Author: John Bollwitt

Boom! Another Friday come and gone. It didn’t really help that the power went out this morning in my apartment. Never fear, we pulled the show off, rock star style. Ok, not as much as broadcast engineer style, but you get me. The guests today were incredible. Former western movie stars. We’re talking John Wayne era here. Just the most interesting people that I have met for some time.

There was one summer where my grandma and grandpa Valadez came up for a couple of weeks. AMC used to just show classic movies of the silver screen. In KC, they didn’t get this channel, so grandma and grandpa loved to watch while they were in town. I would sit there and watch these movies with them. Grant, Stewart, Presley… All these people I was introduced to. Movies that I probably would not have ever watched otherwise. These are the stars the same people from this morning worked with. It was mind blowing to see memories from childhood suddenly make an appearance.

Worked late tonight to make up for last week. Exciting Friday night? You better believe it. Tired? You better believe it.

Ignorance is a complex, yet amazing, thing. Call it the psychologist in me, but people these days have left me dumbfounded. More importantly, it would have to be the stupid people. It could just be the weather, but I don’t get it. Big, muscle man Joe Blow crossing the street, not in the crosswalk mind you, giving me the stare of impending doom as I drive the posted twenty-fives miles an hour towards him. Every step he takes, he walks slower, staring at me the whole time. A girl flipping me off as she walks through the crosswalk while the sign in front of her clearly displays “do not walk,” the whole time on her cell phone. Of course people walking in a crosswalk get the right of way, but I’m not the only car that nearly hit her.

Seriously, where do these people get off? This is just a sample of the frustration, but the rest of it is your garden variety mix of stupid people doing stupid things. That doesn’t stop me from wondering what the heck is going on inside their head. Granted that you couldn’t really do a study on why people become simply inept, but these thoughts help me to understand why it is that I sought a degree in neuropsychology. All I want to do is work in radio. Odd.

These first days back on the job after being sick have been tiring. The database went live as of yesterday. Good news is that it works. The other part of the story is getting everyone comfortable with it. The learning curve is out of control, so it will take a while for the dust to settle. Other projects rage on. Little by little, Jim and I are getting there. You have to figure that if you work at it long enough, things should come together. Still, if I had more hours in the day and never had to sleep, that would be pretty damn cool.

Another promotion is looming on the horizon. As of next week, I will have been working at these stations for a year. That in itself is a pretty neat milestone. I always told myself that after leaving KRUI, I would love to work somewhere in the world of NPR. Well, here I am. This promotion would lock me in for as long as I can see into the future. Radio is what I love to do, and this is a great town to keep doing it in. It might take a month or six, but benefits… Yeah, benefits.

And another broadcast engineer bites the dust. Actually, he’s alive, but his right knee is pretty twisted. Seems that Ed took a fall off of a ladder while helping his brother over the weekend. He is the main man when it comes to TV transmitters for IPTV. With his leg in a brace, he’s a bit more like a pirate. Get well wishes to Ed.

I’m getting really tired of my current living situation. Eating breakfast this morning before work, I decided that I do enjoy the quaintness of the tiny space I call home. However, it is far from enough in terms of being something I want to call home. Two months out and these walls will change completely. More so, it’s the people that live in the building that are getting to me the most. It’s not the loud music; if anyone is guilty of such a crime, that would probably be me. They are all nice people. It has to be the fact that you hear everyone coming and going. Walls between our apartments are great. The hallway booms.

Why does the girl in number one have to always slam her door to close it? That event can make items shake in my kitchen. Number four comes home at odd hours, most commonly around or slightly ahead of sunrise. Her feet are like cement blocks. You don’t hear her walking around, you feel it. Anytime some one enters or leaves, you get the added bonus. Voices, footsteps, and the movement of clothing just carries like you can’t imagine.

