Tuesday, 3/25

I was totally serious about the dog poop.

My TV piece last night was a joking little bit about the signs of Spring in the UP. Theoretically, technically, we're now five days into the season (although it may not look like it if you're glancing out the window), and I thought I'd pass along a few things that people may notice over the next few weeks.

And that's where the dog poop comes in.

Those of you who've been reading this thing forever (and have, for whatever reason, managed to retain your sanity) may recall that I used to post a blog each and every year about all the leftover dog poop we see as the snow melts. I haven't posted it for a few years, if only because I figure everyone must be tired of it by now, but I still stand by what I wrote.

That much hasn't changed.

But when I was putting together this week's TV piece that thought did pop into my mind, and eventually made it into the final product. Unlike an entire blog on the subject it was just a throwaway gag line, but who knows—maybe subtlety gets the point across better.

Besides, I'm pretty sure my TV bosses don't want me to spend two minutes of valuable air time going on and on about leftover dog poop. I have a lot of leeway on what I can talk about, but I'm pretty sure that leeway might disappear should I spent my time talking about that particular subject.

Really, I do.

So did it hit the mark? Decide for yourself--

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 3/24

The place is bad enough to deal with when it's functioning. I can't even fathom what it would be like when it's shut down.

I don't know if you heard, but London's Heathrow Airport was shut down for almost 24 hours due to a fire at a power transformer on Friday. Heathrow is the busiest airport in Europe, something to which I can personally attest, as it's picked up the nickname (at least by me) of “A seething pit of humanity”. At its best (which isn't very good) it's tolerable. At its worst?

It's really not a fun place to be. Take it from someone who once had to spend 12 hours there through no choice of his own.

What happened on Friday would really be my biggest nightmare as a traveler. Can you imagine being halfway through an 8 hour trans-Atlantic flight, only to be told you have to turn around or diverted to another airport because the one at which you're trying to land has no power? While you're wondering where you're going to land, you'd also have to deal with missed connections, possible layovers in an entirely different country, and no idea whatsoever when (or if) you'll get to your eventual destination.

You know—that kind of nightmare.

Things are slowly getting back to normal at my least favorite airport in the world, but I have to ask a question that I'm sure many travelers are asking—how does one of the world's busiest airports stick its main power source and both of its backup system in the exact same place? Did they not think that something like this could happen? Would it not have been prudent to have one of those backup systems on an entirely difference system at an entirely different place?

You know...to make sure that 1,200 flights and 200,000 passengers don't get stranded?

Loraine and I have always gone out of our way not to have to go through Heathrow, but these days you don't have much of a choice. It's literally the hub for air transport into or out of Europe. The next time we go back there—whenever that is—we'll do our best to avoid Heathrow, but it may just not be possible.

If that's the case, hopefully—HOPEFULLY--they won't be having another incident like the one that occurred Friday.

(jim@wmqt.com), shuddering at the thought.

Friday, 3/21

Why do I still dislike UB40 so much?

I don’t know what it is, but that thought popped into my head as I was playing one of their songs yesterday. I’m sure the members of the group are (or were) fine individuals, I’m sure they are (or were) talented musicians, and I know that many people here in Upper Michigan enjoy their music, but for some reason, UB 40 seems to have become, at least for me, the musical equivalent of a cold winter day.

And we all know how much I like a cold winter day.

For those of you who don’t know who UB40 was (and, believe it or not, they’re still around in an altered form), they’re an English ska-pop group that’s been together since the early 1980s. They had a string of top ten hits over here in the late 80s and early 90s, mostly with remakes of songs like “Red Red Wine”, “The Way You Do The Things You Do”, and “I Can’t Help (Falling In Love With You”). Now you know who I’m talking about, right?

When I first started doing this job back in 1988 the station was what was known as “Hot Hits”; they’d play the same 20 songs over and over so you were guaranteed to hear the same songs every 75 minutes or so. And one of the songs that was massively popular at the time was “Red Red Whine”, which means that I got to hear it four times every 6-hour air shift. And since at the time I worked 6 days a week, that means I heard the song 24 times a week, whether I wanted to or not. Multiply that by the 12 or 14 weeks the song was massively popular, and, well, that’s a lot of times to listen to a song, especially one that I didn’t like in the first place.

The more singles the group released, the more I seemed to not enjoy them, even though, like I said, a lot of people did. And a lot of people still do like their work, based on requests we get and audience research we do. That just proves again, I guess, that I’m a little out of the mainstream, as if, of course, we needed any further proof of that. But to me, the songs all sound the same, and most of their U.S. hits were what I considered to be wimpy remakes of songs that probably didn’t need to get remade in the first place.

However, my taste in music doesn’t have a lot with what we play here on the radio. And that’s a good thing, because while I don’t like UB40 most of you do, and since we program for you, and not for me, that’s why you’ll keep hearing it. After all, as a wise philosopher once said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. Or, in my case, the needs of the one, at least as far as taste in music goes.

So if you want, keep requesting UB40. We’ll keep playing their songs as long as you wanna hear them. I, personally, may be turning the speakers down, but that’s my problem, and not yours, right?

And on that note, have yourself a great weekend!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 3/20

I wonder if they've used up all their toilet paper yet?

Happy anniversary month, by the way. It was five years ago this month that our world started to fall apart, as the sports leagues cancelled games, schools started to close, the US & the EU shut its borders, and Tom Hanks—TOM HANKS!--informed the world he had contracted Covid. It only took a few days before everything was shut down and our world has yet, in some ways, to recover.

Ah. Good times.

Of course, even though it was five years ago that things really struck home, we had been dealing with the growing impact of the burgeoning pandemic even before that. I'm thinking, specifically, on perhaps the most surreal aspect of those early days, the fact that people were going out and clearing store shelves of toilet paper.

