Out To Pasture: Life Outside My Mp3 Player

When I feel the need for some good ol’ fashioned manual labor, I often head to the Hotwire Ranch. It is a place of beauty that always has ample work to be done. Up until I went to college, I had my own lawn mowing service that I ran in my neighborhood and for a time, I worked for a great company in Salem, OR called McKenzie’s Landscape.

Sometime I miss the feeling I get after a hard day’s work out in the sun, the feeling of washing the dirt off, and of getting dinner and big drink of water afterwards. It is simple and immediately rewarding to finish a project.

So being back in my hometown for summer, I have taken the opportunity to get out there and one day I was out trimming some of the hedges when I rediscovered an old friend: Talk Radio.

Being of Generation Y, I think iPods may have come standard at birth. When I am listening to something, it is almost always my mp3 player. I don’t drive much and my computer or player is almost always around, so I almost exclusively listen to my own music.

That coupled with all the internet stuff I have at my disposal, I totally forgot that radio exists. In fact, radio not only exists, but is a great method of advertising. When I am working with loud equipment out on the farm, I wear a noise cancelling headset to protect my ears and as a bonus, it has a built in radio.

All day I have been listening to sports talk, music stations, even the news. And all day, you know what I hear? Regular people getting the opportunity to go on the radio and say whatever they want (mostly). They call in, ask questions, tell stories, you name it. The other day a basketball coach came on and ended up talking about his new lock business, that had to be great exposure. There is even a doctor that calls in to one show every week to answer a few easy questions and then the host gives out all his information, he can’t even take new patients now because he is so busy!

Anyway, what I am getting at is that radio is not out to pasture, in fact it is a great way to get some great free press and hit a different demographic. We have said before that everyone is an expert on something, tune in and see where you can get in the conversation because it is alive and well.