Life here is full of surprises. Every once in a while, the surprise is a really nice one. And we had a wonderful surprise. Peter and Sandi have friends in Michigan who have become our friends now, too. Blair Hindt works for an airline, so he has lots of opportunities for super cheap travel. He told Peter that he could come help us for a few days if we’d like. Peter asked me what I thought about it and I said, “WOW! That would be GREAT!” Or something like that. I’d been working lots of consecutive long days.

Blair got here Sunday and we hit the ground running on Monday morning. We put in some long hours and made lots of progress before he had to return to Michigan and the real world this afternoon. While Blair worked on improving security for the generator building, I finished making the super heavy duty screen door for the transmitter building. I also did some more reinforcing on the razor wire that I had patched last week. Peter spent quite a bit of time up there helping us and led the charge, with Blair’s help, in making a little shelter for our watchie. A “watchie” is island slang for a private guard. Yes, we have decided that we need to have a full time night guard. So Juan will be there every night, seven nights a week. I don’t think we have the money, but if we don’t do something like that, we’ll spend a whole lot more on repairs and replacements.

We wrapped up a couple projects yesterday which were very satisfying. Here’s a little video about our day. And you don’t have to watch it tiny. Click the “full screen” button there in the bottom right corner between “HD” and “Vimeo.” All the better to see the sparks and raindrops!

Click here to view the embedded video.

It was sure nice to get the day off today. Chores had been accumulating. In spite of the chores, I just had to take Mildred to lunch. It was absolutely pouring rain when we got there. But that didn’t stop the local kids from having fun on the beach. And it didn’t stop us from eating a wonderful lunch.

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If you’re wondering what’s going on with the HRGS Update, it’s because I’m temporarily (I hope) in a bit of a quandary. We are running out of server space and can’t just keep uploading multi-megabyte audio files. And going back to delete old ones is time consuming and may delete something someone wants to hear. So I’m looking for a site than can host them like Vimeo does for our videos and make it easy to pod cast for our friends who like to take advantage of that time saving technology. But everything I’ve found so far is cost prohibitive.

So, that’s it for today. We are hoping that the new security door for the transmitter building arrives by the end of this week. I need to get that put in so that the air conditioner and our electric bill can get a little rest. Blair got a good start on a security screen door for the generator building, so I suppose those will be my big chores next week. Thanks again for praying.

I had one of those moments this afternoon when I asked, “What are we even doing here?!” I’m afraid our nice stretch of “easy living” came to an abrupt halt today.

I drove up to the transmitter site this afternoon to investigate a problem on the AM and our part time guard met me on the road before I got all the way up there. He had lost my and Peter’s phone numbers and was sure eager to tell me something. His Spanish isn’t as easy to understand as Romel’s. Even so, I knew there was a problem, so we drove on up the rest of the way together.

Entry Point

First, he took me around to the back side of the compound where the razor wire was hanging down the wall. Someone got up there and cut it, which is pretty hard to do. Juan said he discovered it when he walked his circuit Thursday morning but didn’t know how to reach us. He had not tried climbing over the wall to investigate, so neither of us knew what we would find inside. I still figured everything was OK inside. The FM was on the air and sounded good. The AM was off but I was assuming a simple malfunction. When I unlocked the titanium padlock on the gates, I saw our catastrophe.

Demolished door

Whoever got over the wall had a sledge hammer or something. They just demolished our heavy duty security door on the transmitter building and it was standing open with parts laying on the ground. Juan was not around when it happened. We assume it was Wednesday night. Juan had been working full time for the cell company that owns the towers across the road but, since they haven’t paid him in three months, he wasn’t working there anymore. That meant he had to come from his house several times a day or night to our transmitter site to check on things. The guard who actually was across the road said he did not hear anything. That’s impossible unless he’s deaf. Someone beat on that door very hard for a very long time to inflict that damage.

Fixing razor wire bare handed. Yikes!

Inside, the place was pretty much ransacked. The first thing I saw was a big box on the floor that was supposed to have extra antenna cable in it. It was empty. My nice complete set of screwdrivers was gone. The video monitor for the AM computer had been shoved way out of place and all the cables were tangled up, but everything was still there for that system. The only things wrong were that the monitor only displayed one color and there was no audio from the computer or the control console. I didn’t know yet which was the problem. I had called Peter and when he arrived, he investigated that while I patched the breach in the razor wire. Not fun when you don’t have gloves with you! Peter found that the power cord to the control console was partly unplugged, so that got the AM back on the air. We’ll figure out the monitor later.

Gotta get a new door ASAP!

Then we started making short term plans. We got the door so it would close most of the way and not swing in the breeze. Juan said he would sleep there inside the compound tonight. Peter and I stopped on the way home and ordered 210 feet of 5/8″ rebar. I’ll use that to make the heaviest duty screen doors you ever saw for both buildings there. We’ll have to see if we can order a new security door tomorrow or Monday. Then we need to brainstorm ways to make the place even harder to get into.

