A fatherhood timeline

It was Father's Day today and the tributes to dads across social media can make a lesser mortal believe he could never be a halfway decent father. How could anybody live up to these testimonials?

Here's a secret, kids: we were just winging it. We'd never been fathers before and, sure, we learn a lot about being a father by our fathers but when we're young, we have only one goal: not to be our fathers.

And then kids come along and right around the time we think we could write a parenthood book, our kids turn into, well, the kids they're supposed to be at a particular age and we wonder what it is we did wrong to be so much like our father and could we please get a do-over and be better this time?



And eventually we reach an uneasy truce with each other and they go off to be the people they're destined to be and we're left with something not quite approaching satisfaction at a job well done, but an appreciation that they didn't die or -- if we're really lucky -- they didn't go to prison.

And then one year it's Fathers Day and they call or stop by and during a conversation on the deck over drinks when they acknowledge they didn't really bang up a car way back when by doing wheelies in the snow but took a corner too fast while drag racing and we don't care because they are alive, you love the everloving crap out of them, and we notice something else -- something different -- while we watch our children in their adulthood on the deck -- the ones who hold your DNA and then ones you picked up along the way: they're just the tremendous people the world needs desperately and we and our partner (again, if you're lucky) did a hell of a job.

And then they tell us that.

And then -- and only then -- do we get to experience the real euphoria of being a father.

All because we were just winging it and doing the best we could.

Thanks, Dad.

Coming up for air

Photo: Nate Ryan

A few years ago, when Meniere's Disease was leaving me in desperate shape and a doctor in Woodbury had pronounced that he had done all he could, which wasn't nearly enough, I sat in the office of a young (to me)  neurotologist who was my next best hope.

"I love you and Mary on The Current," he said as he walked in the door, just prior to introducing himself.

That's when I knew we'd become great friends.

A few weeks ago, "Bob" stopped by an open hangar door (I always leave the hangar door up to encourage people to come chat) at Fleming Field in South St. Paul. Bob is welder for Metro Transit. He's just a few years younger than me.

He likes airplanes.

And Mary Lucia.

On his last visit, he told me about listening to the 4:20 "newscast" while under his welder's hood, working on the busses that take you home.

And there you have the secret of The Current and, in particular, my friend, Mary:  there is no limit, no template, no pigeon hole into which its -- her -- listeners can be placed. Welders. Scientists. Old people. Young people.

Why? Because in an age in which we are a technological arm's length from each other, she breaks through our differences and stations in life and speaks only to us.

I know that when I talked to Mary in the few minutes we spent each day, I not only had her in my vision, I had Bob, and my doctor, and all the people who took the time to say "hello" over the years (and certainly drop messages to me the other day)  in my mind. I could see all of them listening, and it's always been that way whenever I was on the radio.

I've never asked but I suspect it's that way with Mary, too. How can it not be? Just listen to her. She's talking to you.

When Mary came down to my third floor cubicle the day she returned from her leave in November 2015, I didn't think it unusual at the time, even though she rarely -- never? -- visited the third floor.

So when she was wrapping up our time together last week and said that I was the first person she sought out, that was the first time I put the significance of her visit together. That was the moment I had to take off my glasses and wipe my eyes. That was the moment we lost it.




She pushed the button to start Ella Fitzgerald's version of "One More for the Road", turned off the microphone, and we hugged. We hugged for a good long time.

"Do you remember the last scene of the Mary Tyler Moore show," I whispered.

"The one where they all group hug to the Kleenex box?" she said. And we laughed.

We walked out of the studio -- I think Mary was heading for a well-deserved smoke break -- and there was the Current staff with champagne. I needed to hug again.


Photo: Nate Ryan

I'm not a hugger. At least I wasn't.

But being told you mattered during a person's worst times is an honor that I'd never felt before and, though I was already missing my time with Mary before our segment was even finished (note the last question in the interview she did with me a few weeks before our last show), it constituted a moment that sears into the soul.

It was the moment I learned I wasn't who I thought I was.

The Last Bob and Mary

It'll take some time before I'm able to write properly about my penultimate day in the radio business, which culminated with a 2 1/2 hour broadcast  with Mary Lucia on The Current.

The entire day was like attending my own funeral and being able to hear the eulogies.

But as great as it all was, nothing was better than spending my last days I'll ever spend on the radio, with Mary.  You can hear the entire broadcast here.

We had our Bette Midler and Johnny Carson moment. It was real. It was perfect.

In the shadow of a dying light

Last week I made public that I'm done with the business of radio, and my mother in law didn't recognize my wife when she showed up at the hospital to see how she's doing.

There's an intersection here, somewhere, though I  struggle to find what it is.

We moved Oralie to Minnesota last summer, her Alzheimer's had made living on her own in the Berkshires problematic, and while my brother-in-law can provide the kind of help and support only a man of his boundless decency can, only  a daughter -- at least this daughter -- can provide the kind of attention and love that a dying light requires.

In the six months since Oralie arrived, I've seen a grace in the dying that I hadn't earlier recognized, and with each bit of patience, with each  attention to detail, with each far-off look that told me Carolie is off with her mother's worries, I increasingly wondered what I'm doing looking for meaning in such trivia as daily news.

I've never had the kind of relationship with my employers that a lot of people do. I like many of the people I work with, loathe one or two others, and cash a paycheck every other Friday. It's a business, not a family.

I loved radio, I enjoyed writing, I found an occasional creative satisfaction in the turns of a phrase, read by by, maybe 1,000 people who'd forget it shortly thereafter. But the job of our jobs is to fund our lives.

"A paycheck is what you get in exchange for your life's energies," an author of a book on how to retire after 30 and live the good life in Vermont once told me on a talk show I was hosting on MPR.

She was mostly full of shit in her book (the secret to retiring in your 30s is to become a millionaire in your 20's), but not that. Your job is not your life.

My job was to make enough money so Carolie could do the things she does that changes people's lives.   This reality became clear years ago when she told me about her day; a young woman, possibly pregnant, addicted, and homeless -- if I recall correctly -- showed up at her office for help.  She was an  impossible task.But by the end of her day, Carolie had her housing, health care, and food.

"I wrote a blog today," I said.

Carolie no longer has that job; the county and hospital that ran the program for that sort of direct aid and results, decided there was better money spent somewhere else. She moved on to another job where lost causes can get a day's hope.

But watching her with her mom is clearly an extension of the goodness and love she brings to her job.  Her patience seems inexhaustible, though I can also see the damage of watching your mother slip away.

Mine is 97. And I haven't seen her in a year.   I write a blog. My performance review is based on page views. My workplace doesn't staff the blog when I'm gone.There are no page views when I'm gone.Ergo, I don't go away.

That's absurd and I know it's absurd, and yet, I let something insigificant define my place on the planet.

