Gobler Mercantile Company

Gobler Mercantile CompanyMy make-over of “KBOA: The Early Years” is far from complete. But I had to share a snippet from one of the pages. A Tribute to a Country Store was written (and self-published) by Virginia B. Branch. It’s probably the only history of this small country store that got big. Not Wal-Mart big but something of a phenomenon where I grew up. Here’s the paragraph that caught my eye:

“About 1952 television had come to Gobler and each night, out back on the porch of the furniture department, one of these new inventions was displayed for benefit of the general public. It was here that most of Gobler’s citizens saw their first TV. A good-sized crowd was on hand every night. There was only one channel at the time so no disagreements could arise as to program choices.”

And now it’s Tivo, iPods, AppleTV and all the rest. From one channel… to thousands.

Gnomedex 2007

This year’s Gnomedex is billed as "The Blogosphere’s Conference." Speakers include: Guy Kawasaki, Cali Lewis, one of the JibJab guys, Justin Kan (Justin.tv), Jason Calcanis, and others. If you don’t recognize these names, it’s unlikely you’d enjoy the conference. But I look forward to it all year. This is my Indy 500/Super Bowl/World Series, minus the crowds (It’s a small conference, limited to about 300 attendees.)

For the first four or five years of the conference, I took vacation and paid my own expenses. But the Enlightened Management of Learfield now sees the value of this conference, so it’s work related and reimbursed.

Oooh, look! Goosebumps!

iPhone Confessions: George Kopp (Week One)

George is a serious Techno Boy. He has a geek job with the state for his day job (all Windows) and moonlights on Macs (and some PC’s) for love (and a little money).

George knew he’d eventually own an iPhone but thought he could wait awhile. He made the mistake of stopping by the AT&T store (Day Two) for a look-see and wound up springing for the 8 gig model.

George’s love-of-all-things-Mac is tempered by his no-bullshit-geek-o-rocity. By that I mean, he expects much from his techno-toys. But once he got the iPhone in his sweaty little hands, it was prom night. I got caught up in that as we talked and had to edit our chat more than I intended. Sorry, George.

Listen/Download: 5:30 MP3

iPhone goes on sale: Curly Howard alive and well!

Curly Lives!The local media were on hand for the Big iPhone Event yesterday. I was stunned to learn that one of my childhood idols, Curly Howard, is not only alive… but working as a videographer for one of our local TV stations. AgWired’s Chuck Zimmerman did a touch-and-go and took this photo (which I consider very flattering).

I’m embarrassed that I didn’t introduce myself, but I did watch the voice-over package that aired on the 10 o’clock news. About 40 seconds.

There was a photographer from the local newspaper on hand. A rather stern looking woman who didn’t seem to be having any fun. Her paper ran the iPhone story on page one (above the fold) this morning. With a couple of her photos.

All of which reminds me of the wonderful freedom of blogging. I can post what I want (video, stills), when I want, with no pesky editors looking over my shoulder. I wouldn’t suggest for a second that my amateur efforts are on par with these pros. I would argue that I had more fun than they did and maybe some of that comes through in my posts.

And one more thing. The video that aired on the local TV station and the front page newspaper story –unless posted to their websites– is gone forever. With any luck, in a month or two, a Google search for “iPhone+jefferson city” will get you to smays.com.

“Do you know who I am?”

The woman smiled, waiting patiently. My mind is frantically processing data, running through thousands of images and names. I bullshit for time…

"Hey, I almost didn’t recognize you! Man, how long has it been?"

But people can always tell.

"You have no idea who I am, do you?"

(Click!)

"Debbie! Debbie Elting!"

Debbie and I attended Southeast Missouri State University in the late 60’s. Worked on college plays together, partied together. Haven’t seen each other in 30 years. Turns out we’ve been going to the same dentist all these years. She drives down to Cape from St. Louis, I drive down from Jefferson City. The staff thought it would be nice to arrange a surprise reunion and scheduled our check-up’s on the same day.

The next time a woman I don’t recognize asks, "Do you know who I am?, I’m going to say –without hesitation– "You’re Jennifer Anniston. What are you doing here?"

Cueing records

I love this photograph of my father. It was taken in the control room (Studio A) of KBOA in Kennett, Missouri, probably around 1950.

Anyone that has ever “cued” a record recognizes that sense of touch and the delicate balance of the heavy tone-arm on the oh-so-easy-to-scratch record.

A skill (if you could call it that) that hasn’t been needed for many years. I’m glad I didn’t miss those final years of high-touch, hands-on radio.

We had one of the early automation systems (for our FM station) but it felt like telling someone how to make love to your girl friend.

And the thrill of having the program director walk into the studio while you were on the air and put the hot new single into “current” box. Is it as much fun to see the new single come into the rotation on a computer monitor?

Before I get carried away, allow me to say –for the record– I don’t miss using a grease pencil and splicing blog to edit tape. If I had to choose, I’d be th digital boy I have become.

23 Year Pin

My first official day at Learfield Communications was June 4, 1984. I’ve posted on enough anniversaries that I don’t have anything fresh to add, but didn’t want the day to slip by without note.

Learfield PinA surprising number of people who were there on my first day are still with the company: Clyde, Roger, Charlie, Bob Priddy, Derry (no longer technically part of Learfield but always in my head and my heart), Greg, Clarice, Joyce… who am I missing?

The company has grown so rapidly in recent years, it bears little resemblance to the company I started with. But that is as it should be. Like that old Saturday Night Live bit… “Learfield has been berry, berry good to me.”

“We’re hearing that a lot.”

The following telephone conversation took place earlier today:

Caller: “Hi, this is Kevin with Dell and I’m calling about your Dell Dimension 100. Your three year warranty expries this month and I’m calling to see if you’d like to renew… and tell you about some of our special offers.”

smays: “Uh, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Kevin.”

Caller: “You’ve switched to Mac.”

smays: (surprised) “Yeah, I have. Uh, how’d you know?”

Caller: “People always say, ‘We’ve got bad news…’ just before they tell us they’ve switched.”

Back to Niketown

Nike'sExcept they don’t call it Niketown anymore. It’s now “NIKE iD” but you can still design your own sneakers. I still get compliments on the kicks I designed a couple of years ago but, every now and again someone will ask “…but why’d you get the old person style?”

So I tried for a little more “street” this time around. I’m gonna strap these babies on with my Tactical 5.11’s, buy me a case of Krylon and go nuts.

The Basement Diaries back online

I still have several hours of work to resurrect The Basement Diaries, but have the site back online (5 min slideshow: Basement Diaries . It has been something of a nostalgic deep dive in that I created the site in 1998 (almost ten years ago) about events that took place in 1968 (almost 40 years ago).

Most of the work involved rescanning images. We had really crappy cameras in those days and I did little to optimize the scanned images back in ’98. So I rescanned about 100 photos, but this time I parked them on flickr. I still have a good bit of caption’ing and tagging to do. Basement Diaries alums might enjoy the slideshow of our Halloween party pix.

This rehab has moved me a little closer to my goal of 1,000 images on flickr. A target I’l easily reach when I get around to KBOA830.com.