Showing posts with label radio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radio. Show all posts

Monday, November 5, 2007

Day 257 - 11/04/2007

As I expected, the kids were up early and ignored the extra hour. I thought this over, though, and set their clocks back after they went to bed and told them they couldn't get out of their rooms until 830a (EST). This worked for M, but not for N. He was in our room at 730a. Oh well. D got out of bed and tried to keep him occupied downstairs, but it wasn't to be; I couldn't fall back asleep so I got up and joined the living.

I called over to mom's house to check on Rudy and was happy to hear he was home from the hospital. The long term prognosis hasn't changed, but at least he's at home vs. the hospital. After putting together N's bed, we went over for a visit and were glad to see his color has improved since last week, as were his spirits.

While there, we enjoyed an impromptu dinner with Cheryl, Nina and Vince while M and N enjoyed a visit with Sarah. We weren't planning on staying for dinner, but it turned out there was enough for everyone. After dinner we had to head back home. The kids finished watching whatever Brady Bunch episode they watched on the way over (or was it another one?) and I got to listen to my Sunday night radio shows; tonight was an old Dragnet episode. D doesn't seem to appreciate old time radio as much as I do (I do agree with her in that some of the Dragnet dialog is just hokey), but puts up with it because...well, I'm not really sure, but maybe it has something to do with it only being on once a week.

After we got home, we washed the kids up and sent them off to bed. N is in his new bed tonight and M is all kinds of jealous. She wishes she had a loft, but she's got the big room (and the big bed), there's no reason she needs a loft. I told her she could get one in college, but I don't think she wants to wait another 10 years. Oh well, life's tough like that.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Day 173 - 08/12/2007

We took the kids down to Fredericksburg today to spend a few days at Camp Nanny and PopPop. They (both the kids and Nanny and PopPop) have been asking about when we could arrange such a trip so we put it on the calender. D will pick them up on Wednesday.

On the way down, we stopped by Stephen and Stacey's to meet Evan. D and the kids had seen him when he was just a newborn, but I hadn't seen him yet. I can't imagine how little he must've been six weeks ago, because he's still a little thing. I guess that's what being four weeks early will do for you. We spent some time visiting with them before heading over to D's folks to drop the kids off.

Traffic on 95 was terrible, so we enlisted the services of Claire (remember Claire?) to avoid the traffic. However, in doing so, I forgot to change the setting from "least distance" to "fastest time" and we paid for it. I don't think we got home any faster, but we sure did discover some back roads of Stafford and Prince Williams counties on the way back home. (According to Google Maps, it should have taken us about 2 hours to go this route; in the end, it took about 90 minutes or so.) After looking at the map, there were a few places where I should have turned to hook up with 28, but kept on going with Claire.

At least D humored me and let me listen to part of the Big Broadcast on 88.5 WAMU. We were out of range for most of the previous show, but at 730p, we were close enough to not have too much static and were able to listen to Dragnet in its entirety.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Day 57 - 04/18/2007

Katrina and Brook Haven.

Winner! Winner! Chicken dinner! And thus my career at winning radio contests continues. Today it was a pair of ticket's to tonight's Nat's game, plus 20k points in the Washington Post Reader Rewards program (whatever that is). Sweet.

I planned on picking up the tickets from the station at lunch (WJFK's studios are down the road in Fairfax) and had to find someone to go with. Before I could get a response, the station called to confirm my address. After confirming, I asked Meghan (the station rep) whether there were two or four tickets.

"Two tickets," she said, but then asked "Do you want four?"

"Sure."

"They'll be ready for you when you swing by, plus a parking pass."

After returning to the office, I checked the seat locations (1st base side, behind the dugout, about 20 rows from the field) and called D with the news. We made plans to leave the house at 5p. M had been to an O's game when she was five, but didn't really remember it; N hadn't been to one at all. Both of them were pretty excited about the prospect of going to a professional baseball game, and I was excited about going as a family. (Typically I'll go w/ colleagues as weeknight games can be pretty late.)