All in all, even though this is a huge hit to the radio station finances and intensely discouraging for a while, I’m curious about one thing. Once they were in, they had all night to throw stuff over the wall with no one to stop them. So why did they leave? Clearly that was a God thing, but what did He do? Something else to try to remember to ask Him when I get to heaven. In the meantime, I’ll be doing lots of measuring, drilling, cutting, welding, painting and stuff like that. Peter said he can help much of the time, so that will definitely speed things up.

We have sure been enjoying this period of smooth sailing here at Radio HRGS. It’s been several weeks since I got everything patched up from all the lightning damage. Well, almost everything. The AM computer is still up at the transmitter site. That’s because we don’t yet have the $2,000 plus we’d need to replace the necessary equipment and get the computer back where it belongs. It forces some minor work-arounds, but we are managing.

I’ve been using the extra time to do lots of cleaning up and working on small projects that have been waiting for times like this. For example, we had four network cables that needed repair. One was in use, but only worked as long as you didn’t bump it. The others were all spares. They are all fixed now. I’ve done some work on having a stronger and more convenient wi-fi signal in the studios and office for when people come here from the home office with their laptops.

In my wandering and cleaning expeditions, I found that we again had termites in the shop. So I called in the exterminator. He spotted a huge nest on the other side of the fence behind the shop. I shot a little video when I wasn’t helping.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And I finished a secret project. It’s something that we will activate the first week of February. Peter and I talked a little about it when we recorded the HRGS Update yesterday. You can listen to that by clicking the player at the bottom of this post.

So, part of the reason I’ve gone so long without writing anything is that there wasn’t all that much to say. The other is that the hard drive on my computer was going bad and it took me a while to get things together to replace it. It turns out that replacing an iMac hard drive isn’t as hard as the web sites make it sound, as long as you follow the directions. But getting the fans under control with the new hard drive is another matter. I’ve learned that, in order to know the exact temperature of the hard drive, rather than ask the drive its temperature through the data cable, Apple installs special firmware in the drive at the factory so the system can ask the drive its temperature via an additional cable without interrupting the flow of data. I’ve been reading the biography of Steve Jobs and I guess this is part of his obsession with perfection no matter the cost. Without that firmware in the new drive, the fan runs wild. I finally found a software solution so I don’t have to buy a super expensive hard drive from Apple. The payoff is a computer that looks like it should last forever, as long as you can keep the non-Apple made parts running. By the way, ever seen the guts of an iMac? Here you go.

27' iMac innards

This is pretty much what December looked like, but now that we've had several sunny days I finally got to mow.

We’ve had pretty smooth sailing here lately. Maybe after those two big lightning hits last fall, anything seems like smooth sailing. As a result, we’ve been able to press on with accomplishing some of our dreams here at Radio HRGS. I even managed to mow the yard, but it wasn’t quite dry enough to get one little spot. More about that in the Audio Update at the bottom of the post. And I’ll tell you all about our new Facebook page in a little bit. First, let’s get caught up on other stuff.

The new phone system is virtually done. I still need to get a line out to the audio shop so we can talk from there. The intercom feature will really come in handy sometimes. Mildred and Peter now each have their own phones in the office right where they want them. I got that part done today. The new phones look and sound way better than the old ones.

We now have Sunrise Serenade on the AM channel again. In the “old days” we used to air exactly the same thing on AM and FM. When we made the change to having Spanish on one channel and English on the other, we effectively doubled our available hours for programs and music, but we also made it so that our AM listeners were hearing Spanish programming in the early morning when we air Sunrise Serenade. Many people said they missed it, especially the people out on the Utila Cays who depended on our morning weather forecast before heading out in their boats. This Monday we finally managed to get Sunrise Serenade onto the AM. It’s prerecorded and we have to get to the studio a little earlier to get the weather forecast recorded and put in place, but we think it’s worth it.

And then there is Facebook. Radio HRGS has finally entered the 21st century and we are on Facebook. You’ll find our English page right here. If you like Spanish better, you can see what Romel Hernandez is up to right here. If, after listening to the HRGS Update (below), you want to see those videos Peter & I were talking about, you should be able to find them on the English Facebook page. We have questions for our listeners as well as links to YouTube videos of some of our music so you can see the artists as well as hear them. It’s a work in progress and we’ll be adding things as time and the creative juices allow.

A while ago, I’d said we were working on a surprise for our listeners. We were talking about putting Sunrise Serenade onto the AM, of course. Now we are talking about another surprise that I think lots of people will like. But I can’t tell you what it is till I know if we can actually accomplish it. That’s my next project. I can’t say what it is, but it involves making some cables and setting up a computer to use them. That’s all I’ll say for now. You’re welcome to try to guess what it is for now. Anyone who gets it right gets a free trip to the beach here on Roatán. But not a free trip TO Roatán.

I don’t think I’ll write much today. It’s our anniversary. We went to Gio’s for lunch. If you’re not familiar with them (and you probably are not, since they are local), they are arguably the most high falutin’ eatery on the island. We’ve eaten a couple times at their restaurant up in French Harbor. They recently added a new location, just a mile down the road in Flowers Bay. So Mildred and I walked down there and spent a pile of money on a really special dining experience. I wish I could share the flavors. The best I can do is share some pictures. As usual, I’ve tossed in our HRGS Audio Update at the bottom of the post.

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