Category: Uncategorized

Investing in the future (from tech to desks)

We got new desks in the newsroom this week.

Big whoop you say? Well, they are a grand step up from what we had, let me tell ya.

We’ve had one of our periodic waves of staff turnover this year in the newsroom — not unusual for small-market TV stations. But it also scrubs the “institutional memory” of just how far we’ve come in a few short years.

When I started at KTVZ back in early 2005, we had a half-hour 6pm news. The newsroom was cramped and in dire need of updating. We had a few cameras, a few cars, a few reporters and no full-time photographers.

That was early in News-Press and Gazette Co.’s ownership of the station, just after we moved on from Z-21 (boy does that stick) to NewsChannel 21.

We have come a long, long way. I wish my somewhat aging home computer was as good as the newer all-in-one now on my new desk at work. We have 2 full-time photographers, a brand-new master control system, a brand-new editing system, a really full-of-fine-folks newsroom and much to be proud of.

Of course, much of the behind-the-scenes stuff isn’t noticed — or is only noticed during the inevitable hiccups that happen with any big technical upgrade these days. Many companies wrestle behind the scenes with such matters. Ours is just more … public than others.

We’ve had fleets of engineers and techs flown in from afar, working to do what so many companies face challenges with – getting stuff from different vendors to work together as well as they should. (Heck, sometimes it’s hard enough to get one company’s products working right with each other.)

So… all of this came to mind today as I read Bulletin Editor-in-Chief John Costa’s column on changes happening at the paper and more to come to deal with its struggle in today’s economy — and with the changing tastes of readers and viewers. For example, I’m reading more great, fun, interesting magazines than ever – but all on my Nook Tablet. Change happens, and we all struggle mightily to keep up.

Newspapers, like other media,were blessed with the traditional every 2 (or 4) year bump in political advertising (like it or, well…). But those kinds of fairly dependable things (like the Olympics) are factored into corporate budgets. What we really all need is a sustained recovery, and, one must hope, some leadership among our leaders to actually get tough problems solved and give businesses a reason to confidently invest in the future.

I’ve never been prouder of where I work or the people I work with. We’ve seen some great people move on to bigger and better things (one of the more visible – Chris Warren on The Weather Channel! Now owned by NBC, who’da thunk. And what’s with TWC deciding that all big storms need names? Sheesh. But I digress, as usual.;-)

As we await a whole new graphics look on the station and more improvements (and more getting stuff to work right — THANKS for the many long days and nights, to our stalwart engineers!) – I just wanted to offer a reminder that much happens behind the scenes – and when it works right, you’ll never notice the improvements that will, for example, make more of our syndicated shows come to you in crisp, clear HD.

If that sounds like puffy corporate-PR-speak, oh well, please forgive a bit of chest-thumping. Just wanted you to know.

Come together. Right now. Over whomever. Please.

I don’t care as much about Election Day as the day after, and the four years after.

I have blogged quite a bit about the Blame Society over the years. And yes, presidential politics have been a nasty, brutish sport since men wore wigs and stockings.

But if we come out of this nasty election with a nation split down the middle, and a government seemingly paralyzed as a result, Lord help us.

Will whoever wins find a Magic Key to get people on Capitol Hill working with the White House? Will the opposing party in general try to prevent the new (or re-elected) president from getting anything done, or try to find room for compromise?

So many folks are angry at The Evil Other Side that many others are scared to death of continued paralysis and inability to tackle serious problems, from the deficit to … well one of my last dead-trees editions of Bloomberg Businessweek has a black-and-red cover shouting ‘IT’S GLOBAL WARMING, STUPID” over a picture of flooded Manhattan.

We’re so busy trying to blame that we can’t seem to remember how to give-and-take, compromise and deal with issues that stare us in the proverbial face.

Just about every time I lay that out to folks, I’m looked at by some as some naive pathetic Kumbaya-singing wishy-washy flip-flopper.

I know better. I’m as damned angry as they are. But I’m angry at THEM, both sides, for letting it get to this point. To believe that Your Side is the Chosen Good Guys and anyone who doesn’t agree is evil — that is a new low we seem to have come to, in that we now all have, through the Internet, ady access to the carefully spun “facts” that buttress our biases and rain evil motives on those who dare disagree.

