine Minogue[Song of the Banshee]Celtic Lamentations
The Churn[Nonesuch]Big Buttah
Cherish the Ladies[Fair and Tender Ladies]Women in the House
Serious Kitchen[Young Hunting]Tig
John McCusker[The Cake Maker's Wife]Goodnight Ginger
The Muses[The Briar and the Rose]Tramps and Hawkers
Flogging Molly[With a Wonder and a Wild Desire]Within a Mile of Home
Bonnie Carol[The Tree Song]Finger Dances for the Dulcimer
Battlefield Band[The Braidwood Waits]Magic and Mystery
Dan Air Pipe Band[Highland Wedding]Pipes and Drums of Scotland
Bachme[Birken Tree]Auld Lang Syne
Alison Kinnaird&Christine Primrose[The Harper in the Bog]Scottish Harp
Jock Tamson's Bairns[Gude Calret]The Best of Scottish Music - Vol 2
Hamish Moore[Set of Tunes]The Music and Song of Greentrax
Cho Lar Chonnacta[The Tattie Ball]The Real Reels of Ireland
Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill[Martha, The Flower of Sweet Strabane]Voices of Celtic Women Vol 2
Gene Kelly[Money Musk]Traditional Irish Music in America
Connie Dover[Laddie, Lie Near Me]Heart of the Celts
Aly Bain/Alison Kinnaird[Chapel Keithback]Harps, Pipes and Fiddles
Dolly McMahon[Love is a Teasing]Wedding and Love Songs

For a wonder I got World Café and BBC News to synchronize very well today. Normally they are two or more seconds out of synch.

I bought some sandwiches and cookies at Albertsons and came home.

The sandwiches were great. The cookies better. I took a nap and got up and read some political blogs. Now I seem to be caught up.

Friday was too long and Saturday was a drag

I cover Fridays at KEOS 89.1FM College Station, TX. By that I mean that I get there at 8:30am and leave about 7:30pm.

The heater was off for the studio, so I opened the door to the other part of the station and put on the heater there. I had to keep on my jacket until it heated up. The station's engineer showed up and determined that it was a maintenance problem. The landlord should send someone by. No one showed up from the landlord during the day.

I went back and found the World Café VHS tape and cued it up for noon. Then I went through and chose the music for Morning Air and Open Air Live. I had found a CD with Australian Aboriginal music on Wednesday. I decided to use that on Open Air Live with Native American music. I couldn't find enough Native American music, so I just chose some weird national music, i.e. from Romania, Crete, Tibet, Afghanistan and Vietnam.

Democracy Now! went on without a problem. At 10am, I started Morning Air with an hour of Jazz. Followed by an hour of Blues. Somewhere in there two packages arrived from a band who play for us at our fundraisers, Del Castillo, out of Austin. I ate ONE COOKIE. I was kind of proud of myself. Damn that was a good cookie, but I knew the other volunteers would want some, so I held off from taking them all.

The playlist was for Morning Air:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Free Base Cartel[Directions]The FBC
Matt Wilson[Blue Pepper]As Wave Follows Wave
Yellow Jackets[The Evening News]Club Nocturne
Joshua Redman Qartet[Enemies Within]Jazz for a Hot Cold Sunny Cloudy Day
Elvis Costello[Weird Nightmares]Weird Nightmare: Special Sampler
David "Fathead" Newman[The Thirteenth Floor]Heavy Flute
Larry Goldings[Home Fries]Freedom in the Groove
Modern Groove Syndicate[Bojungles]Vessel
Guy Forsyth[Take Advantage]Love Songs: For&Against
Ponty Bone[Easy as Pie]Dig Us on the Road to Somewhere
Michael B. Sutton[Flight]Hopeless Romantic
Dan Penn&Spooner Oldham[Out of Left Field]Live, Moments from This Theater
David Holt w/Sam Bush&Doc[Shotgun Wedding]Let It Slide
Siegel-Schwall Band[Deja Vous]Flash Forward
Junior Watson[If I Had a Genie]If I Had a Genie
Bel Airs[Just You and I]Get Love
Ray Bonnerville[Oxford Town]Roll It Down
Kimberley "KC" Allison[Between the Dots]Beyond Blue
Don Rich[Slip Away]Come Back to Me
Kelly Doze[Stand Up]Kelly Doze
Jimmie Dale Court[Gambling Barroom Blues]Jimmies Texas Blues

I needed to go down to Public Works to pick up some vests for a cleanup project for this morning (Saturday). At noon, I put on World Café and went with a friend to pick the vests up. While we were out, I mailed a letter of nomination for a former President of Kiwanis and picked up lunch. When I got back to the station, I popped the sandwiches in the microwave. The mayonnaise was in the station's refrigerator and the catsup in the cabinet. The sandwiches were great.

