Figure it out

​It’s 11:21pm and another day of radio draws to a close. I rode my bike to do radio this morning, talked with an up-and-coming rock band (Detour North), and then settled into my comfort zone of joshing with my friend of 45 years.
 
It was the friend, Billy Baker, who had the line of the day – “It was funny listening to you try to be cool with the young musicians.”
 
He has a point. I did joke with Emmanuel Roldan, Kem Mastey, Anthony Esparza and Danny Klus. I made the perfunctory quips about the drummer getting all the chicks (Klus), and I made the appropriate observation that all four of them would have a tough time getting a drink without getting carded. They seemed to be having a good time, so I really don’t know what Baker was talking about.

After the show, I ate breakfast alone at the counter at The Wheel. If I go there right after the show and get there by 8:15, I get the corner seat on the counter closest to the door. I like sitting there. I can read the sports section in silence.
 
I take that back. Not total silence. There’s this guy who comes in every day about 8:20 and sits down and orders the same thing. He makes this weird sound with his throat that sounds like he’s got a piece of popcorn stuck there. That ruins the solitude of perusing yesterday’s box scores in the American League.
 
Later in the morning, I interviewed Dave Ryan, the executive director of the Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce. We did a Facebook Live video as part of my “JED in the Money” segments. I don’t know where these are going, but I do enjoy doing them. I talk with people who are in and around business and that gives me ideas about what I can do with my own business. Sometimes, also, I get sales leads out of it.
 
Later on, there was a meeting going on at the Purdue Commercialization Center, where we’re located. It was the governors’ commission on minority and women’s businesses. One of the commissioners, Ms. Vega-Steele, arrived an hour early. She was confused if the meeting time was Eastern or Central time, since most of the people were coming from Indianapolis.
 
Since Ms. Vega-Steele was just hanging around, I interviewed her too in a “JED in the Money” segment on Facebook. We both wondered out loud why more local businesses that are owned by women and/or minorities don’t apply for the MBE/WBE designation. I’m being a little hypocritical here in that Alexis owns WJOB AM 1230 and 104.7FM, and we don’t have either a MBE or WBE designation. Always seemed like a waste of time. So even though I was sitting there during the interview admonishing businesses for not applying for the designation, we haven’t done it. Oh well.
 
It’s late and Alexis is sleeping near me. She works her ass off, so she sleeps pretty hard. The pitter patter of the laptop keyboard doesn’t seem to be disturbing her right now, so I’ll continue on for the three or four of you.
 
Just in case you’re wondering, Alexis and I did get that once or twice a year dinner with our two daughters. We bought a couple of rotisserie chickens and some corn on the cob and we all sat around the kitchen table and ate and talked, just like we used to. I’m getting to be enough of a sentimental old man that a couple of times I just looked around the table and some tears welled up behind my cheeks. I didn’t let them out, of course, because I’m me. But I will let the three or four of you in on the secret that for a good 90-minute period this evening, I was pretty darn happy.
 
Happiness, by the way, isn’t really something that you should admit to all that much. I mean, it gets taken away so easily by the twists and turns of a world that doesn’t really take into account if you’re happy or not. So when it does come, this bout of happy, it’s probably best to acknowledge it and be grateful for it, but not to dwell on it. So that’s what I’ll do here.
 
… In terms of where we’re at in the transition from radio to something other than radio, I’m reaching the point where about 70% of my day is spent in radio, and 30% in Facebook Live video. Today, I spent a bunch of time in radio with Ben Wood, who’s studying broadcasting at Indiana University.
 
“I’m gonna show you how to program a radio station. You ready for that?”
 
“Sure.”
 
Ben and I set the log for tonight. This means that we arrange all of the audio files in a specific order to play at specific times. The goal is to create something listenable. It takes a long time to set a log, so I reviewed the basics with Ben… and then I left.
 
“Figure it out. Your mom and dad are spending a bunch of money for you to learn broadcasting at IU. Figure it out.”
 
I know that this isn’t necessarily solid leadership or mentoring, but it often works when you put the challenge to young people.
 
“Figure it out.”
 
I say this a lot. And a a lot of times they do figure it out. That worked tonight for Ben. He figured out how to put in some bumpers, record a few lead ins, to place spots in the right place… but he didn’t figure out how long to make the log. It has to cover six hours, from 6pm to midnight.
 
But Ben didn’t make the log six hours long. He only made it four hours long. So at 10pm tonight, we went to dead air. Here’s some excerpts I got from a group text about 10pm.
 
Sam Michel – Dead air just now. Whoever made the log didn’t make it long enough.
 
Ben Wood – My bad. I thought it was.
 
Sam Michel – Need to make sure log is extra long so it doesn’t time out. Just control A and copy it twice. Make it way longer.
 
Debbie Wargo – I thought it looked long enough, too.
 
Ben – Do I need to drive down there and fix it?
 
Sam – I logged in from home and restarted it.
 
Debbie – Teamwork!
 
All of this satisfies me except for the last little bit in which Debbie Wargo uses an exclamation mark. As the three or four of you know from before, I don’t use exclamation marks. If what you’re saying isn’t exciting enough already, no amount of exclamation marks is gonna make it that way. I’ve asked Debbie to refrain from using exclamation marks in all instances. Texting is evidently outside of this parameter.
 
In any event, Debbie does have one thing spot on – there is a bit of teamwork and initiative being shown by Sam and Ben on this. And over the weekend, Christina Cortez came in and fixed up some studio stuff. And Ryan and Jimmy Mullaney drove with her three hours to broadcast a state final softball game.
 
All of this happened without my involvement. I do the morning show and do JED in the Money segments and once in a while sell some advertising. That’s my job. Their job is simple –
 
Figure it out.