Imagine if the Founding Fathers had Facebook and anonymous comment systems to fling THEIR mud. Would we still have a functioning country today?

Do we now? And who do you blame for that? More importantly, what are you willing to do to make it better?

I don’t believe people are turned off to politics because they believe all of them are lying, cheating scoundrels — well, some are, of course — as much as they’ve thrown up their hands at all involved for being childish clenched-fist whiners who see political (and probably financial) advantage in doing more blaming than solving, more chest-beating than sitting down at a table with the Other Side and seeing if there’s room for … gasp … COMPROMISE!

That there are huge lines in Florida and Ohio, hours-long waits for folks wanting to vote is a TRAVESTY, whether you believe it’s Your Side or The Other Side behind it. It’s one thing to struggle with a massive storm’s aftermath and its impact on the voting process, but playing politics with people’s right to vote should be unconscionable, no matter what way your personal political weathervane spins.

So. Day after the election. Win or lose. What will YOU be saying, in person or at your keyboard?

If that depends on who wins, than I daresay that mindset is as much the problem as … who wins.

IMHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion;-)

Sandy’s tentacles reach far and wide

You may have noticed fewer videos on KTVZ.COM this week. (Then again, maybe not.)

Our video service provider, Syndicaster, is located in a data center in lower Manhattan, so … power was cut off there as floodwaters rushed in.

Their (Critical Mention is the co.) gear is upstairs and all fine, they say – but without power, they had to wait until the water was pumped out below so they could get going again.

We’ve been using workarounds to get video on the Web – but considering we’re still rasslin’ with a recent major change to a new video editing system, well … the Perfect Storm hit us, too.

It just goes to show you that all this “save it in the cloud” folderol is … a bit overblown. Nothing gets saved up there in the sky. It’s all down here, and all the precautions and backups in the world aren’t going to prevent occasionally getting snakebit.

There is NO comparison, of course, to our tech hassles and the misery those in the Northeast are facing. But this interconnected world of ours does bite back once in a while.

It’s good we’re so connected, most of the time. But we can go well beyond Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain” line when you literally depend on those a continent away for the things you take for granted, day in and day out – until they aren’t working.

And then, you remember, and realize just how thin the veneer of ‘everything’s OK, just rollin’ along’ really is in today’s tech-dependent society.

Of first footsteps, and last; heroes and fathers

Neil Armstrong died today. A man who didn’t seek out the hero’s mantle, and surely didn’t cash it in as some have.

I grew up to be quite a space nut – and not just because my father, an engineer who worked for Boeing, actually got to work on the space program. It was just … the promise of the future and all that entailed.

I built a LEM (lunar lander) from a cutout cardboard sheet, more tape than paper when I was done. I built a Saturn 5 from a plastic kit of pieces, probably more glue than plastic when I was done (never was much for hand-eye coordination). In junior high, we did rockets, and my awfully painted lil red one must have flown, I suppose. I don’t remember it that much.

We — my father Paul, stepmother Jeannie, and two older brothers Pete and Rick (well he was Larry then) – moved to Cocoa, Fla., on the mainland near Cape Kennedy, in 1966. We left in 1968 for Kent, Wash., where my father – starting to show the signs of the bulbular palsy that would take his life within a few years – was to work for Boeing on the SST. Until Congress killed it.

Darn it.

Anyway, we’ve always been masters of timing. We moved to Cocoa after Gemini, left before Apollo — we were there for the deadly fire. (And we left as Disney World just began taking shape.) And my father worked, after the fire, on the guy-wire system that was going to get those astronauts out of the frickin capsule if another fire happened.

I used to read the Boeing newsletters he brought home avidly – though they were full of acronyms and jargon and I never quite understood them. I was already hit by the writing/journalism bug.

More than a billion folks watched man land on the moon, watched Armstrong’s first step.

I wasn’t one of them.

Alas, that’s the week my Boy Scout troop in Kent, Wash., decided to finish the 50-mile hike, from Stevens Pass to Sonoqualmie Pass, that was aborted the year earlier when one of them got lost. (That was before we moved there.)

I remember two things about that hike – one when we were roped together and a fat kid named Wally Schneider (fitting right?) didn’t follow the guy ahead of his footsteps in the still-present high-Cascades snow – so he started to slip down the hill (mountain?) — dragging us with him.

