hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

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

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