When my Meniere's Disease spread to the "good ear" in November, my "eureka" moment came during one of the wretched night of vomiting from the constant resulting vertigo. "What are you doing?"

The next day I told the boss that May 31-- my 65th birthday, the day I would be eligible for Medicare -- would be my last.  I can't do the things I need to do to write at a high level (involving phone calls I can't hear, and interviews I can't participate in).  But even if I could, it no longer serves an appropriate purpose.

I have other things I can do. I love ushering at Target Field. I love driving people with Lyft (every evening is like I'm doing a radio talk show with open lines again), and,  of course, I love building airplanes.

But what I really want to do is be a better backstop for a woman whose mother didn't recognize her last week. 

Oralie is a delightful, proper, polite yankee woman whose Alzheimer's is removing a filter one by one.  She had suddenly hit another resident in the  $7,000 a month  memory care facility that believes the answer to everything is to call an ambulance and send elderly people to the local ER and let it be their problem.

So for the last week, she's been in a geriatric psychiatric unit in St. Paul, getting the attention she needs.

That's where Carolie showed up the other day, and  announced to her mom that she is her daughter.

"You're my daughter?" Oralie replied, never quite making the connection.

An illness has broken out in the unit now, so everyone is quarantined.We can't visit.

When Carolie called yesterday, Oralie took the phone from the nurse and said, "I can't talk now, I've got a fishing rod in my hand and I'm reeling in a big fish. Bye!" [click]

My wife is good at resuming normal activities and if you weren't paying attention, you'd marvel at her resilience. But she is not resilient.  At least not that resilient.

After yesterday's matinee of Noises Off at the Guthrie Theater, we stopped into a nearby restaurant, and when the food was delivered and we started to dive in, her eyes said she was somewhere else.

"You OK?" I asked.

"My mom," she said, no needing to say anything more.

Though she's never said anything, I can hear what's going on in the mind of a daughter of a woman with Alzheimer's. "Is this what's next for me?"

I can't think of much that's more torturous.

In the coming weeks, we hope to move her mom to another facility closer to Woodbury, one that is better at putting the "care" in memory care.

What's coming will be tragic,exhausting, and, ultimately, full of grace, but require an investment of our life's energy that we exchanged for a paycheck.

I've still got plenty to spend.

When you laugh instead of cry

This week I found some of my old favorite pictures that were taken in the film-era and started digitizing them. Not surprisingly, it brought back plenty of memories for me, and, as it turned out, for my oldest son who saw this one on Facebook.



That's his grandfather, who died in 2009. Don was one of my son's biggest champs, particularly at a time when, kids being what they are and all, it was tough to find people to stand in your corner.

"This photo is my second or 3rd favorite with Papa, but only because he will always have that arm on my shoulder in support and unconditional pride," my son wrote on Facebook.

Then he wrote me a note about a slideshow tribute I created for him when his grandfather died.

"You told me the point of said death slideshow was to watch it until one day I smile instead of cry," he recalled. "When is that day?"

I don't know, I said, I'm not quite there yet myself.

It was 12 years ago on Monday that my own father died and when I was looking for pictures to digitize, I came across this one.



When I saw it, I burst out laughing. Because that was my father.

When is that day coming for you, son? Someday.

On my son's 30th birthday

Old people tell young people all the time that life is short and passes fast and young people don't believe it. It's been that way since the earth started turning.

My son, Sean, turned 30 today and while it seems like it was only yesterday, more reflection reveals how much has been packed into those 30 years.

When he was a baby, Sean wasn't really into being held and rocked. As a toddler, when you picked him up to hold, he'd go limp so he'd slither back down. Sean was always in a hurry to be on his own.

Of my 62 years, I've spent almost half of them now thinking about Sean, off somewhere being on his own, and worrying about him and his brother. As I've written before, the Collinses come from a long line of worriers. It's what we do, even though it accomplishes nothing.

But your children are capable of constant surprises.

Like this one that occurred at Oshkosh this year (the picture above was taken at Oshkosh).

The night Sean and I flew over for the second half of AirVenture (his brother, Patrick, and I had flown over for the first half), we walked over to a restaurant on the other side of the airport, for which there was along line. We were invited to cool our heels at the karaoke bar outside; and so we did.

Sean, who I think is the type not to put himself "out there"(like his father, to a degree), grabbed the list of songs and searched for a proper victim.

I told him I was surprised he'd get up in front of people and sing. But he said he had a friend who took him to a karaoke bar not long ago and got up to sing. And he said if she could do it, then he could too.

And so he did, and while the Doors' People are Strange might not have been exactly pitch perfect, it was perfect, nonetheless.

And that's the way our children are. Like the rest of us, they are not perfect. And yet they are.

When times are perfect

Back when my two sons were very young (10 or 11 or so), I shared a pair of season tickets to the Minnesota Timberwolves with some people at work. It provided a good opportunity to spend some time with each kid.

At the time, the Timberwolves were a pretty good team, thanks primarily to a 19-year old kid named Kevin Garnett.

The games were fun, but incidental to the goal -- time. Good times.

On several occasions, the times were perfect. I'd be sitting watching my son -- both of them at different times -- full into the moment, late in a game, standing and cheering with the rest of a sold-out house.

"This is perfect," I would think to myself. "I want this feeling to last forever."

It didn't last forever, of course. Perfect times are few. We do the best we can, we deal the things life throws our way and we move along.

I've had season tickets to the Timberwolves for many years since, although I gave them up this season because the quality of the product hasn't been very good, even though the goal stayed the same -- spending time with my kids.



But last week, the Timberwolves made a trade, to bring Garnett, now almost 39, back to the city. And Sean, and Patrick and I had already made plans to attend the game on Wednesday night, days before we knew that for the first time in more than a decade, the good times were possible again.



We struggle to explain these moments -- and the Garnett return in particular -- to those who don't follow sports. Yes, it's about a game, but it's also about moments.

My oldest son, Sean, almost 30 now, dug out the foam finger with "#23 KG" scribbled on it. Garnett had given him the autograph when he was 19, when Sean was 10. Patrick, soon to be a 27 year old, brought his passion, which he's brought to every day since the day he was born, I think.



And together we went back in time. And as Garnett lifted the crowd for more than two hours, the crowd lifted us.

At various times, I watched my 30 year old and my 28 year old stand and cheer with the sold-out house. And I sat and thought, "This is perfect. I want this feeling to last forever."

Meeting Ernie Crippen

Sixty-eight years ago tomorrow, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, three days after it dropped one on Hiroshima. The day will go unmentioned, just as the anniversary of Hiroshima generally went unrecognized on Tuesday. It wasn't long ago that the end of war in the Pacific had significance for a country that shared the experience of a world war. But those days are gone and the few people left who lived the history soon will be.

That's why I don't turn down any opportunity to talk to the people who fought the war in whatever capacity; there aren't many left.

