The Final Countdown

   Hope you all had a Happy Easter this past weekend, filled with family and friends (not to forget the good food, either). But it's now Monday, and we're back at it.
   Today also marks the start of the final week of the 27 day campaign leading up to the Saskatchewan election next Monday.
   It is the "final push" as party leaders and candidates struggle to gain support, and get people out to the polls. I've been lucky so far, in that just one of the candidates in my riding (at least so far) has called me seeking my vote. I told the campaign worker for the party in question the same thing I tell each and every campaign worker/candidate in any election: No thank you. And I mean ALL parties, regardless of political leaning. I guess I've been through far to many campaigns in the news biz, and have become a little jaded when it comes to politics.
   That's not to say I won't vote. In fact, my wife and I will probably go to one of the advance polls this week to avoid the voting day rush. As to which candidate/party will get my nod: Even if the elections act allowed me to say, I wouldn't.

TTFN

I Don't Think So

   I had an article on the news yesterday about food, something I like quite a bit. But not just any food. It's something being offered as the Atlanta Braves play their final year at Turner Field. Now, I'll admit that when it comes to professional sports, I've lead a sheltered life. Growing up in western Canada, there's zero chance of taking in a major league baseball game. And (much as I hate to admit) despite growing up in Calgary, and living in Regina, I've never been to a CFL game. As for hockey, again, I've never taken in an NHL game.
   Of course a big reason people go is for the food. Morning show host Danny Ismond says he had a pork chop on a stick at a Twins game in Minnesota. But this tops them all:

   It's called a "burgerizza", for obvious reasons. The monstrosity consists of a 20 ounce beef patty, slathered in bacon, with 5 slices of American cheese, all stuffed between 2 8" pepperoni pizzas. It'll run you 26 bucks.
   The first thought I had when I came across this was "no chance in hell". On second thought, I'll admit to being intrigued. There's no chance I'd ever be able to eat even half of one of those, so I'd need to get a few buddies to help out.
   I wonder if that 26 dollar cost covers Maalox?
   Have a Happy Easter long weekend!

TTFN

Done!

   Another home repair project has been completed, although I freely admit it took a good year or more to do it. And it wasn't really that difficult in the end, either. Way back on December 2 last year, I blogged about finally finishing wiring up a lamp that had been sitting on my bedside table for 6 months. At that time, I also mentioned we had a towel rack in the bathroom that needed attention:

   It had been coming loose almost on the day we bought our place here, and (as you can plainly see) needed work. My problem is two-fold. First, I'm not the most attentive, enthusiastic or energetic guy when it comes to around the house projects. Second: I really am clueless when it comes to these things. So, it just hung there next to the tub, getting looser and looser. Until this past weekend, when one of my sons, who does have a clue, did the majority of the work and switched it out for these new ones:

    Not the best pictures, I admit, but you'll see the improvement. Granted, they're not exactly straight (I don't have a level among my meager tool collection), but they're a damn sight better that what we had before.
   And I think this clears the list of home improvement to-do's for now. At least I hope so!

TTFN

Happy St. Patrick's Day

   It is March 17th, St. Paddy's Day. It's a day when, Irish or not, everyone gets their "green" on, and celebrates. Usually with green beer.
   For some unknown reason, I did not wear anything green this year. I did in 2014, and this was the result:

   Which was scary, to say the least. Scary,because I'm not a fan of breakfast cereal to begin with, let alone something with marshmallows in funky shapes.
   I might think about doing it again next year, but who knows?
   That's not to say folks around our building didn't take part:

    That's the morning team of Will (r) and Reader (l) from our sister station Fox FM. As you can see, they got into the spirit
   Speaking of spirit, since it is St. Paddy's Day, get a little "Irish" into ye!

TTFN

It's A Scam

   You've probably been targeted by emails seeking financial help for one thing or another. It's not unusual to get that kind of spam, looking for an easy mark to scam some money from. But with today's technology, it's rare to get something like that faxed to you. But that's exactly what happened this morning when this came in to our newsroom fax.
   I don't know if you can read it clearly, but it's from a Wang DongJin, supposedly the deputy manager of C N P C (a Chinese refining company) asking for financial support for as Libyan oil purchase.
   I won't bore you with the details, but the scam becomes crystal clear when you read the 2nd last paragraph. It says (and I'm paraphrasing here) the sender claims to be approaching retirement age, and needs to set up a retirement plan for himself. And while he says he's willing to share 50/50 if we agree to work with him, I'm thinking he'll fund his "retirement" package from suckers who send him cash.
   What's the old adage? If it seems too good to believe, it usually is. I will not be sending any money, needless to say, although we did get a good laugh at the low-tech approach the sender took.

TTFN

Change Your Clock This Weekend

   It is time-change weekend, unless you live in places like Saskatchewan, parts of Arizona, Hawaii and several countries around the world including Qatar, United Arab Emirates and several African nations. That means in areas where the time change does take effect, set your clock AHEAD an hour when you go to bed Saturday night.
   I don't think I've made any secret about the fact I have never liked daylight saving time. That goes back to 1971 when I was growing up in Alberta and DST was brought in. I always hated having to get up an hour earlier, and it usually took at least a week for me to adjust.
   Well, there's now a study suggesting "springing forward" may be bad for your health. Finnish researchers noticed an 8% higher rate of strokes in the first 2 days after the time change. At least among cancer patients and patients over 65. They also note the effect vanished a week after the change.
   And while we in Saskatchewan won't physically have to get up an hour earlier come Sunday, there is one benefit of the time change. My favourite T.V shows are all on an hour earlier, which for me is great, since I'm usually in bed by 9:00 p.m.
   And for those who are making the change and feel tired Sunday, take a nap. I do, even though we in Saskatchewan don't touch our clocks.
   And on the bright side, you get that hour back when you "fall off" DST in November.

