Haulin’ Mud

I did some mud hauling this week – not in the truck – under it. I’ve been working for a while on a method of preventing dead air on the radio if something happens to our network or to our audio equipment. I’ve mentioned it before and said back on New Year’s Day that I had it working. But that was just some test audio, not the real thing. I didn’t know it, of course, but I was about to shoot myself in the foot. Early this week, I converted the music we want to use to mp3 and Peter made a “technical difficulty” announcement. I put them all on the thumb drive and made a play list. I was good to go, or so I thought.

So, what does that have to do with hauling mud under the truck? Well, I had to get the thumb drive to the transmitter site up on Dixon Hill. While many of you have been shivering and shoveling, we have been splishing and splashing. After two weeks of almost non-stop rain, the steep road to our transmitter site was very nearly impassible. Travis went along with me on Tuesday and I told him on the way up there that I hadn’t had that much fun going up the hill in a long time. Much of the way we were dragging bottom in the mud and were rarely pointed in the direction we were traveling as I kept if floored in 2nd gear in 4WD low range. Yee haw! We were flinging mud all over the place.

Then came a series of frustrations. First of all, I did something wrong in making the play list and it did not work at all. I finally got that sorted out and it worked great, but the music sounded terrible. I tried all sorts of things, but was not able to get it working properly. So Travis and I slithered our way back down the hill.

I went straight to my friend Mark Elwin to have his guys wash the truck. It was quite a mess. They guy who pressure washed the underside was thoroughly impressed. He said he didn’t think he’d ever seen that much mud under a vehicle. In fact, when I left, Mark thanked me, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, for bringing him all that dirt. Yesterday I found and fixed the problems with the mp3 files – or so I hoped – and took the thumb drive back up to try again. Praise the Lord! It finally works and is actually in service. Now, if we lose our network connection or any of our studio equipment fails, we will not have dead air. Dead air is the bane of all radio and television broadcasters. And, needless to say, the truck needed another good bath, so it got one today. Not that it will last long.

Next week will be a busy week. Sandi and Peter will be away, so I’ll be handling Sunrise Serenade every day and Mildred and I will share duties for Request and Dedication. I also have an urgent electrical project. We have not had enough light in front of the station building for a long time. Recently, a neighbor was robbed right in front of the station. As I understand it, it was after dark. Romel was still in the studios unaware that anything was going on. Someone was hiding in the entry to the station and robbed the neighbor man as he passed by. Due to some construction not related to the radio station, we do not have electricity to our front porch, so I need to get power and light to that area as soon as possible. I hope you will keep praying for safety here as the crime rate on the island is just exploding. Also pray for wisdom as we consider various options – none of them ideal – for increasing the security of the station and the homes here.

Now for some photos. Most of these are of the incredible surf we had on the other side of the island on Sunday. This should explain why the ferry was not operating. The other two pictures are of cruise ships. It’s rare to see three at once. Actually, that morning I saw four at once as I left the house. Two were at anchor in Coxen Hole, one was on it’s way into Coxen Hole, and the fourth was approaching the Carnival dock up in Dixon Cove. I believe we had five here all together that day, which is great for this struggling economy.

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