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April 18, 2008
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
We started our weekend by returning to Portland to set up the broadcast for the Blazer game that evening. We came in early, as there was a function in the Rose Garden that started at noon and we wanted to get our equipment set up and tested before that started. After getting everything together, we decided to catch the "Max" and kill a few hours at Lloyd Center. It was such a beautiful day and it felt good to see the sun shine with all the cold weather we have been having. After shopping around the mall, Dave and I had lunch at this fifties place called Billie Heartbeat's where they served old-fashioned hamburgers and fries (but not at old-fashioned prices) with a juke box playing the oldies of our time. I told Dave that when we reach the "assisted living" era of our lives, that this is the kind of music that I want to be hearing. He told me that they would probably have to have a resident chiropractor to take care of all of those still trying to do "The Twist".
We came home after the game as the kids were still out of town and we wanted to be home early as we had tickets for the play that the Riverbend players were performing "Thurber's Carnival". It was a funny production with Thurber's sense of humor. Dave had produced video part of an act called "The Last Flower" so he was technically in it. There were several skits in the production, including Thurber's famous "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". Dave had seen several of the rehearsals and had his doubts about the quality of the performance on opening weekend, but they did very well and we enjoyed it.
We had stalled long enough and finally paid our overdue taxes on Monday. Well, not really overdue, but if we had done things right we would have paid them as quarterly taxes last year. Due to a miscalculation, we thought we were okay not paying quarterlies, but boy were we wrong! So on Monday, we had to pay what we owed for 2007 as well as starting our quarterly payments for 2008. Now we are really broke! But at least we had enough money to pay them. Barely. Next year I hope we come out better with that.
We had one more game on Tuesday and so we headed back into Portland. This was my last game as I am officially retiring. Dave has lined up another associate of ours that has worked some of the games for us in the past and he was more than happy to get the extra work. After thirty years of doing the radio broadcast engineering for the visiting teams when they played in Portland, it will seem strange come next season to not be a part of it anymore. I can remember when I first started and all the work that goes on before the broadcast, arriving at the arena hours beforehand to start pulling cables and then setting up your equipment so that when the play-by-play announcer sits down to do the game, everything is ready for him and hopefully the broadcast will go smoothly. When I first started doing this in 1977, it was a lot more complicated than it is today. Back then we used the telephone and satellite to send the broadcast back to the visiting team's hometown. Now, all you do is call the station and they dial into a special ISDN line and mix the sounds. We didn't have floor effects or PA to worry about back then. Today everyone wants to hear the basketball go swoosh in the basket, the sound of the player's shoes on the floor and the referee blowing his whistle. It has been exciting and I have enjoyed working with so many talented people and meeting some famous people like Walt Fraser, Bill Walton, Shaquille O'Neal, Magic Johnson, Clyde Drexler, just to name a few. I will always be a basketball fan. Included are some pictures that were taken of some of my favorite people that I will miss while working at the Rose Garden. People like Bruce Williams, "The Captain" - Rich Patterson, Bryan Buckwalter, TV director Chris McMurtry, legendary Blazer broadcaster Bill Schonely and our good friend Lori Spencer and of course "Blaze" the team mascot!
We will be heading back into Portland today as my sister Jeanne and her husband Bob will be flying in for the weekend from Phoenix. They are going to be in for a big surprise as far as the weather goes. Coming from Phoenix where the weather has been in the nineties to Portland where we have had a very cold spring with weather in the forties with snow in the forecast! Snow in mid-April is unusual even for us. Anyway, we will be getting together on Saturday for a birthday luncheon for my other sister and a short visit. They will be leaving on Monday to go back to Phoenix. I wish I was going with them! I'm sooooo ready for warm weather!
