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It practically gallops!

Bedtime Stories

Because I choose to stay up late to do improv on Tuesday nights, I take a nap almost every weekday afternoon. I’m not talking about a catnap on the couch or in my recliner. I crawl under the covers and go to bed. Lately I have been listening to podcasts as I drift off to sleep. With two bedtimes a day, I have had the opportunity to try several different shows. I used Reciva.com to add more podcasts to the folder on my WiFi clock radio.

After seeing Fr. Christian Mathis at the Java TweetUp on Monday, I made a point of listening to his most recent podcast with Jim Wogan. In it, they quoted one of the priest’s former professors who compared the seven deadly sins to the castaways on “Gilligan’s Island.” Let’s see how many I can recall. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Gilligan was sloth, the Skipper was gluttony. The millionaire and his wife were greed and pride. The movie star was lust and the professor and Mary Ann were wrath and envy. Like Fr. Christian, I don’t get how the professor represents anger except that all the other sins were already taken.

On Thursday afternoon, I listened to a good chunk of the Kevin & Bean podcast from Tuesday. Their guest was Chris Hardwick of Web Soup. He promoted his own podcast on Nerdist.com, which I will sample soon. I realized that I was listening to a podcast of a radio show that was talking about a different podcast. The media landscape is changing quickly, isn’t it?

I have repeatedly heard the first few minutes of a podcast on the New York Times site called Freakonomics Radio. As the name suggests, it is hosted by one of the co-authors of the excellent Freakonomics books. Because my radio is designed for streaming, not podcasting, I can’t pause or rewind or fast-forward through podcasts. When I fall asleep during a show and later want to hear the rest of it, I have to restart the podcast from the beginning.

I am kind of excited about the Ripley’s Oddcast. I was motivated to browse their website after “winning” a pass to Ripley’s Tennessee attractions. The Oddcast is right up my alley and the one episode I’ve heard so far was very good. A new show should be posted on May 1. However, there is something different about the way their RSS feed is read by my device. Other podcast feeds give me several past episodes to choose from. Ripley’s offers only the most recent. I wrote to Tim O’Brien, the VP of Communications, hoping he could fix it. He wrote back right away, saying that he would forward my questions to the IT department. Believe it or not!

April 30, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Berry Nice

Why didn’t I try this sooner? I am kicking myself for all the money I have spent at Sam’s Club on fresh berries over the past few years. Yes, they are delicious and good for me. However they are not cheap and there are almost always a few in each package that have to be thrown away. I recently started buying frozen berries at Sam’s and have not been disappointed.

The Dole blueberries and sliced strawberries are good but my favorite is Townsend Farms Triple Berry Blend. I’m a little worried about jinxing it, after Sam’s stopped carrying the awesome Raspberry Chipotle Sauce that I used to buy there.

I mainly use the berries to mask the flavor of of the vanilla yogurt I get in 24-packs at Sam’s. I am not a fan of vanilla-flavored things. My unwillingness to wash a measuring cup inspired me to devise an easier way to mete out my ¾ cup of berries. I put a Ziploc bag around the cup before pouring in the berries. When I remove the cup, the berries stay in the bag.

inside out Ziploc bag around measuring cup berries in bag, in cup

April 29, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Turtle-jacked

Tortoise stories in the news almost always grab my attention despite the fact that they are often very similar. Usually it’s something along the lines of “Missing Tortoise Returned to Local Family.” The headline in the L.A. Unleashed column on LATimes.com last week was “Stolen Tortoise Returned to Vermont Home.”

The wire service story in the Times wasn’t detailed enough for me. I found more tortoise coverage from a local TV station and a local newspaper. Without the local stories, I wouldn’t have known that the owner had named the tortoise Baby Lindbergh, which seemed like a bad premonition until I discovered that the name came after the disappearance.

Tortoise owner Peter Lowry plans to install surveillance cameras in the barn to prevent another herp-napping. I am thinking about contacting him to suggest that he put the video feed on the Internet. I believe that turtle enthusiasts and insomniacs around the world would help him keep an eye on Baby Lindbergh.

April 28, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Man in the Middle-brook

Tearsa Smith at Java TweetUp Java TweetUp name tags For the sake of social decorum, I took a slight break from my quest to drink only free coffee. WATE’s Tearsa Smith organized a “JavaTweetUp” at Javerde Coffee on Monday. I really like Tearsa and wanted to attend, even if it meant buying a coffee drink. Since it was lunch time, I also bought a salad.

espresso machine free samples at Javerde Instead of my normal black coffee with artificial sweetener, I chose a Javacano with Shell Shock flavored coffee and liquid vanilla ice cream. They offer several different flavors of coffee. I want to try their Banana Creme at some point in the future. I did take advantage of the free samples of Javamel Royale to refill my cup before leaving.

