JohnBollwitt.com

It is so nice to be able to run outdoors again without the threat of falling on your face from slipping on the snow and ice. On top of that, running in shorts. It’s still too cool out to forget about something long sleeved, but good enough for me. The really weird thing is the multitude of cars that were honking at me on my route today. Perhaps since it is Sunday, it’s against some people’s religion to go out running on such a beautiful day and they were upset with me. I could not recognize a single car that blew its horn as it went by. Strange…

In the midst of my recent purchase of an iPod Mini, I dove into the world of being a prospective car buyer yesterday. I wouldn’t say that I am anywhere near being ready to make such a purchase, but my eyes can’t help but wonder in that direction. And you know, saying what kind of vehicle you would like to own versus actually getting into the candy store is a completely different story. I like this one, that one, oh that’s nice, that’s ugly, that’s unnecessary, and so on. After about ten dealerships, I could not find the one that I set out to find. However, I did find about ten other vehicles that are interesting, to say the least.

I found myself sucked into Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory tonight. It’s been a movie that I have loved since the first time I saw it as a kid. Every time I watch, a new element of the film pops out at me. Be it dark undertones or settle jokes that I never caught the first hundred times around, it always surprises me. On top of that, I always laugh. In particular, Charlie’s school teacher is hilarious. Oddly enough, I have yet to own this on DVD.

Happy Leap Year to everyone out there. An extra day onto the end of this month that prevents my paycheck from getting to me sooner.

I guess this Jay-Z, Beatles thing is all the rage right now. People are eating it up, and Paul and Ringo are making their attempt to destroy it. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time. Perhaps it’s just because I have a sweet spot in my heart for the Beatles. I wouldn’t classify myself as a die hard fan, but I do have all of their albums on my list to get. In the meantime, it’s just kind of… yuck.

KRUI has a crazy way of keeping tabs on my life. Last night found myself hanging out with Frosty back in my old stomping grounds. It’s always great to see the guy, but more so to watch him do his thing with the funk show he hosts every Friday. The guy loves to chit-chat. Suddenly, with ten seconds left in the song currently playing, he feverishly flips through his collection to find the next tune while muttering to himself and, or myself. After that, I found myself hanging out with Deidre, and ran into a guy who I trained on the production staff, Roger. He has connections with some Clear Channel folks up in Milwaukee and promised a hook up if need be. That’s cool and all, but I’m looking further east. Keeping the guy in mind in the meantime. Overall, had a good night.

Sounds like me and Muffin are heading south to meet up with our friend Eric in the first week of April. Not sure for how long as I’m waiting to hear his schedule, but it’s pretty much a done deal. And I’ll get to meet this Mary girl that I hear about for the first time as she’ll be making the trip with us. I hear good things about the town, but I have yet to be convinced. Driving through the state the few times that I have, the bar isn’t set too high. However, driving to SXSW a few years ago, Kansas ate one of the tires of the vehicle we were taking to the event. Makes me think that we need to proceed across the state line with caution.

My brother is home once again. I got a very excited phone call from my mother this morning, and she had every reason to be happy. It’s good to have him out of the way of harm. For those of you who still have or know of loved ones in the way of danger, my best wishes to you and them, where ever they might be. One way or the other, I’m with those of you who want this over sooner rather than later.

iPod Mini. Ordered and in route. Get excited!

Watching Grosse Point Blank tonight, I have realized that I have achived a new level. Exactly what that level is, I’m not sure. You have to understand that being the long time, Apple Computer fan, it’s been a long history of watching movies and spotting the Apple product on screen. Tonight, it’s changed. The radio station in the movie is full of little toys that I can spot and name. The ElectroVoice RE20 microphone, Sony headphones, Denon CD players, and so on. I put my hands over my eyes. “This can’t be true!” So be it… I’m a broadcast engineer.

While on the subject of film, I have to admit that I am a John Cusack fan. I find too many of his films that I can identify with, it almost sickens me. At the same time, it makes some sense. Cusack is a nut when it comes to music in his films, much like myself. His roles are melodramatic, much like myself. Quite often, he is pining after a girl he once loved and lost, much like myself. And in the end, he usually gets the girl and life is good… Anyhow, I like John Cusack movies.

And after weeks of debating, going back and forth, and thinking about it for hours on end, I’m getting an iPod mini. I thought I wanted one of the original iPods, but I want to go smaller. I have loved my MiniDisc player since I bought it in the summer of 2000, but its time is nearing the end. Small, cute, and sweet. That’s all I want right now. I’ll order it on Monday. We’ll see how long it takes to get here. At this point, I’m thinking green.

