Things To Do:

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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

(World) Seriously?

Let me state up front, I love baseball. Grew up with the Dodgers, shifted loyalties to the Red Sox when I moved to New England, enjoyed the cool of the fountains at Kauffman Stadium -- oh yeah, and the Royals -- when I lived in Topeka, never really got into the Braves when I lived in Atlanta, and have been with the Phillies since 1987.


Let me add that I hope the Royals win it all this year.  Tough, scrappy team that finds a way to win. Cinderellas all!  But, at the same time, I must say that the Giants and the Royals are what's wrong with baseball these days.


Here is the greatest series in baseball -- the World Series -- played between two wild card teams, neither of which won 90 games during the regular season.  By rights, by best-record-in-baseball-rights, we should be watching the Angels and the Nationals.  That's why the game is played 162 times a year, to come up with a winning record and a spot in the playoffs.  Now, none of that counts if you run into a team that got hot in the playoffs.  And it always seems a cheat to me when I see wild card teams in the Series.  For example, the Marlins won TWO World Series as wild cards. See what I mean?  The Marlins, for God's sake.


I may sound like my grandfather here, whippersnappers, but I really do think the old way was better.  You play 162, you win more than the other guys, you punch your ticket to the Series.  Then you have a true championship game, played between the two best teams in the sport. That would be nice.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Getting there.....

Happy to report that my book about living in the world of small-market 70s radio, "Living On-Air," has reached #1,375,521 Paid in the Kindle Store!  Only 99 cents to buy and free to borrow if you have Amazon Prime. Read it and push that number up to 1,375,520!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004U2ANAG

Monday, January 27, 2014

Me and Katy Perry Are Almost Exactly Alike!

When I was just 11, I lay in my bed at night, looking down at my feet, and prayed, "God, please give me a stomach so big I won't be able to see my feet when I look down."  And just like with Katy, He came through.

http://articles.philly.com/2014-01-23/entertainment/46468018_1_katy-perry-gq-zac-efron

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Is This Irony, or Just Computer-Generated Stupid?

So I had to get a new debit card because of the debacle at Target.  It comes in the mail, I activate it, and I get the following email from my bank:



Your 360 Checking Card has been activated

Thanks for activating your 360 Checking Card. If you had an old one, you can go ahead and destroy it.
Need an ATM? Check out some of the FREE Allpoint™ ATMs that may be close to you:
RetailerAddressDistance/Miles
1TARGET201 PARKCHESTER RD HARRISBURG PA 171121.4

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Hi, my name is Don, and I used to be a weatherman

This particular blast of bone-chill sweeping the country as January gets underway is being produced by an arctic vortex, a low-pressure system situated roughly over the North Pole.  It's usually up there in winter, making things pleasantly icy for polar bears, and every once in a while -- when there's no strong high pressure system in the U-S or Canada to block it -- the vortex sends a frozen arm south in our direction. 
I know all this because for six years I was on WHP-TV 21 in Harrisburg, PA, delivering weather forecasts to a rather meager audience. In the late 90s, Channel 21 was firmly in the "little to none" category when it came to ratings; our 6 PM news was regularly beaten by Simpsons re-runs. I think I've met most every viewer we had, and to this day they ask me for weather advice whenever I see them -- starting with my wife, who asks me what the high temperature for the day will be every morning.  I've made it a habit to check the forecast before she wakes up.
It helps that I had excellent weather training from one of the best in the business. It all started in the late 1980s. I found myself in the newsroom of Harrisburg's NPR affiliate, WITF, providing local news during breaks in the middle of radio's Morning Edition.  The TV side decided to provide a wrap-up of the day's news at 10 each night and hijacked me to be a reporter. A few months in, one of the news anchors left, so WITF moved the weather anchor over to the news desk, and promoted me to weather. That's when the fun began.
The station had cut a deal with Penn State's meteorological department to provide weather maps and information, so every night I got to chat on the phone with Fred Gadomski.  Up at Penn State, Fred Gadomski IS weather. Besides teaching there, he's on the American Meteorological Society's Board of Broadcasting, he's in the Meteorologists Hall of Fame, and has explained weather to the masses on Good Morning America and Today. Fred patiently walked me through all the weather maps and explained fun stuff like radiational cooling, the Coriolis effect and anabatic winds. Fred helped me cram years of learning into weeks and had simple, easy-to-understand explanations for all the wacky stuff that goes on when it rains and snows and fogs up. When I moved a few years later to WHP I added to the base of knowledge Fred gave me, enough to draw my own maps and cook up my own forecasts which were correct more often than not. So thanks again, Fred, and here's hoping there's a warm front in your immediate future.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Ice, Ice, Baby

