Another Florida Writers Conference Missed

Once again, I ended up working out of town when the 8th Annual Florida Writers Conference was held this past weekend.



I'm pretty sure I know what will happen now. Since this will be my last year living in Orlando during the annual conference, at some point in the future I'll find myself off during the conference, but I'll be living 10 hours away in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.

Well, I'm sure Cindy will find it to be a good excuse to visit family in the Orlando area.

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Hurricane Charley - 5 Years Ago

It was 5 years ago today that Hurricane Charley cut a path of destruction across the Florida peninsula, slicing through Orlando and reminding Central Floridians that we are not as immune from Mother Nature's ocean-spawned storms as we might have thought.

Back then I was writing a different blog, sort of a predecessor to The Word Of Jeff, and I thought it might be interesting to take a look back at what I had written about our experience with one of the most devastating hurricanes to ever hit the Orlando area. Since the posts span several days it would be way too long to post here on the main page, so I've created a separate page for the look back at Hurricane Charley - 5 Years Ago.

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Lake Eola Photowalk

Last Sunday I spent the day with Cindy at the Eola Market where she sells her handmade candles and incense. Early in the morning, before it got unbearably hot in the sun, I did a Photowalk around Lake Eola shooting about 250 photos of things that caught my eye.



You can see the best 46 of those on my Flickr page.

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Easter In Orlando

Well, we pretty much finished up the preliminary work we were doing in Valdosta and southern Georgia, so I was able to come home to Orlando Saturday morning. I left Valdosta at 4:30am and arrived in Orlando in time to surprise Cindy and her parents as they were meeting for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I loved the look of shock and then pleasure on their faces, lol.

I got to see the same look on my daughter's face when she walked into the family dinner at Cindy's parents' house this afternoon, since I had been careful not to post anything on this blog (she doesn't follow me on Twitter or Facebook) that would clue her in that I was home. It looks like I'll be going back to Georgia later this week.

We had a wonderful dinner prepared by Jeremy and Wendy (2 days of cooking and preparing!) and great visits with most of the rest of the family (Jason, Mikey and Steve weren't able to come) but of course the best part of the day for me was watching my 3 year-old granddaughter Heather hunt for Easter eggs and playing in the garden.

Here's one of my favorite shots, where she's reaching for an egg hidden at the top of the arbor. I hope to have all the Easter photos uploaded to Flickr tomorrow.

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Arabian Nights Photo

I know I posted a group shot I took when we were at Arabian Nights back on December 20th, but I wanted to put up this official portrait taken by the staff because it has ME in it, which is a rare occurrence because usually I'm the one taking the photos.



It was a fun night.

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Arabian Nights

I arrived back in Orlando Saturday afternoon around 12:30, an hour late due to an electrical problem on the plane that was, thankfully, discovered before we left the gate in St. Louis.

Four hours later Cindy and I and her parents were meeting AnnMarie, Jason, Mikey, Heather, Amber, Shawn, Wendy and Jeremy at Arabian Nights for a dinner and show compliments of Jeremy and Wendy. Thanks so much, guys.

We had a wonderful meal and enjoyed a delightful holiday-themed Arabian Nights presentation. Below is a photo of everyone but yours truly (someone has to take the picture) before the show. A "few" other photos are up at Flickr.

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Saying "Goodbye" To Iowa

Today is my last full day in the Hawkeye state. Our mandate is that we "Work ourselves out of a job" and I am told that I have admirably accomplished that goal. Barring any unforeseen changes, I will not be returning here after my already scheduled trip home tomorrow for a break.

So today I will be cleaning out my office, returning all my equipment and saying my farewells around the Cedar Falls office. I then have to go be part of a couple of last-minute training video shoots (Brad Pitt should have NO concerns whatsoever) in some nearby cities before I drive to Des Moines to spend the night prior to my 6am flight out tomorrow morning.

My flight plan calls for a short trip to Chicago, a layover of an hour, and then straight to Orlando where I'm scheduled to arrive around noon. I think I've mentioned before that, aside from the hideous aspect of getting up so early, I always prefer to catch the earliest possible flights to avoid the inevitable delays that stack up as the day progresses. Flying these days is distasteful enough as it is without having additional time spent on the runway or in the terminal because of weather/equipment or general incompetence delays.

I am flying United for the first time, so I hope my friend Michelle is right when she rates them as an "OK" airline to fly. When I flew up here almost 3 months ago our contract air carrier was American and that entire flight was a comedy of errors.

Cindy and I will be leaving Sunday to spend a week camping in the mountains of western North Carolina, then I'll return home for a week to catch up on all those things that get postponed when you're on the road (and hopefully relax a bit) before making myself available for a new assignment.

See ya tomorrow in Orlando!

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Sunny 105.9

Ever since I returned from Louisiana in May after being gone for 6 months, I've been meaning to write about how happy I was to find out that local FM radio station WOCL 105.9 (formerly Cool 105.9, Power 105.9 and ORock 105.9) has returned to something resembling an "Oldies" format of Top 40 hits from the 60’s through the 80’s. It's been nice to hear familiar voices like Bob Berry, and the oh so sexy voice of Laura Francis.

Back when I was a contributor to Orlando MetroBlog, I wrote the following post. To the best of my knowledge, it still holds the record for the most commented on post in the history of Orlando Metblog, which showed that having an oldies station in Orlando was important to a lot of listeners.


February 3, 2005

Bring Back The Oldies!!

Have I mentioned lately that I HATE CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS!!

Driving home from work yesterday I was flipping through the radio stations and when I hit the preset button for Big 100 FM there was Spanish music coming out of my speakers. For a moment I thought I had come in during a commercial, but then it kept going and going. Then I thought I must have accidentally messed up the preset button, but that turned out not to be the case either.

What DID happen was that Clear Anal, I mean Clear Channel, had abruptly and with no advance notice, switched WEBG 100 FM from an oldies rock and roll format to a Hispanic format.

Now, I have nothing against Spanish music. It's not what I normally listen to, but I sure like to watch the ladies dancing to it. My gripe is that there are plenty of other Hispanic music format stations in Orlando but there are NO other oldies rock and roll music format stations in this market.

Not surprisingly, according to an article in today's Orlando Sentinel Money section, the change over is all about the Benjamins. More can be made by playing for the locally increasing Hispanic population. I understand that, it's a huge market to tap, but it's not like they were LOSING money with the oldies format. They just are being a good unfeeling corporation and doing what they feel will make them MORE money. Greedy bastards!

Here's the e-mail I (and every other oldies fan who subscribed) received from former Program Director J.J. Duling entitled "A Farewell Note From Big 100":

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for over five years of incredible support. We are saddened that BIG 100 is gone-- we were as surprised as you by all this. Show Business can be kind of funny like that sometimes. Your friends at BIG 100 hope 'The BIGgest Hits' will resurface somewhere on the radio dial in Central Florida soon.

So, on behalf of Mike Harvey, Deanne Schulz, Dave Kelly, Chris Rivers, Bob Berry, Bill Barber, Dave Matthews, Uncle Johnny, Tom Kent and Joe Johnson from Beatle Brunch, thank you for your thoughts, prayers and good wishes and thank you for an amazing rock & roll journey here in Central Florida.

JJ Duling, BIG 100 Program Director

That's the hope I'm holding onto, the Orlando market needs an oldies format radio station and perhaps one of the other stations will switch to that format, hopefully in the near future.

Have I mentioned lately that I HATE CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS!!


I can't believe it has been 3 years since Orlando has enjoyed an Oldies FM radio station, but I know I'm enjoying the sound.

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