I’m not picky. A lot of this just slides off of me and becomes apart of the white noise in my life. I guess being home nearly all of last week just gave me the opportunity to really take notice of it. I am about to move to a building that is triple insulated for noise and no one living below me to disturb. Two months and I’m there. This is going to be weird, but I’m sure it will be awesome.

Grandma is visiting for the next couple of weeks. It’s always great to have her around, but there’s just one catch. To my grandmother, who I love very dearly, I am too skinny. I’ll take no time to admit that as a kid, I was a chunk. This label stuck with me through my entire childhood. And then, the label “grew” on into high school. Obviously, grandma has watched the decrease in my body mass as I have attempted to pursue a better life in terms of health. I fear that if I were to be within closer proximity of her on a regular basis, my mission would be met with failure. It never changes. Today I was greeted with mexican bread and tamales. Temptation? Oh my, yes! I indulged.

We also did the great american cookout today for the holiday. Dad took the shiny, new grill out for its maiden voyage. Ooooooo… Shiny. Good eats, good margaritas, good times.

It beats the heck out of being sick. I just hope things hold out for the work week.

I think I understand what it’s like to be an obsessive compulsive now. Perhaps that is just a bit of sarcasm, but being sick this week has seen a massive depletion of my hand soap supply in my apartment. I just cannot shake this bug. In hopes of defeating it, I constantly wash my hands after any event involving possible recontamination. Both yesterday and today were spent in bed. My best friend, the TV, kept me company with all of its insanity. With luck, my neck will not be plagued with pain from my head being propped up for too many hours that I even want to think about. I’m hoping that this is the tail end, ten pounds lighter and all.

All of this puts a damper on any potential Memorial Day weekend fun. I’ll have to keep it on the down low for sure. Some times when I get sick, the best way to start feeling better is to start acting better. That’s the reason why I went back into the station on Tuesday. I paid for it big time yesterday. I had thought about hiking or something entertaining like that for this weekend. Instead, I need to bust out the bleach and go to town on my apartment. Yay me.

Not all has been horrible in this past week. I had the awesome time of catching up with Renee last night. She’s gearing up to hit Sydney for a month, leaving next week. It’s people like such that you have to cherish in life. Renee has made her reach for doing what she wants with her life, and that’s just the way life goes. However, when my phone rings, not a lot has changed in the sense that we still babble about nothing for hours. Good times. Florida seems to be treating her well. I’m hoping to make it down there to see her soon.

In an attempt to not launch into a tirade of thoughts regarding the current state of cable television entertainment and how much I loathe 97.3% of it, I’ll end it here. Being sick, I’ve been watching way too much TV.

My head is still hurting a little bit. I’m not sure what this was, but it sucked. Perhaps a migraine or the flu, and all I could so was lay in bed, subjected to the torture of the television. At times, I couldn’t stand keeping my eyes open or to let noise filter down into my ear drums. I’d shiver under the blankets, fall asleep, and wake up sweating. This process repeated a series of times. I’m still not on top of it yet, but I’m getting there.

When I get sick, I have the strangest dreams. At one point, I woke up with the knowledge of how to fix everything there was on a car. In fact, for a brief moment, I thought I was a mechanic and the last thing I wanted to do was to work on a car ever again. A sleep cycle or two later, something about high school and girlfriends. People were all in arms over me and some one that were recently found to be dating, but I haven’t the slightest over who that was. The fact that it was all too real made it scary. You have all these odd dreams only to wake up feeling so incredibly horrible. It’s a bizarre method of personal torture.

Today marks something new in the world of this site. I have yet to test out the validity of their products, but I’m venturing out anyway. You can now buy t-shirts with some of the pictures found on my web site. As I said, this is new, so we’ll see how it goes. All I ask is that if you do get a t-shirt, take a picture of yourself with it on and send it to me. I’ll start a new gallery featuring said things. If you have a request, feel free to contact me.