It happened again it late November.  Eric, one of the guys I work with, was driving a car-full to a social function in Scranton. His passengers were his wife, Dawn; another guy we work with, Jim; and me. Jim and Eric had worked together previously in Scranton, and began commenting on how much it had changed as we drove into the city.  Dawn turned to me and, quite out of the blue, went back a little further with her question than just "Where did you work last?"  She asked me where I was born.
"Los Angeles, California," I answered truthfully.  To tell the absolute truth, a lot of times I dodge that question, because I usually get the reaction I got that night from Dawn:  "What the heck are you doing out here in the cold and snow? Usually, people want to go the other way."
Radio is what happened.  When I graduated from Loyola Marymount University, I had lived my entire life in California, minus a few weeks spent on vacation.  But all I wanted to do when I got my BA in Communications was play records on the radio, and after awhile a station in Hagerstown, Maryland, extended an employment opportunity, and I took it.  So I reversed Horace Greeley's famous admonition and went east.  I did escape to Kansas, Florida and Georgia in my radio career, but I kept returning to the Northeast when those jobs were over. By now, I've actually spend more of my life in snow and cold than I did basking in California sunshine.
But I'll be honest with you one more time:  when record-cold temperatures and snow and ice have me skidding while I shovel my driveway wrapped in every coat and scarf I own, I ask myself Dawn's question over and over.  "Usually, people want to go the other way,"  she said. Days like these I agree with her. 

Friday, January 3, 2014

New Year! Happy....?

It didn't occur to me until the last week of last year, when my cousin Kevin called from San Diego.  He had seen a news report about Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- where I live -- and had to call and ask me about it.  Every year, Harrisburg drops a giant strawberry down a pole attached to the Hilton hotel downtown to celebrate the New Year. Officials are always vague when I ask, "Why a strawberry?  Does it mean anything special to Harrisburg?  Was Harrisburg at one time the strawberry capital of the world? Is it mythical -- did a bumper strawberry crop come in back in the 1800s that saved the city from financial ruin, or something like that?" The best anyone can figure is that an area of the city was once named Strawberry Court -- it's now an office/shopping complex called Strawberry Square -- and that's why they use a strawberry.  Anyway, this year, during a practice run, the cable snapped and the strawberry fell three stories and cracked.  So the Hilton spent a couple of days building a new ten-foot steel-framed strawberry, and New Year's was saved.  (It does look kinda chintzy, but, really, it's not all that bad when you think of how it was thrown together on short notice.)


Anyway,  my cousin went on to tell me about some major health problems he and his wife encountered in 2013, and how happy he was that a New Year was on the way, because the old one was soooo crappy! And, of course, because these discussions always wind up becoming Can-You-Top-This, I countered with all the surprise health problems that hit my family, and my wife's, just during the last two months of the year -- including a cancer death and an unexpected heart attack.  And the fact that my son was laid off from his job just two weeks before Christmas.

And that's when it hit me -- we all just lived through 2013!  The year that ended in the unluckiest number of all -- 13!!!  No wonder the last two months were crammed with bad stuff! So I'm right with my cousin on this one -- bring on 2014!  14 is 2 times 7, and 7 is a lucky number, so maybe we'll all have double the good luck!