hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

Friday, March 30, 2007

Life could soon get very, very interesting
I'm in a bit of a writing and reading mood tonight as sometimes seems to be the case when it's late and I've got things on my mind. And yet due to the very public nature of this journal I have to censor myself for the sake of common sense. But while it may not be prudent to lay out everything here, there is enough to relate to warrant an entry.

I watched the extended version of the "MC Rove" video and was rather surprised to hear Karl Rove proclaim that he's a "practicing philatelist." Huh. This may be the closest the hobby has been to having an advocate in the White House since FDR was President.

I started my "normal" schedule at work this week, and have been getting accustomed to it rather quickly. On Tuesday I was called in early to go cover a helicopter crash on Ponte Vedra Beach. It was really amazing how little was left of the chopper that went down, and while I'm no expert on such things I'm guessing based on the relatively small area in which there was debris that it must have gone more or less straight down. Two people were killed. I got some audio and went back to the station to prepare wraps for the afternoon, and I submitted one of the pieces to FOX News Radio and they put it on their affiliates audio site! Whether or not they actually used it in any of the network newscasts I don't know, but it was there for the taking for any affiliate who wanted it.

On Wednesday I drove to Atlantic Beach to catch the tail end of a John McCain campaign event. Got some audio when the Senator spoke with us media types, which was kind of cool. It was quite a drive out there for that, though.

I finished deleavening the apartment to the best of my ability on Sunday, and after vacuuming the car on Wednesday the physical preparation is about as done as I can do it. It's nice to be done with at least that aspect a couple of days ahead of time; gives me a chance to prepare for the rest of it.

Have been playing around with The Sims 2, but last night I discovered whenever my main Sim called a friend, that friend disappeared from the phone book...and eventually he got down to no friends that he called, and I've found no references on ways to get the friends back, so I guess I'll just have to start over. If I start over. There are many other things to do these days.

It came to me last weekend as I moved the refrigerator and oven to access the rather nasty floor underneath that there's a parallel in the spiritual preparation for Passover. If we didn't "move the appliances" spiritually speaking, we wouldn't see all the dirt (sin) underneath.

Okay, there's more I know but I'm drawing a big blank here, so I'm going to do some studying and wash the dishes. Goodnight.

posted at 12:03 am | permalink | 1 comment

Friday, March 23, 2007

Hey, operator
I had this whole laundry list of things to write about tonight, then I spent 2½ hours on the phone with my folks, Amanda, and then Devon, and now it's almost 10:30. And frankly I'm just no longer feeling an entry, so I'll merely say goodnight.

posted at 10:23 pm | permalink | 0 comments

Friday, March 16, 2007

Somebody might steal something
This week I spent several hours on each of several days trying to get a section of my apartment cleaned out before the holy days. I carted two boxes full of old stamp catalogues and albums I don't use along with a couple of bags of random stuff to Goodwill today, and I've toted I don't know how many bags of trash to the dumpster...and frankly I can't much tell I've eliminated anything! I was kind of surprised once I'd sorted through the other stuff to find several boxes of unsorted stamps still sitting in the pile--it's really quite impressive, and if nothing else it's time to begin liquidating some stuff. Before sundown this evening I listed on eBay one of the covers from the box of material I bought from WKU. I set the starting bid at 10% of catalogue value; we'll see if I get any bites. If I can get somewhere around a quarter of catalogue value I'll be more or less satisfied. But there's so much more to eliminate--I really want to focus on U.S. and landscapes, which by themselves are quite possibly a bit more than I have time for, but it's certainly more manageable than simply sucking in everything that crosses my path. So much to do, so little time.

So, the afternoon reporter position has opened up--again--but I've essentially been told I'm ineligible for it unless I'm willing to work after sundown on Fridays, which isn't going to happen. Nevertheless, all is not lost; they want to renew my contract and pay me what amounts to a 9.5% raise. When you make as little money as I do, 9.5% of it isn't all that much cash, but every little bit helps, and it just might move me a little further from the financial edge which is certainly good.

Last weekend I was able to make a quick trip home. Stopped in Valdosta for lunch with Kellie on Friday, then continued the trip, getting home around 4:45 or so I'd guess. Helped tidy up the garage, then there was time for a bit of guitar-picking before dinner. It was good to see my folks along with Crystal and Megan and Loren (whaddup, peeps?) and all the other folks at church. Left home shortly after 11 Sunday morning and got back in time to catch my bearings before heading in to work.

The overnight producer has begun training, and hopefully he'll be fully up to speed in a short time, at which point I'll be returned to a somewhat earlier schedule, though a tiny bit later than what I was working before. And I presume even though I'm not getting the reporter position that I'll be unofficially filling in until they hire someone (figure that one out, why don't you).