I finished lunch just in time to start Open Air Live. Toward the end of the show I got this weird phone call from this guy from Crete. He was surprised that there WAS Cretan music. He wanted to come by and look at the album. I invited him. He wanted me to play something else from the album. I spent, God knows how many minutes, SPELLING the song titles. So the guy chooses one... Then my show ended and I had to move on without playing his song. The playlist was:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Kumantjayi Djelaynga[North Wind]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Bill Miller[Spirit Wind]Sacred Earth: A Tribute to Mother Earth
No Name Given[Dark Clouds]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Northern Wind[Whispering Winds]Eagle Songs: Powwows of the native
No Name Given[Grandmother's Song]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Alex E. Smith&Cheevers Toppah[Reflections]Intonations
No Name Given[Deep Elseg]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Young Grey Horse[Intertribal]Thunder Across the Planz
No Name Given[Creation Song]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Young Bird[We Don't Wear Pink]Memories
No Name Given[This Is Our Land]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Northern Cree[Straight]Nikamo-"Sing"
No Name Given[Journey North]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Northern Cree[10's Across]Nikamo-"Sing"
No Name Given[Spirit Men of Arnhelmland]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
No Name Given[When Will the weather Clear Up]Vocal Music of Crete
No Name Given[Cooking of Goanna]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Fairfare Ciocarilla[Mariana]Bar Baro- World Wide Wedding
No Name Given[Hills and Land]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
No Name Given[Horse Driver's Song]Afghanistan
No Name Given[Retribution]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
No Name Given[Yar-lung Tin-sang]Dhama Suna
No Name Given[Children Song]Red Sands Dreaming (A Global Cultural)
Nguyen Le[The Rice Dream]Tales of Viet Nam

I put on the VHS tape for Counterspin and went off to put up things. I couldn't do it, so I reviewed some of the Celtic music CD's from Wednesday. The one from Emerald Rose was okay, but not great. I was a bit surprised by that. They seem to be a good group.

The guy from Crete showed up with his girlfriend. She is from... Romania. I was a little astonished by that. I chose two countries at random and got a guy from Crete dating a girl from Romania... They're both in Bryan, Texas. Doesn't that bother you a bit? Maybe not.

Anyway. The guy listens to a little of all the songs on the album and says, "They're all so sad." I had no clue what he was talking about. So we put on the Romanian music and the girl says, "It's all gypsy music." She was bit upset by that. I had heard that the Romanians and the gypsies do not get on well. So the girl finds this Greek music album on the shelf and we play it. The guys says, "Ahhhh... it's worthless. Tourist version of the songs." So he says he will get me some REAL Cretan music. I wanted to drop my mouth on the floor, but I could not figure out how to say no. Then he says he's part of a local garage rock band. He gives me their CD. The girl wants to GO. She has somewhere she has to be. I give them a volunteer form for the station so THEY can be DJ's, subtext: Say, you don't like how I do it... Come do the job yourselves. I gave the guy my email address and told him that I needed the names of the songs on the album. No telling whether he will get back to me.

The rest of the night was spent switching from satellite to satellite for the programs we air from direct satellite feed. At 7pm, I was ready to GO, but then discovered that I had not put away the CD's. It took forever, it seemed.

I got away about 7:30pm. I got back to my apartment and discovered that I had some computer work to do. A weird data base from China had come in and the school wanted me to get it into a SAS data base. I couldn't bring myself to budge from my apartment, so I went to bed without finishing up.

This morning, Saturday, began too soon. I was supposed to run the trash pickup. I prepared by printing out some maps. The guy from the project showed up and we were off to Hilton. It was COLD outside. No one else showed up for the project. I picked up some trash and we called it a day.

