Houston, We have a Problem

Today is the start of my third week doing my radio show from my home.
I could get used to this.

Hot breakfast served by the prettiest woman I know...newspaper brought to my desk...my beverage glass is constantly freshened. And when I finish the show, I either crawl back into the rack (pre-warmed by the aforementioned woman), or read the paper cover to cover while soaking in a sitz bath--Doctor's orders.

This morning's show was marked by our first audio interruption in three weeks. I connect from The Studio at The Clanton Hacienda via a Comrex Matrix POTS codec.



That's fancy talk for what we call a "blue box," which encodes analog audio into digital "one's and zero's," ships it down a Plain Old Telephone System line (my house phone) to the Radio station, where a companion POTS codec de-codes the one's and zero's back into analog.
The magic comes out your speakers.


This morning the Blue Box failed me in mid-sentance.
Just stopped working.
Cold turkey.
Dead air.

I did not curse. In fact, I continued talking, hoping against hope the box was still pumping my one's and zero's into the ether. It wasn't.

My Producer, Buddy, nimbly hit a piece of audio in the studio and went to a break, while we scrambled to get the circuit restored. Just in time to stop for our pal, Lou Dobbs' report.

Fortunately, the Blue Box behaved itself the rest of the morning.

See you in the morning on the Radio.