It seems another piece of mail has disappeared into a big black hole into which we're looking live. I got an e-mail from someone to whom I've sent stamps for his son and son's friends in the past letting me know a packet I shipped out last month never arrived. Fortunately that mailing was more or less a donation rather than a trade, but it's somewhat disappointing it apparently simply disappeared. The mail was actually kind of scarce this week, a few solicitations for donations and an unsolicited sales catalogue or two, but not much else.

There are a number of catchphrases used in radio and TV news, but a couple in particular have been grating on my nerves recently. First, "the unthinkable." If something were truly unthinkable, then no one would have thought of it, and we wouldn't be reporting on these stories, now would we? Even more prevalent is "disturbing," which unthinkable as it may be is disturbing in and of itself. And what's really disturbing is when something unthinkable is caught on tape--and it's especially disturbing if a station's live team coverage of that story involves two reporters on scene sharing the same microphone! But I guess if they didn't do that when we might not remember that they first told us about this story on such and such a day when their cameras were the only ones rolling. It's all smoke and mirrors, as someone else in the business has commented.

And for what it's worth...I thought this was interesting. Goodnight.

posted at 11:18 pm | permalink | 1 comment

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Now that's what I call funny
Today's Pearls Before Swine is pretty funny. Yesterday's was alright, but today's got an audible chuckle out of me.

In reference to Crystal's comment about the sick world we live in...I couldn't agree more. The jury in the John Couey trial handing down the guilty verdict was a reminder of that. I doubt anyone knows fully what Jessica Lunsford really went through, but I've read things about that case--and read police reports about abuse cases in this area--that would turn your stomach. That kid had to be absolutely scared to death, I can't even pretend to imagine I understand. It makes my heart ache. But one day somebody's going to get to take her by the hand and tell her everything's going to be okay and although she went through horrible stuff and got cheated out of one life she doesn't have to get cheated out of another. And somebody's going to get to straighten out that Couey fellow. And somehow I think there would be folks lined up for both of those jobs, but there'll be far more than enough perps who need reprogramming and victims who need somebody to just put an arm around them and make them feel safe for once to go around.

Well, where did that come from?

posted at 3:06 am | permalink | 0 comments

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Now that's what I call irony
Work was kind of slow last night, and as I trawled the Internet looking for potential stories I ran across one related in some way to obesity. The story had an accompanying picture of an overweight person, and under the picture was the most unfortunate link "Enlarge Photo." I was somewhat amused.

It seems the good folks at WKU are willing to accept my offer for the box of covers, so I'll have to put a check in the mail. I'm taking a little bit of a gamble by buying the things; while I'm reasonably sure I can recover my investment and possibly even turn a profit, I'm not absolutely certain. We shall see. I won't be heartbroken if a couple of the mid-range items end up stuck in my own collection, but I don't expect to keep much out of this batch.

posted at 3:50 pm | permalink | 1 comment

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Click
To kick off my spring cleaning/deleavening last night, I pulled out a box containing everything from tax records to modeling clay and went through it, leaving what had been a full box only about 1/3 full. Anyway, I discovered some of my old air check tapes from college, and put a couple on for Devon, who'd come over for the evening. And we laughed, they were so awful. "Yur listenin' tuh V-nahnty-wun." And my voice sounded like it was about an octave and a half higher than it sounds now. I still make some mistakes on-air, but at least I make them in a much more professional-sounding manner.

I did receive the box of covers from WKU I guess on Thursday, and spent some time Friday and today sorting through those. It didn't take me as long as I'd anticipated, mainly because I weeded out the chaff to begin with and had a much smaller stack to process. I found close to 20 items of particular interest, and I'm making an offer for the lot. It's well below catalogue value, which I've disclosed, and if it's accepted I think I can recover my expenses. If not...well, I still had fun appraising/evaluating the envelopes. The most interesting find was mailed from Camp Douglas, a prison camp in Illinois that housed captured Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. No letter inside, of course, but just to know I was handling a piece of history more than 140 years old...very cool.

I'm hoping this week to cut through some of the stuff stashed away under the bed and futon as I continue trying to clean out. It's kind of sad how much stuff can accumulate in one little apartment--worthless stuff that probably should have been thrown away whenever I stashed it but which I for some reason apparently thought might come in handy someday.

Mr. T gave a very worthwhile sermon yesterday titled "Preparing for Leadership," basing 12 points in the sermon on the life of Joshua. Interesting stuff. A group of us young folks went to lunch at Panera's afterwards. And yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from Sarah and we talked for a good while.

It's forecast to be down in the upper 30's here tonight. Colder than I really care for, but at least we don't have snow or ice.

posted at 5:11 pm | permalink | 1 comment