When I got back to my apartment, I went over to the computer center and downloaded all the Chinese data files and burned them onto a CD. When I got back to my apartment, I had lunch and got the woman at Indiana State to upload the last two files. I need to go over and get them as well. Maybe tomorrow.

I took a nap then went up to the station to cover the 4-5pm loads. I cued up Jim Hightower and Earthsongs (both on CD's) and tried to cue up Alternative Radio (on VHS). The latter started too soon. I mean, the satellite feed had not been recorded at the right point. No telling why. I screwed up the top of the hour changeover by saying that Alternative Radio was next, because I forgot what show we were playing next. Then I recovered and played Jim Hightower followed by Earthsongs. At 5pm, I told the audience again that we were joining Alternative Radio in progress. No telling what the listeners made of all that.

I left the station and came home and I have messed around all night.

I got a weird email from a guy in Emerald Rose. He wanted to know which station I was with. I was set to tell him that I did not particularly like his album, when my computer locked up. When I restarted, I simply said that if he wanted feedback, I would give it to him. Who knows I could have changed all of creation by doing it that way.

A guy named Allan Harris put out an album dealing with the West from the Black perspective. I reviewed it for the station. I was going to complement him on it, but his website is too weird for me. Look at it yourself. The guy is asking $15K for someone to be his executive producer. That's too strange for an unknown to ask. Yes, he wants you to give him $15K and you can become his close, personal friend.

Thursday Rocketed By

I got up early and felt pretty awful. Too many things to do. I started by printing out October and November minutes for the Kiwanis meeting. They were approved on Tuesday.

After filing them, I sent thank you to two distant relatives who sent me Christmas cards, a woman married to my second cousin and a woman who is my third cousin. Strange who you meet when you get involved in genealogy.

I then filled out the forms for Adopt-a-Street on Saturday. They are nuts at City Hall. The form for picking up trash is crazy to me. I will pick up the orange vests tomorrow at lunch. I have a friend who will come by and pick me up and take me way over to the Public Works department to pick them up.

I pulled out my to-do list for Pancake Day, March 18, 2006. I have to start now to have it work then. I sent out quite few emails and no telling what will happen.

Typing up the monthly Board meeting for Kiwanis was a pain as always. I got it all done though.

I took a walk and downloaded the Master CraftsMon .WAV file from my digital recorder. I need to put the script for the last two shows out on this blog. Maybe Saturday. Fat chance.

When I got back from my walk, I had lunch and took nap. At 3:15pm, I went over to KEOS. It did not take as long as I expected. No one was there. I did the 40 after ID. I did not have to, but it was something to do. Luckily I had gotten there in time to do the Legal ID at 4pm and put on the VHS for Making Contact. I sat down and reviewed a Celtic tape by Emerald Rose. They normally have some pretty good Celtic stuff. Not this album. At 4:29, I played a promotion for another show on KEOS and put on Free Speech radio News. I finished up reviewing the CD and turned it in.

A woman came by looking for some Blues albums to review. Strange conversation.

5pm came. I did the Legal ID, put on The World and left.

I went over and bought some food from Albertsons and came home.

I put off writing a letter of recommendation for one of Kiwanis' former President. It took me a while to finish that. The woman was a mixed bag. She was a type A personality and the other club members could not keep up with her, so she quit.

I messed around all night reading blogs. It's time to get to bed. Tomorrow will be long. I have to be at the station at 8:30am and I will be there most of the day. I plan to go over get the stuff from Public Works, but I will not ride home until after 7pm tomorrow. I am getting tired of that.

To bed. Ugh.

Another Dreary Wednesday

I woke up feeling okay. I was surprised. I incorporated the weather report into the script for Music in the Morning, then messed around until I had to go up to the station.

I had a fight with a vender about how many ink cartridges for my Epson C-60 were sent in the package with my order. I said there were five in the package. They were not sure. I reported them to Yahoo! They sent the last cartridge by overnight UPS. UPS called me this morning asking me what address to deliver to, because they do not deliver to P.O. boxes. I gave them my address.

I was surprised that it only took 15 minutes to get up to KEOS. The temperature is higher than I expected. I mean, last week it was down to freezing and now it's in the high 60's.

