At work!

It's not "work", just a very enjoyable pastime.

I present a radio program twice a week - two hours on Monday afternoon from 4 - 6 PM and then four hours on Wednesday from noon until 4:00 PM - on our local community radio, TLC 100.3 FM.

So here's a photo of yours truly at the console yesterday, as hits from the 1960s were pouring out into the ether (and streaming on the internet).

By-the-way,  our station premises..........

Yamba - Au Revoir, Adieu, Until we meet again.

Well, my five-week sojourn comes to a close this coming weekend, when the owner of the house I've been taking care of returns from an adventure in South America and a cruise from Santiago to Florida.

The opportunity given to me to spend more than a month in Yamba has reinforced my urge to live up here permanently for the rest of my days so I am keeping everything crossed that the auction of our home in Canberra this Saturday (15th.) is successful.

Today I presented the last of my "Baby Boomer Radio" programmes for the local community radio station, TLCFM 100.3, who were kind enough to offer me a fill-in spot whilst I was here.
They have been wonderful and so have the listeners, several of whom phoned the station whilst I was on air this afternoon to say how much they liked the show and expressing regret that it has come to a close.
But hopefully, not for too long, because as soon as I return I'll be looking for a vacancy in the stations programme.

Below is a "selfie" I shot outside the studio today after I'd finished.
It was done on my mobile, so is rather low-tech.
The large object in the background is the water reservoir.
We members of TLC FM 100.3 prefer to think of it as the base on which our antenna is mounted!! :)

Here are a couple of final shots.
They are of Yamba Bay, behind Whiting Beach.........

So as the sun sinks slowly in the west we say "farewell" to paradise.........for the moment, anyway. :)

After 6 Months of Retirement.........

I couldn't believe it when I looked at the calendar a couple of days ago and realised that in another week or so's time I will have been out of the workforce for six months.

The time has flown and the reason is that I am one of those very fortunate people who have a multitude of interests and hobbies - so many that I don't have the time to subscribe to them all.
Not for one minute have I been bored and the days just seem to flow from one into the next so fast that I sometimes have trouble keeping up.

My radio program on the local community FM radio station (Valley FM 89.5) occupies six hours each week and that isn't including the time I spend researching and preparing music and associated "stuff" for each broadcast.

A couple of days each week is spent in the yard and garden, carrying out the normal maintenance as well as a few projects that have been undertaken during this past summer.
The first was the creation of an enclosure for my wife's three Chinese Silkie chooks.
A pre-fab coop was bought, in "flat-pack" format, and when it arrived from Brisbane I assembled it.
Then I built a picket fence & gate between the end of one side of the garage and the back fence (seen in the photo below), which was painted after completion.

The other major job was the demolition and filling-in of the fishpond, which had been a feature of the garden in the backyard for many years but which had just become a maintenance chore, particularly the surrounding garden. It also hindered the access to the Photinea hedge for trimming.

So the pond went and was filled in with rubble and then two trailer-loads of crushed blue metal and is now in the last stage of work, with paving slabs having been laid (the photo below shows the preparatory work for the slab base).

I am just needing to get a load of garden soil to surround the paved area, which will then be home to the barbecue. 

During the very hot weather that we experienced here in Canberra over January I hibernated into the cool of the air-conditioning and continued - in a somewhat random manner - working on my life's story that I have been writing for the past few months.
This continues to be an interesting project but one that I only do when the mood strikes me rather than as a regular exercise on a fixed itinerary.

I have coffee with old workmates on a regular basis - catching up and keeping in touch.
One such friendship goes back to 1998, when I worked for a company associated with the production and publishing of digital information for the legal profession.

I've joined the Canberra branch of the Australian Railway Historical Society and in the cooler months I want to become involved with helping them out in a voluntary capacity.
Before moving to Canberra in 1984 I had joined the Zig-Zag Railway near Lithgow but never had a chance to become involved as we upped roots and moved down here.
I have always maintained an interest in all things train-related, so am looking forward to helping out when I can.

