A quick two day post

I can't remember the first time I heard the alarm go off. I know I set it for something like 6:30am, but that doesn't mean I heard it. I know I smacked the snooze button enough that I am sure I pissed off the neighbors and probably put an indentation into the top of the alarm clock, but that is usually how Sundays begin around here. I start with grandiose plans, today I was going to go to the grocery store before work, so I could get some lunch munchies and pick up more bus tickets, but as the alarm rang, I mentally made plea bargains with my slumbering self. "Just 10 more minutes and I will be functional?" :Really, I am awake, I am just resting my eyes." "But it's cold outside and it is warm under the blankets". My bartering paid off as finally I gave into my laziness and just shut the alarm off.

9am I finally get up. Not that I want to mind you, but I have to leave for the bus stop. I shuffle over to the computer, just to see how bad the fantasy hockey team did yesterday and to see if anyone commented on the videos I posted the night before. A couple of comments and a couple of blog reads later, I realize better get dressed and head out to the bus stop. Since it is Sunday, I stop first at the gas station for my Sunday ritual of coffee for the bus ride, I also grab a ham and cheese sandwich, a blueberry muffin, a small bag of Doritos and a pack of Marlboro Lights. Lunch is served, even though I won't be eating it for a couple of hours yet.

I have my book secured away in my bag, it helps pass the time on the bus, meaning I take what is down time for some and make it up time for me. I am tempted to take the book out while at the bus stop, but with one hand securing the coffee and the wind making it feel much colder than it is, I opt to wait until I am secured inside a moving vehicle before breaking out any reading material. The first bus ride is rather uneventful. I hop a 500, which leaves me a couple of blocks from my second bus stop, but it was the first bus to arrive. I could have waited and taken a bus that would drop me closer to the changeover point, but really, it is only a couple of blocks. I haven't gotten that lazy just yet.

I get off of the bus at LIberty Avenue and 6th Street. Downtown is once again living up to it's quaint charm of being windier than Oakland. The wind whips up the Ohio River and cuts right through downtown Pittsburgh, and while we were spared the excessive snowfalls of our neighbors to the west, where as much as two feet fell as opposed to our two inches, the cold is more than making up for the lack of snow in the discomfort department. I think I am going to have to duck inside some place to keep warm if I am going to wait out the 40 minutes or so till my next bus arrives, but I manage to find a nice little spot just on the other side of the subway station that allows for the structure to block the wind, while the rising sun is facing directly at me. I can look across the street and see through the windows that many people are sharing my disdain for exercise, as once again most of the gym equipment is sitting their unused, only one person is to be seen this early on a Sunday morning.

After a few chapters of reading, and a couple of cigarettes, my second bus arrives. I short jaunt later I am off the second bus, and walking down South Bee Street to my place of employment. I am sort of dreading the day, not because it is work, that I don't mind, but because I have a lot to do and very little time to do it. My original plan was to go to work early, get all of my stuff done and be home in time to watch some of the hockey game at 12:30pm. Pittsburgh against Washington is the NBC Game of the Week, so it is some of the league's best players squaring off, Pittsburgh still in the hunt for the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference, Washington is trying to get into the playoffs. It seemed like such a good plan for a Sunday afternoon, but Friday shot it all to hell.

As I am getting ready to leave work, our new/old program director (he actually had the job before, then they hired one for us, then they gave the job to someone else, then he was again given the job) Ron asked me if I was going to be in on Sunday. Sundays are usually what I call my production day, technically I don't have to be there, but the production rooms are empty, so I allow myself the opportunity to get my work done on commercial feeds that are my responsibility, update any promos that need cut, do some work on podcasts and, time permitting, work on the following Sundays radio shows. Time permitting between when I finish and when my bus will arrive to take me back into town, I will kill time working on my launchcast station, or some equally inane project. But since I was going to be there on Sunday, I was asked if I would produce the Robert Morris basketball game for the radio station. Apparently the station that normally airs them had a scheduling conflict and therefore couldn't carry this Sundays game and since we just run taped syndicated fare on Sundays anyway, live programming seemed to be an upgrade. The cynic in me says they asked me because I am salaried and therefore cheaper, the professional in me says they asked me because I would do the best job. Whatever the reason, it ended my hockey dreams for Sunday. It also meant that I would be limited in the amount of time I could spend on production work, because once I get into a live broadcast in the studio, I am pretty much trapped there, so I had to hurry through putting in three commercial feeds, cutting a new promo for the Sinatra show, getting two podcasts up and ready to be edited (I actually got one of them edited and posted on the web page), dropping in two two minute features for Monday morning and putting in two and a half hours of programming for next Sunday, all in the span of less than four hours. While this is going on, I also had to set up a feed for our booth at the Home and Garden Show, set up one for Yahoo Sports so they could simulcast the game, make sure the control board was set up so the announcers could here everything without getting feedback on themselves and along updates via talkback, so the guys at the game would have updated scores from other games (as well as the hockey game which Pittsburgh won 4-2, Pitt Men's basketball team was playing, they won 97-78, Pitt Women's Basketball team was playing, they beat #9 Notre Dame 64-53 and Penn State Men's basketball upset #18 Indiana 68-64 in overtime and that was just the local scores) so suffice it to say, I had my hands full.

