Savemybutt.com

Join us for the Cybersquad Webinar on January 18th, 2011

Space is limited to the first 100 registered people who arrive.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

Show number 5, January 4, 2011: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/233940810

In the tradition of the Steve and Johnnie Website Wednesday Night radio show I have put together this webinar for a limited number of people. The software will only allow 100 attendees no matter how many have registered, so it’s on a first come first served basis of all who have registered.

The webinar format will allow me and whoever else from the Cybersquad to come together, talk about current tech events of the day, and “take your calls”. This is done by raising your hand during the show with the small webinar control panel that will be installed when you register.

You can participate with a telephone or a headphones with a microphone. The instructions how to participate will be emailed to you by GoToWebinar after you complete your registration.

PLEASE NOTE:

Please read below and make sure you join the webinar before 7 P.M.  The “doors” will open at 6:45 P.M. so that you can make sure you are properly connected and everything is working.  You will see the Savemybutt Cybersquad screen if it’s all working for you.  Make sure your microphone is not muted if you are not using the telephone.

Please make sure you read the reminder email(s) sent to you by GoToWebinar.  You got this email because you registered to join in as an attendee.  To attend you must click on the “Join Webinar” button if you see one or click on the “Click here to join” link to attend.

When you do click to join a small Java program will install a small control panel on your computer that is only there for duration of the webinar.

More than 100 people can register to join/attend the webinar.  Only the first 100 people who click on the link in the reminder email starting at 6:45 P.M. will be allowed to attend.  This is a limitation by GoToWebinar and is not in my control.

For help registering and joining the webinar click here.

Thank you,

Mike

Title: Savemybutt – Cybersquad Webinar
Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM CST
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Here is a look at last night’s spectacular New Year’s Eve edition of Fantasy in the Sky at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disneyworld, complete with 360 degree perimeter fireworks and Seven Seas Lagoon island launch site.

The first video was shot from within the park on Main Street USA.

The second video was shot from across the lagoon from the Magic Kingdom so you can see the whole show.  The quality is so so, but it’s very cool.  Especially, near the end.  The grand finale when fireworks are shot from the complete circumference of the park.  Quite impressive.

Click on the images below to watch.

This page is coming soon.

It’s inevitable.  Nothing lasts forever.  How does the old cliché go?  The only thing you can count on is death and taxes.

I hate it when I realize it’s my last day of vacation.  I hate it when there is no more pumpkin pie.  I hate it that my daughter got too big to hold in my arms.  I hate it because summer ended and it snowed the other day.  I hate it when I know it’s my last day at Disneyworld.  I hate it when I do the show remotely and Johnnie baked.

In 1981 I volunteered to help a friend, Chicago Eddie Schwartz, with a hair brained last minute idea he had to do a food drive to help the hungry people of Chicago.  He was mad that Mayor Byrne was spending one hundred thousand dollars on New Year’s fireworks instead of doing something good with the money.

Two days after the food drive Eddie, Dan Fabian, Lorna Gladstone, Miti Dozowitz and me met in the cafeteria at the WGN television studios to debrief about what had happened.

One of the first questions out of Dan was “can we do it again next year?”.  Eddie was all for it. Lorna was all for it. Mitri (another volunteer) was for it.  So, since everyone was already on board, I went for it.

The question came up as to who would be the chairman of all the volunteers Eddie would be asking to help out and to run this thing.  Who had the connections for trucks, boxes, pallets, fork lifts, and everything else it would take to make it a better event the next year.

Coming from the airline air freight business (this was before the computer age as we know it) they all turned their heads and looked at me.

That moment morphed into a grand 13 year stint running one of the biggest holiday events in Chicago.  That, in turn gave birth to Pumpkinfest for 7 years.

That is how I got my start as a “step-member” of the WGN Radio family 30 years ago. There is a lot more to that story that I might tell someday.

That is also how I met Steve and Johnnie.  In a very dark barn one fall afternoon someone put what felt like a pig’s ear in my hand.

Fast forward to 1999.  While you were fast forwarding a lot happened.  I had learned to write software, build, install, and repair computers, and had my own computer consulting business supporting small mom and pop companies.

In October of that year I was in my car heading home late one night.  For whatever reason I tuned into WGN on the radio.  Normally, I didn’t listen to talk radio.  I usually had music on in the car.

I did not know that Steve and Johnnie had started doing a show about websites, which was a pretty new concept at the time, with some fellow named Patrick on scratchy phone line and a guy named Shawn in the studio.

This show was right up my alley.  While listening to the show someone called with a technical question about their computer.  Patrick and Shawn did their best to answer it and Steve asked, as he still does today, if someone listening knew more about the question, to please call.

I called.  I gave an answered that solved the earlier listener’s problem.  Steve asked what I do for a living and thought that was cool.  He proceeded to ask if I wanted to come to the studio one night and sit in.

Since I had not been to the radio station in a long time, the food drive ended a couple of years earlier, I took him up on the offer.  His producer set it up for the next Wednesday.

Because I had been a fixture, like the furniture, at the station from September through the middle of December every year for the food drive for so many years I go to know everyone there.

When I arrived on the Wednesday night I was to be on the air many of the WGN employees stopped me and chatted for a minute or two.  News people, engineers, heck even the cleaning people.

I waited in the conference room until the producer came to get me.  I walked into Studio A, the big one that Uncle Bobby and Spike used during the day, to a surprised Steve King sitting behind the control console of “The Starship Enterprise” as some have called it.

Steve looked at me, knowing me from the food drive days, and asked “How are you? What are you doing here?” with a friendly welcome smile.

I explained to him that he had invited me the week before.  With a bit of a puzzled look he asked “that’s you?”.

I laughed and said yep, that’s me.  Computer consulting is what I did for a living.

Steve apparently did not recognize my voice on the radio the night I called which made my entrance a bit fun.

Steve and Johnnie introduced me to Shawn; I sat down in front of a microphone, and dove into the deep end of the pool.  I was going to sink or swim.  I swam in high school, so I figured I’d make it until morning.

I was unaware that on that Wednesday night sparks would fly and a fire would start that would burn for 12 years.  I fell in love with radio, I fell in love with the people that taught me how to do it, Steve and Johnnie, and most of all I fell in love with the people that listened.

Today is Wednesday, December 7^th, 2011.  It is the last time the Steve and Johnnie’s “Cybersquad”, Patrick Crispen, Nic Rotondo, Mike Reid, and me,  who are among my best friends, will get to have some fun in best radio studio in the country.  Studio A at WGN Radio.  In the house that “Wally” built.  Wow!  What a rush.  You couldn’t pay any amount for this experience.

Thank you Steve and Johnnie for teaching me all that you have.  I love you guys a whole lot and will cherish every moment we have had together.  Even those “teaching” moments.

By the way, Did I ask?  Don’t you just hate it when something good comes to an end?

Oh, and there’s one more thing…

As I pace back and forth thinking about what to write on the last line of this post…

About Website Wednesday Night?  It’s not over.  Stay tuned.