Then there is my return to painting figurines, which was a prime hobby way back in the late 1970s - early-1980s.
I have had a resurgence of interest but, like my memoirs, only do so when the mood strikes rather than as a regular commitment.
If you have to do something to a timetable then it doesn't remain a pleasure, it becomes a chore and one might as well be back in the regular workforce, having to work for a living!

To all the above I can add reading, computing (browsing, emailing, playing simulations, researching music tracks), catching up with the occasional rented DVD movie, letter-writing (on my 1970s IBM Selectric typewriter) and domestic chores and each day is full, from around six-thirty AM until I conk out around eleven PM.

How did I ever find the time for even half of these activities when I was working?!!

Baby-Boomer Radio now has a blog

I have created a separate blog for the show and it can be found here:-

BABY BOOMER RADIO

Returning to broadcasting

UPDATE 14-October-2012
On-air sessions: Mondays 0900 - 1200 and Fridays 1400 - 1700

Back between December 2002 and January 2006 I had a two-hour radio show with local Community Radio station Valley FM 89.5.
The show centred on music from the 1960s, although the edges were fuzzy and included stuff from the 1940s, 1950s and 1970s. "Easy Listening" music also formed a part, as did old BBC radio shows such as "Hancock's Half-hour", "Round The Horne", "Take It From Here" and "The Goon Show".

I received a lot of enjoyment from doing my thing and I know, from what feedback I had, that others also enjoyed hearing the type of music that we listened to every day as teenagers and young adults back in the 1960s.

In 2006 I re-entered the conventional "nine-to-five" workforce and dropped the show which at that time was being aired between 3:00 and 5:00 PM.

Just recently I retired after 48 years as a full-time employee and had the opportunity and desire to return to Valley FM and resurrect what I was presenting six years ago.
With over 200 LPs and a similar number of CDs, the contents of many of which I have converted to MP3s, the resources are capable of providing "Baby Boomer" material for some time to come, and that is the name I've chosen for this current foray into community radio.

We were very fortunate to have been born in what became known as the "Baby-Boom" period, the era usually considered to be between 1943 and 1960, coined by author Landon Jones in his book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation.
This is an era in which music (amongst other things like fashions and social mores) changed dramatically, in both who was creating it and who was listening to it.
And it was sparked by the invention and mass production of a tiny electronic device - the transistor.

Until radios became portable - and that was only possible with the introduction of transistors, printed circuit boards and small batteries - music was heard on large mantle or console radios or played on gramophones/radiograms - furniture pieces - utilising large 78 rpm bakelite records.
So it was the adults who were not only the producers of popular music (large bands and orchestras with vocalists) but also the buyers of the records and the devices on which they were played.

The transistor changed all that because music became portable (and cheaper) at the same time as younger performers started doing their thing. They go hand-in-hand.
With music now being targeted at the younger generation, who could now listen to it on their transistor radios and play the new smaller and lighter 45rpm records on their portable record players, the Baby-Boomers determined the future of the music industry.
Once a young man by the name of Bill Haley came up with "Shake, Rattle & Roll" (1954) and then "Rock Around The Clock" (1955), popular music and radio became a whole new ball game and our parents coined the term "generation gap"!

We Baby-Boomers can feel very proud of our status.
We have had a profound effect on music and what started over 50 years ago is the basis for popular music today. Wonderful songs and arrangements were composed and written back in those fabulous 1960s and they continue to provide pleasure to our generation.
I like to think that when I am in a nursing home, instead of singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", we will be having sing-songs which include "It's Been A Hard Day's Night"!

My new show - now dubbed "The Baby-Boomer Show" - commenced yesterday, going to air between 9:00 and 12:00 midday, which will be the timeslot until the end of the month, when it will probably start an hour or so later.
I will update this information when that occurs.

Internet streaming is currently being tested by the station management.
Once it becomes established then no matter where you are located, if interested you will be able to listen to the programmes on your home or laptop computer via the internet - both of which, incidentally, were invented by baby-boomers.