Author: John Bollwitt

Plans didn’t work out yesterday as I hoped they would. Just when I’m actually going to be in town and want to venture out with my friends, I get sick. Never fails. Popped a low grade fever, napped for a little bit, felt better later in the evening, but my foot was still in pain. I have no idea what happened to it, but ice on for twenty minutes, off for a hour, repeat. I really wanted to go running this morning. Probably not the hottest idea right now. And Deidre is going to kill me for missing out on her birthday. I’ll make it up to you, girl. I swear!

Keane and Novastar are two things I have discovered as of late. It’s kind of poppy, kind of mellow, lots or pretty arrangements, and just generally good. Listening to Zeilsteen Radio out of the Netherlands was all it took to find out about them. It’s a pretty good station, but their playlist lacks variety. Still, you’ll hear some good stuff.

I am not sure what I have done, but my right foot hurts. At times, it just screams. Naturally, it is a likely result from the three to four miles that I run every other day. I do my stretching afterwards, but it must not be enough. Strange thing is that it kicked in while I was standing up, working on something at the station on Wednesday. I didn’t even go running that morning. I did on Monday but haven’t been able to since. The worst of it is in the middle portion of the arch. If I step on it just right, it reminds me that it’s there. I’ve ditched my trademark of flip-flips and broke down to my running shoes for extra support.

Today is Deidre’s birthday. The plan is some sort of impromptu dinner gathering at her apartment followed by causing trouble downtown. I’ve been encouraged to cook something for it, but time might not be on my side. If I had more to think about it, I’d do something for sure. Luckily this morning’s rain has cancelled events for City Park. Softball would be fun, but not with this foot.

I miss my flip-flops.

When I wake up in the morning, I like to have my alarm set to the radio alarm. It’s a helpful way of waking up. Being blasted by classical music in the morning tells me instantly that the FM is working. I used to do this with KRUI, but the signal was never a sure thing. Of course, that’s the difference between 100 watts and 25,000. I have always been one to appreciate music in many, many forms, aside from country and rap(not hip-hop, mind you; that’s a very distinct, happy category in my world). These days, classical is really starting to get on my nerves. The conditioning of being rudely awakened by my alarm clock in the morning with such sounds have left me quite jaded.

Although my I might be caffeine free, sugar is still apart of daily life. If I don’t get my lemonade, trail mix, or something sweet in the afternoon, I feel the urge of a nice siesta coming on around two. I keep saying that we need to put in a requisition for a cot in the engineering room. Nap time would be outstanding.

I now have three accounts with my cable company. It all started with the power supply dying on my cable modem. That would require a phone call from home instead of the station, but they were very helpful in letting me know that I wouldn’t have to disconnect all my services at the end of the month. Instead, I put in a transfer order to my new apartment. That sounded great to me. We reviewed the plan on the phone, and the lady was pretty helpful with the whole situation. All in all, I was pretty pleased.

I get home Monday evening and call back to fix the internet connection issue, but they tell me that I have no services at all. Apparently, I got the new girl the week before. She put in for a disconnect on the first of July, not the first of August. She told me the correct thing, but she put it into their computer system otherwise. One hour later, I have the disconnected account, the account for reactivation to my current apartment, and an account for my new apartment. “Your cable modem is dead. Go into the local office and exchange it for a new one.”

Forty-five minutes in the local office yesterday morning, I had the head swimming of the girl behind the desk. Those three accounts had he confused. “You don’t have service at your location right now.” I relay the story of the whole mix up. That means she has to go through each account to find what the hell was going on. I go home last night to set up the modem, following the instructions, and hit a dead end. Twenty-five minutes on the phone with tech support, that guy was miffed, just like the others. “I can’t locate a supervisor as it seems they all take a smoke break at the same time.” All he had to do was change a single digit from “0” to “1” in their computer system. It was those damn three accounts that freaked him out.

Keeping your cool and being polite has its advantages. Free month of cable and internet. I can handle that. Mistakes happen. Free stuff is good.

Kansas City was great. I think I could have slept some more, but events were always moving right along. Saw a lot of family and remembered more of them that I thought I wouldn. At the same, some people were there that I flat out did not know. That is why you have these sorts of things. You become more aware of who it is that makes up your family. Good lord there are a lot of us, and not everyone was there. If they were, we wouldn’t have had so much left over food.

Probably the absolutely best moment of this weekend came at sundown. Sure, I did my fair share of making things blow up, but the guys in the backyard put on an impressive show(mental note: spending the 4th in states where fireworks are legal is very much a good thing). After that was over, we had to drive back into the city. The entire way, the horizon was alive. Everywhere around you, sparks and explosions. It was probably the most incredible fireworks display that I have ever seen in my life. Behind old Comisky Park, Atsugi, and Yokohama, this just rocked everything I have stored within the depths of my memory.

A lot to do today after the holiday weekend. The Jazzfest was rained out on Friday. Rain is an understatement. In the middle of the Orquestro Alto Maiz, people ran in terror as the skies opened up. We packed up the equipment in about ten minutes, but now the task comes to seeing what survived. With hope, all will be well.

