Favorite Things

Here’s a fun Sunday puzzle. Depending on how you’ve got your computer set up, the picture I have placed somewhere in this post is a still-life photo that I snapped several years ago with a Canon Eos SLR on Kodak 100 ISO black and white film using natural light. The photo intends to represent my pet interests at the time. The puzzle is: how many items can you identify. And after all these years, how many can I still pick out? Right click on the picture, then open up full size in a new window.

Stay tuned.

The Original Trilogy

Here is something that I have neglected to say, although I truly feel: thanks for taking the time to read Aircheck and my companion blogs, the Peanut Whistle and the newly reactivated Gospel Aircheck.

I have spent this busy summer away from the blogs often contemplating how each would evolve. Writing at least three weblogs can be a challenge. The one you’re reading now has to change in order to keep me interested.

First, radio is a dead topic to me. It no longer beckons me. Finally, I am cured of the radio bug. Events that unfolded over the summer assured that remedy. Soon I will detail those happenings in the Peanut Whistle. From now on Aircheck will delve into other areas, including: what’s on TV’s new fall season, my obsession with the home teams, and family life in general.

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Also check out my original Gospel Aircheck blog for the upcoming review of the 2011 National Quartet Convention my wife and I attended in Louisville, Kentucky

Stay tuned

In the Clouds

You’d think that Aircheck would post more stories about radio. No!

Previous blog entries have had nothing to do with the industry at all. Traditional radio peaked long ago and has begun a terminal decline. That doesn’t really bother me at all because 16 years ago I noticed certain trends that led me into an unrelated field completely; never regretting my decision. I am fickle by nature and have gone through many cycles in a love-hate relationship with broadcasting. Right now, I see myself as a retired deejay and programmer who started as an adolescent with an aptitude for electronics, particularly audiophile grade gear. I figured an entry into the whacky world of radio was a necessary springboard onto a recording engineer career. Not so!

I was shocked to find that nearly every person that I encountered in radio over the years—particularly sales people—were either clueless or had no interest in high fidelity sound at all. To go out on a limb, I’d say no one I ever worked with was an audiophile, chief engineers included. My assumptions at the time were shattered by both the lack of knowledge and the apathy, contempt even, for ultimate audio quality. Initially, I wasn’t in radio to be on the radio (or even make money); rather, I was enamored with its technical magic. Crazy!

In fact, eons ago, while in my early 20’s, my capricious interests veered to the radio engineering field. I was easily thwarted by our chief engineer’s impatience with my constant questioning about emerging developments in audio that I had read about only in magazines. He was visibly peeved by my passion for all things audio and was quite dismissive, “Where did you hear about that?” He’d say. To him I was just a snot-nosed kid who shouldn’t be asking for his pearls of wisdom. (In truth, he was embarrassed by a kid who seemed to upstage him.) Lesson learned. Often my audio hobby clashed with the middle-aged sensibilities of my much older associates. Granted, my head was often in the clouds. If I had spent more time on the practical side of the business maybe, just maybe, I’d still be involved. Nah!

That’s a discussion for another day.

Stay tuned.

More Random Musings

Trust me, in no way will I poke fun at the less fortunate. But, the other day (hand to God it is true) my wife saw a somewhat well dressed girl standing beside the road displaying the ubiquitous will work for food sign while texting on her smartphone.

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Now a little confirmation on the demise of traditional radio.

We bought our son a tee shirt that included a free FM radio and ear buds. Long story short, Luke loved the radio. “Daddy,” he said “You won’t believe all the songs I’ve got on my new iPod.” He continued, “I even got the news on this thing!” Granted, the radio’s shape mimicked a common mp3 player; but, in the mind of my sweet 7 year old, the vast variety of music on his new toy must have been downloaded.

Further confirmation:

Two years ago I Facebook posted an old photo of my cousin listening to a Walkman style radio/cassette player. A young lady in his church youth group innocently inquired if the device in this picture from 1988 was his iPod.

Man, am I old.

Stay tuned.