My Wish

Aircheck is an emotional clearing house; valuable, free therapy throughout the year for me, the writer. Right now, I'm listening again to a popular  Raschal Flatts song from 2006:

"I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,

All the ones who love you, in the place you left,

I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,

And you help somebody every chance you get,

Oh, you find God's grace, in every mistake,

And you always give more than you take."

I do not glean all my advice from Country songs; today it is apropos. The My Wish lyric speaks my resolution. In 2011, I resolve not to "look back" as much while remaining keenly aware of my lessons learned the hard way. In yet another Country hit from 1993; Vince Gill sharpens my point singing, "There ain't no future in the past."

Better now than a year ago, twenty-eleven promises abundant topical, opinionated, and reflective Aircheck posts that evolve as this blogger does. Happy New Year.

Stay tuned

©2010-2011 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

Snowy Vista

I woke up this morning to a majestic view of the Great Smoky Mountains. There  is nothing I could add to God's creation, so here's a glimpse.

©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

Holiday Zoo Crew

Today marks the 25th anniversary of a show from my personal aircheck archive. It features me and two co-hosts in an impromptu chat show, post Christmas 1985. Click play below or down load here.

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©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All righs reserved.

Sunday Grazing

It is a little unsettling having a major holiday like Christmas on the weekend.  It throws my internal clock out of sync. As a remedy Angie and I took down the tree early this morning. Church services were called due to snow and possible black ice on the roadways. We're getting the house ready for New Years: throwing up a new Chick-fil-a "cow" calendar, tossing away boxes, and general housekeeping. Here's to a happy 2011.

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White Christmas

What a difference a day makes. After a typically chaotic Christmas Eve with my other relatives, today is an amazing celebration of the 25th with the kids, my wife, and our mothers. And a bonus to boot: snow! For the first time since 1882, we have a white Christmas in Atlanta (rare indeed.)

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©2010-2011 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

White Elephant

Tonight around our household we officially celebrate Christmas with some early gift-giving with the extended family: my younger sister, the nieces, my four, mom, dad’s two surviving sisters, and whoever else we can cram into the party. Of course there will be plenty of room at my youngest sister’s place. The deafening sound of all the little ones unwrapping their treasures simultaneously makes the place only seem smaller. 

My wife, Angie, was introduced to our clan’s frenzied attack of unsuspecting gifts some 9 years ago. Her family opens each present individually with quiet respect; each child taking his or her turn. How weird, it turns out my family are the strange bunch: go figure. Thankfully, I adopted her more sane approach with our kids when Santa’s surprises are unveiled Christmas morning.

For the adults, it is a relatively new tradition of a gift giving game called “White Elephant.” Each participant draws a number, keeping and trading wrapped items until satisfied to have found the most appropriate or valuable thing (higher drawn numbers are an advantage.) It is all in good fun. None of the items cost more than $10. This year my thrifty Angie is re-gifting; costing us zero.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

Rise Up

This commercial sure fired up this Falcons fan for 2010.

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone from the Aircheck family. We've got some great ideas for posts coming very soon, so keep it here for the details. 

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Dynasty in the Making

My beloved Atlanta Falcons are number one in the NFC and tied for first place with the New England Patriots of the AFC—both teams 12 and 2. The Pats are supposedly the better team, as most of the northern biased sports press would lead you to believe. Well, I disagree. At the risk of being labeled a “Homer”, I think the Falcons have a better chance because they are the underdogs. Even us loyal fans have gone through an inferiority complex over the years. We have been conditioned to lose. It’s high time to change our thinking. The Mike Smith era has brought about the necessary paradigm shift, just like Bobby Cox did in the early 90’s for the Braves.

Whether the Falcons will become the dynasty the Braves organization has become remains to be seen; our new coach has brought a winning attitude to the club not previously known in these parts. And that includes Dan Reeves’ team of the late 90’s and our sole Superbowl appearance on January 31st, 1999.

Wait. In my excitement, I got way ahead of myself. There is a small matter of  the playoffs. Neither we nor New England are guaranteed a Superbowl appearance. Aircheck will refine its forecast as the playoffs begin.

Stay tuned

©2010 (text only) Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

 

Google Me

Man, am I excited! Today I just received my new Google notebook computer. I and many others are trying out the device as testers for the new Internet based Google operating system. Right now I am learning the highly intuitive device; my new toy. Did I mention it was free? More to come.

