Sometimes the craziest things spark a memory.

Whether it be the smell of burning leaves that reminds you of fall and spirals you into seasonal depression or the obscured back road in the middle of nowhere that reminds you of the first time you tried out back-seat yoga in your old Chevelle.

Today, I had to go and do a walk-thru of a rental property I own, as the renter is moving out. I lived in this house about 6 years ago and thought I got all my stuff out of it back then, but came upon an interesting stash up in the attic.

In 1987 I got my first job in radio working for Jim & Dorothy Ward at WARD-AM in Pittston, PA. It was a 10,000 watt day timer and one of the few remaining independently owned, yet stand-alone, AM radio stations in northeast Pennsylvania. After Jim’s death in 1994, the place went down the toilet and I moved on in 1997 right before it was sold.

WARD was unique to say the very least. Some day I’ll talk more about my time there and the craziness that went on inside a building that had house trailers attached to it, shag carpeting on the walls, flakeboard for paneling and an oil burner that always ran out of oil during my shift. WARD was the very first station in the market to embrace an all talk format and introduced Rush Limbaugh to northeast PA. High school sports was a big part of the station’s programming (and a big help for cash flow) as was Polka Weekend.

Yes, Polka Weekend.

Sam Liguori, Dale Michaels (aka Rusty Fender / Shadoe Steele), Rob Neyhard, Brunon Kryger and myself, along with rotating part-timers, overtook the radios in every nursing home, bingo hall, VFW, corner bar and Polish household in NEPA beginning at 6am Saturday morning and not giving up until the bars ran out of Bartels late Sunday night.

We did air shifts ranging from 4 to 6 hours, did live on-air requests and dedications without a delay, queued up records, and did more remotes from church bazars and fire company picnics than I care to count, yet remember. There were no computers loaded with MP3 files – we had boxes of records, yes records, that we flipped through and queued up on turntables. Commercials and bumpers were recorded on “carts” – audio cartridges similar to an 8-track tape. There were no CD players and the Sunday early morning religious programs came in the mail on 7-inch reel-to-reel tape. When we had to voice commercials, we had to splice tape with real razor blades, not a Mac running Adobe Audition.

Today, I stumbled upon 2 boxes of those records we used to spin on Polka Weekend hiding in the attic. Notes are taped to some of them which say things like, “Don’t play cut 3 it skips” or “Do not remove from studio” – glad I paid attention to that one. They all look like they’re in good condition and aren’t warped, but I don’t have a turntable to verify.

After finding this cache, I started thinking about the time I spent at WARD and looked for some photos that I had of the old place. Low and behold, I even found some of them, with a very young and thinner looking me.

Some memories you want to forget, some you want to remember. Memories of WARD I’ll always cherish as it was a special, one-of-a-kind place even if the place at 83 Foote Avenue in Duryea is now a junk yard.

Here I am chatting on the phone in the main studio. The Lazy Susan cart rack is in the back holding all the commercials. The black and white TV up in the corner was the only entertainment we had, and also served as the audio source for when we broadcast WNEP-TV news at 6pm and 11pm during the week. The red EBS binder contained the envelope with the secret code and instructions on what to do “in the event of a real emergency!” That strange contraption to the left with the circle of orange felt is a turn table – something that doesn’t exist in radio stations today!

Here I am donning a set of Radio Shack head phones, wearing an Izod shirt and some stone washed denim – sure signs of the 80′s. The Electro Voice RE20 mic in the on-air studio was a big investment at the time.

If you look closely there is a block of wood that we used to prop up the telos telephone interface so we can see it at a better angle. The walls in the studio were wrapped in lovely shag carpeting and the jock sitting at the board faced a clock on the other side of the wall and a big hole in the roof that leaked when it rained, but it was the only way the cables from the satellite dishes in the back got into the building.

AUDIO VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE AVAILABLE!

Big Billy Brace all smiles in his $1,500 tailor-made suit that just landed him a prison sentence.

Brace plead guilty today to accepting a $1,500 tailor-made suit in exchange for helping a contractor win a contract with Luzerne County.

“Big Billy” was so happy to receive his reward that he took a road trip to New York City to meet with a tailor so he could be custom fitted.

Paulie Walnuts, always the dapper dresser, would be proud.

Now, let’s look a little into “Big Billy’s” past. He first started taking taxpayer money in 1971 when he landed a job for the City of Wilkes-Barre and retired as the city’s chief clerk in 2001. 17 days after retirement he landed a job as deputy to the county Clerk of Courts. In 2005 he landed another county job when he took a position as chief clerk for the county commissioners. Then in 2008 he moved up to the state level by becoming the local registrar for the Bureau of Vital Statistics.

