Karlandia.

That's a *damn* good post I didn't publish, if I *do* say so myself.

Good thing I didn't!

All personal stuff. Nothing scandalous. Well, nothing much. Mostly, no one would have cared. But anyone still reading from my Foxes days might have enjoyed at least, well, most of it.

Gotta save *something* for the novel, eh?

And the best stuff never even got written in drafts.

I've spent all week in Karlandia. That is to say, the world of Charles. A thoroughly enjoyable place, if only I didn't have to balance it with doing news.

What I can safely say is that Sissy is still out of town. We planted the last of the pansies and violas -- finally! Now nothing remains but to fertilize and top-dress the latest plantings. But -- the weather's *not* cooperating. We're under a winter storm warning and expecting upwards of an inch of snow. At least for the time being, I'm kind of limited in what all I can do, but still need to show up at least an hour or so every day.

Thanksgiving MMVII.

Went home the long way.

Really, just one "long way" among several options.

Picked up the first inklings of a super-big, probably national, possibly international news story from just as far as I got off the main road. Worth the detour, even if what sound I gathered doesn't constitute a story in itself.

Groomed my father for Thanksgiving Day. We're thinking it may be his last. Of course, we don't know. But now that we're openly thinking it may be we're hoping it won't be. Conflicting emotions abound.

My mother got me the best Christmas gift ever. Of course, now, I've got to follow up on a number of paperwork-type things. I guess she figures I know what I'm doing on some level or other.

Life is, well, complicated; and blogging about it isn't anywhere near the top item on my long list of priorities.

Too complicated to write all the details in here.

Got home to ABQ today and my first-ever check from NPR was waiting in the mailbox.

It won't be the last.

Some anonymous neighbour thought to pull in my garbage can from the street and put my papers by my front door.

I've got good neighbours, too, it would seem.

Life is good.

But complex.

We'll see where this all lands us.

It may be coming back to roost, but I'm still riding the roller-coaster.

Tearing away.

Have to tear myself away for a few days.

It's good. I guess. No one's gonna be in the newsroom over the holiday. I mean, obviously, the host will be there, but the whole "this person who knows this and that person who knows that and that other person who knows something else and might want to know something you know but who also knows something you need to know" dynamic won't be happening on a regular basis. In short, it'll be less of a newsroom and more of an empty office.

It's kind of sad when the station's a ghost town, but welcome to life. I'm being human myself in allowing myself to go home for Thanksgiving. My father's condition being what it is there's no way I'm missing it.

I'm detouring a bit on the way down to try and get a story no one else seems to have gotten just yet. The danger there, of course, is that I might be premature. But I don't think I am. (If I did, I wouldn't detour, would I?) Finding an angle may be a bit tricky, but there's *definitely* stuff happening. So I'm bringing the newsroom with me. Oddly enough, that makes me more comfortable.

Listened closely to the whole broadcast this evening and yeah I admit took notes on it.

Considered posting them here but jeez. Let it go. Gist of it was "no stories for hour two (which is hour one) but two breaking stories for hour one (which is hour two)". It's the new format. Mixed blessing.

Both were good stories. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

Five retakes.

Started the day watering in pansies and violas. It was sort of an emergency job -- just to keep things from dying. Yikes. Too many days away, and the pots especially were looking *really* sad. I'm going back tomorrow to try and make up for lost time. It's not hopeless, but it's tricky. 95% of stuff is stunning, but the pots are all "focal points" and they *can't* be allowed to die. Plants are flexible in what they can take, but only to a point. I think, by looking at them, that I may have gotten my wish (finally) that the house servants aren't watering them *wrong*, because they expect me to water them *right*. They're not watering at all. (How's that for a Pyhrric victory, folks?) And I'm leaving town for several days here, soon. I wish I had some cottonseed meal to feed the unfertilized pansies, but I don't, so I've just got to stay on top of things as best I can.

Then to the news department meeting. It was a good one. The last few have been kind of preoccupied with "changing of the guard" issues, what with Marcos retiring and all. Which is important, in the long run, but it does tend to derail the day-to-day "what are you working on", "I don't see where you're going with this", "what's your angle?" and "here's someone you should talk to" conversations that happen when it's just the newsy types all gathered 'round the table.

Today we did something we hadn't done in months, but *need* to do *much* more often. We played recent stories we'd run, and critiqued eachother. It was *very* helpful.

The one I played was the KSL piece and it seemed my main problem was delivery. It was good, but it started out "flat". The first line was read like I was reading, and then *gradually* I got into it. I tend to be super careful about that. Maybe too careful. There's not enough modulation in my voice, for the first couple of lines, then I get into it. Part of me doesn't want to be "commenting" on what I'm reporting by my tone of voice. Another part of me doesn't want to sound like I'm announcing the monster truck rally. But I *don't* want to sound "flat" and "dull". There are several "fine lines" involved here, but the trick is to come "out the gate" sounding like I'm just telling this to someone, rather than like I'm reading it into a microphone. Being the simplest and most natural thing on earth, this is one of the hardest things to grasp.

Jim gives me a press release from Senator Domenici's office. I read it and it's basically him expressing his opinion on something -- not news in itself. I follow the links, though, and figure out what the underlying story *is*. OK, it's newsworthy. But it's also not strictly a "New Mexico" story, and why the hell am I reporting it? Oh, yeah, 'cause Senator Domenici saw fit to comment on it in a press release. Right? Wrong. My job's not to be a stenoographer. It matters because it ties in *directly* to stuff that's happening in this state, but it takes a little digging to find out just *why*. I just happen to be doing that digging, now, in working on *another* story, and this is a convenient opportunity to introduce the issue, casually, to the listener.

