Before the Old Time Show

I'm about hittin the end of my first week here in Monroe County, and it's pretty crazy looking towards the next year down here.

The biggest thing is that I found out yesterday that Karie is gonna be leaving the station in a coupla weeks. This puts a big strain on what I want to do down here, unless we can get another VISTA, but even then, it puts a strain on it. I mean, Karie didn't seem like she was all into grassroots community accessible journalism, she seemed like she was into keeping the station running more than values. This puts the responsibility of keeping the station running on my and Mark Blevins (full time teacher though) shoulders, leaving less time to go to community meetings and get the word out about the station. This leaves less time for me to collect oral histories to air and less time to go to old time shows and get someone who would want to put on a music radio show. There'll be more of a focus on the bare bones, lets get the job done issues.

We've got to find another VISTA, hopefully one who's got a relatively radical analysis or one who's into grassroots journalism. We'll see though, the big thing we need is somebody.

So far, my schedule has gone like this...

Sunday : Packed & moved in with the help of Tominda and Dad
Monday : Went up to Alderson and got a few things for moving in and Tominda & Dad left
Tuesday : Drove up to the High Rocks Academy and met with other activists & VISTAs for a workshop called "So You Want to Change the World"
Wednesday : First day at the station, met with Mark Blevins & got trained in the sound board, Cool Edit Pro (for editing recordings), and generally how to run the equipment. Recorded the weather report that was aired on the hour every hour...first time on the radio, pretty damn cool. Met with Tabitha Young of the Monroe County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition for a bit about their efforts.
Thursday: Second Day at the station, met with Mark Blevins again & got trained in how to use Raduga (program for playing music, kinda like Napster & Itunes). Learned that Karie is going to be leaving. Went to a meeting of the Monroe County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition and wrote a story on it that will be aired soon before a public forum they're organizing on underage drinking.

So, this is coming along, it wasn't too hard once I got out there and went to a meeting. I'll be allright in this, even without knowing jack shit about being a reporter. Trial by fire is what they call it I guess.

It was odd seeing Vicki, my landlord, come out to the Monroe County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition's meeting, surprising. We hung out a bit last night, that was pretty cool.

Watched the sunset from the roof of my house a coupla nights ago, that was badass. It was plenty damn peaceful and beautiful, I saw the sun actually moving, that was a shock. Going down between the mountains rocked the shit outta seeing it go down between a coupla buildings.

I'm not having as hard a time as I feared in missing Tominda and my family, I mean I of course miss the hell out of them and am looking to go back to Jefferson County at least once a month to see them and am really looking forward to seeing them. But, it's not an impediment to anything here, it's not debilitating like I had feared. It is an awfully big place to be alone though.

So, yeah, I'm going to a old-time music festival here after I hit up a coupla yard sales and get some lunch.

Over and out.