Gone Fishing without a pole...

I needed to get away for a few days and lo and behold my gal pal and her family were vacationing in Tennessee near the Smoky Mountains. I really needed to get away and just relax. So I cruised down there and proceeded to have a blast with her and got to relax and take in the beautiful scenery. I stayed at a nearby motel about 15 minutes from the lake they were staying at and hung out during the day and evening. My goodness, the view was breath-taking. In fact, the gal pal and family are talking about going back next year. Hey, I'm up for it....

Meanwhile, Lou is having a birthday and in a couple of days, my great-nephew is also having a birthday. He's chalking up his first one. Guess who'll get more spoiled and get more gifts? hahaha...

Stormin' Round Two...

Wow... more fun and frivolity weather wise. Last night we had funnel clouds pass over our community and more high wind damage to the west of us. But I'm grateful that we didn't get a direct hit here. It was weird though because the line of storms that were supposed to pass over us, stalled and waited like they were taking a number to hit our area. It had the weather guys on tv a bit perplexed. A town out west of us called Edgerton got nailed this time. Edgerton is right on the Ohio-Indiana border and they had some significant damage to their fire station and their townhall was destroyed. There was some areas that got hit with high winds, lightning, and heavy rain. But fortunately, most of the damage was in rual areas and not near heavy populated areas. As per usual, there were trees knocked down and a few powerlines with electricity knocked out for a while, but the folks will rebuild and bounce back like they always seem to do...

And When They Rock.... THEY ROCK!!

Boy, what a night it was...
I get out of work at five to head over to where the "Game for Giving" charity basketball game was to be played, at Genoa high school. In my head I keep thinking "don't freak out Mik, you're used to getting rosters right before start time and still manage to pull it off. Well, I get there and walk in to find that the ABC affiliate is doing their newscast from there. Cool. But it doesn't help with the fact that I have no rosters to familiarize myself with. And on top of that, I don't know if I'm going to get roster of the faculty and staff that are playing the tv station folks in this basketball game. Well, the Good Lord was with me and I decided to stop being to anal about the whole thing. We had two computers up and running to do the video broadcast online and the other to record it for broadcast on tv later. About 40 minutes before tipoff, the newer computer gives us the BSOD (the Blue Screen Of Death)... Which meant it was fried. Oh perfect! could this not get any better? Ugh. So we decide to take our chances (translated to "pray that it works") and ran everything off of ONE computer. Well, for the most part it worked and we were up and running. Then, I knew it was going to be a good night for us when our polo shirts with the TSR logo came in before the game. Changed into those and as they were announcing the starting line-ups (which we finally got at 8 minutes before tipoff), and when they announced the faculty team, the crowd gave it up for all three schools that were represented on the team. Genoa (the host) got a big response. Delta (who saw some nasty damage to some homes in their area) got some loud cheers. But the biggest response was for the Lake high school staff on the roster. People there not only lost their homes and their high school, but 6 lives were lost there. The Lake contingent got a huge standing ovation that lasted almost 2 minutes. It was very moving. And as the news anchor from the station introduced everyone, they even introduced us at TSR and we got a big ovation from the appreciative (not to mention overflow) crowd there. There were so many people that came out that they had to open the auditorium next door to show our broadcast on closed circuit to accomadate the over flow crowd. The game wasn't too bad. The news anchors were pretty darn good if I do say so myself. They were kicking butt however the teachers kept coming back. At halftime it was very emotional and moving. They had a bunch of little contests and stuff. But then they had the fire fighters and rescue people from Lake Township and Millbury come out to center court to take pictures to commemorate the event. The whole crowd rose as one to give them a 4 minute standing ovation. Tears were flowing from so many people. Some of the people who had lost their homes were in attendance, just to get away from everything for a couple of hours and have some fun. My co-host for the event Steve Taylor put it best when he said "with this, now some of the healing can begin." To top off the night, a lady won the 50-50 raffle and her share of it was one thousand and seven hundred dollars. After the game, she brought it back and asked that it be given to a family that was at the game that had lost everything. The place went beserk and tears were flowing freely from the family that received that money, and the person who gave it, and just about everyone else in the place. It really re-affirmed my belief in the human spirit. That despite all the negatives, that people at their core, are generally good. It was an event such as this that proved that these communities will rally around each other when things get tough and no matter how difficult, they will endure. I walked out of the gym into the hallway and walked over to the bake sale table and bought a big plate of chocolate and vanilla gooey cookies and purposely paid nearly double what they were selling for and took them back to the TSR crew to enjoy. I even had a bite of one despite my diabetes. It was an incredible evening this area of tiny hick towns pulled together and raised over forty thousand dollars to help these families with some of the things they need to start over. God gets the credit in this one. Ain't no doubt about it.

For Those About To Rock... We Salute You...

