Wednesday, January 22, 2003
08:43 a.m.
Last night I stopped by to visit with a couple of friends in St. Paul. One was at work, where they've torn out most of the old building. It was in the old Conus building where there used to be over a hundred people working, screaming at each other, and making things happen for newsrooms across the country. Now the building sits there with empty racks and one operator in the middle. It's quite awe-inspiring.
After I visited with Jeremy, I a friend of mine returned my call to tell me he was going to a concert at First Ave in Minneapolis. "Camper von Beethoven" was playing two sets, and although Dave had to work in the morning, he decided to go anyway. The band was pretty good. I'd heard one or two of their songs about ten years ago, but I had no idea that they were still playing. One of the songs I could easily recognize was actually a cover, but I could recognize their version of the song.
Dave is a rarity. I don't think I've ever met anyone who supported the local music scene more than him. I always do my best to make it out to some concerts, but more often than not you can find me in a bookstore or at the movies.
Dave is also the type of person who may have missed his calling. Like John Prine or Toby Keith he has a knack for writing obscure songs. And I'd think that if he forced himself to sit down and write a song every week, he'd have a couple of pretty good cds within a year.
When I used to work here in the cities a few years ago, Dave and Jeremy and I would get together to play music on a semi-regular schedule. Jeremy has probably been playing longer than the two of us combined. He has a lot of the fundamentals down that Dave and I need to work on. Jeremy would always stick to the drums, and so often he'd get a little carried away and we'd have to ask him to take it down a notch so we could hear ourselves. (Maybe that was the point.)
Dave and I would switch off playing guitar or bass guitar. By the time your fingers would get numb playing the one, then we would switch off and buy each other some more time before our fingers would split in two.
I've gotten together with a lot of other musicians before these guys and after these guys, but I don't know that I've ever had this much fun. Had the situation been a little bit different, we probably could have made it a go and played some paying gigs. But it might not have been as much fun.
I'm still hoping that one of these days we will be able to get back together to play some tunes.
Monday, January 20, 2003
10:36 p.m.
I made it to the Twin Cities, but I don't know how long it will last. Hopefully I'll have some time to stop and visit some friends before I have to head south again.
I got the bright idea of recording stuff for my blog here, but the problem is that I have to transcribe it before I can upload it. I guess it's time to invest in something different, like voice recognition software.
When I got here this afternoon, I went to work washing my truck inside-and-out. There was so much roadsalt on the body I had deer licking the grill! There was a lot of salt on the floor inside the truck, too. But the rubber floors are pretty easy to clean.
Now if I can just figure out why hotmail isn't working, I can send off some email! It looks like somebody hacked it. Whatever happened, it doesn't look good. But it will probably be up and running within the hour.
Wednesday, January 15, 2003, Just past midnight…
Driving Log (transcribed from tape)
Right now I am about 15 minutes to a half hour from the town where I grew up, Spring Valley, MN. I’m going home to visit the ‘rents, my mom and my stepdad. I’m not sure how long this visit will last, maybe a day or two. At that point I will probably make my way down to Iowa and maybe to the Twin Cities. After Iowa, maybe K.C.
I had an incredible weekend last weekend. I went out dancing with Marianne Woody. We started out with an idea of going out to eat, but we ended up at this blues joint where a band was playing. Another singer and drummer came up, and that’s when we decided to go down and dance for a while. It was so much fun, and so good to see Marianne again. I look forward to seeing her again. Randy is already talking about a job in area within the next month, so hopefully our schedules will work out again and she will have time for me.
Yesterday I covered the Aquarium near Soldier Field and the Planetarium and Field Museum. It’s a pretty nice, picturesque spot.
I called to find that my dad is still down in Kansas City at my place. He may have even left and came back, but I would not know. I was just thinking that I could have faxed him my itinerary so he would have a better idea about where I am or where I will be. He has his own key now, so he can just let himself in whenever he comes through town.
Kansas City is apparently getting six or seven inches, according to my neighbor. Maybe I will end up with a job there after all. If not, I’ll get to stay here in Spring Valley and visit with family and friends.
