Emily and I moved from Effingham to Litchfield yesterday, a migration that was, thanks in part to the help of her parents, Uncle Carl and cousin Tim, surprisingly efficient and not nearly as hard as we expected. Plus we have over two-hundred additional square feet of space as well as washer and dryer hook-ups. Yay us.

While the move was engineered to be closer to Emily’s family as well as in a (somewhat) decent place in the twenty-five county area she serves as a regional ecologist, the location was also chosen for its proximity to my new place of work: WSMI Radio.

I spent over eight years in radio (all at WHCO save a few month stint in college reading news at SIUE’s jazz station WSIE) and I loved every minute of it. (Almost every minute.) I made the decision in 2001 to get into teaching because it was something I thought I would also enjoy and I would not only find it easier to get a job but also procure one that paid more than the pittance that small town radio (or, very often, even big market radio) offers.

I was wrong on all counts. I didn’t like teaching; I loved it. But Illinois needs more history teachers like it needs George Ryan and Tony Rezko, and if you can’t coach, didn’t student teach at (or graduate from) the school you’re applying to or don’t have a man on the inside the odds of your resume being one of the few chosen out of the stack of 70 to 100 submitted is pretty slim. Subbing might help get your foot in the door, but it’s no guarantee. And if you do get there’s no guarantee it’ll be into a position that pays decently, at least from the start.

And as much as I loved it, I still loved radio more.

So with Emily getting a really great job and the subsequent ability to live anywhere in south Central Illinois, I applied for a part-time position at WSMI. Just walking in the first day to talk to the program director I got a contact high from the console, and the three hours I spent absorbing everything in the studio gave me a rush I haven’t felt from anything not named Emily in a long time. It helped that while WSMI is a small market, studio-in-a-cornfield stick it’s also a first class operation, and their studios are impressive. They get how to do great radio, serve the community and still make enough money to consistently improve. And I’m jumping up and down inside in anticipation over Tuesday when I get to start.

The guy was clearly obsessed with anime.

She patiently snipped his bowl cut, a style he should have left in his elementary school days. But, then again, that’s where he still was, obsessing about Pokemon and various other less popular fringe entertainment in a way that implied the entire store was hanging on his every expert word. It’s one thing to like a kid’s cartoon; nothing wrong with that. It’s another to sit in a Great Clips and preach – loudly – to an apathetic hairdresser about the crime of cutting down “700 Japanese episodes to 500.” She couldn’t care less how violent you claim the original version of the show is, and your description of a particular snake-like Pokemon being decapitated – and how one of your female friends keeps a picture of this to show people who make fun of her interest in the cartoon – did not help your case one bit.

All because the poor woman, in an unfortunate attempt to make conversation, quipped that thanks to her kids she never gets to watch much television other than Spongebob Squarepants.

It’s cute to ask the lower middle-aged, Hip-Looking-For-A-Mother stylist if she has the internet. ‘Cause not a lot of people do yet. But when she reacts in the affirmative, don’t expect her to remember the name of some random anime character that you want to dress up as when you go to sci-fi conventions. She already told you it would take a LOT of gel to spike up that horrid cut of yours. Don’t push it.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a geek. A huge one. But this was just sad.

Growing up in the industry and thus having a fetish for all things radio, my computer over the years managed to build up a large cache of audio files, namely various programs I produced and airchecks from my years at WHCO, an archive of production elements and music beds, as well as random songs and other crap. Many of them were larger, uncompressed formats (read: .wav) that are used by multitrack editors and automation/live-assist programs and thus they take up far too much room on my computer. Actually, I should pluralize that: computers. This all started three or four boxes ago and slowly migrated over to my current desktop and laptop.

You can imagine what a mess it was.

The only reason I could ever find anything is because I just happened to remember where I put it, and that wasn’t always the case. Adding to the jumble is iTunes; occasionally a file or two would get added to the library to get burned to a CD or copied onto my iPod Shuffle, and now there are two copies of the file on my hard drive: one where it started and one where iTunes copied it into its own hellish structure of folders.

Finally I was motivated enough to fix this mess. The last couple days has seen me completely organize and rearrange all of my audio, gutting duplicates out of iTunes and then recataloging all of the files into a logical order. “Illinois Loyalty” and all my CBS NFL music? That belongs in “Sports Music.” My Beatles parody songs and the oldies countdown shows I produce? “Radio Production.” All those wrestling themes? Out of iTunes and into the “Wrestling” folder inside “TV, Movie Themes.” Soooo much nicer now.

Even better: converting all the .wav files into .mp3s. At most I deleted 150 to 300 files off of my computer; the rest were retained and converted to .m3s. The haul: 104 GB was used before the project, and now only 89.7 GB is utilized. That still counts a whole slew of .wavs that have to remain due to their use in my multitrack program or else I could probably clear out another couple gigs.

All that room saved after only deleting a handful of files. God bless the MP3.

Four walks in a row now the Canadian National freight line has forced me to wait.

This time I crossed the tracks eastbound and saw the light of the engine coming from the north. Two hopes abounded: that I could loop through downtown quick enough to return before its crossing (since you can see several to a few miles north on the laser-straight tracks here) or that it would come quickly and complete its obstruction before I came back to the tracks.

