Beginning Anew

When I worked in theatre we used to have this saying "Don't tick off the techies... without us you would be standing naked on an empty, dark stage and no one could hear you." This will loosely apply to the following scenario.

I hate being lied to. I totally despise it, and lets remember that I have a degree in communications, i've been taught to see the signs of deception.

This morning one of our fine talent comes in to complain about the fact that we haven't put in this piece of equipment he bought and wanted installed (immediately, I might add). He thinks we are totally out to get him and ruin his show.

I explained that the equipment wasn't up to the standards we require as a part of our audio airchain. A $99 vocal effects processor, not pre-approved by engineering, doesn't go on the air. Period.

He proceeds to rant that this is the processor that the "big boys" use and we are just narrow minded and out to get him... how dare we!?!

I asked which "big boys" were using this equipment... His reply made me smile. "Mark and Brian"

Mark and Brian are a syndicated morning show out of Los Angeles. Mark, it just so happens graduated out of the same communications program that I did. We share a common contact. So I pop an e-mail off to a former professor who then gives me Mark Thompsons e-mail address. Not his work address mind you, but his personal address.

I ask him if they use a Vocal 300 Digitech processor on their morning show, and get a reply from him showing a converstation with his producer who says "No, we use some kind of harmonizer" And offers to get the exact technical name of it for me. I have requested it, but I now know beyond a doubt that I was being lied to so he could get his way.

So here is a lesson... don't lie to me. If I would go to the trouble of tracking down a nationally syndicated morning talk show host who is on vacation in order to find out if a co-worker is lying to me... what makes you think I wouldn't do the same to you?

Man, having connections is great!

Our morning began rather uneventful. That soon changed.

We have been having some agression problems with the dogs, so yesterday we took the older one (otto) to the vet to get "the snip". We went to get him this morning... paid the bill ($185! SHEESH!), all is well. We drive home with Otto, and as soon as we get out of the car the dogs start barking at one another.... then growling... soon, Ed runs off to see what Ann is doing, so I (thinking the other dog is already chained) bring Otto into the fence. In about 3 seconds they look like a tumbleweed flying through an abandoned mining town. Growling, blood, guts, spit... well you get the idea. I still have Otto by the leash, so I tried pulling him out, and even tried pulling them apart. One of them managed to bite me on the hand...

It was at this point that I decided that one of us had to have some relief. Ann stopped me before I could get my .38 from the bedroom.

This is what happens anytime my family spends money on an animal...

Finally got them seperated (after much more blood, guts, spit...etc) and chained them on opposite ends of the yard. (We had to chain them because of otto's stiches.)

Animal control picked them up around 9:45 to take them to the shelter. We can't have this kind of thing going on with a baby on the way. I'd never forgive myself if Ann or the baby got hurt because I didn't want to give up my dogs. We know it was the right decision, but it's still not fun.

My hand (well, finger to be more accurate) hurts like crazy, but it'll be fine.

Anyone need some retractable leashes and a doggie car harness?

I think a goldfish might be a good choice as a next pet.

One of the biggest problems we face in the broadcast industry, and all RF related industries in general is the NIMBY attitude. People are constantly complaining about the flashing red beacons on towers, and heaven forbid you want to build a new tower. Then the NIMBY folks really get fired up.

A great example.... read the full story here. I'll summarize:

A struggling church has agreed to allow a cellphone company to put an antenna on their steeple in exchange for rent. It would be flush mounted on the sides, painted the same color as the structure and would be hardly noticeable by passers by.

This church is in a residential area, and when they heard about this what did they do? The community didn't rally around to try and help the church avoid this or give them some money to help prevent needing to rent (essentially) tower space to T-Mobile. Nope... they started a petition against the church. Did they have good research? Nope... they had unfounded fears and myths that they blindly followed.

Their argument centers around the health factor. They say that we can't be sure that these antennas won't hurt our children, mabye even cause cancer. This is relatively new technology and we don't know all the facts. WRONG!

This is NOT new technology. We have been aware of Radio Frequency energy for decades. We know it is totally safe at certain distances, and usually an unsafe distance is totally unattainable by the general population. Here is a fact. I am legally allowed to be exposed to 10 times the amount of RF that most of you reading this blog are. Why? Well, the FCC decided it was safer that way. I had to go through the training and be certified in high RF environments. Radio engineers mostly live to be very old people, in their 70's-80's, even some into their 90's. No more people in RF related jobs die of cancer than the average of any other jobs. Why?

RF isn't harmful in the right dosage. All RF will do is heat your skin, or at certain frequencies it can cause some cell damage IF YOU STAY IN THE HIGH RF FIELD TOO LONG! Here is the trick. Cell phone antennae, at a proper height are totally harmless. Your microwave oven can be more harmful! Now, if you got a ladder and stood in front of one for about 3 hours, you'd be sweating and very dehydrated... if you were looking directly at it, you might even develop a cataract in a few years. But who is that stupid???

