Europe

Click here to read Jim's blogs each day he & Loraine are in Europe!

Tuesday. 8/29

It's a good thing I don't believe in curses.

It's a good thing I don['t believe in curses because if I believed in curses, I would look at the weather we have had in Marquette all summer—cold & rainy—and then look at the weather Europe has had--sunny & warm, like today, where temperatures are in the 80s & 90s. I would then look at the forecast for Europe for the first few days of our trip there, and notice that the forecast calls not for the weather Europe has had (you know, like today, with temperatures in the 80s & 90s) but instead calls for the weather that we have had all summer—cold & rainy.

If I believed in curses, I'd believe that no matter where we go we bring this accursed weather with us. It's a good thing I don't believe in curses, huh? But in advance, I do apologize to the people of Europe just in case it's cold & rainy for the week and a half we're there.

You see, we're cursed. Even if I don't believe in them.

*****

Other than that, as far as I can figure out everything is taken care of and everything is ready to go. Loraine’s gone through her checklist twice, and everything that’s on the list—a list honed over a decade of these travels—is either packed & ready to go, or it sitting on top of a suitcase, waiting to get used one more time before it itself is then packed and ready to go. Our passports are out, our Euros are counted, and there’s just one thing left to do—

Leave.

And, of course, there's the important part—you get to go with us! Well, not literally go with us; I don't think more than 2 or 3 of you might fit in my suitcase. Nope; as always, you get to follow along with our blogs. It's amazing; we've had a TON of people ask if I'll be writing again every day as I usually do, and the answer is, of course, yes. I had no idea so many people traveled with us virtually, but it sure is satisfying that so many people want to know what we're up to.

So here's the deal--there will not be anything posted tomorrow; part of the day will be spent on airplanes, while the other will be spent traipsing through downtown Chicago. We’ll get to Dusseldorf (via London) around 1 or so local time on Thursday afternoon, and then take off from there. So, unless things go horribly awry, the first blog should be up mid-Thursday afternoon Marquette time, either through a link that’ll be posted on this page or through our Blogspot site. If we’re Facebook friends, I may also be posting a few things as we’re waiting in Chicago and London. If we’re not friends yet (and I hope it wasn’t something I said), click here and make it so.

Well, that’s it. There doesn’t seem much left to do except get through this day, grab a few hours sleep, and then stay awake for 36 hours until we finally make it to our first destination, which is Bastogne. It should be quite the adventure, so wish us luck, and make sure you keep checking in!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 8/28

And with two days to go before we leave for Europe, I have to wonder--have I retained enough French to make our trip go smoothly?

I guess we’ll see beginning Thursday.

I’m not fluent in French, nor have I ever been. I’ve just picked up enough, through travels and self-teaching, to get us where we need to go. I don’t have any natural aptitude for language, so every time we leave Europe I seem to forget whatever French I’ve picked up, hence my need to learn it all over again right before we go. And since they speak French in three of the four countries we'll be visiting this week and next...

Sigh. And yeah, I know, it’s not a very efficient way to do things, but when you’re dealing with a brain like mine what do you expect?

If I had to grade myself on whether or not I have enough French crammed into my head, I’d actually have to give myself four different grades, for reading, speaking, listening, and writing the language. I’m actually not too bad at reading it; if I had to grade myself on that, I’d give me a B-. And reading French is the most important thing I need for our trip; after all, I need to understand directions, road signs, and which chocolatey baked goods are which. Reading French, for me, at least, is fairly easy. Even if you don’t know all the words you can make a pretty good guess as to what the sentence or phrase means.

So I guess I have that going for me.

Unfortunately, that’s by far the best of the grades I’d give myself. I can speak enough to either make myself vaguely understood or to make whoever’s listening to me take pity and switch to their English, so let’s give me a C- on that. Listening to a native French speaker speaking French and trying to understand it? D- on that. And writing French? Well, I haven’t even made at attempt at that, aside from whatever’s stuck in my brain learning to read French, so I’ll have to give myself an F+ on that (assuming, of course, F+ is an actual grade).

So let’s average the four grades together--B-, C-, D-, and F+. That’d be, uhm, let me convert the letters to numbers, divide them, and convert them back to letters, and we, uhm, hold on a sec. . .we end up with a D+.

