Houston, We Have a Problem

Trey Smith

For the past 4 years or so, my life has centered around this blog. Rarely would more than a few hours go by that I didn't check-in. I wrote loads and, even when I wasn't writing as much, I was busy formatting Scott's posts -- sometimes Ta-Wan's too -- as well as making sure the various ongoing series were kept up to date and on time.

As I'm sure regular readers have noticed, I have fallen down on the job big time in the last week or so. It seems that my new duties -- I have become the de facto News Director -- at KOSW-LP, 93.1FM are taking up most of my time. Before I joined this all-volunteer community radio station, very little emphasis was placed on providing news, weather and sports. To my way of thinking, providing valuable and timely information should be one of the number one goals of community radio and, since no one else was serving in this capacity (aside from the "morning guy"), I have stepped into the breach to fill this role.

As it currently stands, I go to the radio station a minimum of two times per day -- most days it's three or more times -- to record weather updates that play at the top of most hours. I also contribute a taped 10-15 minute newscast that plays three or four times each morning on the weekends and at least twice each weekday. I'm also working on learning the software program that we utilize to record all of the station's promotional announcements with the idea of taking over this function so that the fellow who has been doing it [reluctantly] can concentrate on what he really wants to do: programing.

If this weren't enough, I am giving strong consideration to hosting a weekend 10:00 pm - 12:00 am left-wing political news and talk show. Ya know, something right up my alley!

With all this going on, I simply haven't had the time to pay much attention to this blog...or even check my email in the past 3 days!

So, what does all this mean? Will I -- like countless people before me -- simply shutdown the blog and move forward to the next chapter of my life? Ultimately, that COULD be the answer. However, I'm not ready to make such a drastic move. There is an ebb and flow to each of our lives and I may end up flowing back this direction...or I may not. Time will tell.

I will make a few changes though. Scott has been writing up a storm lately of his usual fare of interesting and insightful posts. I will move his posts into the 9:45 am slot. If I have any observations to post, they most likely will go in the 6:30 pm time slot. I will try to keep the Golden Flower, Bit by Bit and Afternoon Matinee series going each day (though I'm already a few days behind) and will feature the Morning News a bit less often.

And then we will see how all this pans out.