Then there was Mr. No Coordination, walking on a log with a pack on my back, and of course I fell in the water. I was dry – the backpack and sleeping bag got soaked.

Or so I recall.

So yeah, I wasn’t able to see man land on the moon — remember, there were no VCRs, much less DVRs then. (Though a few years later, a now-missing HS friend, Gene Tichy, and I would watch the moon landings, the Lunar Rover etc. – and he’d record them on a huge reel-to-reel video recorder.)

I know Neil Armstrong felt all the thousands of people who put him and Buzz Aldrin on the moon were just as much heroes as he was. (Decades later, I came up with the winning Progress edition theme for The Bulletin — ‘Everyday Heroes.’ We had trouble getting folks to agree to be called that. The best heroes are those so modest they don’t want or need the spotlight. They just do their jobs, or what needs to be done.)

Anyway, I don’t know if I ever told my dad he was a hero to me. He passed away in 1975 of a truly scary disease, bulbular palsy – as scary as the Alzheimer’s plague of today. He became very emotional, crying and … it was hard to see or take.

But today, as we remember a hero from the old school, a self-professed ‘white shoes pocket protector nerd’ who made history with a footstep that still sits on the moon’s airless plains, I have to offer a public salute to my father, Paul Lerten, one of the many folks who were part of a grand effort that almost seems impossible in retrospect, from today’s divisive, deep-in-red-ink Blame Society.

Both were heroes, and I’m sure my dad would have shunned the title just as Neil Armstrong did.

But both deserved it, richly, for what they did and what they stood for — doing right by family, doing a job to make something big and grand happen. But doing so without fanfare, just … because it needed to be done.

We miss that. We need more of that.

What a blog is – and isn’t

This is a blog. Blogs are usually one person’s posts, thoughts and comments, usually presented chronologically.
A blog is NOT an online forum system, or a commenting system on news articles. Somehow, many folks have gotten confused about just what a blog is — and isn’t.
Our daily paper has a front page story about how the city of Bend is going to try out an online forum. The word they picked for the “jump” header? Blog.
I guess we’re all looking for short, punchy shorthand to describe and categorize stuff. But right is right, and wrong is wrong, and bloggers know that much of what is called blogs these days are NOT a blog.
That said, I wish the city all the luck in the world in trying to get some useful info out of folks in a forum structure, and keep the rabble-rousers to background. It’s a challenge, as I know from our very lively comment system at KTVZ.COM and other experiences over the decades.
But people who post comments there WON’T be blogging, or posting blogs. Let’s try to call it what it is.

16 Steps to Glory (Amid a Move from Hades)

My wonderful wife Debbie and I are closing in on ‘done’ with our first move in a decade.

We were in our 40s the last time. Now we’re … not.

And for the first time in close to a quarter-century, we’re in a 2-story home.

“Are you sure?” I asked Deb, more than once.

“Yep — it’ll be good for us,” she said.

Uh-huh.

Actually, it’s gotten easier in just a few days than it was the first few times, when I counted the 16 steps the way I used to count out push-ups — very painfully, rarely successfully.

But my heart isn’t quite leaping out of my chest as it did at first.

I told my doctor I was moving to a house with its own built in 16-stair Stairmaster.

“Good — do 100 of those a day and you’ll be fine,” he said.

I neglected to ask if he meant 100 STAIRS, 100 trips up OR down the thing, or 100 round-trips.

Remind me not to ask him.

I also learned once again that the longer you are in one spot, the more … stuff accumulates. I’ll call it ‘crap,’ because that’s what I said under my breath with every too-heavy box of books I never read and never WILL read that got lugged up or down said 16 Stairs of Fun or into or out of a car.

We had 3 amazingly fit and burly guys do the truly heavy stuff. But they are fit, and we… well, the low point so far is when a 1,600-page (I kid you not) book on Office XP (what, 2-3 Offices ago?) decided to follow the laws of gravity and slip out of a plastic bag of Books I Hate and Will Recycle and fell… on my big toe.

Nope, didn’t break it, but it sure throbbed for a few.

So if you check my personal Facebook profile, you’ll find atop the page right now a prime example of why those 16 Stairs of Hateful Revenge on Old-Age Metabolism are worth it.

