Too little time on my hands

I am not sure where to begin, and once started, I am not sure I will ever stop, it has been that kind of week and change. I am all kind of looking forward to Sunday when I will finally be able to sleep in for a change, as sleep is something that I think I need. Not that I am all upset about my lack of sleep or anything, but I can just feel the batteries start to drain on me. The worst part is I haven't got much of anything accomplished on the home front, despite my once again best laid plans. But before we get all off on a storytelling tangent, let's do that which is easiest and go about the ever so popular Change Meter update.

I know what you are thinking, why start on something so mundane. Truth be told, I am not sure I want to start there either, but for far different reasons. I am in the midst of a change meter explosion here, and I am worried that the minute I mention it, all of the change mojo will be lost. By the same token, the longer I don't mention it, the better the chance that I will forget the total. So I risk messing with the mojo and say that the total will increase by an astounding $11.51, which means the new total is $71.89. Not too bad considering I didn't even have 40 bucks at the start of the new year, now I may double the entire meter in just a few months.

And Rich, I grant your selection for Asshat is Asshat worthy and will send this week's crown in the mail to the Chicago Police Department.

There, I have killed two birds so far, but if only there were but two. Instead there are bunches, and I am barely started here.

First the radio gig did start this week, but not without a little controversy on my part. I informed my current employer that starting this week I wouldn't be available for the 3-11 shift, since I will be working from 5-7 at the new job. All things considered I didn't think it would be much of a problem, sure I had pulled a couple of weeks on the 3-11 shift to help out while people were out due to illness, but I didn't expect it to be any sort of permanent thing. Plus I wasn't ruling out working that shift on Sat or Sunday, nor was I saying that I wasn't available for the other two shifts (7-3, 11-7) but you would have thought I said I was the devil incarnate. I got the lecture that I was hired based on my flexibility and they can't guarantee me hours if I am not available and blah blah blah. Of course one day later they post a schedule and I still have 40 hours and the asked me to change my Saturday shift so I could help on for the St Patrick's Day parade so my job and hours seem safe for the time being.

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Sorry I was pleasantly distracted by a conversation with Bob over on Facebook and by the time I finished with it I was just too tired to continue this here entry. Hopefully I will get a larger portion of it done tonight.

Today was Day 4 of the radio comeback. So far all is going relatively well. I can't say thanks enough to the number of people that said they were happy I was back. Mind you not nearly the number that were happy Lynn was back, she is the name talent after all, but still I would not have expected the outpouring of well wishes about the return of little ol' me like te one I have received. I am incredibly flattered by it, and for those that did welcome em back, I thank you, after all you kids are why we do what we do. Otherwise I am just flipping burgers someplace, or as Doug used to say, bagging groceries at Kuhn's.

After 4 days the mental acuity is starting to come back. It is amazing how much the brain just goes to sleep when you don't use it that often and my hiatus away from live radio gave me the chance to play stupid for a while, but now I feel like I am playing catch up to get my brain running at full speed again. I did get to smack down one of those trickle down economic Republicans the other day who tried to get the best of Lynn by asking if she ever received a check that wasn't signed by someone who was an earner in the top 1 to 2 percent before hanging up to show his friends how smart he was. I proceeded to remind him and the audience that for 6 months Lynn's checks were being signed by the state of Pennsyvania, much like upwards of 8% of all Americans as she too was on unemployment, and the state of PA doesn't qualify as one of those rich entrepreneurs of which money was suppoosed to come trickling down to the rest of us.

I also want to give a thumbs up to the WAMO staff, who have done more than taken me under their wing in my very short time there. They could have easily left me to my own devices, after all technically I am an employee of Lynn and not Sheridan Broadcasting, yet they have went above and beyond in making me feel at home there, even so much so as giving me a desk in the newsroom (as well as hosting the studios of WAMO FM 106.7, WAMO AM 860 and WGSR AM 1510, they are also home to the AURN studios, the American Urban Radio Network)  to get show prep work done ahead of time if I need it. Even the president of Sheridan, Ron Davenport,  came down to introduce himself to me so I can't heap enough praise on them for how well I have been treated.

I know some people have been asking about podcasting of the shows, I am wokrkng on that, hopefully the issues will be resolved this weeknd. My computer is recording the webstream of the show, it sounds a little tinny but will work for the time being, and I just added the Lame encoder to my computer so all is well on that front. For those that don't know what the Lame encoder is, first you need to know what Audacity is. Audacity is a freeware program, originally designed here in Pittsburgh by a CMU student that is basically audio editing software. The student, whose name eludes me, eventually graduated and now works for Google, but he maintains the Audacity software as well. The thing about Audacity is that it saves files as .aups, or Audacity projects, which sadly can't be run in anything but Audacity. That is where the Lame encoder comes in, as it converts .aup files over to MP3 format, which is what most podcasting works in. I have already edited one hour of the show, just to make sure I had the correct download and that everything ran properly and all looks promising on that front, so now it is just the manual labor of editing and the process of uploading to a decent service, though I am leaning to using Imeem, simply because I already have experience with it.

Well, I could babble more, or pause and come back again, but that would just mean I am taking more time away from actually posting something on my page, and with karaoke friday coming up, I want to get something on the page before then, so this is it. Nite folks.