“Big Billy” has been living off the taxpayers for years.

According to the Times Leader archives, Brace earns about $60k a year in his registrar job and also collects a $42k a year pension from the city plus full health benfits until he’s six feet under. He also receives an undisclosed amount from his county pension and will also receive a state pension from his latest stint. Chances are “Big Biilly” could be pulling down about $150k a year plus benefits when he fully retires.

When he resigned from county government, Luzerne County Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla, who is about as trustworthy and loyal as a pet rattle-snake, said, “He always has stepped to the plate no matter what the situation has been. We’ve had some troubling times in the county and Bill has been a great friend and a great public servant.”

Maryanne, how are you feeling about this “great public servant” now? What about the other 18 “great public servants” who have been nabbed in this corruption probe?

The 18 other criminals nabbed so far include judges, school board presidents, attorneys and business owners. I’ve heard from very reliable sources that there are more coming, including a big “Christmas present” arrest.

The story of “Big Billy” Brace is nothing new. Billy got a suit, a Wilkes-Barre area school director got free carpeting, teachers got jobs for handing over cash, and juveniles got remanded for prison in exchange for former judges Michael Conahan and Mark “Scooch” Ciavarella collecting $2.5 million in kickbacks.

Like a septic tank that’s in bad need of pumping, the scum keeps rising to the top in Luzerne County as the feds are there to skim them up. “Big Billy” should lose every pension he has coming, should be fired immediately from his state job, and be removed from the city’s health insurance. But, we’ll have to see what happens there, don’t expect too much.

I just hope Billy wears that $1,500 custom tailored suit for his court hearing and remains with him as his prison uniform and a reminder of his criminal past.

Is it Maryanne Petrilla or Todd Vonderheid in drag? The Luzerne County webmaster needs to fix!

Note to the Luzerne County website webmaster, you may want to check the link for Marianne Petrilla’s bio. I don’t think she would want to have anything to do with former commissioner Todd Vonderheid, I know I wouldn’t want to!

Maryanne’s bio is on this page:
http://www.luzernecounty.org/county/commissioners/todd_a_vonderheid

Today I had to record a series of videos for an email campaign we’re doing for Solid Cactus Call Center. While I’m usually quick to bang these things out, today was an exception…. but we had some fun! Screwing up along with me is Katrina Domkowski and Becky Pokorny who were good sports as well. Enjoy!

I wrote about another successful Solid Cactus Boot Camp that wrapped up Friday night (October 16, 2009) with our closing cocktail reception, dinner and “commencement.” For some reason, I always miss out on the fun that happens AFTER the event!

Days, weeks, even months later I end up hearing the stories about “Boot Camp After Hours” but nobody has captured those moments on camera or video yet. Until now!

One of the attendees, Pam Macharola from BlairCandy.com, who also is a great personal friend, brought along some wax lips that made for some very funny photos Friday night. “Candy Pam” shared the hilarity with me tonight with the promise that what happens at Boot Camp, stays at Boot Camp, but these are just too funny not to share!

One of my roles as a marketing consultant for Solid Cactus, is to organize an event called Solid Cactus eCommerce Boot Camp. These three day events held at various times throughout the year are a three-day gathering of eCommerce store owners from around the country. Informational sessions are put on by Solid Cactus staffers and guests and are held throughout the day. Evenings are set aside for networking opportunities with fellow entrepreneurs.

The latest Boot Camp wrapped up last night and marks the seventh such event I had the pleasure of putting together. I always enjoy meeting with other eCommerce store owners to learn about their business, what they’re doing to drive sales and most importantly, how they’re combating a challenging economy. As we move into the busiest time of the year for most merchants, the general feeling is that of uncertainty. Uncertainty about whether or not Christmas 2009 will be better or worse than Christmas 2008. Personally, I feel it’s going to be worse.

If you listen to the talking heads on television every night, they make you feel like the economy is on an upswing. Yet at the same time they report that the unemployment rate is nearing 10% as more and more people are laid off. With 10% of the working class not getting a paycheck every week, spending just isn’t happening. Store owners I talked to are feeling the effects; some more than others.

Knowing that store owners need to be cautious in what they spend to attract business this season, I tailored most of the sessions at this latest Boot Camp on free and cost effective ways to get customers. Social Media, SEO, effective Internet Marketing and features designed to convert were the hot topics.