So when Ernie Crippen of Buffalo started a sentence in our conversation yesterday with, "when we were being bombed and strafed on Guadalcanal," I was immediately aware that it was the first -- and probably the last -- time someone will ever say that to me, just as I was similarly aware last week when a veteran in Luverne showed me a scar and said, "I got that parachuting into Bastogne."

We get many opportunities in our lives to learn history from those who live it, but we take advantage of precious few of them. And time, as it has forever, is running out. Mr. Crippen has the benefit of his children, Mike and Amy, who have helped him preserve his history.

Crippen, 91, like thousands of other Minnesota kids, saw the military draft coming in 1942 when he was cutting timber in Bemidji. So he joined the Navy for a six-year engagement as a Seabee -- the Navy's construction brigades.

"The fighting was mostly over when we arrived on Guadalcanal," he told me while I leafed through his meticulously-kept scrapbooks yesterday. And by "mostly over," he meant, except for the occasional attacks by Japanese planes trying to kill him. In April 1943, he wrote in an autobiography, he was part of a crew unloading supplies from a ship offshore when an attack came. All the regular crew had gone ashore, so the Seabees took the ship into open water, shooting down one plane in the process. Some of the men shielded themselves from bullets with the only thing they had nearby: canvas.

You don't get a lot of stories like that from kids in Bemidji anymore. Or about the time Bob Hope and Jerry Colonna sat with him at dinner before a USO tour, the bugler who got into trouble for playing "Blues in the Night" instead of Taps or about being told he was to be part of the U.S. invasion force of Japan. "We were told the casualties might number 750,000," he said. "It was sobering."

"What was the last thing your father said to you before you went off to war?" I asked.

"I remember it clearly," he said. "We were sitting at the depot in Bemidji and I said, 'I might not come back.' He said, 'You have to turn that around and think different.'"

The atomic bombs brought Japan's capitulation. A month later, the kid from Bemidji was working the docks in Sasebo, Japan, a bombed-out former Japanese Navy base. And a few months after that, he was walking through what was left of Nagasaki.

"It was amazing to me at the time that something dropped from the sky could turn steel and concrete into nothing but dust," he said.

He couldn't show that picture to anyone until he got home to Bemidji. The military didn't allow anyone to send photos of the destruction home. Technically, servicemen weren't supposed to have cameras, but, as he had during the rest of the war, Crippen kept notes and pictures, knowing that someday he'd be sharing it.

His stops read like a who's who of war in the Pacific: Guadalcanal, Saipan, Tokyo, the rest of the Solomons, New Caledonia, and the Aleutians.

For the veterans of it, World War II was life's biggest paradox. A gruesome habit of nations' instinct to kill another's soldiers provided the opportunities to see parts of the world most people will never see, and a seemingly endless number of friendships that survive through post-war "real life," which for Mr. Crippen included years as an engineer for MnDOT and a wedding photography business with his wife.

But there's no such thing as "endless" in life. As he showed me a scrapbook of his pictures, Crippen noted that most everyone in it is dead now. His construction unit stopped its annual reunions in 2006; There weren't many people left or able to attend.

But next week, there'll be one more. A few weeks ago, the family of an Indiana man found Crippen after a search. The two men had served together. The man from Indiana recently had a stroke and wanted to see Crippen again. Next week, they'll meet halfway -- Iowa -- and turn back time.

Mr. Crippen will bring the scrapbooks and history in the first person with him.

(This post was originally published in Minnesota Public Radio's NewsCut blog)

The sidewalk

The construction crew arrived today to take out the old blacktop driveway that I have been trying to nurse through another season for the last 10 years. But it is finally time for it to go; it will be replaced by a concrete driveway instead.

I looked out a few minutes ago to see how they were doing, and as luck would have it, they were just digging up a small piece of concrete that I poured many years ago to extend the driveway.



It wasn't a particularly good job but that little 2x4 slab of concrete has always meant a lot to me, because my son Sean and I built it.

Sean was pretty young at the time, maybe 7 or so, an age when most kids have the attention span of mice. But like the sidewalk we built out back one year, he was all in on the project. It was hot, hot enough to make smart people head for the AC. And he had every reason to. But he stayed and he dug and he mixed cement and he breathed dust and he got dirty and he built a sidewalk with his dad.

It was the way he subsequently approached every job and task he ever had. He was all in.

The new driveway and sidewalk will be a big improvement over what's there now.

But I'm going to miss that slab.

The need to win

I accept as a casualty of my age that I am more prone to believing that elements of our cultural past have lessons for our cultural present, but there is no way for me to avoid the conclusion as I've read this week's outstanding Star Tribune series on the money in youth sports. Fat cat boosters and parents who want their children to win have transformed the nature of the game. Advocates still tell us that high school sports, in particular, can teach children valuable life lessons. Here's the life lesson we should learn from the series: Don't let adults run youth sports.

Over the course of three days, the series has drilled a constant message from the "haves" and the "have nots." It's unfair, it has said, that some teams have more money -- and thus resources -- than others. The sadness of the series is that few people involved have noted the cultural calamity of our need to win.

There are only three things that people have said to me over these years that I have not forgotten. After I graduated from college and was looking for work in a fleeting period in our history when we weren't fighting other counties' wars, my father said, "If you want job security, join the Army."

An ex-colleague, at a reunion party for a radio network where I once worked, casually remarked, "Man, we were glad to see you go."

And a coach of a summer club hockey team said to me, "because I want to win."

I played high school and college hockey, and that sounds more impressive than it really is. I made my college team because I was the only player who could skate backwards. I beat out 30-40 other schoolmates in high school to be the last guy on the team. I didn't play much and when I did, the game was usually over. In my sophomore year, my team was 0-19-1, having tied the last game of the year. I didn't play much; my undistinguished career featured eight years of organized play, no goals scored.

To my knowledge, the only picture of me in action is this one. I'm number 5. Playing the bench like nobody's business.



In my junior year, I was recruited to play a summer league team. A family acquaintance was the coach. Because the team was mostly made up of my high school team, I, again, didn't play much. Midway through the season, we held a lead against some team I don't recall, it was late in the game, and I wanted to play. This was a summer recreational league.

"Can I play?" I said to the coach.

"Not now," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because I want to win," he said.

I never went back for another game.

I have few recollections of any of the games my teams played now. But I recall with ease, the pick-up games on a pond across the street with my pals in the neighborhood, and my hockey-loving older brother, who died a year ago. A neighborhood hockey rat didn't have shin pads -- "Termite" was his name (we had nicknames for kids back then) -- so he taped comic books to his legs.

Youth sports were the park & rec games in the ballyard behind my house (since turned into a soccer pitch, but that's another story). It's been more than 45 years since I stabbed the vicious line drive shortly before it hit one of the Shaw twins' face. I can still see the expression on his face. They're both dead now; someone said drugs were involved.