I went back and pulled the World Café and Alternative Radio VHS tapes from the VCR's where they had been recorded. I loaded Making Contact and some other show. Rewinding all those tapes is always a problem. Getting the frequency right and making sure that the VCR is turned off so that it can record. No, I'm making it that up. To record, you have to turn off the VCR, the VHS tape has to be rewound and the satellite has to be at the correct frequency. Not a hard task, but seems to be for some people. We haven't figured out why.

I cued up World Café in the VCR in the studio. While I was doing that the engineer called to ask why the signal had died. I looked. Needles flat. Buttons correct. Blue light on. Slider in correct position. It was working before, why not now. I told him I had been in the back a few minutes before and no problem that I could see. What did he want me to do? The signal came back on. Why? Don't know.

I finished cuing up World Café, did the top of the hour Legal ID for 9am and switched on Democracy Now! Damn, those people at Democracy Now! are mad about things. It's a wonder that they don't lose commentators all the time from high blood pressure.

Every morning I am on during Democracy Now!, I do a plea for volunteers at the 20 after break. The 20 after break on Democracy Now! can be anywhere in the 18-30 after period, so I have to listen to their drivel for a bit. I do the plea because Democracy Now! is one of the most listened to programs on KEOS.

At 10am, I started Music in the Morning. The playlist for this two hours is:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Bonnie Carol[The Wild Geese]Celtic Caribe
Parthenia XII[I Will Find You]Celtic Chants:The Chant of Sarum
Emerald Rose[Come to the Dance]Archives of the Age to Come
Claire Hamilton[Come Back to Erin]The Magic of the Celtic Harp: Celtic Women
The Celtic Bells[Joy Dawned Again]Ladies of Ireland
Bonnie Carol[The Cuckoo]Fingerdances for the Dulcimer
Flogging Molly[Whistles the Wind]Within a Mile of Home
Cherish the Ladies[Sweet Thames Flow Softly]Woman of the House
Serious Kitchen[Bowland Bridge]Tig
John McCusker[Shake a Leg]Goodnight Ginger
The Muses[Band O'Shearers]Tramps&Hawkers
The Churn[Congress Reel]Big Buttah
Bonnie Carol[Spring in the Valley]Laughing Willow
Bridget Fizgerald[Bheir Mi O`]Celtic Roads
Joanie Madden[The Immigrant]Celtic Planet
Alasdair Fraser/Paul Machlis[Calliope House/The Cowboy Jig]Celtic Odyssey
Headhunters[Phoenix]Celtic Voyager
West of Eden[The Piece of Earth]Celtic Lives, Tales of Pride
Nolliag Casey[Causeway]Spirit of the Music
Kornag[Ton Bale Mur Ha Dans]Green Linet: 25 Years of Celtic Music
Wendy MacIsaac[Dr. Shaw Medley]New Celtic Dimensions
Martin Mulvhill[Lovely Lough Sheelin]The Music of Ed Reavy
Rod Paterson[Parcel of Rogues in a Nation]The King Has Landed: Songs of the Jacobite Risings
Allan MacDonald[Glengarry's March]Ceol Na Pioba
Golden Bough[Song of the Swan Maiden]Festival of Irish Music

I was upset with Glengarry's March. It was a bagpipe piece that went on and on and on with almost no variations. I needed something that length to bring me up to play A Moment in Time. I screwed up there by closing the show before playing A Moment in Time. It meant that I could not do a Forward Promotion at the top of the hour.

Ah, well, I pushed play on the VCR and World Café started. I gave it a minute, then switched to BBC news, then back to World Café. I put away all the CD's I had used and went back to my apartment. The rain had come and gone.

I ate lunch and took a nap.

Then I messed around reading the political blogs and on-line newspapers all evening. Now I have the energy to do the data entry for the playlist.

I have two other projects I should do tonight. One is type up the minutes of the Kiwanis Board meeting on Tuesday, then type up a letter of recommendation for one of the former presidents of Kiwanis. Don't want to do either.

The UPS guy showed up with the cartridge. Great.

