My Midnight Radio Revelation

We use Weebly to build this and all of our websites. It's a pretty good program for people who don't know how to code. I have no idea where Weebly offices are located, but I get the feeling that it's not in the Eastern or Central time zones.

How do I know this? Because here in the tiny corner of Indiana that's in the Central timezone, it's 12:01am. But when I turn on Weebly to blog for the three or four of you, it still says it's yesterday. That means they do the time not by where you are, but by where Weebly's headquarters is. Boulder maybe? Or Silicon Valley? I don't know, but my best guess is that it's not Austin, Texas, which is on the same time as Hammond, Indiana, and it's probably not Boston either, which is an hour ahead of us. 

If this sounds like rambling to you, then just know that I've been away from live radio for a good nine days now and I'm going a little bit bat shit...

Going a little bit bat shit. That's what happens when I'm away from what forms me for too long. It happened that way with pit trading for 18 years. Once Alexis and I took the kids to Huatulco, Mexico, for what was supposed to be a 7-day Club Med vacation. But there was a huge snowstorm across the Midwest, so American Airlines couldn't send a plane for the Club Med customers until the 11th day. 

It was nice and all to get four extra days in paradise - free. The kids liked it well enough. They got to make a few extra ceramic figures poolside. But I just remember taking golf lessons at the driving range from some guy who wanted to change my swing. "It won't hold up in competition."

"Competition? I don't golf in competition. I trade. That's what I do. And if I could get out of this god-forsaken resort I'd do what I do." I abruptly handed him his seven iron and walked away. He didn't deserve me being rude, but he didn't have to laugh at my swing either. That's my first and last adult golf lesson. 

Trading, golf, radio, and even writing this blog. They have one thing in common - I do them best live. Follow me into the recording booth to cut a commercial or a promo. I'll do several takes and none sound right. But hand me the script live on the air and I'll most likely read it smoothly and with emphasis in the right spots. Cut it out of the live show and there's your commercial.

The same thing with trading. I really did try to study charts, make a trading plan, write down support and resistance points, do relaxation exercises, read the financial trades. But really the only thing that ever mattered was that at 7:20 the bell would sound and I'd start yelling with a few thousand other guys. We'd all be trading, not thinking about trading or practicing or charting trading. Just trading. 

Golf, too. Just golf. Just swing and hit the ball hard and then do it again until you're done. Golf, as we play it in America, isn't all that enjoyable. It's too slow and there's too much lining up putts and trying to figure out what club to hit and there's even too much concern over what you can and cannot wear on the course. That's why I JEDgolf. Grab one club and two golf balls and start playing. No practice swings. No thinking about golfing. Just golfing. 

Do the three or four of you spot a pattern? 

Trading. Golf. Radio. How about blogging? Here's a question you might ask - can you only do that live too?

Maybe. I've told you before about Grant Dunlap, the really old baseball coach at Occidental College when I was there. "Indiana," that's what he called me. "You may be perhaps the worst practice player I've ever had in my 50 years of coaching baseball. Why is that?"

I have no idea, Grant. But I wish I would have understood the implication of your question a lot sooner. I have not fully developed the ability to plan and then execute. I might be able to execute, but not necessarily in accordance with a plan. It's a tough way to go through business life, and it's even tougher to explain to people like a bank examiner or potential investor. But at least I've got the three or four of you blog readers to rely on. 

So the live blogging here is an extension of college baseball, where I could only hit a curve ball during games.  And trading, where I could only see the markets while they were markets, not coordinates on a chart. And radio, which if I can do it well at all it's only when the red "ON AIR" sign is lit. And golf, which I only like to do running between shots with one club in my hand. 

I don't know what any of this means, but it is a revelation of sorts after sitting around the house for nine days with a ton of people in and out and a nasty cold to boot. I'm trying like hell to come up with a long-term plan for our radio station. And I just can't do it. All that I can come up with is that I miss like holy hell doing the morning show, and announcing the games, and popping on the air throughout the day to just say something. It's all live, and that's what I miss right now about radio after nine days. I feel like warming up the car, driving down to the station and interrupting the overnight show to read next week's school lunch menus. It might not be riveting radio, but at least it's live. That, like it or not the three or four of you, is my first midnight radio revelation of 2016. Happy New Year.