For the first time in three years, CFIS radio was back at the B.C. Northern Exhibition on the weekend, and things didn’t go totally smoothly.
It started when I arrived Thursday morning at about 9:40 with Steve scheduled to go live at 10. The first thing I found out was the phone cable that had been strung all the way to our booth was the wrong type.
It turns out there is, I believe, one phone in CN Centre that uses the same technology our equipment does, so we had to find that phone, check to make sure it was the right one, then have one of the CN Centre staff string the five miles (approximately) of the other cable to our booth.
By the time we got everything hooked up, Steve’s time on the air had passed, but we were able to get a special edition of Senior Moments, the Thursday afternoon music show, and the Post to Post sports show that evening on the air.
Then we came in Friday and found one of the computers had decided it didn’t have enough power for the job we needed, so it was quitting. Long story short: We didn’t go live on Friday at all.
But by Saturday, everything was running like a dream. Steve got his chance to do a live show that day, and I did the same Sunday.
All the problems we were having, especially on Thursday and Friday, gave me a chance to do a fair bit of walking around Kin 1, where our booth was located. (No, I wasn’t going to go outside unless I had to. It was HOT!)
I found out the traffic patterns of people in Kin1 bore a lot of resemblance to those of the drivers outside.
You had people changing lanes without signalling; you had people suddenly slamming on the brakes in the middle of traffic; you had people remembering at the last second this was where they wanted to turn and doing a quick 100-degree turn.
And, of course, you had the people blithely moseying right down the middle of the lane, making it impossible for anyone to get by on either side.
But just seeing the crowds of people inside Kin 1 or hearing someone mention how long the lineups for midway tickets were reminded me of what we had been missing for the past three summers.
I’m already looking forward to next year (but I will insist we check more than 20 minutes ahead of time that we have the right phone-line hookup).