Yep, this is certainly an interesting day. I started out about 8:30 this morning when my cellphone beeped. The message was a client asking if they could have me work down in either St. Louis or Kansas City. I told them that I certainly could, but they would need to get back to me as soon as they can so I can start driving down there. Within the hour, they had not only called me, but I had started on my way south. Eventually they decided that I would be going to K.C., which was good, since that meant that I would get to go home.
I stopped in Austin, MN for a full tank of diesel. When I got to Albert Lea, the truck just started shutting down. It was losing RPMs and eventually quit completely. Luckily I was just south of the T.A. in Albert Lea, and I just needed to get the truck started somehow and make my way back up there to figure out how to fix the problem. The diesel should not have been gelling. I had put more than twice the amount of treatment. But it apparently was not enough for the sub-zero temperatures. I started the generator, luckily, and then I nursed the caterpillar engine in the front of the truck until it decided to slowly start again. I then put it in granny gear and crept along. It probably took about a half an hour to get there, since I had to find a turnaround and then head back north to Albert Lea. I called Randy to let him know what was going on. He called the T.A. for me to let them know that I was coming. The truck wouldn’t even rev above 1500.
When I got to the T.A., I had them change the oil in the truck and the generator, which I knew would give me at least an hour inside of their warm truck bays. Before I left, I put in another bottle of diesel treatment, which meant that it was running with four times the amount of needed treatment. It apparently worked, because I didn’t have any more problems with that tank of fuel.
Luckily it worked, because while it only took me an hour and a half to fix my problem. And Randy couldn’t have made it down here in that length of time.
Now I’m driving it like I stole it. It’s doing at least 65mph, running about the way it was last night. And I don’t think, knock on wood, that I should have any more problems. And once I get to K.C. it should be about 15 to 20-degrees warmer. Especially when it starts snowing. It always seems to warm up just a little whenever the snow starts falling.
Marc Oldham is working with us today. And with all that happened this morning, at least I can take comfort in getting to work with Marc again. He’s one of those guys that you never have to worry about. Everything he does on his end is right on the money. When you ask for bars and tone, you get bars and tone.
Monday, January 13, 2003
11:54 p.m.
Chicago is pretty cold. We are getting a little dusting of snow, and I can see the snowplows are out in force. Hopefully, by the time I hit the roads in an hour or so, the roads will be clean. (the truck probably won't be very clean by the time I get to my job this morning)
I already have more marching orders after I finish this job today, but it looks like I'll have a little bit of time to relax, maybe grab a nice meal while I'm here in the windy city.
I went out dancing with Marianne last weekend. We really had a great time. There just aren't enough hours in the day, especially when you're out having fun on your day off.
January 10, 2003
Driving Log (transcribed from tape)
I am heading to Indianapolis, and I'm in Independence, Mo. I'm going there to cover some basketball. My dad got to my house a few days ago and is planning to stay for a few more days. He got in Tuesday night. We did a couple of things on Wednesday. I had to go in to Kansas City to shoot some video so he tagged along. Thursday we went to the bookstore and then dropped in to see another friend of my dad and I who owns another bookstore in Lawrence. His name is Howard Hartog and the name of his store is "Vagabond Bookman." He's a heck of a good guy and he has the coolest bookstore. I could easily spend a lot of money in a place like this.
I think I spent about thirty dollars worth that day. And if you buy 30-dollars worth of books at a used bookstore, brother, you've bought a lot of books. I'd been needing to buy a bunch of these books. Some are the next in a series or some that I've been meaning to read or reread for a long time. Since I move around a lot, I haven't tended to keep too many books. I give away most of them. That day I bought another really cool book about video and television, printed about 1949, which is when the standards for television came out. Most of what we do in television today is still based on these standards, and for this reason you can still watch regular TV on a very old black and white television. It should be an interesting read, it is about 800 or 900 pages.
I'm rereading the "Hitchhiker" Trilogy by Douglas Adams. I also need to read "Mostly Harmless" which describes earth in comparison to the rest of the Universe. I went over to Borders books, too. I hang out in those types of bookstores quite a bit, in a large part because they have coffee. I should probably talk Howard into some coffee so I could spend the whole day there. Of course, Howard may not be a coffee drinker. Maybe he doesn't want coffee spilled on his books. Maybe it's a bad idea.