TTFN

Another Throwback Thursday Memory (Updated With A Better Photo)

   That was 30 years ago in 1986 when I was working at a small radio station in High River, Alberta (just south of Calgary).
   1280 CHRB was a good place to work. I had the pleasure of working with some very talented people, most of who were from Calgary, heartily sick of the politicking and B.S in the big market, and decided to open their own station.
   It was also the place where I re-launched my radio career, after having a few years off after a stint in Prince George B.C.
   It wasn't glamorous at first. I was basically an operator, switching pre-recorded programming back and forth. I also did get a chance "on-air" spinning country music when no tapes were logged for play. That also lead to more on-air daytime shifts doing fill-in for vacationing staff, and some daytime weekend work as well.
   But it also got me back into news. Every weeknight at 10:00 p.m, we used to run a national newscast from the service we subscribed to. Since I'd done news (radio and TV) in Prince George, I decided "what the hell", got some stuff together and read news at 10:00.
   A day or so later, I got a call from then News Director Will Shaw, saying he'd heard me on the evening in question. I was half expecting to get fired for not running the network newscast, but instead he asked if I'd like to do morning news there instead! Chances like that don't come often, and I jumped at it immediately, and haven't looked back since.
   A great place, and some great memories.
   Also, great to see my hair wasn't always monotone grey!
   And a big thanks to a former co-worker from my days in Prince Albert, Sask for cropping the photo.

TTFN

The Race Is On

   Today is the day Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall

   Visited the Lieutenant Governor to have the legislature dissolved, and the official campaign for the April 4th election start. And it's going to be an aggressive campaign, as well. There have only been 2 parties represented in the Legislature since 2003. Wall's Saskatchewan Party, and the New Democratic Party, currently lead by Cam Broten

   The SaskParty has been in power since 2007, when they won 38 of the 58 seats in the Legislature. They also won a commanding victory in 2011, taking 49 seats, leaving the NDP with 9.
   That's not to say there aren't other political parties vying for seats. The Liberals will be running candidates, as will the Progressive Conservatives, Green Party and others.
   Wall's approval rating has been, and remains, well above 60%, making him the most "popular" premier in the country. But he's not taking anything for granted. In fact, Wall told me on more than one occasion that he always runs his campaign as if he was trailing in the polls.
   Mr. Broten and the leaders of the other parties I am not as familiar with, but I'm sure they will be running very hard trying to either defeat the SaskParty or at least cut into their seat total. And there will be 3 more seats in the legislature when all is said and done, due to population increases, for a total of 61.
   Where do my political tendencies lie? I can't tell you, and even if I could, I wouldn't. How will this all shake out? A former premier, the NDP's Lorne Calvert said (at least I think it was he) the 2 things you can't predict in Saskatchewan are the weather and election outcomes.
   We'll know April 4th.

TTFN

Thank You Saskatchewan

   Every year, the Kinsmen and Kinettes of Saskatchewan host a fundraising telethon. Telemiracle raises money for people and families in Saskatchewan with special needs. And as you can plainly see, this was the 40th edition of the fundraiser.
   This year, 5.2 million dollars was raised, easily eclipsing the 4.3 million last year. Over the 40 year history of the event, more than 116 million dollars has been raised. All from a province with a population base of less than 1.5 million.
   Of this year's total, more than 30 thousand dollars was raised by the Kinsmen in Sturgis (population about 620), about 95 km north of Yorkton. They've been running their "Mini-Miracle" for almost 20 years now, and always manage to raise quite a bit of money.
   All this just shows the spirit of community in the province I've lived in for 20 years. It also shows the spirit of giving Saskatchewan residents have become well known for, whether it's an event like Telemiracle or the local Salvation army Red Kettle drive. People always step up to the plate.
   Well done Saskatchewan!

TTFN

Throwback Thursday Memories

   It all started innocently enough with a post in a facebook group for radio people I'm part of. It was a roll of paper that, up until 1999 in Regina, was used to print news stories on for our newscasts. Prior to '99 there, analog was still more or less King. Yes, we used the rudimentary DOS based Word Perfect 3.1 program for writing stories, but all our audio was still analog, which meant we had to use these:

   Most of you will recognize the reel to reel machine. That's what was used for many, many years to capture audio from our news service providers. The machine below was for audio carts, which look a lot like old 8-track tapes. We'd use those to dub down any clips (soundbites they're called now) for use in newscasts. The machine would put a tone on the tape, which would stop the cart before the audio played again.
   In a perfect world, that is.
   And that's where the facebook group (and the TBT memories) comes in. The vast majority of responses to my post were from other old-time radio news people who remember, often not fondly, the now archaic equipment we used "back in the day". It got the job done, but it was far from perfect.
   The carts had a tendency to skip the stop-tone, and the clip would play again. Sometimes the tape would either stretch or break, and sometimes they wouldn't fire at all. Those malfunctions at times brought a fiery response from the newsreader. I saw many a cart flung across the newsroom and smash into a wall, shattering, when they didn't work. Usually accompanied by some very foul language. The reel to reel would sometimes also cause problems. All of which makes me and a lot of my contemporaries happy with the digital revolution.
   Not that computers are infallible (see my post "A Morning From Hell"), but I prefer them to the "old way" of doing things.

TTFN