Five years later still don't get WHY they did it, but that's neither here nor there.

The toilet paper “shortage” (there really wasn't a shortage until some people decided that it might be a good time to go out and buy a thousand rolls) led to lots of bemused stares, hundreds of late night TV jokes, and some creative ideas for people. I recall walking down Front Street in Marquette right before everything was shut down and seeing this sign--

I have no idea if it actually worked as a promotion, but it sure was a heck of a great idea.

Of course, as it turned out the toilet paper “shortage” was the least of our worries as things fell apart five years ago. As I mentioned in here a couple of weeks ago things changed so quickly over so many days that for the first month or so of the pandemic just seems like a blur. Even from gaining a little (just a little) perspective over those five years it's still kind of hard to believe, especially (and probably) because we're still dealing with the fall out from it.

But that's neither here nor there. Assuming that you use two rolls of toilet paper a week (and that's just an assumption; I could be totally wrong about that number) sometime around the 10^th anniversary of the pandemic—early 2030—could loom as a significant date.

Why, you ask? Well, I answer, if you do the math, that'll be just around the time people who bought 1,000 roles of toilet paper back in 2020 might need to go out and buy some more.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 3/19

I can't believe that it had been three months. Really, I can't.

Yesterday I posted pictures I took in Florida, but what I didn't do is tell you the story about getting ready to take them. A few days before I left, when I turned it on to make sure it worked, I found my camera's battery had gone dead. I guess I wasn't surprised; I knew that it had been a while since I had even powered the stupid thing up. Once I switched to the backup battery I have (itself with only half of its charge left) I came to the realization that I had not yet once during 2025 taken it out of its bag. In fact, the last picture I took was on December 30^th, and it was (ahem) a picture of a bunch of chocolate Loraine and I bought at Donckers with a gift card someone gave us for Christmas.

It's been three months since I even thought of taking a picture with a (non-phone) camera. What the heck's wrong with me?

(That's a rhetorical question, by the way, even though I'm quite positive many answers have already popped into your head).

I'm hoping it won't be another three months until I take it out again. In fact, I KNOW it won't be another three months until I take it out. Yet I can't say I'm surprised. If you look at the folders of shots I've taken over the past 20 or so years, they're mostly dated during warmer-weather months. I don't know if it's because I'm not big on winter, if there aren't a lot of winter pictures to take, or it's just because I'm being stubborn, but I don't like shooting when it's yucky out.

It may be a character flaw, but it certainly IS me.

And just so show that you CAN take a nice picture during winter, here's one from a few years ago--

Maybe one of these years, I'll learn my lesson and haul out a camera between December and April. After all, you never know what you'll see, right?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 3/18

And now, as promised, the pictures.

After I transferred them to my laptop I realized I really didn't take that many pictures as I was down in Florida visiting my parents. Not that that's a bad thing; it probably just means I was actually enjoying my time with them and was too busy to be snapping away. But I'd like to think what I did shoot was good, so let's go through a few.

As always, when you're in Florida beaches are an important thing, right?

And I was at the beach a couple of times, allowing myself to be hypnotized by these--

I noticed that water, in fact, was a theme in many of the pictures I took, either of piers--

Or pelicans

By the way, have you ever tried to capture a pelican in a picture? They're fast little buggers.

On land down in Florida, you never know what you might see. It might be bikes--

Or colors that catch your eye--

Or signs that catch your eye--

And then there's one of my favorite pictures out of the batch I took. Unlike some of their neighbors, my parents are quite active, and will often help out by taking care of a few things. My dad, for instance, takes the neighbor's dog for a walk almost every day, an event that makes my mom laugh, as she claims the little creature is, and I'm quoting here, “a chick magnet”.

So here's Chick with his chick magnet--

Like I said, I had a great time down there, not only because I got to spent some quality time with my parents, but also because no matter where you look, it seems like there's an interesting picture to be taken.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 3/17

You know how Tom Petty says “the waiting is the hardest part”. Well, it's not.

The unpacking is the hardest part.

I'm back from my little jaunt to visit my parents in Florida.  I had a great time in the sun--in fact, I'll share pictures tomorrow--but in a way, my voyage is not yet over

I don't know why, but whenever I get home from a trip, even a short one like this past weekend, it takes me a while to get everything out of the suitcase, carry-on, and/or backpack I've been using, and put it all away. I'm not quite sure what drives some people to unpack as soon as they get home; I know I couldn't do it. Heck, after a 24-hour trip home from Europe unpacking is the last thing on my mind. So maybe it's not a surprise that it usually takes me a few days to haul everything out and put everything away.

For instance—while the carry-on I brought down to Florida is empty of the clothing it contained, it's still filled with the souvenirs I brought back (minus the ones I gave to Loraine). Likewise, while I took my small laptop out of my backpack, it's still filled with everything else I had, including but not limited to some chocolate, the John Lewis biography I'm only about a third of the way through, and my bag of liquids, which I haven't even thought about until typing this sentence.

Don't let me forget to put those away, if you wouldn't mind.

I'm sure everything from this trip will be put away after I get done with TV tonight, unlike one of those trips to Europe, when it may take almost a week or as long as it takes Loraine or I to get sick of looking at our suitcases, whichever comes first. But maybe that's not a surprise when you're trying to get your body clock readjusted to American time, dealing with whatever crap has come up at work, and trying to stop your head from spinning because you've just come a quarter of the way around the planet.

That's the excuse I have for then. I really don't have one for now. And that's why I'm hoping the unpacking will be done tonight. Wish me luck. Given my history, I may need it.

Like I said, a few pictures tomorrow!

(jim@wmqt.com)