Howard has had a bunch of people ask him about listing his many books online. And while he doesn’t see himself doing it because of all the work it takes getting the site up and running. These days getting a website up and running can be done for the cost of a computer and an internet connection, but if you haven’t learned the language, it will take even longer.
There’s no end to what you can put up on a website, so your job is never done. On the websites I work on, I’m always nitpicking about every little thing. And while you don’t have to have the fanciest site with the best graphics, you do have to watch for things like spelling and other errors. You have to be a perfectionist about it, you have to be complete, and you have to be willing to do the things that are tedious. One of the things I am working on right now is putting together image maps. In the end it is a very cool thing, to click on an area on a page, instead of clicking on a word. Since its inception, the web is simply a database, and secondly it is often for entertainment. I try to create everything based on those two things. And anyone who thinks they can dump money at something to create something better is just a fool. Our site is largely data, with a little bit of entertainment in the pictures and stories we provide. There is no end, and if there were fifty hours in a day I could spend them all working on it. The only saving grace sometimes that if I can constantly plug away at the smaller things, by the time another year rolls around, I’ve got something a lot better than I had last year.
I’m having dinner with Marianne Woody this weekend. That’s after I cover a basketball game. After that there’s something coming up in Chicago. After the Chicago job I should be home, but I’m not placing bets on that. When you have a road job like mine it can be potentially endless. I’m just thankful that I get to meet so many people. They are often what makes this so worthwhile.
This weekend my brothers and sisters, mom and stepdad, niece and nephews are planning something in Stewartville, Minnesota. Their first plan is to go tubing, unless there is no snow, then they will go bowling. Chances are the latter, there isn’t any snow in Minnesota unless it’s manmade or comes out of a zamboni.
When I was down at the Springfield, Missouri snowstorm (20 inches in less than 24-hours) I lost power to my generator after my fuel pump became iced over. I drove through the worst of the storm from Joplin to Springfield. Most of the way I followed a plow truck whose operator couldn’t tell which was the right and left sides of the road. When he got far enough over to the right, I passed him like I’d stolen my truck.
Despite the fuel pump problems, we were able to save the shot when Steve Entz came up with the idea of plugging straight into a power panel with jumper cables. There was so much snow and ice, it was almost impossible to even find the fuel pump underneath the truck.
When I got to Springfield, we did our liveshots from the public works department, where plows and graters would fill up with the necessities or switch drivers and put the next shift on the road. With the exception of an hour or so when the snow stopped, it basically snowed about an inch an hour, and it was insane! There were still people out driving everywhere, because it was Christmas Eve and everyone wanted to get their Christmas shopping done.
So we got the shots off, then we went to breakfast, and then we went back to Kansas City. I couldn’t rest for long, because I had to get my fuel pump fixed. We were on hold for Powerball, and just in case we got called out for a Midwest winner, I had to get it fixed. It wasn’t a matter of it being fixable, because as it turned out I bought a pump and found another backup pump somewhere on the truck (thanks again to Steve, our Milwaukee truck operator, I’m always finding little “goodies” all over my truck from when he used to operate this truck). I was able to track down a bad hot wire - the wire carrying the 12v from the solenoid. The ground wire, married to the hot wire, was fine.
We did get one call for Iowa, but even though I was closer, I wasn’t quite fixed yet, so Randy came down to cover the job while I spent the day under the sat truck. On Christmas Day.
First, I spent about an hour underneath the truck melting the four inches of ice off of the fuel pump (which isn’t particularly safe, because the pump sits right next to 100-gallons of diesel), then figuring out why this wasn’t hot, but that was. Once I replaced the wire, vroooom, it started and ran like a champ.
I don’t know if it’s attention deficit disorder or just a quest for curious things, but I am always searching for another hobby. I was in Borders books the other day looking at some ideas for rustic furniture. This is in part because I could always use more furniture. I mostly need more bookcases. I guess I need more bookcases to hold my books about bookcases. It’s a little like having a coffee table book that sits on your coffee table, and folds out into a coffee table, I guess.
Maybe I’ll make some stuff. Maybe I’ll still be on the road and I won’t have the time to put it together. But the nice thing about making furniture is that if it’s crap, you can always burn it. Rustic furniture is so cheap to make, I guess I wouldn’t think twice about chopping it up and putting it in the fireplace. If only I had a fireplace right now.