But there was a joy to being a kid playing youth sports and we have ruined that joy in the name of teaching kids life's lessons.

The ballparks in my neighborhood now are mostly empty. The kids are playing down at the big sports complex in front of the same sorts of parents I became, who lament that the traveling teams from Edina have better uniforms. After some games, as I recall, the coach -- whose son usually was the starting pitcher -- navigated a sea of parents wanting to know why their kid wasn't playing.

He didn't say "because I want to win," but he didn't have to. Winning was the point. Winning is still the point.

A few weeks ago, the Twins made a big splash out of showing a 20-year-old movie on the scoreboard. The Sandlot embodied the childhood games some of us are lucky to remember. On Twitter, an acquaintance objected to the fuss people were making. "It's not Citizen Kane," he said. And, he's right; it's not. But Citizen Kane never reminded us of the role of childhood games before my generation grew up to ruin them.

No doubt the takeaway from the Star Tribune's series will be that the "have not" teams should get more money. Here's an old man's idea: Give all the teams no money. Point to the field, and tell them "go have some fun on your own."

That's a quote they'll remember forever.

The regret of the 'no-go' decision.

Sometimes, I think I'm too risk-averse to be a pilot.

For the past six weeks, I've been planning a trip to Arizona with my youngest (25) son. We're both big Cleveland Indians fans and wanted to spend a couple of days watching the Tribe. My friend, Darwin Barrie, offered to put the RV-7A up at his airpark and give us his truck for the week to use.

And so began weeks of planning for the trip, which -- for me -- consists of six weeks of worrying, playing "what if?". I pored over the charts and established the best route. I consulted with Darwin on the best approach into Phoenix' airspace. I'd go to sleep at night thinking of the approach and memorizing every mile of the route, the fuel stops, and the time.

Last fall, I met a gentleman who was kayaking from the Northwest Angle of Minnesota to Key West. Daniel Alvarez started in June and hoped to reach Key West on New Year's Eve. He actually reached it last week. But when I talked to him at the time, I was planning a trip to Massachusetts. "I'm a little nervous about it," I admitted to him.

"If you're not a little nervous," he said, "you're not going far enough."

As I prepared for this trip, I heard his words. Constantly. The nervousness was fine, I told myself, because I'm going far enough. It's good.

About two weeks ago, the weather discussions at the National Weather Service regional sites (they reallyare very interesting and informative reads) began to encompass the departure weather -- today -- and more "worrying" as the "what ifs" grew to encompass every section of the route, weatherwise. What are my limits? What are my alternates? How prepared am I to make the no-go decision?

Of course, it's impossible to know for sure that far out what the weather will be, which necessitates more "what ifs."

Although a blizzard came through Minnesota yesterday, I was fairly confident we'd be able to get out of here this morning. (I'd already scrapped a Monday departure last week on the basis of the the weather data I'd been gathering for a week and analyzing every four or five hours). The gusty winds were to die down to about 20 knots this morning, I checked the airport yesterday and they'd done a good and quick job removing the blowing snow, and the sky was supposed to be scattered clouds at 2500 feet. It would be cold, but I was fairly sure we'd survive the three-hour trip in high headwinds to Lexington, Nebraska, our first fuel stop, and be able to get out of there before the winds were forecast to pick up there. The rest of the trip looked weather-good. I started dreaming about being one of those people who posts trip pictures on Van's Air Force.

I'd earlier been concerned about getting Patrick home in time for a shift he had scheduled on Sunday, and a test at school (he's in the nursing program) for Monday. So I bought a $550 refundable one-way ticket on Southwest from Phoenix to Minneapolis for Saturday for him, and figured if need be, I could stay in Phoenix for a few extra days and fly back alone. But at least he'd be back in time.

Otherwise, we'd plan to fly back on Friday, maybe Saturday if the weather was good from there to here.

He was excited for the trip, especially with temperatures here 20-30 degrees below normal for this time of year. All of Minnesota is experiencing seasonal disorder, as is custom, and a couple days of watching baseball was the perfect antidote. It would have been a fabulous flight down and a great experience between father and son to remember forever.
This is why I built an airplane.

I spent yesterday on final preparations for the plane, plugging in the engine heater, organizing what's staying and what's going, and trying to figure out how close to gross weight we'd be. As it turns out, I learned just how quickly two 170-pound pilots and baggage can exceed the 1800-pound limit on an RV-7A with a full load of fuel. It'd be close.

Late last evening, flight plans filed, plane ready, peanut-butter sandwiches and water packed, I made one last weather check before a go-no go decision, only to discover the weather discussions from the National Weather Service sites from the Texas panhandle (Dalhart, TX was a fuel stop) all the way to Minneapolis began mentioning precipitation and clouds for Thursday into the weekend, where they had mentioned none previously.

But it's impossible to know at this early stage what sorts of clouds and what kind of precipitation. Steady rain? Showers? Low clouds? High clouds? Clouds I can snake around or clouds that keep me on the ground? Clouds that might entice me to fly scud? There was no way to know for sure. Then I read that the two main computer models -- one from the U.S. and one from Europe -- disagreed on what might happen. The European model was suggesting the system would stall over the Dakotas through Monday. The U.S. model was suggesting it might not.

Now I had to make a decision: Which one to believe? In previous analysis of weather discussions, I felt the European computer models were more accurate, so I chose to believe them.

Then I thought about trying to fly home, and running into ice, or low clouds and not being able to find a way through. I started to think about Get Home-itis, when the urge to get home forces pilots to make bad decisions. I thought about forcing Patrick to get in a plane on Friday to try to make it home before things (maybe) got bad -- and then getting stranded in Kansas, with him missing his work shift and his test -- rather than waiting a day and putting him safely on an airliner, and I thought about me sitting in Phoenix waiting for springtime weather to be good from Phoenix to Minneapolis, paying for a motel, not getting back to work on time at a place that isn't as excited about what I do as it once seemed to be.

And then I called the trip off.

I called Patrick and told him. "It's OK," he said, although I knew it wasn't. He's already scheduled the days off. He'd already given his car away to his girlfriend to use because hers is on a bad tire. He'd already packed. He was looking forward to the experience, and somewhere along the trip, I was going to teach him the ins and outs of flying.

His goal on the trip was to play catch with his father on the hill beyond the right field at the Indians' park in Goodyear (even though they'd be on the road for the two games we'd watch, but the Reds play at the same park). "Don't forget to pack your glove and ball," he said a few days ago.

The day this morning dawned bright and sunny, though cold and windy. But it's a beautiful day to fly. "All that worry, and for what?" I said to myself as I set one foot out of the bed, and then another. My back was aching from yesterday's snow shoveling. I read the paper then sat in the rocking chair by the front window, bathing in the sun, and found myself thinking, "I'd be landing in Lexington right now."