I love Steve because he lets me pretty much read wire copy if it just helps to break up the voices on air. If I can get a quick soundclip by phone, all the better.

I love Jim for the *opposite* reason! Because he *edits* me. Mercilessly!

I did this piece, and he read it, and listened to it, before it aired. He said it was well written but I sounded like I was trying too hard to modulate my voice. Well, yes, I was. I can redo it. I do. It's the second take that airs.

It's better than the first.

But then I hear it going out over the airwaves and I realize, *as* it's aired: I say the word "ree-ack-torr" roughly like Marvin the Martian says "Mod-yeew-late-orr". Well, maybe not *that* bad. But I definitely overenunciate some things.

I record it again.

It comes out better.

But by now we're looking at the facts I am reporting. Everything is factually accurate. But I'm writing above people's heads. Surely there will be *some* tiny handful of listeners out there who understand better than I do what I'm saying when I talk about Russia's "BN-600 fast neutron reactor". But -- is that *really* the most important thing to the greatest number of our listeners? Uhm -- no. Is the fact that the the reactor in question will be used to generate electricity more important? Yes. Is the fact that the plutonium being reprocessed comes from disassembled warheads more important? Yes.

The simple truth is that I've *still* got a bad case of the "goshdarn golly gee whizzes" from standing on the Z Machine. In another world, I could have spent my whole life patiently working my way up to polishing the post hole convolutes and would be perfectly happy with that existence, regardless what the crazy radio reporters say that other people say about the labs.

I rewrite and record a couple more takes.

Jim edits me.

I go back and record it again.

I love that he thinks the story's worth the time and effort when he's got a newscast to run.

Finally we're on version five, when it's all about as good as it can be, and that horrible word appears in my copy: "today".

I go in and try to edit out the "today" so that it can air tomorrow morning.

Because it's between two "S"es it should be easy to edit but I keep making it sound like I stutter.

He shows me how to slip 'em together smoothly like I'd said it that way in the first place.

Superslick, supernifty.

It should air tomorrow morning.

Life is good.

Also lined up an interview or two on my way down home for the holiday. I'd give you more details, but heck. After it airs is good enough. It's -- no. I'm not going to jeopardize it by even *hinting* what I am after, here. I'm not completely sure myself, and won't know for sure 'til it "gels" in my mind, which won't happen 'til I've gone out and recorded the actual sound.

I live in the sound world now. Waveforms beat the pants off typewritten words.

It's a story. It's potentially a good one. That's all you need to know. Written words are no longer my primary mode of understanding the world as I see it and trying to present that to others.

Radio is.

On gravity.

Need to stop smoking.

I like what it's done for my voice -- given it texture, and depth -- but it takes me a couple of seconds to "start", if that makes any sense, on a day that I happen to be smoking. I like the sound of it generally, but my first couple of words seem to tend to get "lost" as my lungs pick up steam, slowly, to push those crucial first words out from my mouth. It's simply trying to use oxygen that's not there. I wouldn't be surprised to hear I've already got reduced lung capacity. Or maybe it's my diaphragm. Who knows? I'm not a doctor. But I do think I should stop smoking, if only to correct that certain weakness in my voice. It kind of ties in to the ongoing and unsettled debate (almost as old as broadcast radio news itself) of whether the first line in a story is a "throwaway" or not.

One school says you don't put *any* crucial facts in the "lead", because it's just a "throwaway" most people won't hear, anyway. Another says the point is not to *lose* the line, but to use it to "grab" people's interest without introducing too many complexities right away. Maybe it's two sides of the same argument. Maybe the latter position is the natural outgrowth from the former. I honestly don't know. But if my first two words are barely audible, because I'm smoking like a chimney, it doesn't matter. Whatever kind of "lead" I've got to work with, I should make it *audible*.

If you can't tell, I listened to my air check tonight right after going off air.

It was a pleasant shift. Radio Theatre got preempted for a special, hosted by Scott Simon, about fifty years of "West Side Story". I enjoyed that thoroughly. Turned on the "cue" speakers underneath the board and let it blast.

I did say one *incredibly* stupid thing, while starting to read headlines. "Glad to be with you, with this news -- a soldier killed in Iraq last week was born in Albuquerque". The good news is that even realizing I'd just said something supremely disresectful and downright yucky without even meaning to, I keep moving without drawing attention to it.

I say "glad to be with you" more or less routinely, because it's true. It's become a "crutch" -- a phrase I say too often, even though I mean it, and it bears being said once per broadcast. It's good for a couple of seconds of airtime, because I *mean* it. But even as the words came tumbling out of my mouth, I realized, because I knew what I was "leading" with -- this is gonna sound *really* bad to *someone* -- like I'm glad to report that he's dead, which I'm not, in the least. Nothing to do but just keep moving on. Just try and give it enough of a pause between being happy at being on air on the one hand and reporting the bad news on the other.

And *don't* say "glad to be with you" when leading into headlines. Ever. For weather? Sure. Signing off? Absolutely. But *never* before reading headlines. Yeesh.

There is a certain sense of gravity that has to go with much of what we routinely report. People die horribly. Government officials get caught up in terrible corruption. Taxpayers get ripped off by contractors. Elected officials enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of the public. Science gets funded not for its scientific value but for its value in advancing the art of war. People fight things out in court.

Like it or not, the news *is* mostly "bad". Can't change that. Can report it. Better to report it with the gravity that it deserves.

Decent broadcast.

Not flawless, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Woke up this morning, and hard to explain, but I could *visualise* "the listener". I could *sense* what "the listener" wanted from me. That little awakening coloured the rest of my day; *everything* I did from that point on was directed *toward* "the listener", whether I was actually on air or not.