I spent four days cutting wood with a friend of mine out at his grandpa’s farm. With a 200-acre farm like that, you could easily cut nothing but dead-falls and never run out of wood. There’s a lot of wood that’s obviously firewood, but there’s even more that could be harvested for something else.
We do burn a little bit of wood in our neighborhood, since my neighbor John does have an outdoor fireplace. It’s a simple, metal fireplace with a little chimney and wheels so you can move it around the yard or the driveway. It’s made of steel and is pretty sturdy, but if we don’t stop putting fireworks in there, it might not be sturdy for that long. When you light it up, it’s a pretty cool thing to see when you drive into our block. It seems to draw a few neighbors over. And when we light up the grill, too, it sometimes draws people from the other neighborhood, too.
Years ago I started buying these little Rubbermaid tubs to hold all my extras, such as my hobbies and summer clothes or winter clothes that I don’t need depending on which season we are in. Eventually, when I am ready to move again, most of my things are already packed in the “boxes” so I just load them up for the umpteenth time. I dream about the day when I don’t need this anymore. I’d like some nice furniture, shelving, dressers and such so I don’t have to leave my boxes packed. It may never happen, but it gives me something to work for.
I spent two or three hours yesterday with my dad going through some of these boxes. There was a save pile, a throw pile, a giveaway pile and a thinking pile. We were able to clear out at least three or four tubs. One of them I immediately filled again with the stacks of junk piled in my entryway and my garage. My dad grabbed a few things, hats and stuff. And as I try very hard to become a minimalist, I refuse to part with some of my reference books (unless they can go to someone who really needs them more than me). I tend to throw stuff in a box, and then at least once every six months or year I try to throw everything that I can. The 7-year-old paperwork could definitely go. Timesheets from three jobs back could definitely be thrown in the trash. Other things are not so simple, but a lot of questionables this year will be in the circular file next year.
Another thing that’s funny about my trash is that 80 to 90 percent of it is junkmail. That’s mostly because I don’t get a lot of mail. I get a few bills each month, and anyone who needs to get a hold of me either sends me email or calls me on my cell phone. If I should ever get a place, which will have to be equipped with a wood stove or a fireplace (this is a must) then I will be able to burn all of this junkmail. I should be able to bundle up a lot of paper, work-related, junkmail related and otherwise. It’s weird how much I get, because I do my best to consciously keep my name off of lists. I’m always trying to figure out who might have sold my name for me to get this piece of paper. Maybe it’s my gas company. Maybe it’s the electric. Maybe it’s the post office itself or the city. Sometimes I’ll be gone for over a month, and the stack of crap will be over two feet high! If I were to recycle, use my garbage disposal and burn any paper I got in the mail, I wouldn’t have any trash to throw away.
I’ve been looking at some places around town. But I’ve only been himmin and hawin. I still need to sit down with a mortgage or credit person to see what I qualify for. And I also need to finish my lease, which ends in June. But if I can strike while the iron is cold here in February or March, I may be able to pick up exactly what I want in a house. It seems to me that people get pretty desperate to sell in the cold of winter. Whatever I get, I really need to put up a shed large enough for the satellite truck. Five or ten acres would be a good start. Anything more I need to win the lottery. That would be sweet.
I talked to Derrick Sheller this week. We got to be friends after working a bunch of hurricanes together a few years ago. He’s a photographer, and I ran the truck. He can also run a truck, and I can also shoot, but we tend to stick to our trades. He and I both worked at Conus for a while, then he left a little before me for a job at KSTP. Come March first, I would have left there two years ago for this job at Relay House. When Derrick left for KSTP/KSTC, he danced a jig for leaving Conus. Now, as he left KSTP, he is pretty much doing the same, because he is now able to concentrate on school again.
The KSTP layoff means a bunch more people leaving television, rather than try to get a job in an already saturated television market. There was a merger with Fox/UPN, KSTP had a layoff, Conus had a layoff, and now KSTC. The freelancer market is saturated, too. So I have suggested to anyone working there to either move or find another line of work. Those few who actually found television jobs, doing something similar to what they were doing before, had to go to a late shift or overnight shift.
The same thing is going on in other areas of the country. And I really have to hand it to the Hubbards. When they did these layoffs, many people received severance or were able to go back to school. Many people will end up doing something else that they can enjoy just as well as their past job. Some will land in something even better than what they were doing.