Kevin B.F. Burt is man you should become familiar with. I can’t believe there isn’t more known about this man in the world. He was on the show this morning, and I still feel the awe. Granted, it was him and his guitar. That’s it. The true way that blues music should be played. His voice is just awesome. It’s so… blues. The fact that the only reason the guy is doing what he is doing is because he got cut from a CFL team is mind numbing. He’s a big guy, and goodness gracious, he’s a fantastic artist.

Tomorrow I depart for KCMO. Five hours in a car with my sister and her two kids. I’m looking forward to getting even further out of town for a weekend. More so, out of the state. This reunion is turning into quite a party. Pinata and everything. It’s going to be awesome. I have to play a bit of camera man for the day, but these things don’t happen often. Obviously, I like to take pictures. I have never been the greatest at video. I’ll give it my best shot.

I have rediscovered my love for Jamiroquai. I feel so funky.

One month to go and I am free of this place I call home. I am getting so super excited that you best not get in the way. Why? Soon, my friends, I shall be rocking the suburbs. Oh yes, that’s right. The burbs. And the question becomes, are the burbs ready for John? Can they handle all the rock goodness that I will bring to their suburbanite lifestyle?

To call it the burbs is a bit of a catch. It’s not really a suburb. It’s a whole other area, but far from really being burbs. For this area, burbs, maybe. For me, no. Regardless, it’s fun to say.

Sometimes I find myself getting really lazy with my music listening and get stuck on a certain playlist for a while. The Black Keys are amazing. Incredible. I love it. Reminds me of Louie jams. Rock and roll. Yum.

If there is one thing that really gets on my nerves, it has to be when something does not work. What makes it even worse is when multiple somethings do not work. Yesterday, I made my venture to tackle a project that should have been relatively simple only to spend nearly six hours banging my head. When you start something on a piece of “mission critical equipment,” there really is no going home until the job is done. My cable modem decided to fry out on me. The power blinked in the apartment this morning, but the AM transmitter site lost power for nearly an hour. I’m getting a little annoyed.

I found some spare time to get the pictures from the campout posted in the gallery. I did a fair share of giggling when I sorted through the photos. Sure, there are nearly sixty photos missing, but they are just your typical snaps of bad moments, angles, or redundancy. Eyes being closed, too blurry, and so on. It’s Wednesday, and I think I’m finally caught up on sleep.

I’m already getting excited for the Valadez family reunion this weekend in KCMO. If there is one truth that can be told about mexican families, every type of gathering is a party. Food, music, drink, and more food. Also, relearning everyone’s name and relation. I have always been horrible at that. They all seem to know or remember me. I’m “the baby.”

Monday morning and I’m still tired. Could it be because I stayed up too late on Saturday night? Maybe. Did I drink too much? Perhaps, but there’s more to the story. This year’s camp out was much more than just sitting around a fire with good friends and spirits. The entire day brings us to the tiredness running from head to toe right now. I can’t forget to mention the soreness.

We couldn’t have hoped for a better day. The sun seemed to get hotter as the day went on. It was good to see everyone who showed up. Eric’s in good spirits and life goes well for him, even though Muffin will be joining him in a matter of weeks in Kansas. Cristin and Zach are expecting, three months into the adventure. Heath brought his new bride, Chichi. Those two still blow my mind, but the more I was around them, the more it all made sense as to why they are together; Chichi is a blast. Ryan, James, Casey, Dancules, Paul, Bill, Kelly, Josh, and then some new faces who were all good to see, meet, hang out with, and enjoy the company of.

Rehashing old stories, telling new ones, catching up on lives, seeing who has grown up more, and so on. The most important element was making fun of each other. I don’t think it’s the volleyball or ultimate frisbee that has left my stomach muscles hurting like they do. I just haven’t laughed that hard in one day for quite some time. No matter how bad the burn might have been, no matter if it was about you or some one else, you just had to laugh. Life is too short to be so serious or sad.

I love to hang out with these guys and gals when I can. There is not a better group of people that can take a joke, beat it like a dead horse, and still make you chuckle. Of course, we’re all geeks, dorks, nerds, and smart asses who might just be too lame for you. Regardless, we still had one hell of a good time.

I have over a hundred pictures to sort out from. I’ll post them in the next week or so, maybe sooner if I get super motivated.

Today was one of those days where you go home feeling good. It was the first time doing one of our talk shows on remote. The first for the location, the setup, and execution. The program itself was nothing new, just a different way of doing it. And I can say with great pride, Jim and I pulled it out of our rears.

When we got there, things started falling apart. The ISDN wouldn’t lock, the laptops couldn’t sync back up to the station, and the PA system had to be rigged together. With three minutes before air time, we were good to go. We probably could have used a change of shirts, and perhaps a drink. It worked. Everyone kept telling us good job, but being the guys we are, Jim and I reply with ideas for doing it better next time. It sounded great. There is just something about taking that up a notch to make it even better that makes this job fun.

This week really can’t be over soon enough. One more remote for the week coming in the morning. This weekend finds me in the friendly confines of Burlington for the annual camp out with Muffin and company. It’ll be great to see everyone. More so, just turn my brain off for a while. With hope, the weather will warm up. Record lows tonight, which I could handle cool weather for the weekend. Just no rain, please.