I felt *much* better about how I read headlines. Rewriting wire copy just takes a couple of minutes, but can make all the difference between stumbling over words and having something to say that flows smoothly for the spoken voice. At least for me. Wire copy seems not to be written by broadcasters. I plan to do these little micro-edit jobs whenever I have the chance. It also lets me format headlines *just* the way I like things. Trick is to read 'em just as if I were sitting in the newsbooth, recording, under a tight deadline, without getting the jitters just 'cause I'm on the other side of the glass. Ridiculous the things your mind can get hung up on, but there's human nature for ya.

Also read a few late breaking headlines that just weren't there when I started the broadcast. Didn't edit those, but just took my time reading them *properly* and it worked out fine.

Felt better about the weather, too. No jumbled-up gobbledygook. One little flublet there 'cause of how I handle current temperatures, which change during the broadcast. I didn't have a current for Socorro, because you have to load a whole separate webpage to get that, and sometimes there's not time. I was pretty casually going down my list of place names. Then I hit Socorro, and said "Socorro", only to see there was no number for it. I just stopped for a quarter second, smiled, and said, "I don't know *what* it is, in Socorro, actually" or something like that, without apologising, and moved on. Afterward my mind started to go in the loop of "I should have said 'your guess is as good as mine', because that would have been more endearing" but I stopped that train of thought and moved on. These things simply *happen*.

It was controlled chaos getting the news on the air tonight. I was the only person in the newsroom pretty much all afternoon. Mixed blessing. I had the time and space to concentrate.

We aired a piece of an interview by one of the Youth Radio volunteers. Kamaria got it in, and it sounded good. I just punched up the lead-in and the outtro and it was nice. The trick there was that I had no idea how long it would be 'til I heard it.

The funny thing was that apparently a key email got crucially delayed. We're having trouble with spammers slowing down the station's email severely enough that some mail's not getting through until way after they're sent, in some cases. It's being addressed as best it can, but Megan Kamerick never heard back from Steve about what she'd emailed him for the weekly Business Update she does with him.

I do it with her. It was a pleasure. She writes great copy. The punchline there is that I'm sitting in the newsbooth editing sound ten minutes before I go on air. Stressful? A little bit, but I *do* know that it can, and must, and *will* be done. I'm starting to feel almost like a real newsman.

Then the Youth Radio piece won't play. Ran through all the "normal" reasons why. Sam said I should ask Tristan, 'cause if anyone knows how to fix it, he will. Tristan figured that one out and resaved the file with the proper sampling rate (like I'd have *ever* thought to look for that) and it played on schedule. Mistakes that listeners don't hear don't count. ;)

(And for the record, it may have been my own mistake, rather than Kamaria's -- though I honestly don't know. I edited out some silences and "uhms" from Kamaria's piece before I aired it, just to shave it down to where it all fit very nicely.)

Other mistakes? Had LS-1 faded up and turned on when I put my headphones down only to have them hit the mouse which had its pointer right over the "play" button for the funding credit that was set to air like two minutes later. (Most people use the right-hand jack for that reason, I guess. I'm left-handed, which is *normally* an advantage, the way the Control Room's set up.) In the middle of headlines, we *also* hear "Funding for NPR comes from -- Sodexho!" Turned the channel off right then. Then made the very mistake that caused me to have the LS-1 channel faded up and turned on in the first place: I hit "play" on the computer without having the channel turned on and faded up. Whoops. Lost one, maybe two seconds there, recueing. Still fit in what had to get itself fit. I'm learning to give myself margins for error.

And, since the last time I worked board, two of the sliders got renamed. I used to slide up SAT for NPR, and now with about three seconds before I go on air, I see that there's no time to audit the channels which have been renamed since last I saw them -- it's no longer SAT and DM-7, it's SAT-1 and SAT-2. I guess, I figure, I hope I hope I hope based on the way the board's laid out that SAT-1 is what used to be SAT and do my normal and accustomed thing, regardless. It works without a hitch.

Now if only the folks at Sandia would let us use just a tiny bit of their computer modelling capability all would be well. You know -- take every conceivable thing that can possibly get messed up in any possible newscast on any given day, ever, and prepare for all eventualities with contingency plans nested within contingency plans, and with everything all scripted out just in case that one-in-a-million thing happens, so we'll just flip to page Q-59 and have the solution at hand.

Then again, it might break the computer.

Or, more honestly, it's probably not all *that* important. Their computers are amazing, and the things they get used for do seem (from what little I know) to matter quite a bit more than whether or not I slide up the wrong fader for a clean break or rejoin.

It was a decent broadcast.

I have a few choice words about "Human Rights Campaign" (HRC) but really, I shouldn't.

Then again, I've already said I'm way too biased to cover the work that their franchise, "Equality New Mexico", does in this state. Lucky for the people I volunteer for that I'm just the low man on the totem pole, and if EQNM ever accomplishes *anything* substantial in the state legislature, I *won't* be the reporter covering it.

Not to be a loose cannon, but if I have the right to be a loose cannon or editorialize freely about *anything*, it is this one specific issue. It's literally who I *am*, and it has taken me most of my life to claim just that much space as my own. Which is, again, why I won't report on HRC's work on air. I'm way too deeply and directly tangled up in it, and there's no way that will change short of my turning into a straight man. In the spirit of constructive criticism, then, I will naïvely hope that *someone* who might matter in that world just hears me out.

Since I don't ever expect to cover "Human Rights Campaign's" work in Washington, I'll go ahead and say my piece.

The fallout from the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) bill in Congress is a perfect illustration of how astroturf organizing works (or fails to), as compared to legitimate grassroots "from the ground up" organizing. It shows precisely what kind of result can be expected by people whose best and most sincere intentions are simultaneously so laser-focused on a single organizational goal, and so well-funded in their efforts, that while they may achieve a single short term goal, they forget long-term objectives by conveniently forgetting about that one little irrelevant thing called "reality".