Thanks to all who sent their best wishes over what was a pretty crappy week last week in north west Ohio. People have been coming in droves to help out those who lost everything. Well I guess everything but their lives. And another person lost his life over the weekend. He couldn't hold on anymore and succumbed to his injuries. The real sad part is that he was the third from his family to perish from the tornado. He was 37 years old. His wife and 3 year old son were killed that night in the storm. The lone survivor is the 7 year old daughter. Of course at church on Sunday, the question was asked "why?"... and of course there are no answers. But my belief is that God has His reasons and I'm not privy to them. Not much I can do about that. But I can do something in the way I respond to those who need help. So of course that also makes me a little nervous. Our local ABC-TV affiliate is putting together a charity basketball game at a local area high school just down the road from where Lake High School was destroyed. The money raised from this game will go towards tornado victims relief. The scary part that makes me nervous? I am (along with a buddy of mine) are going to be the broadcasters doing the game for the station. Now normally, I'd be so geeked because I'm doing something to help out with the relief effort and would consider this a high honor to be a part of something so special. But the problem is that I won't know the lineups or the rosters till about an hour before tip-off. If that early. And to appear on tv on the our local ABC affiliate... and not know the names of everyone involved? Wholly smokes! My biggest concern (read: worry) is that I won't get a handle on all of the names of the people that are participating in this thing. So if you're totally bored and want to watch me go down in flames and have a laugh, you can watch the game online beginning at 7 pm US eastern time tonight (Tuesday June 15th) as our little goofy station Toledo Sports Radio will be providing live tv online coverage. If you have a high speed connection, feel free to stop by and see some mediocre to average basketball for a very good cause. And listen to me stutter and babble my way through it all... ugh... lol...

Strange Daze...

Over the last few days, I've seen a couple of small towns where I live get leveled from tornadoes. I've seen lives devastated, homes and businesses ruined. And to top it off today at work, our former county auditor decides to take a flying leap from the fifth level of the parking garage and end it all. Why did he have to pick my place of employment?? To quote the profound theologian Slim Pickens (he of "Blazing Saddles" fame)... "What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on around here???" I'm sitting here typing this out, still in a bit of shock over everything that's transpired over the last 72 hours. Its just been insane. Just freaking nuts! I'm trying to find the words to convey what I'm feeling right now, but I just can't seem to find them. You can go on different news websites to see the destruction from the tornadoes that came through my neck of the woods. Some only a couple of miles from me. But until you see it first hand, video doesn't begin to do it justice. It looked like a dang bomb went off and now resembles a war zone. In Lake Township, it leveled the police station and destroyed the high school only 14 hours before graduation commencement was to take place there. They ended up holding the graduation tonight at a local junior college. The bad part of that was that of the folks killed, one of them happened to be the father of the valedictorian. I'm very blessed that my small town was spared. Only very minor damage to some fencing. A small silver lining is that I am not surprised at the response of the people to those horrible storms. Trying to pick up the pieces... these people just sprang into action. That is what is so good about small town folks in middle America. People who had just seen their lives forever changed in a matter of seconds, were out there in the blinding rain, and wind... not to mention darkness (this happened at about 11pm on Saturday night and again at 3am Sunday morning) looking for their neighbors to see if they were still alive or if they needed to be rescued. People helping people. They will persevere... That's what it's all about.

A View From The Booth... er... Table

Here's a bizarre day off for you...
I haven't been out and about for a while because of my voice deciding to take a vacation without me. A touch of strep throat is never good from any standpoint. For a guy who broadcasts sports, it's a pain in the bu....er, throat. So I've been on the shelf for a few days and have had to rest my vocal chords with no talking to ANYONE... I've stayed cooped up in my house and have been trying not to go stir crazy. So I decided that today I was going to go out and eat somewhere. I didn't know where, but I was determined to enjoy going outside and eating like a moose.
So I hit the road and driving up and down the road with multiple choices but nothing hit me as really good. Finally, I settled on eating at a Chinese buffet... all you can eat..... mmmmmmmm... Mik likes that! Mik likes that a lot!! mmmmmmmmmm... So I go inside the Chinese restaurant and everything seemed to be normal when I first walked in. But after that, everything I was expecting went out the window but I was going to enjoy my meal. So I am seated by a pretty little girl who didn't speak english well. She was mexican and when she asked me if I wanted to be seated in a booth and I said "sure" and she promptly seats me at a table instead. No big deal. Then my waitress asks me what I'd like to drink and I say a diet soda please. She brings it to me while I'm helping myself to the peanut chicken and other high fat delicacies that looked soooooo good. I never see her again. Now they had chicken wings (a personal weakness) and pizza... I know I have a couple slices when I'm doing my online radio show. For some strange reason, I have an aversion to chicken wings and pizza from chinese buffets... I don't know why. I just never touch them. I tried some korean chicken, and sweet n sour, plus my personal favorites, general tsao and pepper steak. Oh was it good. Handling the refills for me was a late teen or early 20-something mexican kid whose english wasn't the best but he was wearing his Jimi Hendrix t-shirt and was grooving it in his own "Purple Haze"...lol... Now you might think I find it odd that a mexican family is running a chinese restaurant. I don't find it odd at all actually. I'm just painting the picture here... to give you the idea of how out of sorts I was at the time. The only odd time I had in this buffet place was watching an elderly couple who were a couple of tables away from me in a booth. They went up to load up on food and they appeared to be flirting with each other. I couldn't be sure because it was all done in sign language. I know just enough sign language to understand that I really don't know that much sign language. But they had such loving looks on their faces. When I watched them for a brief moment as they dined, I realized that you're never too old to love and be happy. The oriental music playing overhead seemed harmless enough. Until I realized that although it was an oriental instument playing, the song was a familiar hard rock tune from many years ago. My first thought: "alright man, where is that kid in the Jimi Hendrix t-shirt?"