I have over 100 sheets of bonded paper measuring about 10"X22". I found it in the trash over at A&M once. I cannot load it in my printer. It suddenly dawned on me that I could make jewel case inserts with it. I bought a sheet of glossy paper from Kinko's last night. I had paid out $1.61 before it sunk in that I was buying a piece of paper for over a dollar a sheet. Boy, was that stupid. I think I will go over to Kinko's and cut some of the bonded paper in half. Jewel case inserts are 4 3/4" wide. I can use this stuff to print up the weekly Progressive Radio insert. Regular paper is not stiff enough. Ah, well, we shall see.

Monday Rocketed By and Now it is the Morning of Tuesday

I spent all of Monday morning getting ready to do Master CraftsMon. I tried to finish up the script and could not. I got the idea of using songs I had heard as a starting point for a monologue. I thought of three or four of them and went on with the script.

I kept checking Progressive Radio to see whether they had updated their web site, so I could download the interview for airing on Tuesday, today. Almost exactly at 11:30am the file came available. I doenloaded the file and decided to do a graphic for the jewel case. For some reason someone up at KEOS brought by all these empty jewel cases for CD's. I snagged a bunch of them for this purpose. There was no time before I had to go up to the station, so I put it off, like way too many things in my life.

Normally I do a small script for my Afternoon Musica where I fill in the temperature and make some silly comments here and there as I play the classic rock. This time I had no time or rather I forgot to do it. So I got to the station and there was this crate of vinyl setting in a chair. I set up a table and started pulling albums out of it. I recognized quite a few of them in the box and started setting them aside for paly at 2pm. What I did not realize was that they were all R&B. Ah, well, that is the way it goes. I told the audience that the first track from Benny Goodman was paleo-rock. The playlist for Monday, December 12, 2005 was:
Artist or Band[Song]
Benny Goodman[Sing, Sing, Sing (with a String)]
Sade[Smooth Operator]
The Destiny[Things I Do for You]
Stevie Wonder[Superstition]
Bobby Brown[Roni]
Donny Hathaway[For All We Know]
The Brothers Johnson[Stomp!]
Prince[Automatic]
Tower of Power[Maybe It'll Rub Off]
Bill Withers&'Justments[Heartbreak Road]
Commodores[Three Times a Lady]
Urban Dance Squad[The Devil]
Beach Boys[I Get Around]
UB40[If It Happens Again]
Chic[Dance, Dance, Dance]
Detective[Competition]
Earth, Wind and Fire[Sun Goddess]
Exile[Don't Do It]
The 5th Dimension[Up, Up and Away]
Lee ritnour[Night Rhythms]
Leon Haywood[I Want'a Do Something Freaky To You]

The show ended. I sorted all the R&B vinyl in the crate by alphabetical order and put all the albums back in it.

I checked for Gary Portnoy in the library and no luck.

I pulled the songs that I was going to use on Master CraftsMon and stuck them in my box.

The woman who does the show at 6pm called and said she was stuck in Elgin with a sick animal. She wanted me to tell her producer to go on without her by interviewing the guests who were to arrive.

5pm came and I ran on. Going home was interesting because the temperature was not that low.

I still had not completed the script for Master CraftsMon. I wove in all the songs and made comments on them and finsihed up about 9:30pm. I needed to leave at 10pm to get there at 10:30pm in time to set up. Transition between programs is tough. I started my printer with the 20 pages of script and went on. I had thought to create the cover for the Progressive Radio jewel case, but no such luck.

When I got to the station, I had a hassle finding Neil Diamond's America. It's on a vinyl album for the Jazz Singer soundtrack. It took forever to find it, but I did.

The woman finally cleared out and I went on the air. The music helped a LOT. It gave me time to move around and do stuff. Without production staff, it's just me. recorded the program on my digital recorder. I have no idea how good the quality it. We shall see in a bit. The songs I played were:

Artist or Band[Song]
Neil Diamond[America]
Davie Paton[Bonny Blue Bonnets]
Pierce Pettis[A Mountaineer Is Always Free]
Ray Herndon[Livin' The Dream]
Dar Williams[The Christians and The Pagans]
Asylum Street Spankers[Baby, It's Cold Outside]
D'Goya[I Go To Bed]

After each song, I tried to make it clear what the song meant to me and how it affacted the present. I shall post the scripts for Master CraftsMon for this week and last today, I think. You can see what I mean.

