WIXY's Gone Bananas

The following is from an email I received earlier this week: "I was recently searching online to see if I could learn information about Dr. Harvey Kassebaum, and came across a blog entry which I believe was from you. It indicated that Dr. Kassebaum had passed away in 2007, and that he had been the next-door-neighbor of your in-laws. I currently work for the Ohio Board of Regents in Columbus, and was recently discussing the value of transient undergraduate college coursework that can be done at our state’s community colleges. I told my colleague who deals with these topics daily that, though I attended Ashland College for my undergraduate degree, I took some transient courses at Tri-C and that Tri-C was where I came across the man who was easily the greatest professor I had, hands-down. That man was Harv Kassebaum. I took a series of three American literature courses from him in 1989-1990. If you might have any remaining contact with his family, could you pleas...

Being one who is in my mid fifties, and someone who recently, by no choice of my own, changed careers, I have found that one thing came relatively easy to me. That's burnout. Life has been happening at a quicker pace than I would like to see it, with family obligations, and trying to make the best possible impression on the job. Other things out of the job and my family needs have pretty much taken a back seat. Don't get me wrong, I like my job and I love my family. But I feel that my Cliff and Kathy time has suffered. One thing I do know: I have got to start prioritizing my time, beginning with my Bible study time, then on to exercise time. My doctor told me yesterday that I may have to go on insulin soon. That's why I have to start working out more. I need to return to my passions. Writing is one of them, as all of my blogging and Facebook friends know. But as Jeff, one of my high school friends, put it, in response to a recent Question of the Day, I need to relight.

AT&T and Apple made it possible for me, by making the iPhone affordable. I added the WIXY 100.3 app on my iPhone about 1-1/2 weeks ago. I've been listening to that and WIXY Classic 99.1, both from Champaign. Illinois. Being a fan of the WIXY call letters and country music fan, I thought those would be cool to have. I also thought when the time was right, I would give the morning show, Holstein and Company, a call. This morning was the right time. Steve Holstein and his cohorts were discussing a story about vacation usage, and how some would like as much vacation time as the French, which was 6 weeks. all my friends know that a year ago, I had way more time off work than I really wanted. Time to call. I introduced myself as Cliff from Rittman, Ohio, told them about my internet ID as 74WIXYgrad and also told them that I liked that they were taking good care of the call letters. And we had a good brief conversation about the topic at hand. And my prayers go out to the WIXY 100.3 l...

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been awarded the first and fourth picks in the upcoming NBA draft. My reaction? Yawnnnn. But Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert gave me another reason to respect him. Gilbert's teenage son , Nick, represented the Cavs on stage for the draft lottery. Nick is suffering from neurafibromatosis, an inherited condition that causes unsightly growths inside and outside of the body. My older sister, who passed away in 1997, and my younger brother, who passed away 3 years ago had it as does my younger sister, who lives at my home as her epilepsy caused by it makes it impossible for her to live independently. When someone can give a face to this horrible condition, maybe research will be aimed a little harder in it's direction and possibly it can be eradicated some day in the not so distant future. Now as far as the draft lottery is concerned, my feelings is that it's not on the up and up. I think maybe the Cavs got the number one pick because of the outrage of ...

...I watched perfection. I was not there, but I saw it on the tube. In 1981, the Cleveland Indians were an early season surprise. Most fans knew at that time they were playing over their heads at this point of the season, but we would take the wins as they came. I figured during the day of May 15, 2001, the Tribe wouldn't be playing their scheduled game that night against the Toronto Blue Jays since it was raining all day. That evening, I had nothing planned since the part time job I was working was a landscaping job and it was too wet to be doing anything. Kathy was going to a baby shower in her honor as we were expecting out first child in late July. So I decided to go visit my parents in Cleveland. After we ate some supper, I decided to check on the television to see if the baseball game was going to be played. To my surprise, it was. The WUAB broadcast team of Joe Tait and Bruce Drennan were in their places, Tait proclaiming "It's a beautiful night for deep sea fishin...

Kathy and I were shopping at Evil Big Box Store(tm) 2966 this afternoon. We just got our tax refund and decided to do some stocking up. We went into the store with 2 carts and first headed for the pet food aisles. We have 2 cats and a dog, and all 3 animals are picky. Matter of fact, one of the cats will turn my CPAP off at night if he's hungry in order for me to wake up and feed him. But back to the shopping. As we were stocking up, I put 6 trays(24 cans) of cat food in the cart, then one bag of dry cat food, along with 2 bags of cat litter. Then I went to the dog food aisle and put 6 boxes of moist dog food in the cart. At this time the cart was full. I told Kathy that I would take the cart to the checkout and pay for it while she shopped for the rest of the items. Now keep in mind that EBBS(tm) 2966 is being remodeled and things are not where people aren't used to the changes. Also inventory is evidentially down due to things being moved around. Customers aren't in an o...