I'll end this rant like this. Get your facts straight before you start attacking something you don't understand. Those of us who work in high RF fields are not at any danger if we take the right precautions... and it is our responsibility to you to make sure you are exposed to less than 1/10 of what we are... if we are safe at 10x the amount of exposure... don't you think you'll be fine?

And don't be a hypocrite. How many people on that block do you suppose have cell phones?

Here in Little Rock I find myself surrounded by nothing but rabid Arkansas Razorback fans. The buzz of anticipation is growing louder and louder as the Kickoff of the 2005 football season begins. I can't seem to find any inspiration to be excited. I am just starting to get back into watching college football, and now that I am living in this foreign land known as Arkansas, I think i'm going back into my football-less state of mind again. I can't openly say "Roll Tide" without fear of being beaten with these God-awful rubber pig hats I see in stores around here.

But finally it occured to me in the shower yesterday what i'm looking forward to this fall! I am looking forward to Razorback football games! I really am.. I can't wait for the hard hitting, grass stained, "woo-pig-sooie" of it all!!!

Why this sudden change of heart you ask???

It's very simple. It means that all these rabid fans will be at home watching their beloved team on TV, and I will be able to get a seat at my favorite restaurants more easily! By my estimation, about 4 in every 5 cars here has a razorback sticker/tag cover/window cling/toothless redneck yelling woo-pig on or in it. That is actually more people than have tags on their cars here. If only 3 of those 4 are actually watching the game, that means that for a period of several hours they will be otherwise occupied! Me and the other of the 5 will be out enjoying a nice quiet meal.
So there you go, Arkansans... that's my deal. When I say "YEA! Arkansas, everyone should watch the game!" What I actually mean is "I'll have the orange peel shrimp and an appetizer of Crab Wontons and Diet Coke" at P.F. Changs.

You ever say something and then say "Knock on wood" while trying to find anything resembling wood to knock on? Well perhaps I should have done that yesterday while posting to my blog. (Please note that I am quite aware of the bad voodoo theology on "Knock on Wood"... its just a figure of speech!)

Not 2 hours after I typed my message to my great readers here on this blog, I recieved an e-mail from Corporate MIS. Basically saying "BIG Vulnerability has been exploited... all machines must have current updates and virus definitions ASAP. This means today!"

We have great tools for doing this sort of thing. I can patch every machine in the building simultaneously with just a few mouse clicks. EXCEPT: On-air automation systems. They require a bit more finesse. You have to time when they reboot much more carefully. Guess which machines were most vulnerable??? You guessed it!

I started at 1:30pm. I finally finished patching just the automation systems at around 9:00 last night... with no real supper break. Thanks to my lovely wife for bringing me a sandwich.

Then I had to contend with patching the rest of the building. Which isn't a huge deal, except that it is time consuming. I finally got home around 10 last night, and I probably will end up running another patch scan today to make sure that everything took (Which it never does).

Here's to having 10 hours of overtime on your paycheck! (But the weekend isn't over yet!... Knock on wood!)

Well, things around here have been very hectic! The boss has been out of town, which means I assume a good number of the duties he performs. Namely I have had 3 different transmitter sites that had to have some attention in the last 2 days. Starting at midnight Thursday morning I had a tower crew climbing one of my towers, requiring me to turn off one of our stations. The estimate was 2 hours. 5 hours and 5 minutes later I actually got to turn the transmitter on, just in time for Morning Drive.

As I hit "Plates On" on the transmitter my phone rang, and people from work letting me know that a critical peice of our Newsroom software had crashed. I'm 45 minutes away from broadband, there is no way I can troubleshoot from where I am. So they have to wait, meanwhile not recieving any state news!

I finally hit the pillow at 6:05am. My alarm sounds at 7:45am because I have to put another of my transmitter sites into directional mode for a cellphone company to do a proof after they built a tower in our protected area. Of course this didn't work right the first time, so my phone rang at 8:07am . Finally get that going. Actually slept until about 10:30 and then a short nap until 11:45. Then more fun. Wiring trouble at the studio!

I finally hit the pillow again at 8:00pm last night. I slept from about 8pm until about 5am... and then i woke up.... no going back to sleep this time. 8:30am appointment with the cellphone guy on another site where they are about to build a tower in our protected area.

I'm gonna be getting some good sleep in this weekend, as long as my cellphone doesn't ring!

But if you know me, don't hesitate to call if you need something. If you just want to chat... make it sometime after noon!
Go check out my other blog to find out about the progress of our little one!

Here you go.

Vacation plans are forming, slowly but surely. Original plan was to head to the beach. We evaluated the current hurricane forecast, and then we got some news and things just started looking like it would be better if we went more conservative on vacation plans this year.

Then we found out some other news... our best friends who we were going to vacation with, are pregnant too! So that brought us into the even more conservative realm! So we are going back to alabama for a few days in September to catch a music festival and visit with friends and family.

We attended youth last night for Minnesota Golf. It was truly and experience. It always is. Of course I liked this time better, seemed like the course was better planned than before! Afterward we had a very productive meeting and got some stuff set up for the fall. Which reminds me that i need to go send an e-mail.