Tuesday, 10/31 (boo!)

Hopefully, I didn't lose too much of the context.

First of all, happy Halloween. I hope there's not too much out there that scares you today...although, given the state of our planet these days, I wouldn't blame you if you spent the day cowering under the covers with your bedroom door locked tight.

Really, I wouldn't.

On TV last night I did a bit about something that should scare UP residents, the fact that a whole bunch of housing units are coming off the market and being turned into short term rentals, thereby driving up rent prices for those apartments that remain. However, as usual, the piece came in long, and I had to make a bunch of cuts to it. A lot of what I cut were facts and comparisons, and at one point I was wondering if I cut too many of them, robbing the piece of what could have been vital pieces of context to get my point across.

I think I managed it okay, but you can never tell.

Anyway, I figured I post the original full-length below, just in case anyone ever questions my math or wonders just what kind of point I was trying to make.

Hope it's not TOO scary of a story for this Halloween!

(jim@wmqt.com)

*******

It’s Halloween tomorrow, the one time of the year that people love to dress up in costume.  I know most of you have an idea of what you’ll be, or have already gone out.  But if you’re still looking I have a few ideas, two that should annoy Yoopers, and one that should really scare them.

The two that could annoy Yoopers?  One would be to take a piece of cardboard, paint it black, add a white stripe on it, strap it to your back, and go as Seney Stretch.

Either that, or just put a sheet over your head.  Only, you’re not going as a ghost.  

You’re going as a blizzard.  In May.

Now, what about the one idea that should really scare us all?  Dress up as an old house that’s for sale.  What’s scary about that?

You could be contributing to the UP’s housing shortage.

More and more these days developers and landlords are buying old houses that at one time may have had 3 or 4 apartments and turning some of those units into short term rentals.  Now I realize that not every house sold in the UP is turned into an AirBnB, but in some communities enough of them are that it’s amplifying the housing crunch.

Just as an example–

In a city that already has almost 2,000 hotel rooms and is currently adding hundreds more, Marquette has had around 350 apartments turned into Air Bnbs.  Thankfully, the city put limits on it; otherwise, I’m sure the number would have been much higher.  But those 350 units removed from the market have caused a big squeeze.  At 1.9 residents per apartment that means that housing for almost 700 people in Marquette is off the market.  700 people.  That’s basically the population of Chatham and Trenary.

Combined.

And it’s not just Marquette.  At candidates forums from Escanaba to Houghton the housing crunch is the number one topic being discussed.  

Now, I realize that short term rentals aren’t the only factor contributing to a shortage of affordable housing.  But they are an issue.  What to do about that issue, however, is something else.  I realize that when someone buys an old house they can do what they want with it.  I get that it’s more profitable for you to charge a tourist $200 a night than it is to charge a local $1,000 a month for a place to live.  I get that.  

But when do we get to a point of diminishing returns?  At what point are locals literally priced out of the city where they live because there are too few places for them to live?  That’s one thing that SHOULD scare people in the UP as we’re heading through the spooky season.

I don't know what the solution to all this is; I just know that it'll come from a brain bigger than mine.  And hopefully, it'll come soon.  Just keep in the back of your mind for now.  Otherwise, have a great Halloween.  Enjoy dressing up as a zombie, or Barbie, or even the Seney Stretch.  But on second thought, maybe don’t dress up as an airbnb.

After all, you don’t want to have TOO big of a scare, do you?

Monday, 10/30

Spare time? What's that?

I was having a discussion with several people on the set of “High School Bowl” Friday morning, and I heard a phrase I'm beginning to hear with some regularity these days. Once it was discovered that I have a full-time job, two part-time TV gigs, and all my History Center stuff, all jobs that require a little mental and/or creative work, someone (hi, Dakota!) uttered the phrase I hear a lot--

“Do you have any spare time in your life”?

First of all, thanks for asking. Second of all, I really enjoy what I'm doing, so in the end, does it really matter?

And thirdly—uhm...no, I don't.

This past weekend was a perfect example; aside from the usual weekend chores like laundry, grocery shopping, getting a Covid booster, and playing soccer with Loraine, I spent several hours writing and producing my TV piece for tonight, then started to try & put together my part of the “Legends and Lore” show Jack & I are doing at Kaufman in January, went trick or treating with my favorite 6 and 4-year olds in the world, felt crappy for a bit because of the Covid booster, researched a newspaper article I have coming up, developed and wrote a few UP-themed questions for “High School Bowl”, and wrapped it up by writing this.