And that's my punishment for the next few days. I'll watch the Indians game tomorrow and think "I'd be there right now," and even worse, I know my son will be doing that too. I will spend them wondering if I made a bad call.

Although I'm hoping a blizzard comes flying through the Plains on Friday on into Monday, it wouldn't surprise me if the weather turns out to be flyable, which will be an even greater punishment -- the knowledge that we could've done the trip and we missed out on a great experience. Together.

We're taught early in our flight training to use good judgment, and that many pilots have regretted trying to fly when they shouldn't.

But they don't tell you about the other kind of regret. The regret that maybe I was too cautious.

The regret that I missed one more game of catch with my son.

Who roots for the sea?

It's funny how the news can take you back to being 8 years old again.

This is the picture-of-the-day for the storm that's hammered the East Coast today. It's on Plum Island, a long spit of sand that runs along the north shore of Massachusetts, on the New Hampshire border.



The house, as you can imagine, is a goner. The people who own it are at their house in Florida and that'll have to do. Their old house, and the land on which it once lay, belongs to the ocean again. (See some amazing pictures in this Facebook album)

That's the way it works on Plum Island. And yet, people keep building as close to the ocean as they can.

Plum Island, which sits in the town of Newburyport, was a working-person's enclave back in the day. Newburyport was a fishing and shoe-making town until the '60s, when textile companies abandoned New England for the south. Now, it's high-priced real estate for the wealthy.

I know that because when I was a kid, we had the oceanfront lot. We were the '50s and '60s pre-wealthy inhabitants.

Our home, though, wasn't the multi-million dollar structure here or the type that, no doubt, are on either side of this home, awaiting their own fate. It was just an old trailer in which somehow, we fit seven people. When you were a kid on Plum Island back then, it wasn't about your fancy house, it was about exploring what was around you. My parents would turn us loose in the morning and we might come back by dinner.

There was treasure to find that washed ashore overnight, the occasional tuna that was hoisted down at the Keezer boat works when someone got lucky, the bike to ride to Fred's variety to pick up an Archie comic, sea worms to dig and get rich selling, and, occasionally, the spectacle of the drowning victim being hauled ashore from the Coast Guard cutter.

The Simmons family -- he was a milkman -- had the little cottage in front of us until the sea came calling and they moved it back a half mile or so to escape it. The Burkes had a little pink house across the sandy road, until they -- and we -- found it tipped upside down on the beach one spring. It had fallen into the path of an angry ocean and, apparently, nobody had noticed until it came time to open the cottage for the season.

That happened all the time. Like taking attendance at the beginning of class, we'd start each summer by determining what homes were no longer where they once stood.

The town tried everything to stop the ocean. Rocks, bigger jetties, old cars, truckload after truckload of sand, and for a time it seemed to work, but nature can be very patient. Even the sprawling Coast Guard station next door gave up and moved a little farther inland. In the end, you just can't shovel sand against the tide.

We never got much of a chance to find out how our own plot would fare against it, though. A few years after the Simmonses moved their house, something else came calling -- a man with money to make. He had offered my dad money for the land, but my parents wouldn't sell. He loved the place and so did their five kids.

The next winter, someone took an axe to the trailer and, probably not coincidentally, the man called my father asking if he was interested in selling now. He was. And so a prime piece of beachfront property went for $5,000. I was too young to understand what a bitter pill that must've been for the old man.

A few weeks later, the trailer mysteriously burned down -- the guy said he was working on the plumbing with a torch at the time -- and in its place rose a multi-million dollar home, which as far as I know, still stands today.

The same thing happened up and down the beach. The old cottages gave way to the big homes, the working-class was mostly pushed out, leaving a generation of boys -- now old -- feeling only a little bit guilty and not at all proud of occasionally rooting for the sea.

When your childhood hero dies

Rex Trailer died last night, and that probably doesn't mean much to people in Minnesota, but I can tell you this: Every kid had a Rex Trailer.

For me and thousands of others in New England, he was the hero of children's TV programming.

He was a cowboy, a real rootin' tootin' cowboy, with a horse -- Gold Rush -- and a sidekick -- Pablo, until Pablo died -- and he brought us cool things, like cartoons. And he lived in a magical place -- Boomtown -- which we believed existed, because we didn't know anything about dark TV studios that made up stuff.

And we'd get up early on Saturday mornings, sneak quietly downstairs so as not to wake the parents, and turn on the TV and stare at a test pattern (ask your parents) until Boomtown -- that was the name of the show -- came on.

And if your father was a hero, chances are part of what made him larger than life is that when he had the grand opening of his grocery store, Rex Trailer and Gold Rush came. Right! My dad knew Rex Trailer!

And when you went to college many, many years after watching him ride and rope and do a trick or two, who was one of the adjunct professors teaching television? It was Rex Trailer!

And when you were 59 years old and couldn't remember where you put your keys, you could still sing the Boomtown theme song. If the hundreds of people who turn out for his funeral don't rise as one to sing it, well, then there's no such thing as cowboys.



A kid's life couldn't have been more wonderful with such heroes.

You kids today, I feel bad for you. But not as bad as I feel for all of us kids who wanted to grow up to be cowboys.

Flying with the boys

When I first decided to build an airplane 11 years ago, the intention was that I could use it to visit my kids away at college at some godforsaken land. They were young at the time and I just figured that how it would go. It didn't go that way; both stayed in the Twin Cities.

But now that it's done, I'm already seeing an entirely new role for the plane to play -- keeping them in touch and spending more time with them than I otherwise would. A plane makes a mighty nice flying carpet.

My son, Sean, hasn't flown with me since he was a junior in high school, when we had a nice trip to Sleepy Eye for a class project. The flight ended back at Flying Cloud when I messed up an instruction to make left traffic, turned left instead, and approached the departure end of the runway.

But after last week's homecoming, I invited Sean to fly with me up to Madeline Island in Lake Superior, which is a wonderful place, has a little strip, a short walk to the ferry, which takes you over to Bayfield and its many shops.

I calculated the trip would take a little over an hour and it was an hour and 20 minutes (gotta get those leg fairings on). We took the ferry to Bayfield, found a place to eat, played a game of pool and generally relaxed as the storm clouds we knew would roll in, rolled in.

As we ate we talked about flying and Sean said he'd like to fly someday, even though some of his medicines are on the FAA disqualification list. But, I told him, there's always light sport and EAA and AOPA are pushing hard to eliminate the Third Class Medical.

So now I have to find out whether it's possible that a CFI could use my plane to provide flight training. It'd be great to have him work toward at least being able to fly, even if he couldn't fly PIC right now. Either that or I need to get started on the RV-12.

By the way as we were walking from the airport to town, the police showed up. "Did you just land about 20 minutes ago? Are you 614EF?" the officer asked.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" I said.

"The FAA is looking for you, apparently you forgot to check in," he said.

