@ThePDriscoll of WFNX, @radiorandy of CD101 in Columbus, and Col. St James of @937TheArrow in Houston joined me for this month’s WhiskyCast Virtual Tastings show last Friday at the Old Jameson Distillery in Dublin. Thanks, guys!
Thoughts From the Road…
I spent a lot of time driving this week…drove from New Jersey to Louisville for Whisky Magazine’s US Icons of Whisky luncheon on Thursday and back home. Had a few random thoughts along the way…
Why on earth would the people who make “5 Hour Energy” shots produce a “decaf” version? That’s a classic oxymoron that should have George Carlin spinning in his grave!
I love Cincinnati-style chili with the seasoned ground beef and yes, even served over spaghetti. Skyline Chili makes really good chili, but I noticed something unusual when I passed one during the trip.
A drive-through window.
There are many foods I wouldn’t think twice about eating while driving, but a bowl of chili is not one of them. That’s a disaster in the making! Yes, I know it’s probably intended for customers to pick up an order to take home, but there has to be someone who’s tried to eat a bowl of chili while driving…and hit a bump. In any case, I watched the drivers around me a little more carefully than usual after that…
Friday night, I got to do something that I used to do when I was a kid.
Kids, there was a time many years ago when we actually used the AM stations on the radio dial (and some of us even worked at them). Thanks to the phenomenon known as “skip”, AM radio signals can bounce off the atmosphere and reflect hundreds of miles away in some cases.
When I was young, I used to see just where I could pick up signals from…back then, “Clear Channel” wasn’t a company monopolizing the airwaves…it was a term for the handful of stations licensed as the only station on their frequency in the entire country with the power to reach dozens of states. Stations like WLW in Cincinnati, WSM in Nashville, WLS in Chicago, and WFAN (formerly known as WNBC) in New York still have those “clear channel” frequencies, but on a good night, it’s possible to pick up dozens of stations.
Here are a few of the stations I listened to (even for a few minutes) while on the Pennsylvania Turnpike:
WJR Detroit had the Michigan State-North Carolina basketball game…WLW Cincinnati had Xavier basketball…WWL in New Orleans had a high school football show on…ESPN 1000 in Chicago had college basketball on…along with 670 The Score in Chicago. (don’t get me started on these generic names for stations now…) WFAN had the Devils-Capitals hockey game on…you get the picture.
With the Internet, it’s easy to listen to stations from anywhere, but that takes some of the fun out of sitting in a car and carefully turning the dial to see what station’s coming in…and then hearing the signal slowly fade out and another station come in. I know it’s a bit geeky…but I won’t even get into a discussion of shortwave radio. That’s truly geeky stuff! ;)
Mark
