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This is my old blog. I still update it using Posterous but my actual site is now at AndrewKujata.ca Posted via email

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My sister recently completed her undergrad, and we marked the occasion with dinner and cake. Here's the mandatory photoshoot-- I went for a behind-the-scenes look.

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This is my old blog. I still update it using Posterous but my actual site is now at AndrewKujata.ca Posted via email

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I keep a notebook with me most of the time to jot down ideas and notes. Here's some I took yesterday during a storyboard meeting:

This isn't as bad as it looks.

This is my old blog. I still update it using Posterous but my actual site is now at AndrewKujata.ca Posted via email

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Here's a cool event from "northern BC's music capital" (not sure when they got that designation, but events like this certainly help make the case). Essentially, in order to encourage people to try out bus routes they offer free transit that includes local musicians playing on the bus. Would love to see that here in Prince George. Via fortstjohn.ca:

Music that Moves You". On June 16, July 21, and August 18, 2010, from 7:00 - 9:00 pm, you can hop on a transit bus and enjoy live music as the bus travels around the city.  This is also a great way to try out the transit system!  Each event will feature a different bus route - so you can try out all three throughout the summer.  And the best part - the event is free!  Support local musicians and try out transit for no cost.

...

For each event, you can either start at the Cultural Centre or you can join the bus at any stop along the chosen route.  And of course, you can get off at any stop you like.

This is my old blog. I still update it using Posterous but my actual site is now at AndrewKujata.ca Posted via email

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Our gardens are coming in nicely, and our yard is decorated well with lettuce leaves, squash vines, and corn stalks. But what it lacks is colour, so this weekend we took advantage of the "you really should have started gardening by now" sales and added flowers to our crop. It's really spruced things up, especially our bland grey deck which we probably aren't going to get around to painting this year (the focus is on installing the floor and painting our interior). Here's the result:

See and download the full gallery on posterous

My favourite thing is the sunflower, which is just so bright against the white fence. We need a few more.

Here's the front, which was already ok, but needed a few more plants:

See and download the full gallery on posterous

I also took advantage of the weather and tidied up the shed, which is now much more walkable.

So aside from helping the parents-in-common-law pick out a new computer and finishing my current read (a pretty good one, too) that was our Sunday.

This is my old blog. I still update it using Posterous but my actual site is now at AndrewKujata.ca Posted via email

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I went to going-away shindig for a coworker earlier this week. That's not altogether unusual. What is unusual is the number of people outside of my workplace who are aware of and care about the fact that this going-away is happening. You see, it was for none other than Daybreak North host Chris Walker who, after three years manning the microphone here in in PG, is heading off to a news position in Kelowna. The response in the form of emails and such from people saying they'll miss him and wishing good luck has reminded me of the unusual nature of my current job, which is that people outside of my workplace have daily access to what I'm doing.

In most jobs, your interactions are limited to those in your workplace, be they co-workers or customers. You certainly have an effect on the world beyond your office walls, but that doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the world is aware of it, and it definitely doesn't mean they feel like they're on a first-name basis with you. It's different in radio.

I'm saying this as someone who until recently interacted with radio as an audience member, and who still feels more of an 'outsider' than an 'insider' when it comes to the experience of being on-the-air. When you work in radio, your job is part of hundreds of people's daily routines. When I'm at the CBC researching stories and pre-interviewing guests, I'm helping put together the program that people throughout northern BC use to find out what's going on both around the world and around the corner. And when you listen to a local show, you feel a lot more connected to it. It's in your community, on-the-air guests are literally your neighbours. I have family in Dawson Creek and friends in Smithers who hear the show and know who "Chris Walker" and "Robert Doane" are, even if they've never met them.

I'm impressed with these people who go on the air for two and half hours a day, five days a week, in every community north of Williams Lake up to the Yukon border. In so doing, you're inviting anyone with an radio dial or an internet connection to hear you, while you work, and form on opinion on how you're performing. I'm still getting used to the experience of people I know saying "I heard you on the radio the other day", and all I do is read the weather and community notes once in a while. I'm even more surprised when I speak to my grandma and she mentions hearing me, because she lives a day's drive away. And, quite frankly, when I go on the air I'm not thinking "this is going out across the province, and people are listening." I did at first, and it threw me off too much. But over the last little while, I've taken myself so far out of it that I completely forget I'm going on the air. I'm just doing my job.

At some point, I'll have to reconcile the two. I haven't been at it long enough for people I've never met to recognize my name when I meet them somewhere, but I suppose it could happen eventually. I know that my first days of work at the CBC were some of the most surreal I've had simply because I was meeting people I sort of already knew-- or at least their voices and their names. Even more surreal was the experience of speaking to the hosts in Prince Rupert because they are still bodiless voices, but they're addressing you, directly, through headphones or the telephone-- it felt like one of those Twilight Zone-style deals where the TV starts talking to you. Now it's becoming surreal in the other sense-- I'm addressing people who I'm not sure are there. I know people are listening, but I never know exactly who they or what they'll think of how I do it. And over time, they'll start to form an opinion of me, and maybe even feel like they know me.

I don't know what I think about that, really, but I do know one thing: there's something very unique about the relationships people have with their favourite radio shows, one that isn't replicated in their relationships with celebrities, or tv, or even blogs. I think it's the voice aspect of it-- in print, whether online or off, there's a degree of separation, editing, and a time-lapse. On TV, it's either fictional characters or celebrities so famous or so far removed that they may as well be fictional. And audio is the one thing you can have wake you up and continue to be engaged with while eating breakfast, making lunch, and driving to work. That builds the relationship over time. Plus there's the voice coming live, directly across the air into your house or headphones or car. And sometimes it's talking to someone else, but often enough it's talking directly to you, telling you the weather or asking you for your song requests. And that builds, too.That is why people who have never met Chris Walker care that he is leaving. He's built up this relationship with people over the last few years that feels more direct than most one-to-many relationships out there. And even though I just have a small part in this, and have only had any role to play in it for less than half a year it's a good reminder: this is one cool job. 

                             

This is my old blog. I still update it using Posterous but my actual site is now at AndrewKujata.ca Posted via email

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A Rare Sighting of the 1up Mushroom in Northern BC

they don't usually grow past the lower part of Washington State, I understand

This is my old blog. I still update it using Posterous but my actual site is now at AndrewKujata.ca Posted via email

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