When I finished up the program about 1am (I was surprised that it was the top of the hour), I put everything away, shut down the lights and left. When I got home, I created the jewel case cover for the Progressive Radio program. I just downloaded Al Franken's new books' cover and went on. I printed it out in color. It looks okay, but not as good as on glossy paper. I'll have to wok on that.

This morning, Tuesday, I went over and burned the CD for Progressive Radio. I also off loaded some audio files that are taking up space. When I get back from Kiwanis, I have to get ready for the Kiwani Board meeting at 5:30pm today. I do not know whether anyone will attend. We shall see.

Time to get ready for Kiwanis.

Open Thread for Show Aired, Monday, December 12, 2005

I should post the entire script, but not tonight. Yeah, I'll do it tomrorrow. besides the script isn't done yet. Even at this late time (three hours to air time).

Sunday Was Not Very Productive

I spent all day Sunday trying to do a script for today. I did not succeed. Again, I am waiting until the last moment to finish up. This is a bad idea. Ah, well, such is life. Maybe today, I can finish up. I have until 12:30am before I have to leave for the station to do Afternoon Musica. Boy, am I enthused about doing that.

Back to work.

A Long Saturday

The day started too early. I had to attend the Kiwanis Fruit Sale distribution. I couldn't see how I could get out of it. It was not as cold at 7:30am over at Bryan Iron&Metal. This other guy got a forklift and moved all the boxes of fruit from a warehouse to close to the gate. No problem. The people from CKI showed up almost immediately. The Kiwanians who had sold fruit started arriving at 8am. As each showed up, we loaded up their cars or trucks. Or rather the college kids did all the work and I watched.

By 10am all but two pallets were empty. We closed up shop and my friend got in the forklift to move the pallets to the warehouse. No luck. The forklift wouldn't work. He got out his tools. No luck. He borrowed my knife and messed with the battery connecter. No luck. We used a dolly to move the last few boxes to the warehouse. My friend tried one more time and the forklift, of course, fired up. He was able to move it to where it was supposed to be.

I got back to may apartment about 11am to have lunch with my sister. She and her husband had driven up from the Woodlands. I was a bit late, because of the forklift, but not too late. We went over to the Golden Corral. The food was great. My sister and her husband are on this massive weight reduction kick. They have lost about 60 pounds a piece. The have about another 40 or 50 more to go. It's all in changing your diet and exercising which is what they have been doing. My sister expects to be at her "correct" weight by Spring, 2006.

They left about 2pm. I didn't get much sleep, so I laid down and waited for 4pm, when I had to go up to KEOS to do an hour Ops shift, i.e. put Earthsongs and Alternative Radio on the air. When I got there, I relieved the operator who'd been there since noon and signed in. I made sure Alternative Radio was cued on the VCR. Then I went and loaded World Café for the satellite feed on Monday night. I didn't need to do that, but I wanted to make sure it got done.

I reviewed an album by Ray Herndon, Livin' The Dream. I review mostly singer/songwriter albums that no one else in the station wants to listen to. If they sit on the shelf for a year, I pick them up and review them for FCC violations. This one was especially good. I was impressed enough to go out to his web site and complement him on the album. I had never done that before. Most singer/songwriter albums are whiny egotistical self praise projects. Livin' The Dream is the exception.

One of the other volunteers came by wanting some water for his "special needs" car. He also wanted to talk for about 2 hours, at least that is what I surmised. I was not good with that, so I didn't rise to his baited breath. I gave the Legal ID and put on Alternative Radio and went on home.

I've been messing around all night. I will have to write the script for Monday's Master CraftsMon tomorrow. It looks to be a waste of time, but one must always assume that... it's a good idea. We shall see.

Where did those days go?

So here it is Friday.