I knew instantly what the problem was. We were receiving flight following from south Saint Paul and somewhat into Wisconsin, he instructed us to another frequency. I thought he had terminated radar service and so we just flew on without checking in. Dumb move. I don't know what the fallout from this will be. We'll see. But we were safe, heading for some good times, and I didn't much care.

On the way back to the airport, I thumbed a ride and a nice couple picked us up and delivered us to the airplane and checked the weather for us on their iPhone. We knew we were in for it a bit.

We stayed in the small terminal building while the rain let up and then made a run for it. There were thunderstorms in our path so we picked open sky between a pair and got the plane washed. A second line near Hayward, Wisconsin still faced us but I knew they'd be there since my flight briefing predicted they'd be.

So we watched some neat rainfall and had a double rainbow off our left wing. I had to go far to the east around a storm, and then punched through some rain showers into the good weather on the south side of the weather front, which was barely moving.

We were home free for a cruise back to the Minneapolis St. Paul area, where we saw a few hot air balloons over the St. Croix River. We touched down in Saint Paul and then checked the weather radar to calculate where and what we'd just been through. I was happy we didn't do anything stupid, and happier still that my son and I had a grand time.

The plane performed magnificently; the only problem seems to be that the transponder isn't reporting altitude or at least the recipients aren't receiving it. The Garmin 327 is showing the correct pressure altitude on its display; I don't know why ATC isn't receiving it, but another plane that was reporting while we were receiving flight following also reported that he "could see them on the box but no altitude." Hmmmm....

But those are things to be worked on another day. This was a day that the plane itself was secondary to what you can do with one.

"Thanks for taking me with you," he said as he headed for the car to head back to his home. "Next time I'll bring my good camera."

There's going to be a next time! Yes! Now I need a place to fly to that's as cool as Madeline Island.

N614EF returns home

On Friday evening, I passed the 40-hour mark of Phase I flight testing in N614EF, the plane I built over an 11-year period. That means it would come home on Saturday. So, bring it home, we did.



Son #2, Patrick, made the video and after he left, I provided rides to a couple of guys who've helped tremendously getting the project finished.

Brad Benson and I flew down to Red Wing because I knew that Joshua Wyatt's RV-9A had its airworthiness inspection on Friday. And when we landed, we saw Tom Berge's airplane. Tom was taking it up for its first flight.

Joshua did a fabulous job.

Oh, by the way, I don't think I'd previously posted the video of N614EF's first flight. So here...

Motorcycles, scrambled eggs, and the ways we live forever

(Written via the "day job" blog)

An intangible benefit of writing the NewsCut blog and some other blogs I pen are the connections blogs can make between unrelated people.

I've already written, for example, about how the connections created by a tornado and the reach of the Internet helped a widow in a tornado-ravaged city in Indiana get a picture of her husband back from a man in a Cincinnati who found it on his lawn (that picture, by the way, was returned to Marta Righthouse Tuesday evening).

Then there's this post from 2009 about the first person killed in the first Gulf War. Every year on the anniversary of his death, it seems, I hear from a member of the family who discover the post via Google. The Internet and its search engines make it hard for people to be forgotten.

Today I was reminded again of the "connections" the Internet can give us.

My brother, Mike, died last week and I was asked to say a few words at his graveside service. So I told the story of Everett Ek (left) of Rochester, whose obituary appeared in the Star Tribune last week (you can also find it in the Rochester Post Bulletin). I'm a big reader of obituaries, especially the ones that capture the personality of the individual, rather than follow the boilerplate copy that renders most obits sounding like the one before.

Everett Ek's wasn't like that:

Everett enjoyed his final days. He shared a visit with Kellen, his great-grandson, on Saturday. “Papa” made scrambled eggs for his granddaughters, Alahn and Korah, Sunday morning after their stay over. Monday, he went cruising on his Harley and cleaned out his man cave, aka the garage. Tuesday morning found him savoring a Grain Belt in his man cave with Bob, a morning coffee klutch buddy. Later, when he went out to work in the yard on that beautiful day, he fell to the ground and was gone. Everett and his dad each lived their lives to the fullest, 72 years and 48 days.

Because I told Mr. Ek's story to a group of people 1,200 miles away, many of them also shared the stories of my brother -- the motorcycle rides he made and his habit of showing up for camping trips with 10 pounds of pork chops and only 10 pounds of pork chops. None of it was headline material; all of it provided a much more valuable snapshot of his life, more than any company he worked at or award he received.

Everett Ek died this week after making scrambled eggs for his granddaughters and because he did, you know that he once was on this earth and mattered. A woman loved purple, another loved her fax machine, and my brother just got his last ride from some other good and decent people.

I posted my remarks on one of my personal blogs. The phone rang in the NewsCut cubicle today. "This is Mrs. Everett Ek," she said, and I knew immediately who she was. A relative had also found the post via Google and called her to say, "you won't believe it."

She said she didn't want the obituary to be like all the others so she told it to a friend who wrote it. Today, I learned that Mr. Ek, who apparently always wanted to ride a motorcycle, finally did so at age 69 at his wife's urging. He was the oldest person in the motorcycle safety class at the community college, a class that called him "Papa."

They had a nice funeral, she told me, especially when they opened the doors of the church to hear the person outside revving up the engine on the motorcycle. It was a Catholic mass with the usual amount of standing, sitting, and kneeling. A faithful family dog attended and sat and stood as custom dictated.

None of these things is "headline material," and yet these are the threads that connect us. Because a man in Rochester made eggs for his granddaughters, a man who loved pork chops died in Massachusetts, and some guy in Saint Paul writes a blog for a living, we are never really forgotten.

How I love you so, Internet.

On Michael Lee Collins, 1948-2012

These are some words I've written for my brother's funeral on Saturday:

I’m a big fan of reading obits in the newspaper. There’s a newspaper out in Sioux Falls that used to publish neat headlines on obits. I remember one that announced a woman’s death and said, “her favorite color was purple.” Another said, “she loved her fax machine.”

In my youth, I thought, “what a shame that at the end of someone’s life, the headline is: she loved a fax machine.

In the paper in Minneapolis this week, I noticed a guy named Everett Ek died. Here’s what his obituary said:

Ek, Everett Enjoyed his final days. He shared a visit with Kellen, his great-grandson, on Saturday. "Papa" made scrambled eggs for his granddaughters, Alahn and Korah, Sunday morning after their stay over. Monday, he went cruising on his Harley and cleaned out his man cave, aka the garage. Tuesday morning found him savoring a Grain Belt in his man cave with Bob, a morning coffee klutch buddy. Later, when he went out to work in the yard on that beautiful day, he fell to the ground and was gone.


I counted 50 obituaries in Thursday’s paper. Many of the people I read about worked for a company for many years, but I can't remember what company. They won several awards, but I can't remember one of them. They had names, but I couldn't tell you what they are. But I'll always remember Everett Ek’s, just as I've remembered the person with the fax machine and the one about the person who loved purple, even though I read those almost 20 years ago.