I’m screwed, aren’t I?

Of course, every time we’ve gone to a French speaking country I’ve gone over there with pretty much a D+ average, and we’ve survived. Sure, we’ve had to occasionally rely upon the kindness of (English speaking) strangers, but we seem to have come through with no bruises. And there have been a couple of times when I amazed even myself and pulled French out of my head that I didn’t even know was there, like last year when I almost had an actual multi-sentence conversation with a kind woman in a gift shop. So with any luck that’ll happen again this year when we're in the Belgium-Luxembourg-France portion of our trip.

Just keep your fingers crossed for me, if you would!

Two days to go!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 8/25

Wow. I was almost close to being actually funny once!

With just a few days to go before we leave for Europe I've been spending a lot of time putting together the things that need to air while I'm gone. And because the program director in me refuses to allow my afternoon personality to be off the air for a week and a half, we usually air “best of”s that I've recorded and saved throughout the years. The past few trips they've been phone calls with listeners; after all, that's mostly what we do around here. But this year, I've dig really deep to see what I could find.

And I found some comedy bits.

The bits are what are know in the biz as “blackout bits”; just little 20 or 30 second items to run going into or out of a commercial break. And what with humor being a VERY subjective thing, I'm sure that there are many people out there who would take exception with my referring to them as “comedy” bits. But I've found nine or ten “comedy” bits that I put together somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago, back when I was doing “comedy” bits, and you know what?

I, at least, don't think they're half bad!

I was in my phase of doing “comedy” bits while I was also in my phase of listening to a lot of old-time radio. A lot of the radio I was listening to at the time were the master comedians, people like Jack Benny and Fred Allen and Jim Jordan in his character of Fibber McGee. The one thing all of these master comedians had was impeccable timing. They knew how to tell a joke, and they REALLY knew how to sell a joke. And while I've always thought my sense of comedic timing was a little better than the average person, it was nowhere near that of Benny or Allen or Jordan. So while I was listening to all of these classic comedians, I was also trying to see if I could preach what they were practicing.

Hence, the “comedy” bits.

Most (but not all) of them revolved around the fictional “Yooper TV Network”, and some of the, well, Yooper-centric shows the network might air. The shows might be Yooper reality shows, or Yooper dramas, but it was a way to make fun of what was going on in pop culture at the time while still making it relatable to people who live up here.

At least, that's what I tried.

As with everything in life, I kind of got away from doing the “comedy” bits as the years went by. I don't know if they were too much work or if I just had a limited amount of ideas and used them up, but from what I can tell the last one was put together in 2007. So it was interesting to dig them out and listen to them again, a reflection of where my mind was almost a decade ago. For some, I remembered them like they were yesterday. For others, I'd totally forgotten about them. And one of them, in particular, actually made me laugh when I listened to it again.

Wanna hear it?  Just CLICK HERE.

As I've written in here many times before, humor is a very subjective thing. All I know is that it made me laugh when I listened to it. Your results may vary.

So for the week and a half I'm gone (actually, just seven days on the air, thanks to Labor Day). You may be hearing things like that on the air. And even if you don't make you laugh, think of it this way—it'll at least be a window into my brain, at least they way it was a decade ago.

Have a great weekend!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 8/24

For once in my life, maybe I need to be MORE optimistic about something.

As those of you who read this on a regular basis know, I'm an optimist. I always see the bright side of things, and am eternally hopeful about things. That's why I was kind of surprised when I went running yesterday morning. I went on my Wednesday run; yes, I run different routes on different days. And as I was running through Shiras Park, two thoughts hit me, the first being that because I'm going to Europe next Wednesday I won't be doing this particular route for another three weeks; September 13^th, to be specific.

The other thought? That the next time I do my Wednesday run through Shiras Park the leaves that are now bright green probably won't be so bright or so green.

I don't know why that thought popped into my head. Like I said, I don't usually dwell on the negative side of things. But there was just something so filled with finality in that stupid thought that my mind went where it usually doesn't go. It went to the dark side. And it was weird.

The funny thing about it is that it really is an accurate statement. I won't be in that park for another three weeks, and by then leaves will have started to change. They won't be dead or off the trees or anything, but unless something really strange occurs they will have begun their final journey. And maybe that's what blew my mind—we have gotten to the point of the summer we never really had where we know it's about to end. We can look at a calendar or glance at tree leaves and know that there are only a handful of days left before a drastic change comes over our lives.