It took its sweet time and blocked the sidewalk only a minute before my arrival. Of course I could change my route slightly to go under the viaduct a block south, but I’m just too obstinate. And that’s where all the freaks are at late at night anyway. Sure.

Growing up in Sparta, as I would lay in bed at night I could hear the trains roaring by along the Illinois Central tracks a mile to the south, and my overactive genius kindergartner’s imagination convinced me that the horns sounding as they flew over their intersection with Route 4 was the claxon of the Monster Truck going street-by-street to deliver all of the overnight monsters at the homes of Sparta’s children. I was less frightened by this idea than impressed with the precision the monsters used to dispatch the horror-bringers.

So I like hearing trains at night. It’s a comforting sound as the warning wail and the shudder of the tracks echoes through the silent city.

But I’m getting damned tired of the trains in Effingham.

I like to walk. Specifically I like to walk at night, often when Emily’s gone to bed and I can grab my ancient iPod Shuffle and bask in my peaceful constitutional. Effingham can be quite the quiet small town at night, and the busy stop-free intersections that tangle up pedestrians in the daylight offer easy passage under the watch of the stars, which all twinkle brighter than expected due to the small number of streetlights present in the town’s mostly safe neighborhoods. I stroll through newer friendly neighborhoods, past Saint Anthony’s hospital and along the classic downtown dotted with cute shops and the incredibly tasty Italian subs at Joe’s Pizza. Yum.

But on the west end of downtown I have to cross the Canadian National rail line.

This is the trail made famous in Steve Goodman’s tune City of New Orleans, and while the Amtrak cars fly quickly through town several times a day, smiling and tipping their cap as they hurry to get out of our way, it’s the long, plodding CN freight line that causes me ill. I can depart from our apartment, a good three miles northwest of the crossing, and hear the horn of a train beginning to violate my future path. No problem; it’s a good half-hour before I’m scheduled to be there, and this lumbering monster will by then be long gone.

By the time that thirty minutes is up, another train is already running through.

Every train in the world, it seems, passes through The Giant Truck Stop, and thus this happens far too often. This week in particular I took walks three days in a row at different times (6:00 PM, 11 PM, 10 PM) and each night I stood – twice on the east side, once on the west – waiting for the entire train to pass through.

Each time the train waited until I was approaching the crossing to storm through, timing its appearance perfectly so that I was just far enough to be unable to run across yet close enough to have to stand and wait from engine to caboose.

Every damn night.

Now I lie in bed at night and hear the trains passing by miles away, laughing at me.

I curse them.

Emily and I spent the weekend in the Mound City with crafts and minstrels.

Saturday we cruised to Kimmswick, a small village south of the city along the Mississippi River.  Many early homes and buildings have been preserved, and the historic town serves a mini craft and antique mall.  Mother and I had not been together for many a year, so we took my wife to revel in the treasures.  She walked away with a bracelet made of soda bottle caps (Northern Illinois Translation: “pop bottle caps”) that is quite fetching, particularly due to the presence of a Ski cap.

The main reason behind our trip downstate was a Christmas present from my mother: tickets to the Beatles tribute band “Rain” at the Fox on Sunday.  Previously we saw American English in Hillsboro (pictures @ Facebook) and Downers Grove, and Emily caught both British Export and the Classical Mystery Tour without her boy, but this was a chance to see yet another group - and one that boasted to have some of the best production values of all the various troupes.

While it was an excellent show, the group couldn’t touch the quality of American English.  The production values were top notch as advertised, with video boards showing clips and classic commercials to fill the gaps during the four quick costume changes, and the giant screen behind the band added visuals that supported the music quite well (along with showing mocked versions of album covers featuring the members of the modern cover band.)  Playing mostly mainstream hits, though, the band’s voices couldn’t match the authenticity found with American English (especially with Paul) even if the instrumentation was quite accurate.  A very good show, just not what AE can provide, and the playlist was far too limited

Lots and lots of pictures from the show: Facebook | Flickr

To the storm’s credit, large chunks of ice were quite easily cleared from the car at a record pace, and the short shower of sleet gave the roads traction not often found in times of sub-freezing precipitation.

But still.

70 degrees on Sunday, March 2.  Yeah, we’re going outside.

Emily and I had been to Ballard Nature Centre, this quaint private preserve along the Old National Road/US 40 just a few minutes west of Effingham back in the fall, and with the onset of the cold Central Illinois winter had not been able to venture out since.  The past couple Januarys had given us ample warm times to explore, notably in Giant City State Park near Carbondale and the Garden of the Gods down in southeast Illinois, but this year had not yet cooperated.  It was cold.

And. It. Would. Not. Stop. SNOWING.

Today was fabulous, though, and we ventured out, spending just over an hour hiking the soft, soggy trails through the restored prairies and woods, lugging my dSLR all the while.  Rain is on the way - and yes, of course, snow - and a high of 32 degrees in the middle of the week. Thanks for the brief respite, Mother Nature…short as it was.

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