Dueling backhoes

Alexis Vazquez Dedelow

Mayor distracted by backhoe during his weekly radio show

Al Hamnik joins JED to talk about sports

Sheriff John Buncich

Billy 'Buzz Kill' Baker in the studio with JED

Tearing up the parking lot outsite

Whatever.

When I grow up, I'm gonna talk on the radio. Maybe Emily, too. She is by far my best caller of the week. She calls in on her way to Munster Donut and gives a traffic report and a lesson on Tae Kwon Do.

It's a Friday at the station and I've been on the air for a good 20 hours this week. Throw in a couple hours recording stuff, and you get the normal 22 hours a week behind a microphone. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less. But 22 hours a week is a good estimate.

Do the math. 52 x 22.. that's more than 1,000 hours a year behind a microphone. All radio is good, just some is better than others.

And some is more difficult to do. For now, Purdue is tearing out the old parking lot and sidewalks and putting in new ones. It's crazy. For most of the week, I blabbed on with a huge backhoe just feet from the huge picture window. Today, the backhoe had trouble busting up the concrete of the sidewalk, so another backhoes was called into action. Dueling backhoes. As a construction guy, I couldn't take my eyes off of the construction show. And it showed in the quality of radio.   (click READ MORE below)

Never mind the beep-beep-beep of machines backing up and the rumbling vroom of the diesel engines in the background. Life in radio is good, even during a construction storm.

Alexis came in this morning - it's Friday, duh - and told about how her mother nearly died last weekend. Horrible chain of events that turned from bleak to thank you. Noemi doesn't really speak English, so stuff gets lost in translation. Once I meant to refer to my buttcheek, which I had injured playing basketball, and I told her I got hurt right in the cooloh. She turned red. Lost in translation.

But when Noemi came out of surgery, for the next 24 hours she spoke perfect English. Not shitting you. But as she strengthened from code blueing on the table to feisty older Mexican woman, she receded to broken English. You tell me. Listen to the podcast of Alexis telling the story. In fact, listen to all of our podcasts. We do local radio the way it should be done - with a sense of humor, a lack of taste, and a keen understanding that you only live so long on this rock.