Stay tuned

  ©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

The Hi-Fi

Back in the late 1950’s or early 60’s my paternal grandparents bought a new General Electric stereo. It contained an automatic record changer, AM/FM stereo tuner, amplifier (not solid-state, but genuine tube electronics), and loudspeakers. All of these components were housed in a massive, handsome wood veneer cabinet.

Flash forward to Independence Day 2009 my dad’s younger sister asked me if I wanted the Hi-fi that their parents owned. I had been eying the unit for many years: in its various homes, near and far. Honestly, I was afraid the console had been lost over the years but was surprised that it had found its way into my Aunt Bonnie’s storage shed.

Long story short, that fourth of July, I became heir to the stereo. I was not expecting the nearly 50 year old relic to even turn on. To my surprise, after replacing the frayed power cord, the old GE energized and was soon filling the air with high-fidelity music. The FM and AM worked well. The Turntable was a different story. Records played off-speed and faint. Ever the tinkerer, over the next weeks, I disassembled the electronics. The “head” unit (pre-amp / tuner) was problematic. Most of the contacts needed cleaning. The wiring was suspect. I discovered that the record player was rim-drive. The “tire” (illustrated above) that turns the platter was way out of round; a part probably not currently available. The left speaker sounded cracked. Sure enough, it had some irreparable moisture damage. I decided the the cabinet was the only part worth saving, so I gutted the ancient electronics. Most purist collectors might cringe, but I replaced the tube amp and speakers with (relatively) newer solid-state electronics: a 100 watt Sony receiver, belt-drive turntable, and dropped in a pair of Yamaha bookshelf speakers inside. The one remaining original speaker, which I kept as a souvenir,  is in fairly good shape. Besides the cracked woofer, I did not throw away anything. I just threw the old parts inside. I intend to make future improvements to the Hi-fi. I consider this project a restomod, similar to the way car builders take a rust bucket, add modern performance speed parts and produce a classic with new guts.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

Keep it Simple, Stupid

At this point in my life one thing has become clear: it is time to simplify. For most of my adult life, shoot all my life, I have been a packrat. Well, it is time to purge. Most of my mess is in small things I’ve kept such as audio cassette mix tapes, tiny electronic parts (patch cords and adapters galore), the list goes on: hand tools, doo-dads, and what-nots. I justified all this clutter by saying, “It’ll come in handy or be worth something some day.” Well, it seldom did. Today, while browsing my Netflix queue I stumbled upon a show that is right up my alley called American Pickers. A new show featured on the History Channel, it follows two guys on a mission to buy junk that they can later sell for a profit. They go around the countryside of the American Mid-west finding individuals willing to part with some of their clutter (for a price). Sign me up for their jobs. I identify both as a hoarder and a seeker.

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This brings me to my mission with this particular blog. The statistics feature in the backbone software of Aircheck and the Peanut Whistle weblogs has been a marvelous tool. It has directed me in the types of posts that you, the reader, like to read. In fact, the number of readers and how they discovered this little blog is part of the Blogger software. I have not quite learned how to interpret all the numbers, but I have a pretty good idea that we’re not setting the blogosphere on fire. That is why big changes are coming to this site in the next few days or weeks. Look for my two Blogger blogs to consolidate into one. The Peanut Whistle will become part of the Aircheck instead of  a separate site. I had considered shutting down both altogether. Merging the two is the more logical course. “Less clutter, more sanity” is my new motto.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden. Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

Nerd-feast

It is hard to believe that we’re winding down another year. Twenty-eleven: I like the sound of that. It seems like yesterday that this blog posted a close-out message for 2009. At the risk of sounding trite, time flies.

Let’s get to today’s point. There is a new feature to the Aircheck main page. Written especially for techno-nerds such as myself is the Aircheck Knowhow page, listed right below the header. It is (almost) all the detail I could throw into the topic of recording an aircheck, along with one of my harebrained ideas that might find use among like-minded folks.

Thanks dear readers for a fantastic 2010. There is some life left to this year, along with a few more posts, should inspiration strike.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved

Cloak and Dagger

In what seems to be a segment on one of those Saturday Night Live fake commercials the CIA is now openly recruiting through television ads. About a month ago I saw one of their commercials for the first time and thought it was a joke—the production values of the spots are first rate, like a mini-movie. Maybe it is part of some new transparency in our government. Recently I visited the website and found out that the American international clandestine service, the Central Intelligence Agency is in fact looking for new recruits. Bravo.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved

Stage Freight

Yesterday was a blast. At the risk of bragging, my kids really did their old man proud. First, Sunday morning, my four year old daughter was superb as a singing “bible girl”. Although she was a statue for most of the performance, my little Mattie glowed. She knew her part very well but succumbed to stage freight.