Traffic was normal on the way down to RFK. It took just about an hour, with us hitting the normal backups at West Falls Church and getting across the 14th Street Bridge. Once we got in the parking lot, we scoped out a spot in Lot 8 and set up our seats to get a little tailgating in before heading into the stadium. Both M and N were excited about the prospect of filling their bellies with snacks, both in the parking lot and inside the stadium. D was more concerned about staying warm (as was I -- I should have dressed warmer, but didn't think about the wind near the river being as bad as it was). Fortunately, once we got in the stadium, the wind died down and we were a little more comfortable.

We headed into the stadium in time to get to our seats, where we witnessed the National Anthem and the ceremonial first pitch (I can't recall whether I had ever done that before). Barbara Harrison was there w/ Joe (that's it, just Joe) as part of her Wednesday's Child series. He actually tossed out a pretty good pitch.

We stayed long enough to see the Nat's get a three run lead, but had to leave early in order to get the kids to bed at a reasonable time. (The Nat's ended up winning in 13 innings, so it was a good thing that we did, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten home until past midnight.) M has testing this week, so we didn't want her getting to bed too late (and N would have fallen asleep on D's lap had he laid his head down long enough). Before we left, though, we had our share of good times. Screech (the Nat's mascot) came around and we were able to snap a pic of him w/ the kids. He gave free pizzas to four guys behind us and in the hoopla surrounding that, we got our mugs on the jumbotron. As a bonus for those of us in the surrounding area, we received coupons for a free pie from Papa John's. The winning just didn't stop!

Overall, we all had a great time (except for having to leave early). Hopefully the next time will be a day game so that we can stay for the whole game, even if it goes into extra innings.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Day 47 - 04/08/2007

Happy Easter!

We went to 9a Mass and after we got home, packed up the car and headed down to Fred for Easter Dinner at D's parents house. We drove separately since I had to work this week, so D and the kids went in the van and I drove by myself in the Altima. Since Lent was over, I was able to enjoy my hillbilly music shows that air on 88.5 on Sundays. As much as I like to listen to these shows on Sunday's, I don't always get my way. This time, I had over an hour of it. Oh Joy!

Dinner was excellent, as usual. Nancy made a ham, green beans and potatoes and sweet potatoes and Stacey brought cranberry stuff (her name, not mine). It would be great with a big ol' scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, especially if the cranberry stuff was as warm as it was at the dinner table. It was a medley of cranberries, apples and raisins topped with oats and then baked to perfections. It was good! For dessert I stuck with coffee. D and the kids made the Bunny Cake again this year, but seeing as I'm not a big fan of chocolate cake, I decided to pass. Anyway, I was too stuffed from my two plates full of food to want to eat anything else.

On the way home, 95 was moving along until just before the exit for 17. I decided not to take any chances and got on the exit ramp. It was a good thing I did as further up, I could see traffic stopped and three emergency vehicles driving up the shoulder of the highway. It was at that moment that I decided I would go 17 to 28 and in order to avoid Gainesville, but I would cut off of 17 on a back road that Stephen told me about that would put me on 28 just north of Catlett. I called him up for directions and was able to make good time until I got behind a couple of cars travelling just below the speed limit. It wouldn't have been so bad had the car directly in front of me not been a truck. If it were a small car, at least I could see around it, but it was a pickup truck with stuff in the back. The first chance I had, I passed both of them and was again the only car on the road.

The ride home on the back country roads was made better with what was on the radio. Sunday nights on 88.5 are filled with old time radio shows; tonight they had Jack Benny's Easter Parade, Gunsmoke and Dragnet. It made the trip much more enjoyable as it reminded me of what radio must have been like back when it was the main form of entertainment for the masses. It's interesting to listen as it gives you a sense of what was acceptable back then and how much society has changed over the years.

I got home in just over an hour and Butterfly was glad to see me. I fed her, turned on the TV and settled in to watch some Sopranos. No, it wasn't the season premiere of the 8th (and final) season, it was an episode from season two that had been Tivo'd. We don't subscribe to HBO, so the 8th season will have to wait a few years. That's alright, it'll wait.