I think I’m discovering part of the reason that I fell in love with radio. The storms in the last few days have been spectacular. Jim called me this morning checking on some passwords that he had forgot to some of the computer equipment. Seems that power was lost on that end of town. He woke me up around ten this morning, but the day started for him around six. Ouch. Anyhow, that gives you an idea of what’s been going on.

When the skies get dark, people turn to the radio. Yesterday, the skies exploded. Alerts were pouring in from the NWS. Tornadoes. Thunderstorms. Flooding. It was all coming down the EAS pipe. As soon as Jim and I heard it come over, we’d head into the control room where Dennis was in a mess of notes from everything, trying to alert the public in danger. It was a rush. Some one out there was depending on the information coming out of our station. It’s an interesting feeling.

Thunder is booming once again as I sit here. I can’t help but think about the time that my mom and I were huddled in the basement as my heart beat with pure fear, tornado siren blaring outside. It was just a downdraft, but the winds were batting the house like a ping pong ball. We held onto each other under a blanket, not sure what was going to happen. The sky went green that day, which is never good. The power was out as soon as it started and didn’t return for at least a day. No one was hurt, and the only damage were to the trees. Not just by straight snapping of branches and trunks, but by a twisting motion like a bottle cap.

When I hear that tone, the one that alerts you of impending doom on the horizon, there’s a chill quickly followed by a rush of adrenaline. I know what it’s like to be that person stuck in the basement with nothing else to depend on but a radio.

As often happens in the world of my family, or that which I have come from, I find myself immersed in the world of “information and technology”. In geek, nerd, or corporate speak, that’s IT to you. In all seriousness, I can’t remember a day without technology being apart of my life. Computers, televisions, CD’s, VHS, and so on. When Star Wars finally made it to broadcast over our local CBS affiliate, I drove that beta tape into the ground because I watched it so many times. All this tinkering with gadgets, or electronics, just kind of comes second nature.

Mark today as another first. My first IT seminar. Microsoft Security Training. Imagine, if you will, a bunch of people crowded into an auditorium being lectured to about network and domain security. Group policies. On and on. To me, it is of interest because the more I can do at the station to keep all the office machines safe from hackers, the less late nights I’ll have. As far as the entertainment factor goes, it’s just not my bag. However, you look around this room and there are people who live for this. Pale skinned individuals with poor to no grooming or fashion skills, drinking their highly carbonated, sugary, caffeinated beverage of choice while munching on something sweet. They giggle with eagerness when they prove the speaker faulty on some subject he just covered. It’s like elementary school when the same people laugh at your for raising your hand, admitting to some security policy you operate on your local network that is so three months ago.

I’m not a PC person, but I can handle working with both platforms. By that, I mean Apple and Microsoft. I enjoy the work I do and like to think that I’m pretty good at it. I’m far from perfect, that’s for sure. I’m learning everyday, and in this business, that’s exactly what you need to keep doing, day in and day out. I fear some of these people, with their pony tails, belt clip cell phones, polo shirts, khaki pants, hush puppies, and portable technology of choice. I admit, what I do as a broadcast engineer is nerdy, but if I had their jobs, yet alone lives, I think I’d go postal.

Had a very long day. Jim and I made quite the tour of the northeast portion of the state. We had a translator to fix, and the mission was accomplished but not without headache. Interesting time. Good road trip. Swung through the FM site to check on things while on the way back into town. I have to say that it was a good idea, regardless of the puddles of water that awaited us when we walked in. We don’t know how, but two computers and a good collection of paper work is ruined. Some of it we hope to dry out. We’ll see. The roof is in the midst of being replaced. There could be some sort of connection there. Time will tell. I’m sure Ed will have an explanation in the next few days.

Right now, I’m listening to Billie Holiday and loving it. It might have something to do with the fact that I’m tired from today’s adventure. On top of that, today started out a little warm and muggy. Now it’s foggy and cool. It’s just the perfect thing to be listening to right now. It’s amazing how much my musical tastes range, but mood dictates my playlists more than anything. Ms. Holiday is making me feel quite all right.