So let me check here...nope. No spare time. But you know what? I don't know if I'd be able to function with a lot of spare time. I get bored easily, and having something—or in this case, many things-- to occupy my brain keeps me on the edge of my toes. Besides, I enjoy what I do. Writing, researching, and finding new ways to tell stories excites me more than puttering around the garage (which I don't have) or cleaning out the pantry (which I really DO need to do).

Now, if it was summer, I might scale back on that workload a little bit so I could go play out in the sun, but did you SEE the weather we had this past weekend? Trust me—if it's gonna be like that outside, them I'm gonna do something I actually enjoy.

After all, I can freeze my butt off every day I walk to work from October to April.

So no, Dakota, I don't have a lot of “spare time”. But you know what? I actually (for the most part) enjoy it. But for now (and this could some day change) I enjoy it more than puttering in the garage or cleaning out the pantry.

Even if that really DOES need to get done soon.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 10/27

Rain, rain, go away. Come again...

Well, never. Come again never. That would be fine with me.

Maybe this is just an early case of Seasonal Affliction Disorder talking, but the three weeks of (mostly) rain and cold temperatures we've been experiencing can go away and not come back. In fact, it's almost enough, in fact, to make one wish one were a duck.

Although I'm thinking that, by this point, even a duck would be sick of the stuff.

It's all made even worse, of course, by the cold that's accompanied the rain. Even on those rare days when the sun was out, like last Sunday, temperatures were stuck in the 40s. In fact, for the month, I think we're something like over 10 degrees BELOW our normal highs, and that's with that 88 degree day on October 2nd. Perhaps the worst is that this isn't a widespread thing. Wednesday, when it was rainy & 43 in Marquette, it was 80 and sunny downstate.

80 and sunny just a few hours away. I'm starting to think Mother Nature is REALLY pissed at something we did this year, although I can't for the life of me figure out what it was.

I know; the intelligent among you are ready to tell me that there's nothing we can do about the weather, and you're absolutely right about that. Complaining about it doesn't change it or fix it. It's not like if I yell loud enough I'll create a pressure wave strong enough to move the blocking system that's been causing us to have this wet & cold weather. I know that.

It's just that I think I'm at the end of my rope.

So I'll wrap this up with two thoughts. First of all, thanks for letting me blow off a little steam. I appreciate it. Secondly, I know that I don't like “typical” fall weather. But if we ever DO get a day where it's sunny but a little crisp outside, I will embrace it with all the gusto I usually reserve for an 80 degree summer day. I promise you that.

I don't know if we'll be getting one any time soon, but if we do, you have my word. And while you're at it, have a great weekend!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 10/26

Sure, I'm an organ donor. Why wouldn't I be?

I just got a new driver's license, and I happened to be showing it to someone, who noticed the little heart that's placed on it, indicating that I'm a donor. She just wanted to both thank me and congratulate me for doing so; having worked in the medical field for a bit, she said that she knows the importance of signing up to be an organ donor.

The way I think of it is like this—if I were to die unexpectedly, it's not like I'd need my organs, right? I might as well help someone else live a longer life, if I can.

A quick Google search turned up a couple of interesting facts. The first is that almost a third of Americans are signed up to be organ donors when they die. That number actually surprised me; I actually thought it would've been lower, considering some people are so squeamish about the subject. Hopefully, as the years wear on, that percentage will become even higher, because of the second fact that I saw on that Google search--

21 Americans die every day because of a lack of suitable organs. That's almost 8,000 people a year or, to put it in terms that might be a little easier to understand, the population of the city of Houghton, plus a couple of hundred. That many people die in this country every year because of the lack of suitable donated organs.

Whenever there's a new (non-Covid) disease around and it kills two or three people, it seems like a huge chunk of the nation goes ape. Why don't huge chunks of the nation go ape when 2,500 times that number die on an annual basis? Like I said before, I realize this is a squeamish topic for people to think about. I know a lot of people don't want to consider what might happen when then die, and because of that refuse to even think about donating their organs. But wouldn't that be a fitting legacy to a life cut short—to help save the lives of a few or of many other people? Wouldn't that be a way to have your life remembered and honored?

At least that's what I would think. And that's why, for several decades now, I've been signed up to be an organ donor.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 10/25

Now I'm going to be really confused.

