This month's calendar Archives
October 22, 2004
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
Just a quick update this week as I am babysitting my youngest grandchild, Jadyn and she wants to help me!
We went back into town on Saturday as we had a Blazer game and I had to engineer the visiting team, the Charlotte Bobcats. The preseason is always so hectic. Everyone is trying to get back into the routine - and that includes me. This was my first game of this season and I had almost forgot how to set up the equipment. But, like riding a bicycle, it all came back to me. The Charlotte Bobcats are a new expansion team so it was all new people to work with and as it turned out, even the announcer was substituting for the regular guy. I keep a record of each team that I work with so that I know how they want it set up the next time. Everyone wants something different and I found that writing down some notes helps when they come back to town for the next game. Anyway, it was a bit loose and no one seemed like they knew what they were doing. But, they did thank me very much at the end as I kept them on the air, which is my job! Below is a speech I wrote for Toastmasters on "My NBA Career", if you really want to know what I do.
Since we got most of our errands run on Saturday, Dave and I had most of Sunday to relax. Lara, Greg and Jadyn had gone up to Ketchum to winterize the cabin so we didn't have much to hang around for. We ate breakfast at our favorite hangout, the Reedville Cafe, where the waiter proceeded to give me a shower with the glass of water he spilled at our table, but other than that it wasn't too exciting. It sure woke me up!! After breakfast, we grabbed a "u-bake" pizza for later on and we headed back to the coast.
It rained really hard Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday. I have never seen the island almost covered before. These two pictures show what it normally looks like and what it is like at high tide. Next month, the tides will be a foot higher, so hopefully we can get a picture of it completely covered at that time. Since we couldn't do much outside, we managed to putty up the nail holes on the door and window casings in the new office and I finished them off with a fresh coat of paint. Dave got the switch and plug plates on, so all we are doing now is waiting for the cabinets and wall bed to arrive. We will pick them up next week.
Let's see...what else. In Oregon, we vote my mail so, since it was raining, I did my civic duty!
Wednesday was Lara's birthday and we babysat Jadyn while Lara and Greg got away for the evening and stayed at Cannon Beach for the night. We had a lot of fun babysitting. We took her up town in her stroller to show her off to all our friends and then that night, giving her a bath was a lot of fun. She got her jammies on and went right to sleep when I put her down. But she did wake up around 3:30 a.m. and spent the rest of the right in our bed. Lara and Greg came back on Thursday and went crabbing while I made a chocolate cake and fixed dinner to celebrate her birthday. They spent Thursday night with us and we will all go back to Portland on Friday. Dave has races to announce (provided it doesn't rain) on Friday and Saturday night.
Below is the speech I wrote on my NBA career:
Standby, you're on the air! Today, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take you behind the scenes on the setup of a radio broadcast of a sporting event. I have been doing broadcast engineering for the past 25 years for the visiting radio of the NBA when teams come to Portland to play the Portland Trail Blazers, as well as the Portland Fire, Timbers Soccer or even college games.
There is a lot of preparation to getting the broadcast on the air. First of all, I arrive at the arena hours beforehand to start pulling cable and setting up equipment so that when the play-by-play announcer sits down to do the game, every thing will go smoothly.
When I first starting do this in 1976, it was a lot more complicated than it is today. Back then we used the telephone "voice coupler" to send the broadcast back to the visiting teams hometown. I had to call the studio just before the pre-game show to set up the line, sending a "tone" to get the proper audio level, go over the script, making sure how long each commercial was and making sure to give the station ID at the top of each hour. Each commercial and station ID had to be timed by a stopwatch. I had to make sure the crowd noise and the announcers voice were level. I had to playback a taped interview. Many, many things to make sure all went smooth.
Today, it is much easier. I still have to run cables and make sure my equipment is set up properly. Today we have effects and PA. Effects means you can hear the basketball go swoosh in the basket, the sound of the player's shoes on the floor and the referee blowing his whistle. PA means the public address system, the announcing of the team members before the game and even the National Anthem. Today, the game is transmitted by what we call the ISDN line, which is a digital transmission of the game. This is a hard line telephone system that is especially clear for broadcasts. Not only do I send the broadcast to the studio but I receive the studio program back into my ear, so I can speak directly to the engineer back at the studio and hear all the commercials. No more stopwatch! In most cases I even record the game so that the announcer can play audio highlights after the game is over. However, even though through modern technology my job is easier, I still have to mix the crowd and the effects with the announcer's play-by-play and make it all sound good.
I have been asked many times what I like most and what I like least about my job. What I like most is the excitement of the game and being able to sit right at courtside where all the action is. The interviews with the different players and even some of the announcers can be fun. The thing I like least about my job is when something goes wrong, a "hum" in the line, a recording that doesn't function. The possibility of a player landing on my lap while trying to retrieve a ball isn't at the top of my list either. And, yes...it has happened...several times!
That's it. That's what I do!!
GIVE ME A BREAK!!
It's about drivers again. Dave and I were coming in from the coast last week and were in the usual line of traffic that we get on Highway 26. Let me say, the highway has a lot of passing lanes on it so if you do get stuck behind someone that is slow, you don't have to wait very long until you can pass them. Anyway, we were driving along about 65 mph and this car behind us was really tailgating us. When we came to a passing lane, Dave pulled over so she could get by and then she was busy tailgating someone else. This went on for a while and then she decides to pass this car on the right in a turn out lane, flipping them the "bird" as she sailed by. Once she got by and there was another passing lane, she decides to agitate the car she had flipped off by driving real slow in the passing lane! We finally had seen enough and I wrote down her car license and we called 911. We never did see the police pull her over but at least we felt that we had done our civic duty. And you know what? She didn't get there any faster than we did!
Woops! I'm hearing a knock on the door. I guess I'd better get back to being a grandma!