Until/unless the housing bubble blooms again (we’re in a half-built, at most, NE Bend neighborhood), we have a clear view of why so many of us put up with so much of what we’re not fond of here on the High Desert — a glorious view of the mountains and the sun setting behind them.

Almost makes up for every wheeze, ache and book-on-toe we’ve encountered (so far).

A bit closer to Heaven, you might say.

Hopefully, thanks largely to the 16 Stairs of Joy, Heaven can wait.

Even if the last boxes at the old place cannot.

Stricter commenting guidelines?

Here’s The Central Oregonian’s, wonder what percentage of our comments at KTVZ.COM would survive if we firmly enforced such a set of rules? (Heck, I’m guilty of ‘random thoughts’ myself now and then;-)

Commenting guidelines:

This is intended to be a constructive forum for the use of civilized people. Please adhere to the following principles:

No obscene or vulgar language, either direct or obscurely spelled or couched
Don’t slander or libel fellow commenters, reporters or subjects of our stories
Post comments that pertain to the topic – no advertising, soliciting or ‘random thoughts’
Don’t promote illegal activities, violence or hatred of groups or individuals
Remember: this is you. Say things you’re proud to have the responsibility for authoring.
Feel free to suggest corrections, enhancements, ideas for follow-up stories.
Flag comments that you see that are in violation of these principles

If you violate these principles, you may be permanently banned from participation.

The National Survey Survey — Enter to Win! (Or Lose!)

Thank you for responding to this request from the National Survey Association! (Which popped up on your computer screen and won’t go away, so what choice do you have?)

Our research has shown that the average number of surveys the average American encounters in an average month averages 1,034 — up 194.2 percent from our last survey survey, conducted a year ago.

We know you may be feeling overwhelmed with the number of restaurants, utilities, bookstores, gas stations, massage parlors and animal husbandry facilities – among others — who are asking you on a card, phone call or those receipts to please take “a few minutes” of your time to “tell us how we’re doing.” (As opposed to the old-fashioned way of, um, how much of a tip you give or saying something nice (or not so nice) to your server-person, the manager (if he or she isn’t busy reading all those surveys) or a blank-faced embroidered-shirt doofus at the local Big Box.

But you should know that America’s Businesses have become so automated that we don’t believe in face-to-face, voice-to-voice contact. Only numbers count – and the only way WE can count YOU is to amalgamate your views with that of the Public at Large, so we can decide how best to serve YOU! Whoever YOU are.

So please do fill out this very brief, 48-question survey, after providing us the same e-mail address, demographic and income info, blood type and shoe size we’ve asked of you after each of the previous 1,048 times you’ve visited our Website or answered this call, always precisely timed for when you are in the shower or otherwise indisposed.

As for this survey about surveys (which we call ‘The Mother of All Surveys,’ and you’ll soon see why), we promise cross our heart hope to expire shortly that this VERY brief survey will NOT take any longer than 4,263 minutes to complete, after which you of course will be entered in a prize drawing for the Special Gift of Your Choice (a cheap plastic pair of binoculars, gawd-ugly tote bag or compact tissue holder with built-in tweezers).

Oh yes, the questions we’re asking include:

On a scale of 1 to infinity, 1 being “I wouldn’t answer this question if it gave me the last airpack on Mars” and infninity being “I want to marry this store and bear its children!”…. how much do you agree with the following statements?

–My favorite hobby is filling out surveys.

–My sole purpose in life is to fill out as many surveys as possible.

–I enjoy surveys because I hate face-to-face interaction and prefer anonymously praising or carpet-bombing the places I shop, eat, or otherwise must make use of.

–I love love LOVE surveys because I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time. Nothing. Whatsoever. Trust me. Or ask my wife. Wait, don’t ask her.

–I believe today’s American businesses have absolutely no way to find out what I like or dislike other than these online or endless phone surveys that present such leading questions as to stack the answers in the way only masters of spin control can.

–The only thing I enjoy more than filling out an endless parade of surveys is watching Viagra or Cialis ads, with his-and-hers bathtubs and soft romantic music that also leave 4-year-olds across the country threatened with a mouth full of soap for asking, “Mommy, what’s a four-hour erection?”