After I got to the station on Wednesday, December 7, I went through my show, Music in the Morning. I played some Celtic music that looked good. The playlist was:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Flogging Molly[Queene Anne's Revenge]Within a Mile of Home
Brobdingnagian Bards[The Orange and the Green]Brobdingnagian Fairy Tales
Cherish the Ladies[The Old Maid of Galway]Woman of the House
Serious Kitchen[Open]Tig
John McCusker[Wiseman's]Goodnight Ginger
The Muse[Health to the Company]Tramps and Hawkers
Parthenia XII[Linger]Celtic Chants: The Chants of Sarum
The Celtic Bells[Come Rejoicing]Ladies of Ireland
Claire Hamilton[Flower of Scotland]The Magic of the Celtic Harp: Celtic Women
Emerald Rose[Four Doors to Elfland]Archives of Ages to Come
The Barleyshakes[Regrets]Celtic Heart: Tales of True Love
Maire Breatrach[Inis Sui]Music for the Rest of Us
Orion[Douce Mouis Tomanie]Celtic Legacy: A Global Celtic Journey
Mary Black[Both Sides of the Tweed]Celtic Tides: A Musical Odyssey
Ron Korb[Cuchulain]Celtic Mystery: Volume 2
D'Goya[I Go to Bed]Celtic Angels
Patrick Street[Music of the Found Harmonium]Joyful Noise: Celtic Favorites
Parthenia XII[The Deep and Timeless Sea]Celtic Chants: The Chants of Sarum
Tony McManus[Lady Ann Montgomery's Reel]Celtic Compass
The Bothy Band[Fiohnghvala]Gaelic Voices
Connie Dover[Ubi Caritas]Celtic Spirit
Shelley Phillips[Planxty Burke]Celtic treasure: The Legacy of Turlough

D'Goya's I Go to Bed was probably the most sexually oriented song I have ever heard where the act of sex was not mentioned. It was kind of strange, because most songs are along the lines of "Honey, let's do it!" This one is "I really enjoyed your closeness and warmth and oh, yeah, the sex was great too." from the woman's point of view.

After I got back home, I seem to have vegged out in front of the computer until late.

In Thursday, I caught some type of stomach virus. I felt lousy. I did the monthly report for Kiwanis and submitted it. Then I went by and got air for my bike and dropped off a book on Poor Richard's Almanac that I had been meaning to return to the library. Then I went to bed trying to sleep off the virus. No such luck. I dragged myself up to the station at 4:57pm. Ooops. I was supposed to be there at 3:57pm. I was lucky the guy before me had stayed until 4:30pm. I did the top of the hour legal ID and then dithered as to what to do. The substitute host for the next show at 6pm showed up and I handed off. When I got home, I took a gazillion milligrams of vitamin C and Tylenol type drugs and went to bed at about 8pm. I was unable to get to sleep for very long. I kept drifting in and out of sleep.

I finally gave it up at 6:30am and got up. God, I felt awful this morning, Friday, December 9. I dragged myself up to the station and arrived at 8:30am. I kept wanting to throw up. The first program, Morning Air, went okay. I found some new Jazz and Blues to play. The playlist was:
Artist or Band[Song]Name of CD
Gary Farr[Fresh Brew]Fresh Brew
Ron Fattorusso[Shuffle Bop]Up All Night
Kenny Ellis[Children of the Maccabbees]Hanukkah Swings
Mort Weiss Quintet[East of the Sun]The Four of Us, Live at Streamers
Will Taylor&Strings Attached[Ocean of Tears]Collaborations
Doug Williams[Still Standing Tall]Make a Joyful Noise: Inspirational Jazz
A Little Space[Reason to Call You]Box of Love
Terry Graves[Autumn Air]To Fly Higher
Caroline Drury[Hey You]Loving You, Loving Me
David Gogo[Skeleton Key]Live at Deer Lake
Bobby Rush[Who's Fooling Who]Night Fishin'
Angela Strehli[Love, Don't Move the Mountain]Blue Highway
Johnny Adams[Danger Zone]The Great Johnny Adams Blues Album
Smokin' Joe Kubek Band[Texas Cadillac]Served Up Texas Style
CC Bronson[Lay It On Me]My Soul, My Blues
Wilson Pickett[If You Need Me]60's Soul Favorites
Bill Withers[Everybody's Talkin']Just As I Am
Ismael Reinhart[May One and Only Love]Gypsy Swing II
The Miracles[Love Machine]The Best of 70's Soul Hits
Alvin Youngblood Hart[Stomp Dance]Motivational
Trevor Finlay Band[I'll Come to You]Show Me What U Got
The Neville Brothers[Streets Are Callin']Walkin' in the Shadow of Live

Some woman called wanting to know who had played Ocean of tears. I gave the name on the album, then noticed that he had done it with a woman. The woman on the phone recognized the woman and not Will Taylor. Strange.

