An Adventure Ahead, and Behind...

A friend yelled at me this weekend, well, not so much yelled but sent me a strongly worded message that I’m behind and I need to update things. She’s right because there is a lot of stuff going on. The 2008 State Fair is less than a couple months away and there are things that need to be finalized. In addition, in less then two weeks I’ll hit the road to regions far away. The plan is to file back reports in a Where in the World kind of way. Now there are a few who already know the adventure, but most of our listeners don’t. I thought it might be fun to share the adventure in the Matt Lauer style of globe hopping. With that said, stay tuned… I leave on July 5^th and will be back in the office on July 24^th. Lots of miles traveled in between. The reason for the trip is my participation in the Missouri ALOT (Agriculture Leaders of Tomorrow) program. To learn more go to www.alotmissouri.com. We have spent the last several months getting to know one another and traveling across the state learning what the Show Me State ag industry has to offer. There have been some great adventures, late nights, enlightening discussions and a several events that we can look back over the years and smile about. Good people I tell you, good people!! Anyway, they’re 26 of us that will set out on the journey and for once, I’m already trying to plan my suitcase. That never happens! Usually I throw a bunch of stuff in that should work then hit the road. With a 2 week adventure I’ve gotten in touch with my planning gene. Now, shall we take bets on what I’ll forget?

Back to the fair…

Tuesday, August 14th

I’m on the trail of a replacement golf cart. A friend who works with the Department of Agriculture has introduced me to Don’s Trucking and Towing (DTT) who agree to loan us a golf cart but it won’t make it in until Wednesday.

Wednesday, the 15th

Shortly after 6am Mike calls from the Red Radio. There’s no audio coming from the Radio and he’s feeding the reports through the phone line because he can’t hear the station. Because he’s doing reports he can’t investigate further. I rush over to see if there’s something I can do. While he's doing the markets, I wiggle wires, pick things up, move things around and finally borrow a screw driver from the Shriners Cook Shack. I take the equipment out of the base unit, wiggle more wires and still can’t find the answer. Finally it dawns on me that there is no audio coming from the headphones which means the problem is not the speakers. In my foggy, delayed, deductive reasoning I look at the front of the stereo. It's set to AM. With a simple push of the button, it’s changed back to FM and we have sound. Whew!! By the way, we’re 100.7 on the FM dial when you pass through north Missouri…. Wednesday to be continued…..