Specifically, the "reality" of the millions of people they claim to speak for.

Their political base.

The irony is that as they accomplish their goals, they lose sight of the broader objectives sought by their underlying base.

It also speaks to how people too well versed in the differences between "bills" and "amendments" might appear to accomplish their "goals" by manipulating the legislative process, while failing, in the end, to accomplish *anything* that might actually benefit *anyone*. You know. In lived "reality".

Fantasy: after spending the last I don't know how many years pushing bills that never had a chance of passing, ENDA has *finally* passed out of Congress, if badly watered down. That will, no doubt, look good on the fundraising letters you mass-mail to hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of faggots like me, who just casually know that they "can't stand the queens". (Go ahead. Waste your postage. Then see if I care.)

Reality: it doesn't matter. We're deeply ensnared in a sectarian civil war between the people of a country we claim to have "liberated", and that war is devouring whatever funds you might imagine could be used to enforce ENDA in the first place, even if it didn't get vetoed.

Fantasy: For the first time the Congress has clearly, unequivocally said that LGB -- what's missing from that acronym? -- people deserve equal treatment under law. This is, indeed, a first step in the right direction.

Reality: Remember ERA? Of course not, since probably all your summer student intern employees have probably been born since then, and appear to simultaneously be driving your organization's mission. Regardless. It was the transsexuals, the goddamned annoying 24/7 drag queens in bars, that made it possible in the first place for people like you to make a living "organizing" -- as you call it, as though it were something that you could learn by just casually minoring in sociology, in college, on either coast. Of course, you don't have to actually *like* the trannies. But you might be at least so fair as to insist that they're included in whatever cockamamey scheme you pass through Congress, since without them, you would be nowhere.

When you name Lucy or Felicia or Martinique from Foxes as your national executive director, then, and only then, will I take anything you do seriously.

Fantasy: You've got this groundbreaking bill further along in the process than it might ever have otherwise gone!

Reality: Yeah, only to die on the desk of an unelected, so-called "president" you *must* have known from his days as Governor of Texas would *never* sign such a bill into law. I mean, if you'd *really* had people "on the ground", you would have known as much, long before he beat Ann Richards.

In retrospect, with hindsight being 20/20 and all, it's just too bad you don't bother building coalitions with like-minded organizations on the ground with compatible goals, which might have helped certain bad governors from becoming downright disastrous presidents, and instead spent all your time and generous donors' money chasing hopeless pie-in-the-sky goals with the ultimate objective of -- what -- getting more donations while funding yourself into irrelevance?

I honestly don't know.

Maybe you have some greater, grander vision than I do.

If so, I don't see it.

I'm not convinced.

Please -- prove me wrong.

I dare you.

Quick summary.

Pansy and viola day turned into book day.

Sissy needed to go through several boxes of books she'd accumulated over the years. Apparently when she moved, they all got packed together. Some "designer" apparently had the bright idea of discarding all the slipcovers to all the new books in her collection -- a damn shame, since they're mostly first editions. (Amazing how interior designers routinely don't know *anything* about *book* design.) But everything got put into boxes, pretty much at random, and then some of the boxes got water damaged.

So I sat on the floor with her to get an understanding of how *she* uses *her* books -- how *she* likes them organized -- which isn't *ever* strict "library science" for *any* person, including librarians. Got 'em sorted into stacks and put 'em at least out of the way. I think (cynically) that part of it was just so she could keep an eye on me. But if nothing else, I helped to notice some important details that non-book-oriented people might have easily missed -- like the fact that this third-edition, otherwise-worth-nothing book is worth considerable family value 'cause it's signed by such-and-such person to your father. Or that this book which is gawd-awful, but was written by someone you knew years ago, and still want to show to someone you still know who knew them back when, had its slipjacket put in the "garbage" box, silly mistake (but not mine). By this point I know where almost everything will go, and will make a special stack to ask her about what I wonder about whenever she is ready.

Yesterday: drove up to Santa Fe to record the tape sync and came running back down to the station to download the sound onto our computers, and then upload it to the network's servers, only to receive an email right then saying "it's not for today" so I don't have to rush. Heheh -- not that I didn't kinda suspect that (the polling has recently gone from "slightly-worse-than pathetic" to "pathetic"), but heck. Visions of *millions* of listeners *desperately* awaiting the sound from this particular interview got stuck dancing in my head like the sugarplum faeries.

The sugarplum faeries were the least of it.

By the time I figured that all those millions of listeners must look kind of like the millions of electrons flowing through the post hole convolute, or at least through just one section of the post hole convolute during a micro-millisecond to their ultimate plasmic destruction, well, I was drivin' ninety miles an hour -- a snail's pace, compared to all those little electrons of people. Such is the power of radio! The power of nuclear fusion! The power of a star, created in a laboratory setting! Try explaining that to an officer. Thank gawd I didn't have to. :)

Today went in to screen calls for the call-in show and found it *way* more helpful just to watch how the *regulars* did it. (I did it last week, in a pinch. Studio A's just not like any other studio at the station. I got the basics down but totally flubbed the order in which things get done, which matter in Studio A way more than practically anywhere else.) I took the last call and still got a credit on air, even for that -- basically saying "hi" to a person and pointing at the host. Who am I to complain?

The only bad air time is *no* air time. :)

By sheer luck -- by sticking around a little longer than I had to, and even beyond when I was serving any immediately useful purpose -- I happened to sit in on a teleconference just in time to prepare some half-way decent questions for a certain Senator. Between everyone on the line, we *all* managed to ask some really almost halfway decent questions that the esteemed gentleman kind of had to answer, since it wasn't just *one* person asking him at the time.