Later, in the evening performance, the first through sixth graders had their Christmas play, Arrest These Merry Gentlemen. My two middle kids then had a turn. My daughter Abbey, 7, delighted us with an uninhibited solo of an original song, He is the One, from the play. My son Luke, who is six, played multiple roles singing and signing (as in, using American Sign language) like an expert, without fear. I can’t wait to see how these talents develop over the years; their dad (just like my baby daughter) never mustered up enough courage to perform live, especially as well as they. Congratulations, little ones.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

Duh

About this time every year—at least here in the Northern Hemisphere—it gets cold. To most thinking people this climate change comes as no surprise. The mercury drops naturally in late autumn into winter. This would seem logical to most people. That is what we call “common sense.” The news media treats the transition as if this is something completely novel. This morning I was watching my local ABC affiliate pronouncing, “It’s cold, but it’s really colder than that.” What on Earth does that mean? Yeah right, Wind Chill Factor must have been the meaning of this charming non sequitur. Give me a break. I know it is cold; just walk outside.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden. The Peanut Whistle Weblogs. All rights reserved.

Rabbit Ears Updated

A repost from the Peanut Whistle:

Wow! I love the new technological age we live in now—especially High Definition TV. What I like about it is, digital TV returns free television—truly no cost—back to all of us with just old fashioned “rabbit ears”.

With digital the signal is delivered with astounding picture and sound quality never experienced in analog.

One thing Washington got right for a change was mandating the Switch to DTV last year.

Living in the Metro Atlanta area we can receive over 30 channels of free over-the-air TV—most of them in HD. This is all without a cable bill. I said, “Goodbye and good riddance” to Comcast months ago when I discovered this secret cable companies don’t want us knowing. Plus, suppose I install an honest to goodness roof-top setup—I believe many more channels would come in. You see, each TV station has the ability to transmit one or more additional channels along with their primary signal. There is one local station that has 10 or so extra “virtual” channels. For example our WSB-TV transmits their primary signal on virtual channel 2.1 in HD along with “Retro TV” on channel 2.2 in standard definition. Your new digital set “sees” WSB (now actually reassigned on channel 39) as 2.1 and 2.2 respectively. Through the magic of digital technology, “Channel 2” (their name since 1950) WSB retains its identity although their frequency flipped.

Digital TV has a few minor quirks; signal strength is important. Make sure your antenna is pointed correctly. Go to the FCC’s website for exact compass directions of local TV stations from your address. The site includes very helpful information. This aiming process is fairly easy, though. In addition, search YouTube for more information under, “Homemade HDTV antenna,” as well. I opted for Walmart™ and a less than $50 price point. For other programming such as sports and  movies we have opted for the Internet and Netflix (more on that in a future post.)

Before I go, here is one more thing about cable you should know. You’re not getting real High Definition TV on any of your channels, when you subscribe to basic service; true HD costs extra with an additional cable box. Simple rabbit ears feed genuine HD to that new plasma or LCD screen when the stations’ signal allows, 100% of the time. Put some extra cash in your wallet this holiday season, cut the cable cord.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden, Aircheck blog. All rights reserved.

Get a Job, the Final Chapter

A short while back in the Whistle I wrote about a job interview that I participated in. It has come to my attention that the individuals who interviewed me for the position had done very few, if any, of these sessions where a panel of four would ask questions. They were pre-written inquiries that each department head asked. With due respect to the job, its requirements were less of a challenge to me than almost anything I had ever done. I believed that the job would be a shoo-in.

My qualifications were more than enough. My answers were quick, concise and honest. But the company, call them “Acme”, went another direction. They didn’t even have the courtesy of a return phone call. In times past, I was on the other side of the interview being the one who hired. My training dictated that we remain neutral during the process—not giving up hope or despair to an interviewee, no matter how good or bad he seemed. We were instructed to say to each applicant at the close, “Thank you for coming in, we are interviewing others and we will make a decision soon. If you have not heard from us in five days then assume that we decided to hire someone else.”  That is one policy my former employer got right. Finding a good job seems impossible these days. Acme Corp needs to get their act together. In fact, corporate America should invest in the best person for the job without regard to age (especially) or any other factor. I say damn the quotas! Get some experienced individuals in position.

Now I’ll step down off my Acme® Soap Box.

Stay tuned

©2010 Neal Rhoden. The Peanut Whistle Weblogs. All rights reserved.