Frank & Tearsa & Fr. Christian Of course the point of a TweetUp is not the food, it’s the conversation. I had a great time talking with Fr. Christian Mathis, pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Lenoir City. He follows the Pope’s advice to use new media to the fullest. He’s on Twitter and Facebook, he writes a blog and records a podcast with WATE’s Jim Wogan. I promised to program it into my WiFi clock radio and give it a listen soon.

Java TweetUp group shot Java TweetUp sign-in sheet I also had a nice visit with Doug and Cathy McCaughan. I used to see them in the pre-Twitter days at “blogfests” organized by my blogfather, Rich Hailey. Doug and Cathy said they thought that blogfests fell by the wayside because of polarizing politics during the last presidential campaign. They said that attendance at TweetUps can be determined by political views too. I have no idea if I was hanging out with the correct group or not. I don’t fit neatly into any political party and my friends are on both extremes of the ideological spectrum. Maybe I should have taken a hint when I got left off the “tweets” mentioning the attendees.

April 27, 2010 | Filed Under Catholic | 3 Comments 

Mothra’s Day

A spectacular visitor landed on the kitchen window while my wife and I were making omelets on Sunday morning. I recognized it without having to contact What’s That Bug? and rushed for the camera to snap a picture of the Luna Moth before it flew away. Oddly, it stayed all day. Have you ever seen a Luna Moth in East Tennessee?

We wondered if it was newly hatched from its cocoon and chose our window screen as a place to dry out. A page on the Fairfax County Public Schools website shows that Luna Moth males have larger, bushier antennae than females. My insect pal’s antennae looked like they needed to be combed out.

April 26, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments 

Silva Certificate

Michele Silva & Bob Yarbrough co-anchored WVLT’s live broadcast of the Dogwood Arts Festival Parade on Friday night. I wrote about the parade in yesterday’s post. When she saw me, Michele took the opportunity to tease me about the latest mention of Abby Ham on my blog. Michele and Abby used to both work at WBIR but have been direct competitors since Michele switched to WVLT.

I reminded Michele that she was the first news anchor I met when I moved to Knoxville. She was dating one of my co-workers at the time and would often attend radio station sponsored events such as Sundown in the City and Saturday Night on the Town. If I had a blog back in those days, people would probably have teased me about the frequency of Michele Silva mentions on it.

My humble blog was only 21 days old when I posted a photo of Michele and some heavyset dude at the Knoxville Zoo’s Feast with the Beasts. In September 2006, I took a picture of Michele and Beth Haynes at a United Way event on Market Square. The guy standing near them is Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam.

The official unveiling of my makeover took place on the Style show that Michele used to co-host with Moira Kaye (who bears a striking resemblance to Miss Tennessee 1983 by the way). As recently as this past August, Michele and I did a re-shoot of our picture at Feast with the Beasts.

I saw Michele at the Miracle Theatre earlier this year but didn’t get a photo because my camera was lost at the time. When I spotted her on Gay Street Friday night, my first order of business was to get another photo with Michele. So there, missy!

April 25, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Dogwoody Style

A herd of Chick-fil-A cows parachuted into downtown Knoxville Friday night. They were actually small dolls, thrown from the roofs of buildings on both sides of Gay Street. Meanwhile a contingent of people in cow costumes marched in the Dogwood Arts Festival parade while restaurant employees handed out free sandwiches to spectators. Mine was hot and delicious.

A woman standing on the sidewalk next to me remarked that I seemed to know a lot of people in the parade. During our conversation I learned that she had recently moved here from Austin, Texas, to take a job at TVA. I asked her if there was anywhere in Austin where someone could take a picture of Shoney Bear, Jesus and Mr. Potato Head at the same time. As we watched, I recognized Amelia Rapking as the girl driving Heather Haley. Well-liked former radio guy Bill Johnson was driving Rep. John J. Duncan Jr.

The parade stopped a few times for performances in front of the grandstand. In fact, Congressman Duncan had to wait for a troupe of female zombies to rise up off the street and dance to “Thriller.” Local singer Con Hunley was another of the featured artists. I wish there was a better way to keep things entertaining for those not standing near the grandstand.

For the second year in a row, the Powell High School Marching Band stole the show with their costumes and their song choice. Dressed in 1980s attire and wigs, they played Gob Bluth’s themesong, “The Final Countdown.” I thought it was funnier than the parade entry that invited viewers to follow them on Tweeter.

April 24, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments 

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