My thinking on the matter? Hit 'em with "House of Commons" style, multipart questions. Me and my delusions of grandeur again. I wasn't asking that great a line of questions. But it sure as hell beat stuff like "George Bush -- great president? or greatest president EVER?" Those kinds of so-called "questions" actually *do* come up, from time to time.

It helps that I've edited him several times. It also helps that I've listened through the whole of all the interviews I edit. If there's a better way to learn a given person's rhetorical techniques, I don't know what it might be.

Free advice.

Or: "my first scoop".

Wore a bow tie today -- more 'cause I finally learned how to tie one than for any good reason. That, plus my Arrow shirt was the only thing clean, and I wanted to show its taoloring off nicely. My tie was a cute-as-buttons narrow, short, silk print deal from the 'fifties that I found at a thrift shop.

I'm superstitious about things like that. Don't be surprised if I wear bow ties quite a lot more often from now on.

"A good reporter is a lucky reporter." I don't know how true it may be that just being "lucky" makes you "good", but I can definitely offer some free advice (worth every penny you pay for it) on how to make yourself lucky.

1. Research things inside out and backwards 'til it makes your head spin and your eyes glaze over -- not because it's what you've been assigned, but just because you care enough about whatever it is you're hoping to cover in the first place (if only you can ever get a decent *angle* on it) that you'll just sit there and read about it, regardless, in the meantime.

2. Do things when you say you'll do them. If you say you'll get back to a person at such-and-such time, do it. Basic courtesy goes a *very* long way.

3. Stick around the newsroom way the hell longer than you should, just trying to stay out of other people's way as much as possible while still doing something at least marginally productive, if you possibly can.

Lots of stuff happened today.

Did a major "desktop cleanup" on two computers. (If anyone at the station's wondering where their files from the desktop in the newsbooth went, it's *very* probably in the folder on the desktop labelled "clutter archive". I'm as guilty as anyone as cluttering it in the first place.) In the process I found *all* my early work (or at least almost all of it) -- most of which I'd thought I'd lost, and other stuff which is just inaccessible to me until the next legislative session. Not all the raw files, but all the finished stories. I also listened to some stories in the process done by others which gave me an even better grounding in things like the current state of funding for the labs, which in turn helps others who are covering their own stories when things like that happen to matter.

Backed all my old work up to a different hard drive and then eventually burned it all onto a CD. That's not including "cut and copies". Basically it's just the stuff with my voice in it. It's not all great, but it's all in one place, now, for the first time, and I feel great about it. It's *very* instructive to go back and listen to what all you've done some months later. First: it shows what progress *has* been made. (Some things that aired I wouldn't let air myself, these days.) It's also very super-nifty to go back and realize "this is history" from even just a few months back. (Jim especially let me take some very big stories, at the time, before they became *really* big.)

My output's not great -- I'm not a *producer* in the sense of a person who can crank out a good, solid story each day. I still take way too long putting stories together. But heck, I'm a volunteer, so they don't breathe down my neck like I'm making tortillas, where the only thing that matters is output, output, output. I face generous deadlines most of the time with pretty much total freedom to cover what I damn well choose to cover.

I call up the fellow who'd lent me the 1999 Sandia SWEIS (and 2006 Final Supplement) around two, 'cause I told him I'd get those back to him today, and wanted to make sure he was there before I just mosey on over and casually leave the weighty tomes -- you know -- "wherever".

Lucky me. When I show up, he hands me a fresh press release. His organization filed a countersuit *today* against the New Mexico Environment Department, which had sued Citizen Action New Mexico (in what he calls a "slap suit"), which *had* sued NMED over a denied FOIA request regarding documents relating to the data on which were based computer simulations and models which allegedly show radiological and chemical contamination eventually reaching the groundwater under Sandia National Labs' Mixed Waste Landfill in Tech Area 3.

Jarndyce and Jarndyce, anyone?

It's not that bad. Yet. But it's definitely, well, just a tiny bit complicated.

(Some woman, who I've always seen and only walking behind a man in the street in front of my house, carrying grocery bags, just shouted, at the top of her lungs: "NO WEAPON!!! -- borne against us -- will prosper. LORD JESUS CHRIST." Allrighty then. This is the second time I've noticed it -- she always does it -- same exact words -- right as she walks past my house. I love New Mexico, but lock my doors at night.)

Anyhow. I *do* call the Environment Department to see if they have a response, but it's a holiday. The phone rings for three minutes. I note that in my story, and point out *quite* specifically that they can't be reached *because* of the Federal holiday. It *is* a one-sided story, but you know what? It's factual. And if NMED calls back, I am *more* than willing to give them equal time.

It clocks in at 2:49 and beat *all* the papers and TV stations.

I don't call Sandia because they're not directly a party to the lawsuits and countersuits.

It's on the AP Newswire, now. An hour after my story airs. :)

Super.

Then while I'm busy dropping off a Site-wide Environmental Impact Statement and picking up a scoop, NPR calls.

They need someone to record for a tape sync. I'm still not clear who thought to tell them I'd be willing and able to do it, but thank you, whoever you are.

But that's not 'til day after tomorrow.

Tomorrow? PANSIES! VIOLAS! AND FOUNTAINS! HOORAY!

Radio stuff, garden stuff.

The On Air shift was pretty smooth today. It's getting downright routine. The thing about "crutches" like index cards and post-it notes is that most of the time those things just waste your time and make clutter. I'm to where I don't use them at all, though I *will* have post-its on hand just in case when I cover the Friday "All Things Considered" shift just 'cause that show's got a couple of transitions with super-tight tolerances. It's almost always the "little things" that *matter* which throw you off. Like 14-second funding credits. You *have* to check 'em off against the rundown, 'cause they're almost always changing.

