Drilling and screwing

Time is, once again, very short, and writing anything at all requires making a special effort. Quick summary of the week:

Last Friday evening was indifferent, although I exchanged a few music books with my mother, and promised that I'd have a look at a damaged CD to try to restore as much as I can. Don't know when I'll get time to do that though.

Saturday was better than last week. Quite uneventful really. Was duty manager at the radio station from 09:00 until 17:00, dashed home for some food, and then back to cover 21:00 to 00:00 with Dave, who invited me for a drink afterwards. Very welcome! Sadly it was gone 02:00 by the time I staggered into bed! And not before realisesing that in a phone call to Jason earlier in the day I'd mis-informed him as to who was playing at St Giles - I'd mis-read the rota.

So Sunday morning was used up playing the organ, and then I spent all afternoon in bed with a headache. What fun.

Can't say much about the week really... It's been desparately indifferent, despite the snow, which seems to start falling whenever I go outside. Had some trouble on Wednesday pressing all the wrong buttons, but I guess we all have off days.

What has been bugging me is this. They're illegal to use in the UK... so why sell them? How stupid.

And back out again...

Owing to being unhealthily busy, I've not had a change to write anything this week. I said last Friday that I hoped things would be ok... well as you might imagine, everything's been far from ok.

Friday night was a bit of a rush, getting to Grantham for 19:00 and doing a hospital radio programme. Decided to visit my parents on the way home to pick up Shelagh's birthday present and card.

Saturday morning was a nightmare. Not only was I woken up early to be ranted at by a radio presenter performing amature dramatics down the phone, I couldn't find a pre-recorded programme that was meant to go out at 11 until 11:15. Then the second CD for that programme refused to play, so I had a battle on my hands to keep something that made sense on air. I then drove the desk for the programme after that, having not had chance to eat! Thankfully, I didn't have to stay much longer than that.

Sunday was a complete rush of activity, playing the church organ for three services, and having my parents visit (which makes a pleasent change actually), while trying to work out why the radio station's broadband shoutcast stream had stopped working.

The week has been a blur of work 09:00 to 17:30, radio station 18:00 to 00:00, sleep 00:30 to 08:00, rinse, repeat. By last night I was pretty hacked off with not actually having time to do anything else... that and the fact the rest of the day had been pretty stressful.

I'm looking forward to having a holiday. Again.

In the groove

It seems things have settled out since Tuesday. I've worked out that I can catch an odd 20 minutes or so sleep during my lunch hour, and I've sort of settled out into a regular pattern in the evenings.

Not a lot to write about really, which doesn't really reflect how much I'm doing, working, broadcasting, updating the website... the list is long and quite tiring. Just looking forward to it all being over now so I can try to regain some of my life back. I'm seriously going to have to look into ways of distributing the number of jobs I have at the radio station out to some other people... things like web content, network management, maybe even some of the studio engineering.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little bit less stressed as I was... let's hope things hold up for a while.

And so it has begun

Simply couldn't write anything yesterday - not enough hours in the day, but I promised myself a few moments to write something today.

Friday night was, as predicted, long and hard (ooh err), and it was gone 03:30 by the time I'd finished all the wiring, UPS installation, MD installation, etc.

I spent most of Saturday morning in bed, but managed to make my way in to spend the afternoon fixing things on the web site, and sort out some finer production points.

By Sunday, I was pretty tired, but battled through 2 church services, before turning on the transmitter and then going for my usual drive up the A46 to Lincoln. It seems that the coverage is a bit better than last time, and conditions are nice and flat, which helps.

Yesterday was busy at work... not a lot else you can say to that really. I rushed home, and then rushed back off to the studio to eat something before going on air at 7. I managed to sort out what I was doing with the chart, discovered that the live reads for the evening competition were all wrong, and I threw together a random selection of music. I can't say it was some of my finest radio, but a few people said it was ok... I'm not convinced. I can do better than that.

The only problem now is that this morning was a bit of a battle to wake up... didn't expect to be this tired...

Nearly Switch-on Time

I'd like to say a lot has happened since Tuesday, but I don't think it has.

The UPS didn't arrive on Tuesday, and having chased the supplier, we found that their online ordering was a complete scam. Not only did they take the money straight away, their "express delivery" just didn't exist, their website wasn't intelligent enough to tell us the item was out of stock, and the information on the product was incorrect - apparently those units only supply at full load for 13 minutes, not 60. Maybe a nudge at trading standards would be a good idea.

Tuesday evening was spent in Lincoln doing the last of the teaching sessions for the 2E0 course I'm on, so I didn't get anything done really, just a few minor changes to the website - added a couple of presenters. At least Andy had managed to get the IEC plugs I needed (I hope they're the right ones, I haven't had time to check yet).

Wednesday was Tim's birthday, so we celebrated in style with lots of beer and kebab after I'd got back from Grantham. We'd knocked a few ideas about with the website, and Tim had been scratching his head over the ongoing network issues. By this time we'd changed our plans for the UPS. Also finalised how some of the station output will be managed.

Yesterday I spent the evening in Lincoln again, building a project for my 2E0, which took me just 2.5hrs to build - so now all I have to do is sit the exam on 16th March... pass it... and apply for a new license. I had considered going straight onto the M0, but the disruption all these courses cause is taking its toll, so I'll probably leave it for a while. Got back to Newark to find that we now have UPS units, but I was advised not to install them, and go get a good night's sleep.

Didn't feel like I had a good night's sleep this morning though - I still feel tired.

Losing lights

Friday night was designated "curry night" by the radio station management, in an attempt to break away from the stresses of the last few weeks. So after a couple of beers, we settled down for our meal. Just as we ordered our drinks it all went very dark. Ok, power cuts aren't that unusual, but then our phones started to ring with reports of a fire in the Slaughterhouse Lane area (near Morrisons). At this point, I gave Baz a nudge, who gathered some facts together, and drove down to see us. By this point, we'd phoned Lincs FM, and let them know what was going on. Power was restored after about 2 hours, we ate by candle light, and then went for further drinks. Got to give a meantion to Mark for giving me a lift home - I'd drunk rather more than I'd intended, and was glad of a free taxi.

I spent most of Saturday finishing the wiring, and playing with the compressor settings, which was going well until we were reduced to half power. This spurred us into buying some emergency lighted, and ordering 3 UPS units. Since we were buying, we also got a mic live light to put over the studio door.

On Sunday, after playing the organ at the congregational church (which I still really enjoy), I spent the rest of the day finally setting up the compressor how I want it, and noted the final settings. I'd initially got the knee a bit low at 12dB down, so I raised it to 8dB down, and the bottom end sounds so much brighter. I started to cable tie the back of the rack up propperly, and a little more permanently, but had to stop early for dinner, which was a birthday meal at Damons. I can't say it was one of my most enjoyable meals there - food good as ever, but the service was a bit sub-standard.

Monday was a bit of a dog of a day at work. It didn't matter what I tried, I couldn't get what I was working on to work. It sometimes goes like that, until I have an inspired moment, and it usually sorts itself out.

The evening was a bit of a mad rush. Met a new presenter called Tom for his second session at the mixer, so I showed him Jazler, and how we play adverts. I then did my fabled Ofcom presentation for the new presenters. At some point during the evening, Tim arrived from Loughborough. Shelagh and I had invited him over for a few quiet days, and to try to sort out the Boundary Sound network, that I haven't really got time to admin, and was begining to play up. So we finished the evening with beer and kebabs, having formulated, roughly, what was up with the network.

We failed to start webcasting yesterday because we hadn't confirmed the music licensing... something that I'll push to get done today, along with the UPS install and finish off cable tying the rack.