I wish there was more I could do for all of the people who’ve hit the bricks up there. I got to work with a lot of good people. They were all pretty frustrated people, too. But they were mostly good people.
I’ve had those days in this job where I wished that the day just hadn’t happened. But my worst day here is loads better than my best day at Conus. Back then, when I started working in a satellite truck, it was so much more difficult because so much more would go wrong. There were no redundant systems, and if you lost a tube you had to get a new one Fed-Exed and you had to replace it yourself, most likely under the worst conditions. Nine different things could go wrong and you would have to fix them before you could get the shot off. Now, maybe one or two things might go wrong, but with redundant systems I can flip a switch and no one will be the wiser. I know something went wrong, but nobody else sees it. Randy would know something went wrong because I would tell him about the problem. Steve might hear about it through Randy or myself. But in the end, the client often knows nothing about any problem. And that’s an incredible relief at the end of the night. It’s so cool to work for a place like that.
If they do happen to see something as you’ve switched to your backup, it’s pretty calming to be able to tell them that everything is good. Sure, you had to go to a backup, but you will often have your primary back by the time you might need it again.
That’s all a producer wants to know. What was it, did or can you fix it, will there be a future problem? If you can answer them quickly and calmly they will be happy. The worst mistake an engineer can give a producer is to say I don’t know. I have had one of those days that everything went wrong, and it was pretty awful. At some point, no matter how prepared you think you are, you will still have one of those days. You never want it to happen, but it does happen. It kills you, and eats away at you for a long time. And it’s too bad. It’s part of the biz.
When I was going through hurricane season, these types of days would happen all the time. And then a jackhole up at Conus in Minneapolis would tell you to move the truck a thousand miles. It was a truck that should have been taken off the road a decade ago, but I had to make it work, much like the Russian space station. By the time I finished with Conus One, Pete ran it for a few months before they moved him back up to the Cities. Another guy had it after that, but by the time he was trained it to use it, the truck was unfixable. It was such a piece of junk, that if you didn’t work on it every day and run it and provide a load of preventative maintenance, it went right into the toilet. They pulled it off the road. It was too dangerous to be on the road, it was failing far too many uplinks. They were putting so much money into it every month, they could have easily bought another used truck from a station and had an easier time. It was a sign of things to come. And the company is no longer is business. A lot of people were surprised. But it was inevitable, and I saw enough warning signs that I could see the bow of the ship go over before I jumped.
Oh, man I ate way too much. I stopped at the Blue Springs Café. Oh Boy. It’s East of St. Louis. It’s west of Effingham, IL. Good food, down home. Wood floors. Blue checkered tablecloths. I had the beef stew, even though after I ordered it, I realized I didn’t really want beef stew. But it was fine. I have a habit of ordering the special whenever I go to a restaurant. It’s usually the best of what the cook has to offer. But I’m not sure about this one. Maybe it would have been great if I was actually hungry for beef stew. I’m such a moron. I can’t even order right.
I was at a place a while back, where they were running out of the specials and erasing them off the board. It occurred to me that they weren’t adding any as they erased them off. This seems to me to be an extremely ill-prepared cook. Back in the day when I cooked, that was one of the first rules I was taught. As soon as you erase one off, you’d better have another one ready to go. And if you’re running out of food, you’d better send someone off to the grocery store.
Monday, January 6, 2003
10:20 p.m.
First thing this morning I called my elder sister Rachel to wish her a happy birthday. It was six a.m. and after I talked to her and wished her a good day, I went back to sleep. A couple of hours later I was up and set about a leisurely day of eating a sugar-coated breakfast.
After that I went to work on my satellite truck. And I was able to finish the audio portion of the patch panel. I set about finishing the video patch bay, too. But I had to stop when I heard that "Joe Millionaire" was going to be on. There aren't a lot of shows that I actually tune in to watch, but this is definitely one of them.
How bold and brash their producers must be to make a bunch of women play for a 50-million dollar prize that doesn't really exist. If this doesn't prove to be a popular show, I'll be pretty surprised.
Tonight I have a few things to do before I hit the hay. It should be quite uneventful.
Friday, January 3, 2003
02:03 p.m.
