Al's Blog-o-Sphere

Many of you that know me, know I am a Ham Radio operator. You probably remember me being very active in it and doing lots of weird things that probably made little sense to you, but were very interesting to me. You’ve seen big antennas at my home and lots of radio equipment. You think I do this stuff all the time.

Well, truth be told, I haven’t done much with it lately. It’s still there to be done, in fact there are new challenges in Ham Radio that I haven’t even scratched the surface of. But it’s taken a back seat to other things, other hobbies, for the past few years.

I do enjoy one thing every year and try to, once a year, take advantage of an event in Amateur Radio I’ve always enjoyed: Field Day. This year (and last) I went to Webster NY and joined with a bunch of friends in a county park where we set up and operated radio equipment for 24 hours in the exercise called Field Day. Continue Reading…

The return of the Lockport Molson Canal Concert Series is about a month away and the promoters released the schedule and lineup of entertainers on Wednesday.

As usual, there is a lot of fuss about the headliners, and has brought in a bunch of top-name acts that will undoubtedly have the square behind Ulrich City Center packed again. You’ve probably already heard the names and most of them were no surprise; they were almost all leaked/announced on the individual bands websites and show schedules.

But, unlike most of the local free summer concert series, they have also released the local or regional performers who will be opening for the headline acts. I think this is great as it gives the fans of the local bands some notice, give the bands themselves time to promote their appearance and in the end, brings even more people to the shows. Since the openers play first, this means more people get there early and probably stay longer which translates to more business for the vendors and surrounding businesses. It’s such a no-brainer, that I don’t understand why venues like Artpark and Thursday at the Square don’t put more emphasis on this.

So, let’s look at a few of the local bands: Continue Reading…

Actually said by a weatherman tonight on a local TV station:

If you are going to be out driving tonight, be careful because we haven’t seen rain like this in a couple of days and it could get slick.

Wait a minute. We should be extra careful because of the possibility of RAIN?!?! Because we haven’t seen rain in the looooong time of a couple days? How condescending and patronizing can the TV talking heads get? They must think we are like stupid Turkeys, standing in our front yards, looking upwards at this strange phenomenon, rain. We must have forgotten all about it because our short attention spans don’t go back a mere couple of days. They must warn us to close our mouths so that we don’t drown!

I don’t really think it’s a matter of some contempt for their viewers IQ. I think mostly, when you’re getting paid to fill time talking about something, sometimes they say anything as long as it sounds sort of related to the topic at hand.

I mean, come on, this is Western New York. We drive through blizzards before breakfast here. (And weathermen have a canary about it.) A little rain shouldn’t even be worth mentioning.

Scott Leffler has had a running topic on his radio talk shows on WECK and WLVL about the “Bird Wars.” They consisted of a lot of collected anecdotes to support the theory that birds, as a species, are at war with the species of man.

Conspiracy theory? Wacko talk? You might think so. I was unconvinced. Until today, when the birds turned their fury my way and made it personal.

On the way home from dropping my daughter off to school in Sanborn, and listening to Scott’s Dialog show on the radio (Coincidence? I think not.) one of them attacked my vehicle. Continue Reading…