Today Is ...

I prefer radio to television. I particularly love the old radio shows from the 1930s and 1940s, especially the Kraft Music Hall, which aired from 1933 to 1949. I have 10 shows on five CDs of "KMH" hosted by Bing Crosby that were broadcast to the troops during World War II. I also like The Bob Hope Show from around that time; I have many of those shows on many CDs.

In the 1970s, when I was a teenager, I had a 23-channel CB radio in my bedroom. The "real" CBers had the 40-channel models who would listen to the truckers. I remember my father attaching the five-foot-long whip antenna onto the chimney of our house. I thought that he was going to fall off of the roof.

My handle (name) was "Algernon," named after the character played by Roy Kinnear in the 1965 Beatles movie "Help!." I was a member of the CB Radio Club at school.

I remember some of the "10-codes." 10-4 is "message received." 10-7 is "leaving the air." 10-20 is "your location." 10-23 is "stand by." 10-36 is "the correct time." My all-time favorite is 10-100: "I need to go to the bathroom." ... and there was the important 10-200: "police needed." Actually, Channel 9 was the emergency channel. We never went there.

My best friend John also had a CB radio in his bedroom. What's funny is that in the evenings, we would call each other on the phone to tell each other we were on our CB radios. We would hang up and then talk to each other on our radios. We could have just continued talking to each other on the phone. Yeah, but it was fun.

In the 1980s and 1990s, I used to listen to radio stations around the world on portable shortwave radios. I was once able to pick up a radio station in Fiji, when I was living on Long Island, New York. (Yeah, I'm a nerd.) The radio waves are shot into the sky and bounce off of the atmosphere to travel around the world. I received better reception on Long Island than I ever did in Florida, where I live now, mainly because of better atmospheric conditions and the massive router in New Brunswick, New Jersey, that boosted the shortwave radio waves. (I forgot the official name of the facility.) I would also listen to the Atomic Clock in Fort Collins, Colorado; digital clocks are now synced to it. These days, I can listen to world radio broadcasts online.

August 20, 2025, at home

I definitely remember eating a piece of pecan pie with a thick layer of chocolate ganache on top, but it was long ago.

August 20, 2025, at home

Well, yes, I do like bacon.

August 20, 2025, at home

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when my age was around 7 to 10 years old, my friends and I, along with kids across the United States, maybe around the world, would engage in the stupid, dangerous practice of running behind "The Fog Man," the guy spraying the insecticide DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), as he drove around in his pink-and-gray truck in my neighborhood in Babylon, Long Island, New York. While running, I would squeeze my nose together, and keep my mouth and eyes shut for so-called "protection." Due to harmful effects, DDT use was banned in the United States in 1972 and worldwide in 2004.

Trivia: Only female mosquitoes suck your blood.

August 20, 2025, at home

They have definitely helped me over the past several years.

August 20, 2025, at home