Wednesday, 10/28

It all started because I needed to dig something out of my backpack.

Let's review, shall we? I had an idea for a blog this past Friday, and promptly forgot about it. I spent the weekend trying to remember what it was, to no avail. Then the idea finally reappeared to me Monday night, after which I had no time to write about it, because I had to interview a candidate for the US House of Representatives.

That brings us to now. What was the blog topic that's been taking up waaaaay too much space in my brain the past few days? Well, it came to me when I had to dig through my backpack to find something Friday, and I discovered I had three masks buried deep within the folds of my bag.

So the topic was (or is) just how many masks do we have lying around and don't even know about?

I know; I myself am trying to decide if the topic is worthy of all the brainpower I've devoted to it the past five days. But that's neither here nor there. It's the topic that (almost) drove me insane, and it is a valid one. Since 2020 just how many masks HAVE we accumulated and then lost, whether it's in a purse or car glove compartment or in jacket pockets or, as in my case, a backpack? I'd venture to guess that the number's probably a bit higher than one would think.

Especially since, in the Before Times, we never would have thought about accumulating masks like we do gum wrappers or pocket fuzz.

And it's not just finding our own masks everywhere we look. If you spend as much time walking as I do you'll still notice, even almost six years after Covid changed our lives, all kinds of discarded and/or lost masks floating around on the streets or in the drains. If I wanted to be snarky, I could make the claim that old masks have become the new cigarette butts, as least as far as street trash goes, and I probably wouldn't be wrong.

Like I said, they're everywhere you look.

So if you get bored, take a look through your jackets and purses and backpacks and glove compartments. Figure out how many old and long-forgotten masks you have in there. That way, maybe some of the brain power I've devoted to the subject the past five days would not have been in vain.

Because, you know, I are an idiot for not remembering it in the first place.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 10/27

I remembered what it was.

As you recall, I spent a good chunk of the weekend trying to remember a blog topic I came up with while running around on Friday. I thought it was something relatable, a topic upon which everyone might have an opinion. And now that I've remembered what it was I still think so.

However...I have to go interview a candidate for the US House of Representatives in (looking at a clock) a half an hour. I won't be able to write about it today, so you don't mind waiting until tomorrow to find out what it was, do you?

I appreciate it. But if you want a little tease, look around your house, in your purse, in your backpack, and in your glove compartment. You might be surprised (or shaking your head in disbelief) in what you might see in any or all of those places.

Like I said, more tomorrow. Now, I'm off to chat with a candidate for Congress. In lieu of anything else meaningful, here's last night's TV piece--

A ghost story for Halloween week.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 10/26

Okay. This is really irritating.

Friday afternoon when I rushing around trying to get a thousand things done at work I had an idea for a blog pop into my head. As I remember it it was a really good idea; something that I could expand upon and something to which a lot of people could relate. That was about 1 pm Friday.

By 130 pm Friday, I had totally forgotten what I was going to write about.

That, of course, meant I spent the entire weekend wracking my brain, trying to remember what that really good idea was. Alas, though, it was to no avail. If I was a normal person I could've put it aside and used my weekend for its intended purpose—relaxing and not worrying about work.

But, of course, when I have I ever been normal?

I remember the idea had something to do with either the number of something most people have or how often a person does something. That's why I thought it would be relatable; whatever the idea was was something most of us have to deal with. I tried thinking of every obscure little fact that had been added to my brain, but couldn't come up with it. I even went back to work and re-traced my steps and actions when I came up with the idea.

Sadly, that didn't work. And just as an aside, how come I can remember obscure little facts that pop into my head and NOT the topic about which I was going write? Sometimes, I amaze even myself. But as always, it's hardly ever in a good way.

I have no idea if I'll ever remember what the blog was supposed to be about. I do, though, have the feeling that I ever recall the topic it'll be at 4 in the morning, jolting me out of a sound sleep. After all, that's how things work, at least in my little pea brain.

So instead of what I had originally intended to write you find yourself lucky enough to cruise through this babble. I'm sorry; if I had an actual brain instead of the blob of matter that resides in my skull, that would have been different. But keep this day in the back of your (functioning) brain, and in a few weeks or months or years if I actually DO remember the topic about which I wanted to write, you can mentally head back to this entry and say to yourself (or say out loud)--

“Took you long enough to remember it”

Sigh...

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 10/23

I'm having trouble remembering what day of the week it is.

Now, I'm sure those of you well-versed in being a smart aleck are at this moment shouting out something like “Jim, you're getting old. Pretty soon, you'll be forgetting where you put your teeth”, and the sad thing is you may be right. Add to that the fact that I've always had a problem remembering what day it is, and you wouldn't think it's be that big of a deal.

But it is.