As I think I've written about in here before, it's interesting working in TV, especially on a show like “High School Bowl”. Despite what some people think (and some people, actually, think we do the show live on Saturday nights) we don't always shoot the episodes in any kind of order. Often, like we did last week, we shoot different halves of two different shows in one day. That's always a blast as the host (and that would be me) has to make sure the clothes being worn match so that I'm not wearing a black shirt in the first half of a show and a green one in the second.

That's why I'm thinking Friday might be a challenge.

Let me explain—Friday we're shooting the second half of the second show we shot last week. We're also shooting the first half of a new show. And to top it off, we've had a team drop out, which means we don't have a second half of the first show we shot last week yet I have to shoot a new close for the show, which means that Friday I get to wear three different outfits to shoot parts of three different shows.

See where there might be a little confusion?

Thankfully, I do have my chart to consult. If you recall, before we start shooting for the season, I make a list of what to wear for every show. I do it mostly to make sure I'm wearing a different color scheme each week, and I do it so that I literally don't have to think about what to wear the night before we tape. I just look at the list and I'm ready to go. And while I didn't intend it this way, it's also become invaluable for those weeks when we're shooting parts of two different shows, just so I can keep track of which tie and jacket goes with which show.

Or, in the case of this Friday, three different ties & jackets.

I'm pretty sure that people who don't do TV don't realize some of the bizarre things you have to do to make it work, but that list of mine is just one. And it's a good thing I have it for this week. After all, given the way things go some days...

You may have ended up watching a show where I start with a purple tie and end with an orange one. And no one wants to see that.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 10/24

There was one that I knew I wouldn't be able to use.

Over the past few months I've been taking pictures of UP-themed stickers I've seen on cars, leading up to last night's TV piece about showing your UP pride through what you put on your car.  I think in the course of the 2-minute piece I used every single picture I took (and I took a LOT) with one exception.  And after seeing it, you may figure out why it wasn't used--

We actually went back & forth on whether or not it would be suitable for air, but in the end I think we made the right decision.  There's a rule in TV (especially TV news) that you should err on the side of caution, and I think we all knew that, despite the gag value of the sticker, it wouldn't be worth any other kind of reaction we might get.

So it gets to live here, instead.

Because we didn't use it I didn't get to tell the story about how I felt it might be the most appropriate of all the stickers I shot.  After all, I took the picture on one of those rainy days this past August when it was 52 degrees.  And if THAT doesn't epitomize the sentiment the sticker was expressing, I don't know would.

Really, I don't.

Because, as I mentioned last week, TV has a voracious appetite, so I'm already on to next week's piece.  But I thought I would pause for a second to talk about this week's “906”, if only for the sake of a sticker that didn't make the final cut.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com) 

Monday, 10/23

I don't know how I'm gonna handle this tragedy.

First of all, hope you had a great weekend. I went to the premiere of a documentary in which I'm a talking head, I got to hang out with my favorite (soon to be) 7 year old in the world, played soccer with my girlfriend, baked some stuff so my girlfriend could take it to work for a potluck Tuesday, and got to write what should be an interesting piece for TV tonight (more on that tomorrow).

So I had a fun weekend. I also got some bad news, as well.

Every so often Loraine and I head to German Shop 24, a place that sells many of our favorite chocolate bars, cereal, and teas from Germany. We last ordered stuff in February or March, which means we're starting to run out, which means we're thinking about what we want to order again. As I was going through my list, and making sure they have everything, I discovered something that shocked me to my core--

They're no longer making my favorite cereal in the whole world.

Yes, my favorite cereal in the world is German. What's your point? I mean, it has chocolate, cherries, crispy thingees, oat flakes, and I love every single bite of it. Or, rather, I LOVED every bite. When I couldn't find it on the German Shop website I checked the site of Kolln, the company that makes it, and I found it was no longer listed.

It has, apparently, become a deceased cereal.

That's a bummer. I just finished a box a few weeks ago and, if I had known that it would have been the last time I was ever able to eat the cereal, I would have savored it more. But alas, I did not, and now I'm not able to. I have no idea why they stopped producing the cereal; if there's an expert on German food manufacturers reading this, I'd love to know why. All I know is it seems to have disappeared, never again to grace my taste buds.

Hopefully, I'll recover from the loss.

So hope your weekend was like the good 95% of mine (you know, the movie, the soccer, the hanging out with my favorite soon to be 7 year old), and not the few moments that shook my world to the core.

Sigh...

(jim@wmqt.com), on the lookout for a new favorite cereal in the world.