Did the "skipping back" thing once where I start rereading a line I just finished reading, but caught myself. Need to work on my delivery -- I'm trying *not* to sound like a stuffed shirt, but winding up not varying for stress and timing and intonation and all of that. I need to bring a little bit of acting into it. Not so much that I sound phony, but just enough that people can follow me as I describe the dance for congressional seats. (It's like musical chairs -- *all* the House seats are up for grabs since Senator Domenici resigned.) I'm *very* far from sounding professional, but also at least a step or two up from sounding like a total amateur. So progress is slowly being made.

George Gray's Veterans Day project wound up sounding *really* good. It was a monster of a project -- reading names of fallen US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq -- but wound up being a really beautiful day-long tribute, in thoroughly digestible chunks of one to three minutes that were *just* long enough to make the cost of the war just a little more *real*. I wish I could have helped him more substantially on that than I did; I just kept getting swept up in more breaking stories.

Otherwise working on a Sandia story that may get bigger and turn into something more substantial than what I'm kinda planning for this coming week, but that remains to be seen. There's information that needs to get out there, but (for now at least) it's kinda "evergreen". No breaking stories, really -- just kinda here's what they showed us and here's what some people who watch the lab say in response. I need to be fair to everyone on this one. It's tricky, 'cause it's hard not to share the pride and enthusiasm of scientists and engineers when showing off their work on the one hand, and hard to forget the lab's core mission on the other.

Then that political thing in that whole other part of the state that I hope to hit on my way to El Paso for Thanksgiving. That, of course, takes planning; and I honestly don't know whether it's the sort of thing where no one will want to talk to me or everyone will want to talk to me. They might be thrilled to have the coverage, or they might get spooked about being seen with me. I suspect I'm going to be parking around the block just because my car's so bloody visible. I won't know anything for sure until I make some calls. I need to work the phones on that one and have things lined up before I go. I could probably do a lot of it over the phone as it is, but it will sound better with some sound from the field to hang it on, at least to introduce listeners to the story.

There's another story -- local -- involving a controversial professor that I need to get another voice on before I can cover it properly. Trouble is that other voice may or may not want to go on the air. It's an ongoing story that just happens to have had recent developments, and frankly, I wasn't thrilled with the way it got covered before. There is room for improvement.

What else? I don't recall. Too many projects, and not enough time.

Watered at Sissy's today. She was sick enough not to get out of bed. Helped Charles in a very small way with some more of his moving -- it's getting critical now that Bill's sold the house. It was gorgeous, of course. Most of the pansies and violas are established, but you can *definitely* tell the difference not just between those planted first and those planted next, but also between those planted in soil that Claudette fertilized with her magical mixture and those just topdressed with compost. The unfertilized ones are alive, but the fertilized ones are *thriving*. If I'm smart, I'll mention that to Charles and hopefully get Claudette out again for those sections, and then topdress it all again. There's too much unevenness -- the guest house is stunning; the main house is -- well, stunning, but *less* stunning than the guest house, when you know what Charles is really aiming for. I'm about ready to recommend he bring in another fifty flats or so. I'll plant 'em, gladly. Doesn't help that the bindweed's crept in to the back gardens on the main house. But there's *got* to be something we can do about that.

Anyone know anything about eliminating bindweed?

Charles convolutes.

Some things are better left unsaid.

I'll get something to broadcast out of it. Maybe more than one "something". Maybe, in fact, quite a lot of "somethings". But some things are better left unsaid. All my energy on this is going into the broadcast. All of it. Maybe I'll recap some of it in here once it's all done, or at least once I'm past the shock and overload of every aspect of my conscious being.

I didn't get to sleep last night for hours. When I finally did, my mind was filled with things so exultantly beautiful and so unimaginibly horrifying all at once that I could barely start to make sense out of *any* of them in isolation, and yet I tried to find the similarities and divergences from one realm of reality to another. No, from one reality to a whole different, parallel reality. And then landing myself in a third, for good measure. I'm there now, just to keep myself temporarily "sane", whatever that means.

I'm less worried about what people tell me I should worry about than about my own sanity. It all came at me very, very fast.

For you critical listeners, this isn't me being "secretive". This is me being deeply affected to the core of my very being by what all I have seen and who all I have talked to in the last thirty-six hours, representing a *vast* range of perspectives, many of which I never even imagined existed.

Long story short:

I don't know what truth is.

Not to get all philosophical about it, but I don't.

There you have it.

I need to figure that out. At least on a provisional basis. Before I go and report on this story.

In other news. Went to Sissy's. Charles was there. He took a certain rather infamous person's photograph in to his hairdresser and had her cut his hair in that very distinctive way. I recognized it when he asked me if I did, but truth be told, my first reaction was simply "my god, who is that handsome man?". My second was "that's *perfect* for him".

Watered in some pansies while he did cigarette reconnaisance inside the old house, which got complicated vastly for reasons I won't bore you with. But then we went to Bill's to pick up Charles' two Argentinian crates. The whole Charles situation is so absurdly complex it's almost simple. I spare you the details only to make his own life less difficult than it already is.

At Bill's we see that he's just sold the house to the son of a certain major military contractor who's paying to buy the house at *far* below its market value. (I'll spare you the gossip about who and why, and the family relations. Some things are best tucked deep away in memory.) This is a house that I have grown to love, deeply, and know its sale marks the end of an era. I also know the house will be right where it is today a hundred years from now, whatever comes, because of how it's built. (Gotta love old man Rupert.) Perhaps by then people will be telling stories about us.