Three times so far this week I've had to figure out what day it is, and that's a bit of a surprise. After all, my life is rather regimented; I have to do certain things on certain days, and you think that would be ingrained in my brain. But it doesn't appear to be. Thankfully, I haven't missed being where I'm supposed to be, but the way things are going, you never know.

It can, however, be a bit problematic. It's a pain when you have to ask someone or look up what day of the week it is, and have to do that three or four times a week. You'd think that after all these years I'd know what day of the week it is, even if (like this week) I shot “High School Bowl” on Wednesday and thought it was Friday. Is it the fault of (gulp) being on the on-ramp of starting to forget where I put my teeth? Or is it just a by-product of having so many things going on?

I keep saying my life is weird. I just didn't think it would get THIS weird.

Never fear. I have the feeling that now the problem's been identified and talked through, that it'll slowly disappear. That's usually what happened what something strange occurs in my life. I write about it here, you guys act as my online shrink, and things work out.

So I appreciate it. I'd give you the $150 an hour a real shrink gets, but I have this feeling I'd forget to pay you. After all, that's how I roll these days.

8-)

Have a great weekend. And don't forget that it IS the weekend.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 10/22

I wonder how much longer the red flash drive is going to hold out?

Doing what I do I use a lot of different computers, at home, at my various jobs, and even when I'm slitting in my auxiliary office working on a nice summer's day. Oftentimes I have to get a file from one computer to another, and while I've used e-mail, Google drives, and the cloud to move files from one machine to the other, I also use a flash drive. My trusty red flash drive. A flash drive that I've now used for (gulp) 15 years--

I have no idea how I started using this 8 GB Dane-Elec drive back in 2011, but I'm guessing that, at the time, it was one of the bigger ones that you could find. I keep it in the front pocket of my backpack (which I HAVE had to replace since 2011) and, at least once a day, I'll use it for file transfers or just to back up these blogs. I know that there are easier ways to do it, and I know that there are newer (and bigger) drives that I could use, but for a decade and a half my trusty red flash drive has done the job.

So why stop now?

Knowing how fast tech gear fails I'm kind of surprised that it's still going, and that's probably the main reason why I keep using it. I mean, will it ever fail? Will it keep going as a backup and transfer drive for the foreseeable future? Inquiring minds want to know.

As, as we all know, my mind is VERY weird when it comes to things like that.

I thinking--and this is just a guess--that the flash drive will outlive the rest of my working life (or, at least, my remaining time in radio), and that's the best reason I see to keep using it. If it does, and I come to that mythical day when I pack up my belongings and say "sayonara" to my office, I know the one memento that might be one of the most important, if only because have worked almost as long as I--

My trusty red flash drive.

We'll have to see.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 10/21

I have to run out in a few minutes for a special Wednesday shoot of “High School Bowl”, but I wanted to share the pictures that didn't make the cut.

What am I talking about? Yesterday, I shared my TV piece from Monday; you remember, the one about leaves. Well, leading up to it I had been shooting a LOT of pictures of leaves, and as I was putting everything together over the weekend I realized that I had waaaaay too many pictures of trees and leaves to use, so I had to cut many of them out.

And because I needed specific pictures for specific phrases, may of the best ones got left out.

You know, like one of a wet & gloomy Marquette...

Or one of a Marquette sky that's anything BUT wet & gloomy...

Or one of the Iron Ore Heritage Trail...

Or one of the most iconic places in Marquette...

So many pictures of leaves, o few opportunities to use them on TV, you know? And speaking of TV, that's where I'm heading now. After all, four teams from across the UP await!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 10/20

There are HOW many leaves falling from Upper Michigan trees this month?  Believe it or not, I know the answer.

Now, this seems like it might be one of those questions that you can't answer, like “how many stars are there in the galaxy” or “how many years can the Lions go without getting to the Super Bowl?” But for TV this week I needed an answer. I mean, it didn't have to be an exact number, just an answer in the general neighborhood. And thanks to my alma mater, I was actually able to get that general number.

Michigan State's still actually good for something these days, believe it or not.

I needed the number because I was talking about a storied UP October tradition that everyone (sarcasm alert) loves, the raking of leaves from one's yard. I was curious as to how many leaves someone might have to rake, but as soon as I saw the statistics from the Michigan State School of Forestry as to how many trees there are in the UP and how many leaves they each contain, I knew I had my hook for the piece.

It's funny. I never actually thought about things like “how many trees are there in the UP” until I started doing these TV bits. But in the four years I've been writing them I HAVE discovered how many trees there are in the UP. I've also found out many deer there are up here; heck, I even know how many Dollar Generals there are in the UP. They're not things that a normal person would have to discover, but then...

When have I ever been normal?

So just how many leaves WILL be falling from UP trees this month? The shocking number is right here--

(jim@wmqt.com)