E.J. Becker

here’s one of the drawbacks to what ellen and i do.

(before i go on, let me throw in here that i love what i do.  the morning show is an absolute joy to be part of.  ellen, jayme, jeff, coop and jay are a riot to work with and there’s nothing else i’d rather be doing — other than traveling the world on the back of my lottery winnings.  and when we say, “thanks for listening, we appreciate it,” we mean it.  without you, there’s no show.)

but it’s saturday morning at 5:30 and i’m writing this post.  and i’ve been putting it off for two hours.

i will guarantee you that way over in st. louis (lees summit, st. louis, same diff) where ellen lives, she’s been awake for some time too (matter of fact, let’s log on to face book and see if she’s there…opening a new tab…logging on…checking…hmmm…not on right now…doesnt’ matter.).  the rest of the gang’s probably stirring too!

the question ellen and i get the most is probably “what time do you wake up in the morning?”  ask almost anyone in morning radio and they’ll tell you that you never get used to the hours.  but as i sit here listening to a barry cd one of my colleagues insisted i check out (can you believe fescoe is such a rabid manilow fan?  first time i met him, he came up, shook my hand, said, “my name’s bob. her name was lola. she was a showgirl.”  and it’s been downhill ever since.) i’m coming to realize that you really do get used to the hours — (read: your body orders you around on weekends).

so for those of you who never see this hour of the day, here are some of the things you can go out and do at 5:30 in the morning on a saturday:  niecie’s is open and serving breakfast (hello mr. perry), qt is selling everything but their really good chocolate cookies with white chips, drive through fairway and mission and see how little time it takes to get a cop following you (works at all hours, but potentially expensive), go into the office and…nah.  entertainment options outside the house at this hour are limited (but at least the manilow music has agitated the cats into a fight).  this should be fun to watch.

oh…and one other bright side, we set our clocks ahead tomorrow…so in a day, i’ll be writing this at 6:30.  hooray!

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…and everything was going along so nicely.

i had just returned from an amazing 9-day mission trip in central america.  (what a tremendous experience.  if you have the chance to do something like that — and you’re easy going, like to help and can deal with not having a tv, your computer, your cell phone…water, etc. — do it.)  the show is going well.  i continue to keep the weight off.  my cats think i’m the coolest.  i mean, it’s been a great week.

until today.  having purchased a new laptop (at a hell of a price — all hail microcenter), nobody, not even the engineering and IT departments can get it to work.  great.  next time i’ll just set the cash on fire.  but grand scheme, i can get that taken care of.  a minor annoyance.

so today, i’m leaving the office right?  i walk out the door.  there, sitting before me, gleaming like a beacon in the night, is the $800 miracle that is my ‘99 ford escort — the one with 170k miles on it. the one we relentlessly make fun of on the show.  the one with the rust and scratches.  the one ellen claims i drive “like a bat out of hell,” (as if it’ll go over 37 mph).   the one that no one can believe i actually paid a full $800 to buy.  so i hop in…nothing.  turns over but won’t start.  and eventually starts to make a noise that no earthly (man-made or otherwise) creature should ever make.

dead.  i could fix it.  but then again, i could buy 4 more miracle escorts too.

so i send out an email asking if anybody knows anybody looking to unload a used car.  the answer i get comes from my boss…the program director.  his answer: “ummmm, jayme.”

jayme is the exec producer of the show  and the owner of the only car in the lot that’s worse-off than mine (i mean it’s an utter disaster.  it’s a miracle to emerge from it alive.)  (i’m glad she doesn’t read my blog.)

and on top of that, manifesto is closed.

really?  really??

thanks gateway.  thanks escort.  thanks neil.  thanks borrowed liquor license.  you shall not destroy my outstanding mood (which i think almost drove ellen to violence on more than one occasion this week).

but…could one of you please come pick me up at 3:15 monday morning?

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when i work on this page, it’s ususally to tell you about something that is going on behind teh scenes with the show.  and i suppose this one is too (it’s REALLY behind the scenes).

last week, i took some time off, but not for vaca, rather for a mission trip to nicaragua.  and what an experience it was!

cccckc has been doing mission trips all over the world for years but nicaragua has become a regular event.  20 of us left last saturday from kci and returned yesterday afternoon (28 feb).  here’s one of the neat things about the trip, half of us had never had the nicaragua mission experience, the other half had.

anyway, you can check some of the pix from the trip at facebook.com/ejbecker and you can read about the trip from my perspective (stream of consciousness is really big in nicaragua) and lori’s perspective right here. we kept blogs about our adventures.

thanks for checking it out.

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