I was able to get one thing done today, and all I did was purchase a couple of things to help out with all of the clutter at my place. This afternoon I'm tackling an audio patch panel. It will most likely take weeks to finish it, but only because I'm only able to work on it a few hours per day. If I could force myself to work on it for 12 hours per day, I could probably finish it in a couple days.
I'm thinking I might head into Lawrence tonight to do a little book reading and drink some coffee. I know it sounds like I'm really out of control, but I have to do something with my few extra minutes of free time.
Monday, December 30, 2002
03:54 a.m.
I spent the day washing the truck, inside and out. The rest of the day I spent doing paperwork for the month, which took about 3 or 4 hours. After it was all over, I treated myself to the new Star Trek movie, "Nemesis."
Yeah, that's right, I'm a Trekker.
I got a bunch of work done on the company website. A lot of the stuff you might not necessarily see, but there were a lot of places I needed to 'touch up' and over time you will certainly see the difference. I'm still working on a couple of other sites, but it will be a long time before they are ready for prime time.
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and I have a couple of party opportunities. I think I'll just pop in on both of them and then get home - unless I need to play designated driver for some nice lady.
It looks like the post office tried to deliver a couple of packages while I was gone on Saturday. That means I will have to stop down there this morning (or whenever I get up). I need a haircut, but I will have to wait until tomorrow. Barber shops are never open on Monday.
I'm still trying to get broadband at my house. Whenever I've tried, I ended up getting called out. If I call Sunflower, I will surely get called to go on the road. Either way it's probably a good idea for me to call. I can see if my luck holds out and I get to go on the road again.
The Chiefs lost, so that means I am done with them for the season (sob). KU is doing pretty good, and I'll bet that we should be getting more jobs over there. I love getting jobs over in Lawrence. I spend half of my freetime there, so why not enjoy any work I can get over there. Roy Williams is my best friend!
I've yet to do a basketball game this year. So far I've only done hockey. It's not that I'm complaining, because I find hockey a little more exciting. And that's only because the danger level is much higher and because I went to a college that cherished hockey and pretends like basketball does not exist.
Friday, December 27, 2002
07:52 p.m.
I spent Christmas Eve in a snowstorm. I spent Christmas Day underneath a satellite truck getting a fuel pump working again. Yesterday and today I spent cutting wood. And I'm thinking about doing some more wood tomorrow, unless a job comes up. I do need to do a bunch of work on the satellite truck, but I can do that at night. Cutting wood is something you can really only do when you have sunlight.
I probably should have gone skiing with my little brother and his friend. I gave it some hard thought, but I opted for spending a few days cutting wood. It's been a while since I've run a chainsaw, which is the biggest reason that I'm going out. I need the workout, which is another reason. And I'm also doing it because once I buy a house, I plan on putting in wood heat of some type, and I need a place to cut. The Conrads say that I can go out there and cut wood any time I want, so once I get a house I will probably spend a lot of my free time doing just that. I can also get permission to hunt the land.
While out cutting wood, we did manage to see a deer, and while driving out to the farm we saw some wild turkeys. There was a bunch of snow on the ground here this morning, but by mid-afternoon it was all gone.
Monday, December 23, 2002
08:19 p.m.
What an incredible three months this has been. I just stopped at home to do a couple of loads of laundry before I head south for another job.
I've been on the road steady now since Sept. 20th. Now I have a couple of exciting jobs coming up. Hopefully I can manage to stay ahead of everything else I'm supposed to be doing right now. I know I'm caught up on bills and the most necessary things on the website. I'd love to have a lot more done than that, but it will have to wait for another day.
It doesn't appear that I will be getting Christmas off this year. I probably won't be working on the actual day, but I probably won't be close enough to Minnesota to get back to see family. I did make it to Thanksgiving, and I've been back every other week since mid-September, so it's not as if I haven't made an effort to get back to see family. I could always do some last-minute driving, but I'm not going up tired and risk falling asleep at the wheel.
I got my second load of laundry in, and just got a call from Mark Bernstein. Apparently I am meeting him and Steve down in southern Missouri. I like working with their crew. They're one of those tv crews you never have to worry about. Their footage is always excellent and if you call them on the headset and ask them to hook up the red xlr to the yellow xlr, they don't say, "huh?"
