OK, what a month June was. Last day ends with a boom and a storm-induced power outage – how fitting, and proud of our weekend anchor/producer Kim Tobin for managing to get dang fine 10 and 11 shows out when it took hours after the hour-long outage to get everything back up and running (a lot of technology at a TV station, folks, and BIG behind-the-scene upgrades are happening this year.)
Ah, upgrades — in the world of tech, they are such very mixed ‘blessings.’ Or as I’ve put it: “Two steps forward, 1 1/2 steps back, 3 steps sideways — and turn out the lights.”
Deb and I are almost through with our month-long move from SE to NE Bend. Why so long? Well, the place we lived in for 10 years was discharged in bankruptcy – by mistake – and nobody told us. The good part of that is, it allowed us, unlike many others, to ‘escape’ an underwater house with too-big 1st and 2nd mortgages and move to a bigger, newer and cheaper house. Two stories, with 16 steps between the first and second floors – did I mention that before? Hmm, maybe I did;-)
Anyway, that was the first of two big moves for me in the past month, bookends to the other “fun” highlight, a combo colonoscopy-endoscopy (which I refer to as the Golden Spike procedure – they meet in the middle, shake hands, give a speech, pose for photos. OK, not really;-)
But the second move – ah, what a roller-coaster ride. A year later than first planned, KTVZ.COM’s Website provider, Internet Broadcasting, moved us from version 1 to version 2 of their CMS (content management system), ibPublish. It’s completely different. And the trick was, we made the move while I fought as hard as possible to keep the front end – what everyone sees – exactly the same. (In large part because folks who make a habit of a Website hate for it to change so much they have to hunt for stuff. We’ve really tried to keep everything simple, logical and obvious — well, out front anyway;-)
But like every big move, in real life or the land of technology, you have to pick up everything you move (well, your movers do) and put it all in the new place, hopefully without breaking, losing or tripping over too much of the stuff, realizing you have too much stuff and vowing to de-hoard and de-clutter as you go. Mighty full, heavy trashcans, and recycling bins, indeed. (I dropped a 1,500-page dumb ol’ Windows XP how-too book. On my foot. Like I mentioned in a previous post, fortunately, didn’t break anything.)
OK, the analogy isn’t perfect, but for the past week-plus, let’s just say that the new version of our Web platform keeps locking up while I’m inside, so I have to force my way out again, and then I can’t often get in (log in) again. And the real fun is that IB as we call it — which partnered with a German company, CoreMedia, for this platform – inherited not one, but two tools to run this show. And they work almost completely differently (cut-paste vs. drag-drop for example) and don’t look anything alike and… it’s the kind of reason I’ve always been an automatic transmission, not a stickshift kind of guy. And a Windows, not Mac guy. Having both would be … disconcerting. So I have been grinding my gears a lot in the ‘backup’ version of the tool, when the better version kicks me out.
The likely outcome of any big move, of course, is that you find stuff you lost, lose stuff you had and hopefully don’t break much (stuff or your feet, for example) in the process.
Was quite glad most folks couldn’t tell the difference after the big switch (the changes in view are pretty subtle). And we happy to get a visit from IB’s great trainer, Fred Olson this week (he provided 2 mighty-fine lunches as well;-) — the IB folks have been putting up with, oh, 3,423 e-mails a day as I battle for logic, simplicity and the things that software should be all about, but rarely is. There are definite pluses to the new and ‘improved’ version — boy, does it post stories fast for example — but alas, like many computer upgrades, I keep trying to move things from the ‘new chore’ category to the ‘time-saving’ category because otherwise I’ll go bonkers.
Oh, and I also rewarded myself for surviving the Month of Change with my first new album purchase in months — the new Maroon 5, Overexposed. Yeah, they are. And the album is quite over-produced in places, too. But there’s enough fun among the somewhat reptitive techno-beats that it’s a worthy addition. (Wish they’d stuck ‘Moves Like Jagger’ on it. Yeah, I know, can play it on YouTube or buy it on iTunes, but I’m not an iPod earbud kinda guy. I like to fill a room with music whenever possible;-)
I also hope that now that we finally jumped to the new mothership for our Website, and are getting more newsroom folks trained, I can take my hands off the wheel once in a while (while always going in to polish the words – hey, edititis doesn’t go away overnight). Then maybe I can blat out my blog (and maybe one day a book? Who knows) about the Blame Society (tentiative subtitle: “How Losing the Middle Ground is Costing Us the Middle Class.”) Some other books have come out of late making the same point, but that doesn’t deter me. The extremes on both sides I deal with in our Web comments drive me to exasperation. But I have to hold my tongue there. Thankfully, the blogosophere makes it possible to be in a closely watched line of business like journalism and still be able to state an opinion. As long as one is careful about it.
So here’s to a happy 4th for all of you, and that with all that rain (sheesh) the Pilot Butte fireworks don’t set the butte on fire this time:-)
Leave it to Barney 
Hi Barney, Welcome You & Deb to NE!! Its a wonderful neighborhood. We moved from NW last year this month and have not looked back.
Congrats too on your new home, both of them.
I have to say I tried so hard to stay with the techno-babble of the broadcasting business but to be honest could not. I do understand phone complany DS=10 AND 100 CUTS THOUGH IF THAT HELPS…… 🙂