And I close with a quote from my friend, The Reverand Don Deeley, “What we need to find is a “Passion of the Christ” drinking game.”

What what? Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m sorry. Some times the things I say just don’t make much sense. Don’t ask me why, it just happens that way. I don’t claim to be the smartest person in the world. I feel like that you might put too much faith into me to be that some one who has all the answers. Well, I don’t. In fact, I say the word “well” entirely too much. I like to use cliches quite a lot. Face it, you probably use them, too.

Keep your eyes on the road. Ten and two. Twelve… My, my… You are getting to be an adult so quickly. Life goes by so fast. You should always take some time to stop and smell the roses. April showers bring May flowers. Spring is the time for love. Look before you leap. Brush your teeth before you go to bed. Don’t let the bed bugs bite. Dreams are the windows into our minds. Sleep well for in the morning for you have a long ways to drive.

In a perfect world, we all would be the one making up the cliches.

“You look different than you looked all the other times before.” You have to appreciate the innocence of a child, especially my godson’s. “That’s because I have hair again.” And this is true. It’s all the talk these days. Well, somewhat. It’s another, new identity that I have assumed. After shaving my head, people who knew me for years would pass me on the street without a clue. The return of hair. My grandmother says I am handsome… again. I’m not too sure how I should feel about that comment.

Will Whitmore. If there is anything in your life that you should experience at least once before you pass on from this lifetime, it should be to see this man perform. It is not something that you can explain. You truly have to experience it for yourself. Be it with his banjo, dobro, or guitar, he just has a way of sucking you into his sound. The lyrics tell intuitive stories, and the music can make your heart feel good even when the song itself is so sad. He’s playing in town this Friday again, and I have a good feeling that I will be there to experience this one more time.

The world is full of such good people, but the task of finding them is not easy. When you are successful in finding a good soul, it’s important to not let go of him or her. Even if time and space provides a gap between a friendship, there is nothing better than getting a simple “hello, how are you?” when you least expect it. It’s been a hard ride these past few years, and I am just getting back to some of the people that I have left behind. And in the present, I am meeting incredible ones that I hope will maintain for some while. A very good person has graced my life as of late, and she is providing me with inspiration long forgotten. The plans are heading towards paper, so let’s see where I’ll be in a year and a half.

I got a haircut today. By saying that, I feel a bit like Pinocchio. “I’m a real boy!” It was so weird. I went in to get my haircut and ran into Richard, a guy who I see a lot at Gabe’s, more so during my days at KRUI. It’s like you get to join a new club when you grow your hair back after cutting it down to barely nothing for such a long while. The guy got me in the chair and asked what I wanted. “I don’t know.” And that’s completely true. I used to be able to go in and say, I like the way it’s cut now, just make it shorter. “Have at it. Shorten the sides and make it the least military as possible.”

Now remember, when you chop your hair off because you either think that it might be cool to walk around with a shaved head or do it as a dramatic change in your life to coincide with major life events like I did, it will grow back differently than what your hair used to be before you cut it in the first place. My advice, be sure to live somewhere that is cold while you grow it back out. Stocking caps are a god send. That way, as you wear the cap, it flattens the mop bushing out from your scalp and gives you what resembles a respectable appearance. I can’t comment on those of you in climates that stay warm for most of the year. However, if that’s true, why grow your hair back out? Have fun in the sun and get a tan.

Speaking of warm, the weather is getting better day by day. Snow is disappearing quicker than I could have imagined. Of course, mud is starting to pop up everywhere, but it’s really hard to complain about that. I can feel the winter funk wearing off and my energy levels starting to kick into overdrive. I can’t wait for the chance to get out and run in this weather. Running through puddles in the morning twilight… The thought almost sends shivers down my spine. Summer is almost here, and you bet I’m smiling.

Now… Just got to find my way to Kansas.

I picked a good day to take the day off from the station. It was just an absolutely gorgeous day today. If you know anything about the Midwest and winter time, the moment the weather pushes the forty degree mark, people trade out the parka for a next to nothing clothing if they can stand it. Today was a day like that. I took my sweet time getting out of bed, but as soon as I saw the temp outside, I was off to the races to take advantage of the day that I had left. It was great. Sweating while walking around outside is a good sign of spring to come. I’m starting to remember why I fell in love with this town in the first place.

