The end is near!

The end of summer, that is...

It looks like Western PA is a great place to pick up stars for reality shows! Here's my story from the 4pm News:

Another local woman is looking to out wit, out play, and out last other contestants on a popular reality show. 25-year-old Dolly Neely of Mercer will star on the next season of Survivor. Neely was born in Clarion and now is a shepherdess to 40 sheep on her 90-acre farm in Mercer. Along with taking care of her sheep, Neely enjoys outdoor activities like water skiing, mountain biking, hunting and trapping. She’s also a member of the National Rifle Association. Survivor Vanuatu – The Islands of Fire is set in the South Pacific and will premiere on September 16th at eight P-M on C-B-S.


This week has been fairly normal for me. Just donig my DJ thing in the afternoon and doing the 4pm news live. It's working out well and getting me geared up for the rest of the staff to come back. I'm getting several new stories each day and updating ones from days past, which was the goal of having a live 4pm newscast. Tandi has been doing "live" drops from the Lawrence County Fair and they sound EXCELLENT! That girls works harder than anyone I know!

In just over a week I'm going to Columbus for my ProScout interview with the agents. I have to take some photographs of myself to show them, plus work on a monologue to perform in front of the talent agents. I'm not getting my hopes up too much for this event, but hopefully something great will come from it; if not a contract, then at least experience.

Mr. Weaver and I have been talking up lots of ideas for this season of The County Line. I think it's going to be a great year, despite my earlier apprehension. This whole semester is going to be CRAMMED with extracurricular activities, rather than class work... but I don't it too much.

The Summer's Slowly Ending

First off- It's August 13th and I'm wearing jeans and a hoodie... WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT PICTURE?! It is Friday the 13th I guess...

In other news... This was a really long week for me, but was filled with activity. I started doing the 4pm news live every afternoon. It took me a few days to get "unrusty" with everything, but things are fine now. News is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth... we'll have to see how things change once school starts up again and I get even more involved.

I'm a little worried about how things with The County Line are going to go this year. Several people have made commitment changes about what they are willing to do for the show, some helpful, some not so helpful, and it's stressing me out a little bit. I talked to Mr. Weaver the other day about everything and he definitely had some encouraging words. I need to thicken my skin a little bit. I AM excited to have some creative control over the show this year. I feel like we had a really great season last year, and now that we have a really solid base with everything we can show some "artistic freedom," if you will, with some of the segments or pieces. Weaver and I are going to begin shooting a new show open this week! Fun stuff.

I've come to the realization that I have efficiency OCD. It really irks me when I could be doing something faster or more effectively and I'm not. I think that's the reason why I get so frustrated during my radio shift this summer. I know that I could voicetrack my shift in about 45min instead of staying here for 4 hours... I could get a lot more done in those 4 hours if I had more than 3-7 minutes of free time between songs. Working 45min a day won't pay the bills!

That concludes this Friday the 13th edition of Pat's Blog. After work today I'm painting my room. I'm excited! Until next time...

Arts & Heritage Remote

This weekend was the New Wilmington Community Arts & Heritage Festival. Titan Radio broadcast live from the event all weekend and gave tours of the Cable 9 Remote truck. Tandi and I were at the truck on Friday night. The weather was a little shady but we defintitely made the best of it! We only gave a few tours, but we had some good interviews! Two of the volunteers helped us get good interviews. We talked to a few members of the Traveling Shoes clog dancing team... they were SO GREAT! Here's some pix from the event!

Back to the grind

Well, I'm back from vacation and back to work at Titan Radio. I guess when you DJ all summer being on air is like riding a bike, cos after my 2nd talk break I was back in the groove. Fort Lauderdale was GREAT and Chicago was so cool! It was the farthest South and West I'd ever been! I noticed billboards and posters for The Chicago NBC affiliate CH. 7 EVERYWHERE there. It made me think of the movie Anchorman, which is hilarious. It was a simple shot of their top 5 talents standing on the set. Their faces just had this look of success, and each time I look at them I realized how hard each of those faces worked to get to be a top anchor in a HUGE market. Kinda neat.

I read this article about how people spend even MORE time on media than ever before, and it's because they multitask and take in many sources at once. The article says that 30% of MTV viewers are online at the same time they watch TV. I think that's definitely true. It creeps me out of I don't have the radio, TV, or music on the in background. Right now I'm typing online, with 3 different windows open and have the radio on in the background. People want their media now now NOW!

This week I'm just getting back into the flow of the DJ thing. We have a large remote this weekend with the New Wilmington Community Arts & Heritage Festival *catches breath* We're doing remotes Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; showing off our Cable 9 truck (which doesn't have anything to do with 89FM, really) and just getting the word out about the NEW Titan Radio! It's going to be a good opportunity for us to reach new listeners. The pool party was a feel good event, but the Festival will reach the older audience who can listen at work.

I can't believe classes begin in less than a month... I am not ready.

New CDs

Gavin Degraw - Chariot/Stripped

Great CD! Patty from Southbeach tanning has a 5 minute convo with me every time I go in there about how great Gavin Degraw's CD is, and how we need to play more of him on Titan Radio. So today at Target they had his CD "Chariot" with a BONUS CD called "Chariot Stripped" which is all his songs done live. I only knew his 2 singles but the set was only $7 so I couldn't resist. Great CD! Great songs, even better accoustic than tracked! Pick it up!


Ashlee Simpson - Autobiography

Fun pop-rock CD! I was trying hard to resist buying this disc because everyone else was doing it, but it's a fun CD to jam to in the car! Ashlee has an edge that Jessica doesn't, and even if the songs are a little teeny, they're still good to listen to! Check it out.