Detailing Failure

Of all days… I should have stayed in bed … but I didn’t.  It was Wednesday which meant that I’d be going on the radio with Stephen Hurley at 9:15.  I had a lot of things to do before then.

5:00 am

• do my morning reading and have breakfast
  
  

6:00 am

• reread the blog posts for the show and update my notes
• get the garbage out – Wednesdays are garbage days here
• get the dog’s 14 000 steps (my 7000) in before breakfast (his)
• read and respond to the whack of email messages that always seem to be there.
  
  

Since it’s typically black outside, I’d do the first and last steps above first.  I clicked on iTunes for some background music but it refused to start.  I turned on the television to listen to morning news instead.  Debugging iTunes would have to wait. The radio show was a little more special than normal.  Stephen Hurley’s birthday is this week and Ramona Meharg had got a number of people from the voicEd community to record a message for Stephen of Flipgrid.  Between the two of us, we had it all planned.  I sent her the link to Zencastr where the show would be recorded.  We set up the timing; I was going to start the show as per normal and then Ramona would join us.  Perhaps it was unethical to blindside Stephen this way but there’s always a challenge with birthday surprises.

9:00 am

As per normal, I sent out my heads-up Twitter message…

Join @Stephen_Hurley and me on @voicEdcanada at 9:15 for This Week in Ontario Edublogs. This week, posts from @ProfMelLefebvre @leftyeva @TCHevolution @andreahaefele and @peterskillen #twioe— Doug Peterson (@dougpete) October 3, 2018

And, I clicked on the Zencastr link to have it load while I went and got my coffee. I returned to my desk and saw that Zencastr wasn’t responding.  I reloaded.  Nothing.  You know what they say about insanity.  I reloaded a couple more times. Grrrr.

9:05 am I sent a panic message to Stephen.  Stephen sent me back a different link indicating that there were limited number of people allowed on the broadcast going this way but since it was just the two of us, it wouldn’t matter.  Uh oh.

9:07 am I sent the new link to Ramona who was going to send it to those who said they’d like to jump in on this birthday surprise.

9:08 am I tried Zencastr again.  No luck.

9:10 am I join Stephen in the new meeting room and we shared our frustrations.

9:14 am Ramona joins us in the room.  Stephen seems confused as to why but showtime is showtime.  Stephen gives Ramona and me a warning that we won’t hear the introduction music.

9:15 am And, we’re on.  I fade into the background as Ramona (and her class) sing a happy birthday to Stephen.

9:20 am Paul McGuire joins the room.  Ramona and I start to have a nice chat with him.  Now, riddle me this.  Ramona, Paul, and myself can hear and chat with each other.  Stephen could hear Ramona and me but not Paul.  Stephen decides to kick Paul out and ask him to join back in. He does with the same results.  He’s tossed out again.

9:22 am In the meantime, Derek Rhodenizer jumps into the conversation, effectively locking Paul out since we’d hit the limit of connections.  Derek offers a nice birthday greetings to Stephen and then leaves to go back to work.

9:30 am Paul’s back.  He joins into conversation again with Ramona and me.  Stephen still can’t hear him.  Still frustrating; still bizarre.  Live radio is fun. Throughout, Ramona is playing clips from the Flipgrid document. We had a bit of a chat with Ramona’s students and then Paul and Ramona leave.

Now, Stephen and I can start the show.  We looked at the first blog post from Melanie Lefebvre about being a classroom DJ.  This went well. Then, we went to the next blog post from Eva Thompson about Septembers. 

I ramble on for maybe five minutes and notice that Stephen is noticeably quiet.  I look at the radio show tab and see that I’ve been disconnected!  I reconnect and am back in conversation with Stephen. 

My first question was – where did I drop off?

His response? 

Right at the first of the review of Eva’s post. 

Sigh. 

I’ve been sitting at my desk talking to myself for the past ten minutes.  I start again and try to remember the deep insights that I’d shared the first time. Then, I noticed that I wasn’t on the show again. 

I try to reconnect. Nothing. I try a couple of other things and I’m completely offline. 

Checking the connection…

I grab my phone and turn off the wifi so that I’m using my data connection.  Stephen had indeed noticed that I was offline. Should we call it? I offer to connect via my phone but Stephen says that it won’t work. We do call it.  But, not before Terry Greene volunteered to sub for me.  I don’t know what happened at this point in time. 

I’m offline.

I should have stayed in bed.

Happy Birthday, Stephen.

Later that day…

4:30 pm I just happened to send Stephen a message that my internet access had been restored.  We just recorded the rest of the show.  Through the magic of digital editing, Stephen will tie both recordings together as if nothing ever happened!