Made a grocery run today. In the check out line, I had a couple in front of me that I only imagine to be speaking something close to Russian. When speaking English to the cash register girl, they were just polite as all could be. Once speaking to each other in their own tongue, it sounded like they were ready to throw off the gloves and beat the holy crap out each other. Behind me, a lady was yelling on her cell phone about ex-wives, ex-husbands, therapy sessions, and her laundry list of complaints about some one I’m sure I’ll never meet. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever help that woman!” Out of all the isles, I had to pick that one. It made me smile, and the cash register girl giggled along with me.

Mom came home safe from visiting my grandma and aunt. My plan is to make my own journey down that way in the next month or so. It would also be good to see Angie again since we haven’t had much of luck seeing each other when we are even in the same town.

More for another time… Law & Order: SVU is itching to distract me from any sense of being productive.

When people ask me what I have been up to lately, the common response after I explain it all to them is, “So when is the vacation?” Yes, I understand that I have been working my rear off around the station and that sleep is a good thing. Trust me, I get it, especially when you start seeing things moving that are not even there. I think the term is tracers. In all of the sleep deprivation at this point, I have yet to hurt myself. That in itself completely surprises me. One week into the KRUI relocation, I had my blood spilled onto the console furniture. So I have to say, things are going well, knock on wood.

Vacation is coming. To begin with, I plan on taking a day off yet this week. Hopefully I can get something figured out then. I’ve been talking Muffin about making a trek to see Eric down in Kansas for some time. He’s got room for us to crash, and it’s not in Iowa. To me, that sounds like a pretty good deal. On top of that, I’ve been itching for a good road trip. So the planning is starting to kick in, but we’ll see how these two interesting individuals like ourselves put this thing together. Just keep your fingers crossed that Muffin doesn’t catch some horrible disease or break something else in his body. The boy just has luck on the low end. I’m looking forward to the possibility of hours on the road with a great friend, singing along to They Might Be Giants the whole way.

For those of you who are curious, the hair growing process is as thrilling as a snail race. I’m fighting to find the time to get a haircut, as well as where to get it. For a year and a half, haircuts we oh so simple. Once a week, get the clippers out and go to town. Now I’m starting to look, and more so feel, like afro-man. It’s probably only an inch and a half long, but that’s vastly different to the millimeters that it was before.

In other Muffin news, I got the email of the summer camp out the other day. I’ve got my tent, and I’ll bring the margaritas. Oh yeah…

My brain feels like it’s a bit on the medium-well side. We got that new console installed today. 27 hours. We hit a major technical snag that put the whole project on the brink of failure, and that set us back nearly eight hours. If it wouldn’t have been for that, I would have been in dreamland a whole heck of a lot sooner. I did crash for about a half hour in my office when I couldn’t see straight or walk without running into walls. Sleep deprivation… It’s a trip, man.

Sad news graced my world the other day. I don’t think that Spain is going to be possible this year. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I’m going to have to drop back to plan B. Brian and Adam have been hounding me to come back out to NYC, so there’s that option. My only fear there is that those two are looking to trap me there and not let me come back to the midwest. On the other side of the country, Winnie wants me to go see her in the San Diego area. Another option is to hop down and visit Renee down in Florida. So I have some ideas. The hard part is choosing where to go. The city, which I absolutley love, or fun in the sun, which I am, as Nay would say, fixin’ for.

Being that it’s apart of my job, I engineered a show Friday night where Christopher O’Riley, host of the syndicated radio show From the Top, was the guest for the first portion of the show. The guy not only is a host of a program, but is a super talented musician, piano in particular. He likes to play arrangements of various tunes that he writes himself, for the piano. I thought it was pretty great when he said he was going to play one arrangement of an Elliot Smith song, and then play another one by R.E.M. However, what really got me was when he said he would finish by playing Paranoid Android by Radiohead. Each piece made my eyes light up and put a grin on my face. It was thrilling to hear him play. Being so burnt out on that board, it was a huge uplift to my spirits.

My hands are tender. The tips of my fingertips are slowly, but surely, developing a nice think layer of skin from using various types of snips, crimps, solding irons, and so on. We are quickly approaching the day of dropping the ufo-like audio console into the AM control room, replacing the old boat that’s in there right now. As little sleep as I am getting, I’m having a heck of a good time. It’s nice that I have been able to come home tonight at a decent time. At least I was able to cook myself some dinner.

I’m anxious for warmth. Just when you think that winter is about to give in, the ice starts to melt off the roof, pools of water are all over the parking lots… Nope, it gets cold again. Bone chilling, actually. Savings are going well, and this bird needs to fly somewhere warm when I get the chance.

It’s time to get some rest. Sleep deprivation decreases brain function, and that is no lie.