Rode my bike downtown to the beautiful
Milwaukee Center Building from my job in Walker's Point Friday for my first listener session with
WHAD radio. The weather was still nice around noon for the 10 minute ride and I was able to park just a couple steps from the front entrance. The view from the 23rd floor was spectacular and I had plenty of time to enjoy it while several of us waited for the rest to find parking for their autos. Once the hour long feedback session got under way the twelve of us discussed the usual; likes, dislikes and program changes. We also had time to talk about the future, especially digital radio. An hour passes too quickly though and my hope is Gene Purcell,
Ben Merens and crew got as much out of it as I did.
My next listening session was on Saturday for the Veterans' Day ceremony at Veterans Park in Waukesha. The brief ceremony was nice, I'm sure, with representatives from the different branches of service in attendance, but no one could hear it. The sound system they were using was so inadequate it wouldn't have been loud enough even without the constant vehicle traffic in the background.
The 3rd listening session was at the
Milwaukee County Zoo for a Family Free Day. It was fairly quiet at the zoo Saturday afternoon. The trains weren't running, most of the animals were indoors and the normally vocal peacocks were silent. We saw many of the animals being fed and we saw a small primate called a goeldi living in a Journal Sentinel newspaper tube. We saw amazing fish and tigers and watched as a huge mass of long dirty hair crawled across the ceiling - an orangutan. Because the crowd wasn't bad at all and because we had a great time too, I'm highly recommending the next Family Free Day, December 2nd.
And finally, the last listening session of the weekend was during a long hike at Retzer Nature Center Sunday where we heard what we came to hear - nothing. A perfect way to recharge after a hectic week and spend time with the kids where the loudest thing we heard was the crunching of snow underfoot.