Bill's got a bunch of books out on his dining room table.

If I'd so much as glanced askance at them before he said what he said, I would have lived with guilt until my dying day.

"I've got all these damn coookbooks", he tells me. "I don't know what to do with them. People tell me, 'take them to Page One', and I just say if they want them, they can come and get them. I just want to get them out of here."

I volunteer that I did see one title which interested me.

Long story short: I now have a very respectable beginning for a downright vast library of cookbooks.

With a few interior design and garden design and antique and art books thrown in for good measure, since the rule when taking books under such circumstances seems to be "you don't just take the *one* you want, you take *four* for every *one* you really want". At least, that is the courteous thing to do.

Under such circumstances the person getting rid of all the books is surely not wanting to get rid of this one super-specialized first-edition your eyes happened to be drawn to on simply seeing its spine, on recognizing its imprint; they're simply wanting to get rid of the whole lot of them *all*. The heavy, awkward boxes that can *never* be evenly loaded that make people crazy to carry. But if you want that one first edition for free, that's how you pay for it, rather than, well, you know, buying it.

The thing that broke my heart on being on this side of this transaction was that it was a *remarkably* exquisite and uniquely complete collection! There were a couple of "odd" volumes which I guessed had been gifts, but for the most part it showed me *exactly* how a certain person liked to cook.

I wonder whether Bill or his wife had put it together over the years. I'd guess it was his wife, based on how I have seen him eat when he cooks for himself. I need to ask him. He's invited me back to look at, and possibly haul away, still more books. At this point I honestly don't *care* if I just got lucky today and wind up hauling away a ton of crap. It's worth what he made available to me. Period. Books I wanted to start with.

And you know what? For the first time I've seen at least a small hint of the Bill that Charles came to adore in his own earlier years. He was visibly gleeful at my keeping even that particular portion of his library together which he's apparently never cared enough about to use in the short time I have known him. That *collection* of books clearly means something to him, even if he never uses them. Not just the individual titles and editions.

Then I *proved* myself temporarily mad when I spoke with my mother by telephone this evening. She's been rather obsessing over what light fixture might work well in just such-and-such a certain spot. It needs to leave such-and-such clearance, and give off so much light, but still cast just this certain light "just so" on that particular spot, and so forth.

What do I tell her?

I tell her she needs to get herself a "double post hole convolute", and put a light behind it, and that will be just *exactly* what she's looking for that works in that space.

It's true. I mean. From a design perspective. My mother *needs* a double post hole convolute, hanging from her kitchen ceiling, regardless what it's been designed for.

You want to tell me about "dual use" design? Let me propose at least a tertiary use.

I mean -- the double post hole convolutes are just *so* fabulously drop-dead *gorgeous*, and so *uniquely* one of a kind that *if* the people who fund the labs were *really* smart about it, they'd sell 'em as light fixtures to the very richest of the rich, and *only* to the very richest of the rich (with the exception of my mother), complete with half-section wall, quarter-section inner corner, and three-quarter-section-outer-corner sconces.

I suppose it's only fair that I suggest they label them "Charles Convolutes".

(Failing that, perhaps I'll stick around and find one in surplus, someday. It will be cheaper.)

And then they could market the Z-pinch as an "optional accessory", what with its super-fine tungsten wires and aluminum post.

I'd die to see the light such a fixture might give off in a well-designed and well-used kitchen.

A good reporter . . .

. . . is a lucky reporter.

At least that's what Steve says Susan Stamberg says. Whether she said it or not, there is truth there.

Worked at Sissy's for a couple of hours just watering things. The pansies and violas are taking root and becoming established. Some better than others, but they weren't all planted at the same time. They'll all do fine, I'm sure. It was beautiful. Filled up all the fountains and mostly had the place to myself.

Then headed in to the newsroom where I thought Jim was, 'cause we were going to discuss something regarding the metallurgical properties of Plutonium. Winds up he wasn't there that day -- whoops! I called him and eventually we talked -- but not about that. Being a newsroom, well, other stuff happened.

Placed some calls regarding my Sandia National Laboratories media tour tomorrow and didn't get any calls back. The good news is I know who I should talk to, and I left messages for him with two different people. I had a number for him but it didn't work.

The Sandia press office people call me back, not once, but twice. First they need to know the make and model and security number of the digital camera that I plan to bring. I explain that we can't find the connector cable for the camera, and so I'm coming without a camera, but just with recording equipment. OK, they say, that makes things easier. (They've already got my name, date of birth, place of birth, social security number, phone number, and current address.) They call back later to ask if they can possibly get the make and model and serial number of the recording equipment I'm bringing. What the hell, play the game -- if anyone's gonna do an identity theft number on me, it's sure as hell not gonna be from the station's equipment I'm using tomorrow.

I cobble together the super-best recording kit of all time with backups upon backups and call them back with the information that they seek. Finding connectors for the mics is tricky. The good part is I get to try out every recorder and every mic and every mic cable we have and take only the best and most reliable. I visit Mike Stark -- the station's chief engineer -- because I'm concerned about cables. He explains the XLR connections in such depth that I think I could probably rig one myself.

I didn't volunteer the makes and models and serial numbers of the mics I was using because I figured if I admitted to knowing that such things existed they'd want to know all that, too.

Sandia doesn't have press days that often, and I'll be damned if I go with equipment that fails at the last minute.

Shortly before Steve goes on air he gives me some wire copy to read. I rewrite it and read it so it works as a headline, just to break up the voices. Basically just me announcing that the thirty-sixth New Mexican had been killed in Iraq. My god, I sounded grave when reading that. Maybe it's from the few names I've helped George with on his Veterans' Day program. Just try reading out 105 or so names of people who've died sometime and see if the toll on human life doesn't become more real.