One thing that I did notice was that many store owners have not fully embraced the power of Social Media. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are free ways for business owners to capture customers, but few of the attendees are actually using them to their full potential. Some expressed a lack of time or an inability to gauge Social Media’s ROI as reasons for not exploiting these means of advertising. No matter what your opinion or reasons for not taking advantage of Social Media are, the fact that you should be using them to get your message out is paramount.

I always enjoy sitting in on the Boot Camp presentations because I always learn something new. While I try to keep up on trends, there’s always something that I missed! I enjoy listening to the presenters even if it’s on a topic I’m very familiar with because I could always stand to learn just a little bit more or get a refresher on the topic.

We had a great group of attendees this time around and a nice mix of new and seasoned eCommerce store owners. This always makes for a great Boot Camp as the pros tend to help the newbies and the newbies walk away with a lot of great information to help them be on their way to online success.

While this Boot Camp may be behind me for now, I’ve already started working on the next one!

Special thanks to The Cafe @ Pic-a-Deli, Pazzo Restaurant and The Woodlands Inn & Resort.

For those who were unable to attend, here are some photos from the event:

Like a usual Wednesday, I had dinner at Pazzo Restaurant, in Pittston, PA. Before I left, I had to bring Baby and Peanut some of Pazzo’s homemade meatballs. They were a big hit with the pups, and shortly after devouring them, they were both ready to cuddle and go to sleep.

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Today’s Citizens Voice newspaper is reporting on one hell of a deal Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. got on a flight from Pennsylvania to Florida. The other day, I blogged about Olszewski and his visit with convicted drug dealer Ronald “Snorts” Belletiere and kids-for-cash former judge Mike “I’m Innocent” Conahan at the Florida condo Conahan shared with other disgraced judge, Mark “It’s not a Kickback” Civarella.

According to today’s article, “Olszewski, who is running for retention in November, said he reimbursed Conahan $400 for the round-trip flight about 10 months after returning to Pennsylvania.”

I travel back and forth from PA to FL each week, and I pay around $200 round trip on JetBlue and about $150 round trip on AirTran. Knowing that $400 was a heck of a deal, I pulled out my price sheet for a private jet company. Their smallest jet aircraft would run $7700.00 per hour and would hold 4 people. Three hours from PA to FL, $23,100 one way plus catering.

I’m really beginning to believe that the smart people are actually dumb. Did Peter Paul think that $400 was his actual share of the flight? Or did he see it as a good deal, write the check and move on?

The plot thickens.

The first time I met Peter Paul Olszewski Jr., was when I was in high school. I had an after-school job pumping gas at a local gas station where Peter Paul and his father Peter Paul Sr. had house accounts. The elder was still a practicing judge in Luzerne County and Jr. was a fledgling attorney.

Peter Paul Jr. was a tall, strapping young man who towered over my 5′ 9″ frame and was as personable as a Labrador puppy. His father was a respectable member of the bench and I was happy to see Jr. follow in his father’s footsteps. I wasn’t friends with Peter Paul Jr., but every time I saw him in public I was always greeted with a “hello, how are you.”

I was shocked to learn through the newspaper, that Peter Paul Jr. had been drug into the circus surrounding former Luzerne County judges Mike “Don’t Drop the Soap” Conahan and Mark “Scootch” Civarella. These two clowns ran a three-ring spectacular known as the “Kids for Cash Scandal.” Both of them are going to be spending plenty of time behind bars for accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks for putting juveniles in detention centers that they allegedly had financial interest in.

Peter Paul Jr. comes into play when a photo was released to the media showing him partying with Conahan as well as convicted drug dealer Ronald Belletiere at the judge’s Jupiter, FL condo which was allegedly purchased with kick-back money. Going back to the 1980′s and 1990′s rumors were circulating that Conahan had ties with drug dealers, but no action was ever taken against Conahan.

Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. (first on left) is shown with a convicted drug dealer and a crooked judge, Mike Conahan (last on right)

Peter Paul Jr. says the photo was given to the media in an attempt to “embarass” him. Excuse me Jr., can you say “Duh?” Regardless whether or not you were privy to Conahan and Civarella’s million-dollar scheme, the fact remains that while you were on the bench you were breaking bread and sharing the wine with a convicted drug dealer. Shame on you!

Jr. is now going to be in the fight of his life to retain his seat on the bench during a time when Luzerne County residents have had enough of crooked politics and jackass politicians. If I were a voter in Luzerne County, Peter Paul Jr. wouldn’t get my vote and I’m afraid he shot himself in the foot. He could have had a promising career like his father, but I’m afraid it’s over. All because of the company he kept.