Most obituaries start with where someone worked, and how long he/she worked there and what honors he/she accumulated.. They’re written by someone else, usually, someone who hasn’t quite realized that the barometers of our lives aren’t the jobs we do or the honor we accumulated. It’s how we value the experiences we have.

There’s a picture of all of us kids when we were young. It’s snowing, and we’re all lined up at the picket fence at our house looking at something. And one of us, I’m pretty sure it’s Mike, has a big smile on his face. And he’s waving. He was waving at the snowplow driver and at that moment, he was in the moment and enjoying an experience for what it was.

There’s another picture – I just put it on Facebook this week – of all of us sitting around my mother who’s lighting the candles on a cake. And in the back is Mike, sitting high to see, the only one with an expression that something great was about to happen, and it wasn’t his birthday.



And another picture of us all sitting by a window for a family picture of the kids. And again, it’s Mike who’s most engaged with what’s about to happen.

My brother had a hard life, and it’s tempting to lament that life and be disappointed that he wasn’t able to accomplish the things that a lot of people do. I never heard him complain about it. Mike had a quiet decency about him and what mattered to him, I think was the moment and not where he was in his life measured by someone else’s yardstick. For him, the right now wasn’t a step on the way to somewhere else.

The other day I was sitting at a stoplight and a guy on touring motorcycle pulled up next to me and I thought, “wouldn’t it be great to live in the moment and just ride and see what’s out there to see purely for the joy of the ride.”

My brother did that a lot. He’d ride across Nebraska, and down through Colorado and New Mexico and Arizona, stop along the way to visit some friends and camp at the Grand Canyon, just because he could. He’d ride out to upstate New York and sit and visit and tell stories in a way that made you want to reach into his throat and pull the ending out, he took so long to tell it.

1982 journal entry

I think Mike lived his life in a way a lot of us wish we could. I think he was comfortable in the here and now. If the here-and-now was a Bruins game, fine. If the here-and-now was a ride, great. If the here and now was getting greasy under a car, all the better. If it was sitting and reading the comics at my grandmother’s trailer because she saved them for him, wonderful. If it was all of us skating up on the pond, swimming up at Helki’s or playing a game of baseball in the park behind our house, that was a better life than you’d ever find in the newspaper’s obituary section, and my brother lived that life.

Everett Ek died this week after making scrambled eggs for his granddaughters and because he did, you know that he once was on this earth and mattered. A woman loved purple, another loved her fax machine, and my brother just got his last ride from some other good and decent people. Their lives were well lived, and I’ll think of Mike whenever the Bruins score a goal, a motorcycle pulls up at the stoplight, or a plow drives past my house.

Update: Here's a neat story about what happened when Mr. Ek's family read this post.

My brother, Mike

My brother, Michael Lee Collins, passed away Friday night. His life was a testament to the luck of birth and something the "I made my own breaks" crowd should consider once in awhile. Born in 1948, he lived in an era where medical technology wasn't as advanced as it is today. In the '60s, he had back surgery that might be done on an outpatient basis now, but, instead, his surgery left him somewhat crippled.

He attended a full year of high school while lying in a bed in our house, communicating only through some fancy -- for those days -- intercom system. He missed out on a lot.

He went to UMass in Amherst for a semester -- he wanted to be an engineer. Then he became a linotype operator at Colonial Press in Clinton. He loved his motorcycles, he always wanted to restore old cars, but wasn't particularly good at it.

In later years, emphysema (he didn't smoke) and diabetes took its toll, but mental illness made him disappear. We'd talk on the phone once a year if he answered it and even then we'd mostly jut talk about the Bruins.

He was a great hockey fan and loved playing it too when he could. The Bobby Orr era of the Boston Bruins will long be associated with my brother. We slept out on the sidewalk of Sears a number of times to be the first in line to get Bruins tickets. During the winter, we played hockey on the pond every afternoon.

He raised chickens as a kid. I raised chicken as a kid. He loved hockey. I loved hockey. He was a Cleveland Indians fan long before I was.

He was a better big brother than I was a little brother.

Here's his obit, written by my sister, Cheryl, who was also the best friend he ever had.

Michael Lee Collins, age 63, of Shirley, Massachusetts passed away after many years of declining health on March 9, 2012 at Leominster Health Alliance Hospital. He was born Dec, 3, 1948 in Goffstown , NH and was the son of Fred and Ruth Eileen(McFarland) Collins of West Fitchburg. He was an avid baseball and hockey player and wanted to play football in junior high had he not developed scoliosis. So he maintained an avid fan interest in Boston Bruins hockey and Patriots football all his life. He enjoyed history,bowling, and could not be beaten at Trivial Pursuit, especially if the category was “old movies”. He was quite the fisherman and loved being at Plum Island

While growing up he was a member of the Rollstone 4-H Club and raised chickens and rabbits .He especially enjoyed the Worcester County 4-H activities. His later passion became motorcycles and he was a lifetime member of the Massachusetts British Iron Association . He wrote their newsletter for many years and always signed his articles with the expression “Ride Safe” Once he rode his BMW all the way to the west coast and back.

His work included many years as a linotype operator at Colonial Press in Clinton, MA and was employed at Lockwood Plastics and also Value Pharmacy in West Boylston. He also was a partner in Paul’s CZ Cycle Sales and went to Hallmark School of Photography.
He was predeceased by his father, Fred and a niece, Jennifer.
Besides his mother, Ruth, of Fitchburg he leaves sisters, Cheryl Collins of Stow, Maine and Wendy Collins of Brattleboro, VT, and brothers, William Collins of Princeton and Robert Collins of Woodbury, Minnesota and their families which include nine nieces and nephews .

The family wishes to thank especially his neighbor, Sandy, and his special nurse and friend, Bernadette Oininen of Nashoba Nursing and all others who made it possible to remain independent for so long.
In lieu of flowers the family requests donations in Mike’s memory to go to either Nashoba Nursing and Hospice, 2 Shaker Rd. Suite D225, Shirley, MA 01464 or Montachusett Home Care, 680 Mechanic Street, Leominster, MA 01453.

Family and friends are encouraged to meet at Bosk Funeral Home ,85 Blossom St. Fitchburg at 10:30 am on Sat, March 17th to follow a motorcycle procession to Forest Hill Cemetery for an 11 am graveside service.

Here are the comments I wrote for his service.

Friday night lights

It is an inspiring revelation, I think, that at the (nearly) 58 year-old-mark, I'm still capable of having the best Friday night ever. Or it indicates I've lost the ability to remember Friday nights past. One of those.

Friday night is Timberwolves basketball night in Flyover Country, a distinction that historically earns the participant the scorn and ridicule of non-believers. And there have been plenty of them since the local NBA squad traded Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics years ago.