At risk of being vain and superficial, reading this piece today I realized more than I'd ever understood before about the frequency response of the mic I was using, as opposed to the one I used yesterday. (Yesterday's had a low-frequency rolloff I distinctly *don't* like. But that can be fixed.)

I'm starting to think I came in to the newsroom for the afternoon in order to do nothing more than to put together a recording kit, a process which *usually* takes fifteen minutes, at worst.

Jim calls back and we start discussing my Sandia tour tomorrow. We're getting all into it -- how to approach the story, what I might expect to see or have happen -- when in walk these two guys I've never seen in my life. I figure they're there for Studio A -- maybe they're musicians, or singers. But I keep talking and pacing the newsroom and they kind of just keep looking in to the newsroom as I'm talking about security measures and stuff. Eventually I figure they're definitely there for the newsroom. I ask if I can help them. When they ask for me by name, I know it. I ask Jim if I can call him back.

They hand me not one, but potentially *several* stories. How did they even know I existed? Not because they'd heard me on the radio. Because I'd very casually placed a call to someone they know the week before. They came from a whole different part of the state, and I only vaguely remembered having placed a call regarding the place that they mentioned having come from. Eventually the pieces sort of fell together and I realized: dear god, these people sought me out, specifically. *That's* a feeling I don't think I've *ever* had before. Ever. They knew I was interested in a story regarding something they were interested in, as well. We talk for maybe half an hour. It was incredible. Then they need to get going, and are heading out. I ask if there's anything I can do for them, and they ask, downright meekly, if they might get a tour of the station. Of course! I got so wrapped up in their stories I completely forgot that they might want to look at the station, which showing off is one of my greatest joys on earth. I take them through everything that's unlocked and/or otherwise accessible.

They leave saying that the highlight for them was the music library.

Just in case I got a swelled head, I assume. ;)

The best reporter is a lucky reporter.

But you can't wait for luck to strike you. You've got to keep your eyes peeled and ears open. You've got to reach out, on occasion, to people who you otherwise might never thing to contact in the first place. There are stories out there, but you've *got* to just take a few minutes, sometimes, here and there, just to let people know that you care.

Life is good.

Charles returns.

This means that tomorrow I show up to deal with pansies and violas. Are they getting enough water, enough sun? Too much water? Too much sun? How is the topdressing holding up, under the wind?

In other news -- made a story that aired tonight out of State Treasurer Lewis' recent speech in the form a "two-way" discussion about what he said. It's a complicated mess involving no fewer than four recent state treasurers, one of whom pled guilty to a single criminal charge, and another who got convicted of another under federal indictment, not to mention the appointed interim treasurer who instituted certain key reforms prior to being followed by Lewis himself. It's all kind of a mess, but I fit it into 4:55.

On Wednesday I go to take the media tour of the security-scrubbed Sandia National Laboratories.

But tomorrow, lucky me, I just get to deal with pansies and violas.

Still more stories.

Oh, to be a Bach, whose praises of his patrons live forever by sheer virtue of his own genius.

I am, alas, clearly no Bach. But Sissy paid me today, and I think that all is well on earth. I am a bit embarrassed to present her, ever, with an invoice; but she sees it, sees the thousands of pansies, and knows what she is paying for.

I, on the other hand, feel less completely dreadful asking her for payment for the same exact reason. I think she's getting more comfortable asking me if I will do certain things -- to which my response is, what else? "Gladly." The hawthorne berries get stuck on that walkway, and the dogs like to eat them -- would you mind . . . ? "Gladly." I'm seriously glad to have the person who pays me ask me to do things. It gives me a far better sense of what's really important to her that I can do to earn my keep than just showing up and following Charles around, and then feeling as though I'm really not earning my keep when he's not there.

The garden's looking fabulous.

In other news --

Jim gave me a *damn* good story earlier this week. He *knows* I *love* digging into long-winded, wonkish reports like no one else, and then calling the designated spokesman on whatever point lies buried deep within. Lucky for me, this time, it was only a 22-page report.

The DOE's Inspector General issued a report on cost estimates and cost overruns at LANL which winds up being highly critical of a contractor called KSL, which provides support services to LANL, including maintenance and repairs. KSL is a subsidiary of KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root, from when it was a subsidiary of Halliburton. I managed to track down and speak with the general manager of KSR, before airtime.

This is what I consider a fun story to work on, because it's a challenge. You're kind of given a ton of financial data and information about different accounting practices and how they can be manipulated, fairly or not, and then have to draw certain conclusions and put out a news story that same day. There's NO WAY you as a reporter can pretend to begin to understand all the intricacies of it by the time your deadline hits. But if you miss the deadline, then some other news source with a later deadline gets the story. The best that you can do in the time you have is get different perspectives on it from different involved parties and cobble together a story. Here it is:

Los Alamos National Laboratory Defrauded?

Is it perfect? NO. But I made the deadline! Like, with a minute to spare. And as far as I can tell, I was the first to report the KBR statement in response to the report (which I've since seen quoted elsewhere).

Two more -- again, in reverse chronological order. A forest fire story that was a quick phone interview. Nothing special:

Cibola National Forest Fire Contained

And finally:

Santa Fe Hearing Discusses Proposed Marijuana Legislation

Did I report this? I honestly don't recall.

I'm guessing it was a "read wire copy" affair.

Three stories in a month. God damn, that is pathetic. But then I guess I've been focusing more than usual lately on "hosting" the news programming, which is a big enough deal to someone as inexperienced as I am that I can do *either* that or *reporting*.

I don't host again 'til the sixteenth. So I should have some time to get some good stories under my belt.