I still felt lousy at noon after I put on World Café. I sat there trying to decide what to do. I finally settled on going to Albertsons and buying some sandwiches. I was so unsteady that I decided to walk. Even at noon, it was cold today, but I bundled up and it wasn't too bad. I found some sandwiches and orange drink, then I bought some Pepto Bismal. I also bought some paper towels for the bathroom for the station. Stupid mistake. Sixteen rolls of paper towels to wipe your hands, take up too much space. I had three packages and two hands. Even walking back the two blocks to the station was a hassle. I got there and lunch went okay. There was some mayonnaise and catsup available. I was still not steady, so I just sat there trying to... I don't remember. I had to call the engineer when the power output from the tower dropped below 90%. Some guy called up and wanted to correct something from his credit card payments from the station. I passed that along as well.

For Open Air Live I decided to play some Christmas music. It didn't go real well. I started making stupid mistakes like leaving the microphone open and airing a song that I did not mean to air. The engineer called both times. Weird. The playlist for this one is kind of strange, because I just took it off the shelf and hoped for the best. It was:
Artist or Band[Song]
Y'all[Christmastime in the Trailerpark]
Asylum Street Spankers[You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch]
Jerry Jeff Walker[Mason Dixon's on the Line]
Johnny Mark[Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer]
Dar Williams[The Christians and the Pagans]
Crash Test Dummies[God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen]
Robin and Linda Williams[Old Toy Trains]
Narvel Felts[You Can't Have a White Christmas (When you've Got the Blues)]
Bobby Helms and Johnny Paycheck[Jingle Bell Rock]
Lee Murdock[Silent Night]
Curly Musgrave[Long Canyon Christmas]
Robert Musci[Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas]
Unified Tribes[Sleigh Ride]
Benny Skyn[Decorate a Tree]
Mark Jungers&The Whistling Mules[Fences]
Steven Kalas[The Star]
Martin Audiology&Pauline Reese[I'll Be Home For Christmas]
Mannheim Steamroller[The Holy and the Ivy]
Billy Joe Shaver[Merry Christmas to You]
Suzanne&Jim[Here We Go A' Caroling]
Trans-Siberian Orchestra[An Angel Came Down]
Micky&the Motorcars[Blue Christmas]
Ruben Romero[Angelic Strings]
Mae Robertson[Every December Sky]
El Orbits[Sleigh ride]
Woody Phillips[Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy]
Dusty Wright[Christmas Is Coming Down]
Suzy Bogguss&Delbert McClinton[Baby It's Cold Outside]
Elton John[Step Into Christmas]
Bob August[First Snowfall]
Andy Wilkinson&Barry Corbin[Coffee on a Christmas Eve]

The song, The Christians and the Pagans, brought tears to my eyes. Why can't people of different religions get along? The tag line of the song is that only the pies got burnt when the Christians and the Pagans got together this time. Wicah is kind of a weird religion, no weirder than any other.

The Ops portion of the shift from 4-7pm was kind of tough. The wooziness had about gone away, but I wasn't interested in doing much of anything. I finally dug out the album I was reviewing and played the last few songs. Two had dirty words, so tagged them. The singer/songwriter was strange in that his poetry set to music made no sense. Mostly it was about the fact that the singer had been a prick all his life, bed hopping and treating women badly and he almost, but not quite regretted that. All sung in a whiny self indulgent voice. 7pm came and God was I glad to be out of there.

I got home, I felt almost human. I plopped down in front of the computer and called my voice mail. My sister wanted to come up tomorrow. I have to get up at 6:30am tomorrow to go to the Kiwanis annual fruit loading. We get the fruit in and give it to our members to distribute to their customers. I feel that I should be there as Secretary. Probably a bad idea. I called my sister back and set up 10:30am as their arrival time. It should work out 8-10am at the junk yard to distribute the fruit, then 10:30am-4pm with my sister, then 4:30pm-6:30pm at the station doing another Ops shift. We shall see what happens.

I went to bed and then couldn’t get to sleep. I got up and tried to fill in the last few days in this blog. The morning is not that far off. I need to try again to get some sleep.