Three Beautiful Things 11/01/19: Family Dinner Prep, Remembering Radio Days in Spokane, Zags Crush LC State

1. After breakfast with Buff, Ed, and Scott B. (Jerry is recovering from an appendectomy) at Sam's, I returned home and started cleaning up the kitchen and went to work making a soup from spare ribs in the crock pot. I host family dinner Sunday and since I'll be coming back from Spokane that day, I decided to cook dinner ahead of time.

2. I continued my efforts to play KPND-FM over my wireless speaker. It worked when I went to the KPND website, clicked on the Listen Live bar, and then, via Bluetooth, played the music on my speaker. The station almost never stuttered or cut out. A few hours later, I decided to turn off the Bluetooth on the Chromebook and go to my Alexa app on my phone, turn the Alexa Bluetooth back on, and see if the Amazon Echo would stream KPND-FM without cutting out today.

It did.

I don't know what the problem was on Thursday night, but I'm happy it wasn't happening again today.

In addition, it turns out that Rich "Badger" "Rocket" Brock, my longtime friend and former roommate from Whitworth worked at KPND for a while over thirty-five years ago.

Not only that, but, back in our Spokane days, Rich and I listened a lot to KREM-FM (and AM) and one of the DJs from those days, once prominent Spokane media guy John Christopher Kowsky, is a weekend dj on KPND. Not only that, but KPND's daytime dj, Uncle Larry, is the former program director from KREM-FM, Larry Snyder.

Rich and I enjoyed a stroll down memory lane, especially the old days playing poker on Friday nights and listening to Spokane radio, including the KREM stations, and Rich told me about his efforts to get a job working for Uncle Larry back then.

I may not every detail right about J. C. Kowsky and Larry Snyder, but the feelings are alive. I know, for sure, that in a perfect utopian world, I would be able to get my hands on tapes of the radio hey day of KREM in Spokane, both FM and AM, and Rich I would be able to get together, listen, laugh, and bawl our way down memory lane.

3. I sauntered next door around six o'clock to join Christy and Everett and watch the Zags play a preseason exhibition game at home against the Warriors of LC State from Lewiston. We all knew it was going to be a painful mismatch -- and it was -- final score: Zags 116 Warriors 61. I wanted to watch the game to get a little bit familiar with the new Gonzaga players. I have no idea how good they are from watching this game. All I know is that Gonzaga totally dominated LC State and that I am starting to learn some new players' names. 

The best thing about a blow out like this? It opens up a lot of time and space to talk about stuff and Christy caught me up on a bunch of news in her life and I had some news myself.

But, I left the game early in the second half and returned to my housekeeping chores.