Friday's Adventure(s)

Let's start off with Friday. I left this day EXHAUSTED! From the moment my feet hit the ground, I was running. The night before we had a planning meeting at the station to discuss the roles for everyone that is on the air. We had a bunch of Effingham troops returning from Iraq on Friday and we needed to be sure that we covered it correctly. Everyone had their roles and knew where they had to be and when.
So, the first thing I had to do was take our remote equipment in the station truck out to the football field where the Welcome Home Celebration was going to be held. I got there and got it wired so that we were able to talk to the station from the football field. I then realized that we didn't have all the wiring necessary to broadcast. So, I had to run back to the station. But, the truck was in a great location and I didn't want to loose it. So, I had one of the sales people drive me back.
I did a few commercials for a client, grabbed a bunch of wires and got to work. I found out that our engineer didn't have any solder in the station. We had a soldering iron, but no solder. I wondered why that was the case for a few moments and then realized that I would be using scotch tape instead.
I got out to the football field again and patriotic music began playing on the station from the on-air crew that would be in charge of broadcasting everything. I knew that I was cutting it short. When I got up to the press box, I found that I didn't quite get everything correct and had to do some more electrical work. But, now I had NO tools.
I wandered into the audience, which had already started gathering, and found a guy who had a pocket knife. Unfortunately it was meant for gutting fish and stuff. So, the edges were extremely jagged. I had to strip wires VERY carefully this time.
I heard the report from our first point person, Kate. She was standing on an overpass and reported on the troops as they drove down the interstate. She held her cell phone up in the air and we heard the horns, sirens and the applause as they passed by. I knew that they were now twenty minutes out.
At this point, I still hadn't heard from our second pointman who was supposed to be in the center of town at the courthouse to let the audience know that they had gotten into town. It was after talking to a back-up, Alissa, (You read about her annoying Cell Phone song earlier) that we got someone in place. It was as soon as I hung up with her that the regular guy showed up beside me in the press box. "Well, at least we got it covered now." I thought. William remained with me through the whole broadcast and actually offered a great deal of insight and comment to our broadcast from the football field.
With the combination of the entire air-staff working together, we sounded REALLY kick-ass on the air. The other station just had a guy with a cell phone in the stands. Nothing else. It is so great to blow them out of the water every chance we get.
My day was not over yet. That happened at 2pm. I ran back to the station and hopped on the air to begin my regular air-shift. I then left halfway through to broadcast our first ever weekly remote from a local bar. Each Friday we count-down drinking songs on the radio and I thought it fitting to do this from a bar... plus the bar owner is a very generous man.
Shortly after I arrived there he asked me if I would be willing to assist with his bikini contest that evening. (He really needed to twist my arm for that one) So, I became the host of the contest. The pictures here are from that evening. You can find more on their website www.whitegoosetavern.com or by clicking the picture of the exterior of the bar. They all had to answer questions from me (they were EXTREAMLY hard, of course) then they had to dance on the bar and finally show their skills in the suds pit that they had set up for that evening. One of the hot bartenders won the whole thing. For some reason, there isn't any pictures of her. If you look at the picture on the left, she's the one in the middle of the suds. I think that's as close as you're gonna get.
I didn't leave there until about 1 or 2am. One of the girls that came with me wanted breakfast food right then and there. I told her that I was going home. She asked if I had eggs at my place. I told her that I had bacon too. So, we grilled that up and I kicked her out at about 3:30. I knew that the next morning I had to be up really early.
Find out why in my next post!