A little bit of everything, colored my own way. |
THE PROMPT: Follow me! "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Good morning everybody! It feels like mere hours since I was last here...oh wait, it was. I've got to say, I've thought long and hard about having to come up with something for everyone else to talk about. It wasn't easy. And I may be repeating a variation of a previous prompt from another month. But oh well. Here we go. We've all managed to have at least some sort of varying success in our lives...just based on the fact that we have an internet connection and a computer to use to log in at WDC. Most of us have jobs or are retired, which has contributed in one way or another toward keeping the belly full. I was recently talking to a friend the other day about my job. My corporation is doing a major overhaul of its store-level management structure, to hopefully be in effect by 2014. My position is one of the ones slated to be changed. Basically, what I'm figuring based on the lack of communication from my boss, is that I should probably be looking for a new job. So she asked me what I'd really want to do to make a living. Well, I never considered a life in retail, to be honest. But that's pretty much my entire work history. I did manage one year of college, which I admittedly wasn't totally ready for at the time. I wasn't focused or responsible enough. I needed more structure. I barely did work, got horrible grades, skipped a lot of classes, and wasted a lot of time. So it's with a tinge of regret that I can say I would've loved to do the things I actually did in high school and college: work for a newspaper (I had an internship at a local community rag) and be a DJ for a radio station (DJ Buzz was still spinnin' vinyl in '95). The internship was great. I got to cover local sports, write nupitials, and even did a feature that ran county-wide. On top of getting good grades, they thought highly enough of me to actually pay me for some of my work (shhhh, don't tell anyone). And it helped me hone my writing skills. DJ'ing was a blast! I could bring in my own music and play whatever I wanted on the station's open format. I could play rock one minute, hip hop the next, and old school funk later. While songs played I could walk out into the student union and see the reactions of the people. I have a funny story from my days of DJ'ing that I'd like to share. I managed to get a song banned from campus airplay. Every Wednesday, a chick from Planned Parenthood would set up a table outside the cafeteria where she'd hand out free condoms and safe sex literature. Our station was heard in the cafeteria, the lobby outside the cafeteria, the student union upstairs, and in about a 5-mile radius outside the campus. I became friendly with the Planned Parenthood chick, because that's what 19-year-old guys usually do when a hot chick is passing out free condoms. One day she asked me if I knew anything about the radio station, and I told her I was a DJ. She wanted to know if there was a way she could get some time, maybe to do some kind of sexual wellness show. The local rock station had a show where people would call in and ask questions, and it was hosted by one of the morning show hosts and a trained, licensed counselor. The morning show guy sort of played the comedic foil. She wanted to do something like that, only instead of having people call in, maybe we could leave a drop box somewhere so that people could leave questions anonymously. I gave her my number and said that after the semester break I'd talk to the program director about the idea for her show. That afternoon I went in for my time slot. Our only requirements were that we said the station name four times an hour, and read some occasional PSA's. I figured I'd be nice and mention that the Planned Parenthood chick was downstairs handing out free rubbers and taking questions, and then played a song that was popular at the time and relevant to what I was talking about. Well, it turns out that the wife of one of the school's super-important people was in the student union at the time, and found that my song was very distasteful and not something college students should be listening to. The decision was made instantly to ban the song entirely from our airwaves. I guess you can call what you're doing a success whenever someone is trying to censor you. So follow that, bloggers. What would you be doing if you weren't doing what you're doing to earn a living? MUSICAL BREAK!! And just what was that harmless song that got banned from ECC South Campus that fateful Wednesday? Oh, and that Planned Parenthood chick? She never called me back...and was not on the premises the following week (or semester). My entrance into the world of talk shows never happened. VITAL STATS: I'm not a very handy person when it comes to tools, but it looks like I may have a project on my hands. Just what I dreamed I'd be doing on my day off . Our garage door opener is seriously one of the first automatic garage door openers known to mankind. The remote is so old, big and chunky, and in the winter it feels like it takes five minutes for the door to open. And we only have one remote, which stays in the car. Well, apparently, the lock on the side door is busted...you put the key in it and it just spins without unlocking the door. And the way the mechanics are with this opener, you can't just lift the garage door from outside to open the door. So it looks like I'm gonna hafta break in to my garage. Oh, and get a new damn doorknob as well. There's your entry for today, folks. Have fun following it. I'm off to play the criminal, then grocery shop and do all sorts of other things not involving nice weather. Peace, and GOODNIGHT NOW!! |