Rather than start two threads, I thought I’d wrap up two unrelated things in one MPSIMS thread today.
First, and most important: Razorette and I have been married 33 years today. No, I don’t still have the leisure suit I wore on our honeymoon, and yes, she is as beautiful today as she was the day she walked down the aisle. We’ve been through some stuff over the years, that lady and I, and we will spend the evening remembering most of it over a platter of smoked salmon and (many) glasses of pinot noir, have a lot of laughs and a few tears, and then … well, we are married, after all!
Of lesser importance, but equal in excitement: We got rain last night for the first time in three weeks – and the day’s high temperature was under 100 for the first time in eight consecutive days. Bad news is, the rain blew in on a thunderstorm that knocked out the transmitter of the radio station I work for. The program director (have I mentioned that he’s also my younger brother?) and I drove out to the transmitter site – we have to drive eight miles down a dirt road (made very slick by the rain last night) and then another three miles through a pasture to get to the transmitter building. Of course, we took our standard Tower Maintenance Tool Kit – pliers, baleing wire, duct tape, shotgun (for the rattlesnakes) and flashlight. Once inside, it took us a couple of hours to troubleshoot the problem. So there we were, nearly midnight, ankle-deep in water (oh, did I forget to mention that the torrential downpour had flooded the transmitter shack?) trying to coax a 75,000-watt transmitter back to life. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but the pucker factor was a bit high but until we got the water squeegeed out of the place.
Now, understand that, between the two of us, we have the technical abilities of the average four-year-old child. Fortunately, we had a cell phone, and the after-hours phone number of an electrical engineer in Fort Collins who had once worked on the transmitter. Andy stood outside the transmitter shack and talked to the engineer, then shouted instructions to me, while I stared hopelessly, first at the technical manual (eventually realized I had it upside down) and then at the guts of the transmitter. Finally, the engineer said there was one last thing we should try before we paid him to drive three hours to the site – and that was the thing that worked (why is that, I wonder?) Anyway, it turned out to be two power supply fuses. Apparently, a lightning hit had been too weak to throw the breakers but just strong enough to burn out the fuses.
Once we got everything back up and running, it was after midnight, and we realized that there’s one more item we need for the TMTK – beer. Lots and lots of beer, for the celebration after the transmitter comes back on.
Oh, yeah, and then Andy had to be up at 4:00 this morning to take our morning program “on the road” to a nearby town. I was in at my usual 6:00 for the morning newscasts. But we still have more fun than is actually legal in most states.