 

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Back again two days later, it is Tuesday for those keeping score at home. Okay, technically it is early Wednesday morning, but to me a day doesn't end until I have went to bed, slept and gotten back up, so it is still my Tuesday. Things have been hectic round these parts, I got home Sunday night and started the dreary entry above, failing to do one thing I usually do, which is check my messages. No one usually calls on Sunday, and because I got stuck doing the basketball game, I didn't get in until after 7pm. I should have checked them however, as Lynn called to say she was sick and wouldn't be coming in. Since I didn't, I didn't find out until Monday morning about 2 hrs before airtime. I made a quick call to Phil, whop is way cool about filling in on short notice and he did again. Of course with short notice, you usually expect the worst out of radio, you never have time to go over show prep, little time to check the papers and wires for news stories, So imagine my suprise when Phil and I just kicked ass. We literally have the phones jammed for at least 2 of the three hours we were on the air. I say we because I tend to jump in more when I think I am needed and given the short advance notice I gave Phil, I assumed I would be. In all honesty, it might have been some of the best radio I have ever done, at least from a me perspective. Once I get the show edited for podcast, I will copy and post here so you can tell me I am full of shit, but for now, I bask in my own reflected glory.

Of course after the show I came home, stopped by the bar for a couple of quick beers then ran out and got my paycheck in the last of the mug me Mondays, since next week I get paid on Tuesday. I get home around 2:30ish and there is a message to call the station, so I do and I am told Lynn will not be in on Tuesday either. I can't use Phil again, he is having shoulder surgery, and Clair, who I spoke to Monday morning, is unavailable as well. I call David from 2 Political Junkies (www.2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com) and he switches some things around on his work schedule and agrees to do the Tuesday show. Mind you, I have no budget to work with, so these people that fill in are volunteering their time. Anyway, I get to work Tuesday morning and around 6:30am the phone rings. I answer it and it is Lynn saying she is coming in. I told her not to bother, it was already covered, and I didn't want David to go through the hassle for changing his schedule for no reason at all, nor could I have waited until Tuesday morning and booked him if Lynn was unavailable. Ron, our program director, seemed to back my decision, though I didn't tell him until afterward, but it seemed like the right call to make and all went okay. Not as good as Monday mind you, but good nonetheless.

You may wonder what I am doing up in the middle of the night when I should be slumbering for tomorrow's show. I am just doing some laundry so I have work clothes. You can only wear clothes so many times before laundry becomes a necessity, I have reached that point. Hopefully tI can blog until my clothes are done, then rest my head for an hour or so, then get back up and do it again, as Wednesday is the second of three doubles I have this week. The part time gig is giving me every other Friday, which I should complain too much about, it is an extra 50-60 dollars in my pocket every two weeks, but in all honesty, if someone else wanted the shift, they could have it.

I guess I could do a quick fantasy update and say that the last week of the hockey regular season I went 4-4-2, so I remained in the 6th and final playoff spot, though I had actually clinched the week before, I still could have moved up, just not down. My final regular season record was 105-92-33 for those that actually care about such things.

Change meter gets another 8 cents, new total is $34.38. I did find $20, but that was in the pocket of some pants I threw in the laundry, so that doesn't count, damn me and my rules anyway.

Well, I would stick around but the laundry is just about done and my eyes are having a hard time staying open so I might rest them for an hour or so. Nite all.