Again, from the deepest recessed hearts of the National Survey Association (motto: “We haven’t a clue unless you tell us what to do!”), THANK YOU for agreeing to proceed to the following 1,093,426 questions on our survey (hey, it’s been a while) – and we promise to never, ever ask you all these questions again.

Until next week.

Hey, computers can have Attention-Deficit Disorder too!

Whoever you are, have a nice day!

Kleenex makes me mad

OK, not the tissues, per se.

But at some point this year, Kimberly-Clark decided to make the tall, roughly 280-count boxes of tissues I’ve bought since time immemorial … extinct, apparently.

Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t spend all my life blowing my nose or wiping away tears or picking up messes. But … I don’t like it when a company messes with my routines and makes me change out tissue boxes more often in various places around the house.

I have no clue why they did this, but all of a sudden, within a few weeks or months time, at every store I went to, they had just … vanished. Replaced in most stores by more house-brand rougher-on-nose tissues.

I was miffed enough to try to reach them through social media. Posted a note and evrything, and … no reply at all. (Maybe I’ll try the 800 no. on the bottom of the box – what, only weekdays 8a-4p CT? – if only to ask the logical question … why? A paper shortage? Slow sales?)

Ever have something you’ve bought as long as you remember, a daily staple of life just … vanish without a word? It’s ridiculous.

Another grand example – white sauce powdered mix (not the yucky canned stuff). Deb uses it for the sauce for a recipe we call ‘Eggs on a Cloud,’ a yummy dish from McCall’s Cooking School, a series of colorful recipe sheets and binder series from about the time we got married in the early ’80s.

For a long time, no problem finding them. Now, go ahead, check the sauce aisle. Hey Knorr, where the heck do you keep the stuff now? Or did you stop making it in favor of the fifth variant of teriyaki, BBQ or other sauces/gravies?

Little things, to be sure. But they add up, I tell you!

I guess it’s sort of like the notion that just when you  really fall in love with a TV show, they cancel it.

And don’t get me started about The Beatles and a decade (the ’70s) or two wasted waiting for ‘the next Beatles.” When we knew well and good there wouldn’t be one.

(Now there’s a left turn in conversation eh? Well that’s just the way I think;-)

Reclaiming Life, Sundays and My Blog

Sorry. Again.

As usual.

See, I tend to start thinking that this blog must have Finely Crafted, Very Important Things.

Otherwise it’s ‘Dear Diary, today I went to the grocery store….”

So rather than small news, I offer no news.

Because I’m too busy with “real news.”

Bleh.

So I’ll try to break that infernal habit and … just say it’s been a busy 4 months since I last talked here.

My eldest brother, Dave, came to town and … without bothering you with all the mess, let’s just say it’s been an unexpected … adventure. Some rewards but bizarre twists and turns and headaches.

He had a stroke in late September, but is doing better now, at a local assisted-living center. Driving them crazy a bit with his ways (don’t I know it), but … I love to make him laugh. I see a bit of my late brother Pete, and hear our late father’s laugh.

I’m easily prone to melancholy (I found a 1985 bottle of window cleaner and thought back and … almost went to tears. Over window cleaner.) So I thought I’d wait to blog until the situation family-wise resolved itself.

Like they ever really do in a neat package. This ain’t (yes, I said ain’t) no movie.

I will always try to make things enjoyable. Like the recommendation of the Nook Tablet from Barnes and Noble. Also sold at other stores that are hyping the only slightly cheaper Amazon Kindle Fire. Nook is better, but spring the extra $50 for the latest, not last year’s model. It’s worth it.

What a wonderful way to read my Time, Newsweek, Readers Digest, The Atlantic and great books like “The End of Business as Usual” by Brian Solis (I could link this but hey, you have Google too;-) or one I stumbled on thanks to WordPress, ‘Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds” by Scott Berkun. Check ’em out and get to thinking of new things. What fun. 

(Ooh, WordPress has moved up the simple scale even farther, with live preview no less. Coolness.)

Anyhoo, thank you for reading this, and you have a wonderful, semi-stress-free, healthy holiday season.

I’ll blog more, I promise. And one way to do that is to give myself a 10-minute limit for typing so I don’t think I have to Tell Something Monumental. I post lots of links to things I find interesting on my Facebook page, but … blogging has its own nice lil benefits.

I’ll try not to be a stranger;-)