Go ahead. Just call me Mr. Happy Sunshine, or something.

I'm pretty sure these weird feeling stem from this—the crappy summer we've been through (and that I've been whining about incessantly in here) has not in any way recharged my batteries. Maybe I haven't gotten enough sun the past few months; maybe I just haven't been able to reach the minimum amount of fun in the summer sun that's required to then face an Upper Michigan winter (with an adjoining fall & spring that often mimic winter). But the thought that the leaves will be changing next time I run through one of my favorite parks just blew my mind.

And maybe that's why, for once, I wasn't able to look on the bright side of things. Let's just hope it doesn't happen again.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com), aka Mr Happy Sunshine

Wednesday, 8/23

I realize I'm probably the only one who cares, but a piece of Marquette history is now gone.

If you've driven past Graveraet in the past few days, you'll notice that they're putting in a drop off lane in front of the school--

That's a good thing. It'll be safer for the kids, safer for drivers, and safer for everyone. So that's cool. But you'll notice that they had to tear out part of the sidewalk to do it; specifically, they tore out one of three remaining unique chunks of sidewalk in Marquette. You know how you come across all kinds of pieces of sidewalk that say “Do not spit on the sidewalk”? Well, the one they tore out in front of Graveraet said this--

That's right; there are (were) a couple of chunks of sidewalk around the city that had an extra verse to a uniquely Marquette piece of poetry. The one pictured above is on South Fourth Street, and there's another in South Marquette,  that say “”Do Not Spit on the Sidewalk. Spit on the Side”. For those of you who don't know the story behind this, when the cement sidewalks were first installed in Marquette in the early 1900s gentlemen would spit their chewing tobacco out, usually on the sidewalk, after which women would walk by in their long dresses of the era and have hems of said dresses pick up all the tobacco juice just spit out by the men.

So when you see “Do Not Spit on the Sidewalk” stamped in cement, that's why. And those rare ones that also added “Spit on the Side” added extra guidance for the gentlemen of the era. Now you know.

It's funny; when I saw that they were doing work in front of Graveraet I actually contacted the Marquette City Engineering Department to see if they could save the piece of sidewalk. But since the city wasn't doing the work, they told me I needed to get in touch with the company doing it for the school. Unfortunately, I didn't get to it in time, and now that rare piece of Marquette history is gone.

Excuse me a moment while I shed a tear or two .

(That's okay; you can look at this line of type, and spare yourself the embarrassment of being around me as I'm crying over a piece of sidewalk).

Like I said, there are still a few of the original long-form pieces left in Marquette, although the way the city is ever-changing they may not be there for long. Maybe that can be a project when I get back from Europe—visit the remaining pieces, make sure they're still there, and also check and see if there's any construction scheduled to be near them. Who knows—in the end, maybe one of them can still be preserved for posterity.

(jim@wmqt.com), who really DOES need to get a hobby, you know? 8-)

Tuesday, 8/22

I wasn't sure what to expect. So I guess there's no way I could be disappointed, right?

Eclipse Day has come and gone, and we actually were able to enjoy it here in Marquette. Except for a few high hazy clouds floating here and there, we were able to see the 72% coverage we had here in Marquette. And thankfully, everyone practiced safe viewing--

The hazy clouds actually helped a little with the photography of the eclipse. I was able to capture the eclipse thanks to the sun poking through the clouds and the reflection of the image off the darkened screen of a tablet--

That's right. I used a camera to shoot a reflection off of a tablet. But it worked, so whatever helps, right?

I wasn't quite sure what things would look like at 2:15, when we had the maximum coverage of the sun by the moon. Even so, I was still a little surprised when things really didn't seem that different. It wasn't as bright as it usually is, but it wasn't that much more different. As I mentioned on the air, it was kind of like a December afternoon, when the sun's weak. It's still there. It just isn't as bright as it is on a normal August afternoon.

If there was any surprise about yesterday, that was it.

Thankfully, around here we were able to enjoy it. I know there were chunks of the Midwest that couldn't, so for that we should be grateful. After all, it's not every day you get to live through a solar eclipse, right?

(jim@wmqt.com)