But I'm a season ticketholder and a follower of bad teams, not necessarily my intent; it's just the way it works out. This team, however, is on the upswing.

San Antonio was in town last night; we beat them earlier this season with a little luck and surprise. But now, the art of surprise lost, the squad had to win on the strength of talent.

But I brought the team's good-luck charm anyway...

It worked.

During the game, Ali Lozoff, the marketing guru at The Current, tweeted me a message asking if we'd like to come over to First Ave (across the street) for The Current's 7th birthday party, a sold-out, two-night affair. Well, sure. You can never have enough elderly people at First Ave., right?

The game over, we walked in, got into the VIP section, saw our pals...

... and watched the concert up close...

Jim McGuinn, The Current's fine program boss, asked me to come on stage for the staff introductions, but, you know, as much recognition I get for doing four minutes of radio once a day with Mary Lucia, doing that would've taken away the spotlight -- if only just a sliver -- from the all-the-time people who do such a great job building America's best radio station. They're tremendously fun and welcoming people...

Now the part my father -- who kept track of his money -- would like.

Cost of Timberwolves tickets: $10
Cost of water and a Klondike Bar: $7
Cost to park: $5
Cost for First Ave entry: $0
Cost for drinks: $0
Total minus $5 Timberwolves food voucher for not bailing during the NBA lockout: $17

Life is good.

The job posting

The more I worked with my oldest son at the company I've worked for for nearly 20 years, the more I understand why my father, against all logic, tried to get me to take over his insurance business. And the more I understand why it probably killed him when I left after less than a year to continue my pursuit of a career in radio. But I didn't just leave, I repudiated the very notion of working in the same office.

It was dumb and it was just the type of thing 20-year-olds do.

My son never did that to me in the time he worked with me and I've never enjoyed walking in the door of work more than the five or so years he was on the other side of the doors.

Watching him work reminded me of the time I went to a band concert of his in the 5th or 6th grade and began to see him as an individual of unique talents that I did not possess. He was good at what he did, he was smart, and he brought the Collins Type A personality and critical self-assessment with him, which is the tragic assault of my DNA.

We'd have coffee almost every morning and during the day sometimes he'd stop by to shoot the breeze. It was great, especially considering all those years when father-and-son related the way fathers and sons often do.

Through absolutely no fault of his own, he's been unable to continue in the job. My company, knowing a valued employee when it sees one, worked hard to give him the time and space he needed, but in the end, he couldn't do the work to his level of satisfaction. The curse of Dad's DNA.

Last week, he informed the company he wouldn't be able to return to work, and last night, the company posted his job, which of course they had to do, but which, nonetheless, hit me like a ton of bricks anyway, even though I knew what was coming.

Windows Systems Administrator #168-12
Location: Saint Paul, MN
Salary Range: $56,177-$84,265
Exempt/Non-Exempt: Exempt
Benefits: yes
Employment Type: Full Time
Description: The Windows Systems Administrator will work in the IT Infrastructure team within the Technology and Operations department of American Public Media | Minnesota Public Radio. The Windows Systems Administrator will provide technical support, upgrades, patch management, and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) administration. The Windows System Administrator will support, upgrade, and maintain media and broadcast related Microsoft servers and applications that are critical to the support of Minnesota Public Radio such as automation and play to air. This position will support Broadcast Media/Operations/Windows servers/applications in all APMG locations. Primary reporting will be to the Manager of IT Infrastructure with secondary reporting to the Manager of Media Productions.

Position Responsibility:

• Develop, install, recommends purchase, implementation, and configuration of Microsoft technologies and infrastructure systems.
• Implementation, administration, maintenance, and disaster recovery planning for multi-site Microsoft Server environment.
• Administration and management of Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).
• Distribute application and operating system patches to Windows desktops, laptops and servers.
• Develop, manage and install application and operating system deployments, including Play to Air and Broadcast Media systems, using SCCM.
• Perform Windows systems capacity planning and performance analysis.
• Conduct complex troubleshooting and repair of Active Directory, Windows server 2000/2003/2008, DNS, user authentication and other operational systems as needed.
• Research, evaluate and recommend new technologies in order to meet business requirements and contribute to long-range planning for systems evolution.
• Research, build, administer, implement, and support all current APMG play-to-air and media production computer based systems. These systems include: ENCO, Dalet, Protools, Music Master, Final Cut, other audio/video systems and related media systems.
• Recommend alterations to existing technologies to improve quality and/or reduce costs.
• Document strategies, designs, policies, recommendations, procedures, and status using Microsoft Office, Visio, and/or Project using clear, consistent, and concise language.
• Implement disaster recovery plan for all media production systems when needed, assist with regular test procedures and user training.
• Use scripting tools/languages to automate software installations
• Work with peers to establish security, management and support standards for APMG computer environment.
• Manage Microsoft group policies.
• Complete support assignments on time and within budget.
• Work with vendors for product information and design, pricing, and support escalation.
• Provide cross training to team members who provide secondary support.
• Provide IT departmental budget input as requested.
• Provide On-Call support in a 24/7 environment.
• Assist in special projects as assigned.

Required Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent experience.
• 3-5 years of experience installing and supporting computer hardware and Microsoft software in an enterprise setting.
• 3-5 years of administration experience with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008.
• 3+ years of experience managing SMS 2003 or SCCM 2007.
• Experience managing operating system deployment systems.
• Experience with enterprise implementations of Microsoft applications (e.g. SQL, AD, WSUS)

Required Skills, Knowledge and Abilities:

• Strong diagnostic skills and demonstrated ability to research problems independently using multiple resources to support computer hardware and software at the enterprise level.
• Thorough understanding of client computers in a business environment.
• Thorough understanding of security risks in the current business computing environment.
• Understanding of Microsoft Active Directory schema.
• Deep knowledge of SMS 2003 or SCCM 2007’s patching capabilities and application distribution functionality.
• Working knowledge of application installation and methodologies for automated installation.
• Scripting knowledge.
• Able to perform work independently or in a team environment.
• Ability to effectively communicate with the appropriate level of technical detail for your audience.
• Ability to establish and maintain positive working relationships in order to achieve common goals.
• Excellent listening and organizational skills.

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Microsoft certification (such as MCSE, MCITP, MCTS, or MTA).
• Knowledge of Wake-on-LAN desired.
• Experience in a broadcasting or media environment.
• Skill with using scripting languages.

I think about my son almost every minute of every day. A lot of people can forget about their worries by diving into things at work. That doesn't work for me.

If that job sounds like it's right up your alley, you should apply for it. But you'll be filling some big shoes of one hell of a kid.

You'll notice, perhaps, that I've only made three posts on the blog this year. This has been the worst year we've ever had, and at this Thanksgiving, I struggle to be grateful that it wasn't worse.