Well, now that I’m writing again, a few of you folks have come up to me and said, “it’s good to have you back.” The problem with all that is I find myself from time to time with nothing to say. Unlike the writer above me in the column that rhymes with para, I just can’t put out something that puts people to sleep or that isn’t interesting, so I really had to dig this week to get you a good product. I hope I can brighten your day just a little bit with a little community humor.

Even if you’ve never been a hunter, you’re likely familiar with the term poaching. Poaching is theft, plain and simple.

If you’ve been a faithful reader of mine, you know I’m pretty nerdy. Matt Mitzel loves to highlight the fact that my articles are boring and snooze-worthy, and he’s probably right. At my age, I don’t give two hoots what anyone thinks of me, and if you don’t like my writing content, you’re welcome to skip right over my article just like you skip over Matt’s. Back to being nerdy. I’d rather read WWII books than smutty romance novels. I’d rather watch literally anything on the National Geographic or History channel versus anything on Bravo. I’ve never seen one single episode of The Kardashians, the Bachelor or Bachelorette or probably any other popular show that’s ever been on TV, including Friends and Grey’s Anatomy. There are a few exceptions. I have watched every episode of Seinfeld at least twice. During Covid, Greg and I binged Ozark. Prior to having kids, we had HBO and got sucked into the Sopranos. Every now and then something comes along that sparks my interest, and I watch a few episodes, but most of the time, one or two episodes is all the time I’ll give it. Knowing all this, it shouldn’t be surprising that I was sad to hear of the passing of Jane Goodall last week.

By Bob Simmons, CEO, Simmons Multimedia No recent column of mine has gathered the response like what came from This, That and Other Stuff which appeared in the 9/26 issue of this paper. Here are a handful of the many comments – are one of these yours?

As you are probably aware, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a chance to show support for more than two million women around the world who are diagnosed with the disease each year. Since this has affected me personally, I was curious how this important event came to be and learned CAM began in 1985 as a one week awareness campaign by the American Cancer Society and grew into a month long event.

By Matt Mitzel After the football game in Carrington this past week, I decided to make my oldest son drive me to Bismarck to visit my folks. Throughout our adventures, I happened to drop something, and when I picked it up, he said, “don’t worry, it will buff.” I sat there for another five minutes waiting for him to finish the sentence, but he didn’t. Soooo, that was it. Not - it will buff out, but “it will buff?????” I finally blew up at him for his laziness, and he told me that is what everyone is saying now. I mean WTF. Is this generation so lazy and unoriginal that they shorten our slang by one word to make it their own?

I’ve been hearing way too many f-words lately, and I’m not happy about it… Frost, freeze, frigid, ugh! Fall is here in full swing, and it will be gone in the blink of an eye. I’m diligently bringing my mums in each night because they are just so beautiful, and I’m not ready to let go of all the flowers I still want to press.

How do you have a good lazy day? Perhaps you like to brew a warm cup of tea and snuggle up with a book. Maybe you like to binge watch your favorite Netflix show.

Last Saturday I spent all day watching JV volleyball and developing a severe case of bleacher butt. Six games and eight hours later, our JV volleyball team walked away with the championship title for at least the second year in a row. I’m sure they have won in years prior. I only pay attention when I have a kid playing, so I know they’ve won two years in a row for sure but maybe more.

This column will take a brief hiatus as yours truly travels to the other side of the world for a broadcaster convention. The fall meeting of my group, The International Broadcasters Idea Bank (IBIB), will be held in 15, where one of our members owns a group of radio stations. Our group of 100 members meets twice a year (spring and fall), and our New Zealand member proposed his locale for the fall 2025 convention a couple of years ago. I’ve been fortunate to travel extensively as a member of this group of which I’ve been a card-carrying member since 2004. About us - our membership list is kept secret. Membership is limited to 100 radio station owners. Admission to the group is by nomination. We have a secret handshake, and new members who are being initiated are told to bring two extra pairs of underwear to their first meeting, where painful electrodes are attached to ah, er, umm. Okay, I can’t tell you any more than that without violating club rules. I was nominated by a former boss on the East Coast who didn’t really like me. I am the only IBIB member in North Dakota. Our group spends a lot of time sharing ‘what is’ and ‘what is not’ working in our markets. We share ideas on managing, financials, regulatory, sales, marketing, programming, promotion, engineering, etc., etc. If one of us ever finds him or herself in trouble or in need of help or an idea, there are 99 ‘friends’ to reach out to. As you can likely imagine, we are all Type A and love the sound of our own voices, so it can get pretty weird pretty quick.