Settling In

After three weeks in WCLV's new office in the Idea Center at Playhouse Square, fewer boxes dot the workplace landscape. The three production studios are in near-constant use. From the hallway, you can see into all the studios, which have much more glass than those at Radio Ranch, which is why I call Master Control the "Radioquarium."

The CD library is neat and beautifully organized. All the music reference books are unpacked but in need of arranging. Pictures won't go up on the wall for a while. Restoring WCLV's audio stream has proved to be frustrating, but we are optimistic that it will be available again soon.

Hosting morning drive requires a certain avoidance of nightlife. As a result, your announcer attends only one party per year. It's tonight. Ooh-la-la: lock up your menfolk.

Chocolate Easter Weirdos

I'll never forget a joke Johnny Carson told on "The Tonight Show" about about a shipment of chocolate Easter bunnies that melted when it was stored too close to a furnace. The result, he said, was "chocolate Easter weirdos."

This morning at Cleveland's Edgewater Park, these translucent ice monsters brought that joke to mind. The frozen Lake Erie spray on vegetation, piers, and wrought iron balustrades has created a photographer magnet.

Bob Feller, 1918 - 2010

Cleveland remembers Bob Feller today. He was an Iowa whiz kid who joined the Cleveland Indians in 1936 to become such a strikeout king in his rookie year that by the start of the 1937 season, his picture was on the cover of Time magazine. Mr. Feller died yesterday at the age of 92.

The Bob Feller statue at Progressive Field stands along 9th Street between Carnegie and Prospect. Today a steady progression of TV crews have filed live reports at the statue, recalling Mr. Feller's spectacular career. A bereft Indians fan hung a yellow ribbon on the baseball in Rapid Robert's storied right hand.

The New York Times obituary notes that as a young man, Mr. Feller listened to Cubs games on WHO in Des Moines. The play-by-play announcer was Ronald Reagan, who later found a larger audience.

The "Radioquarium"

The workers are still working on wiring, but we're back in the saddle again at WCLV, broadcasting from the Idea Center at Playhouse Square. The changeover had its starts and stops, but we never looked back after the switch at 10:25 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 8.

Packing finished up on Thursday, Dec. 9, and the movers arrived at 14th and Euclid Friday, Dec. 10.

Those of you in broadacasting know I'd be lying if I told you that everything went absolutely smoothly in the control room. A temporary CD player that had a carousel was chucked out as too slow and not-intuitive-to-operate. May it languish on the bottom of Lake Erie.

The other CD player was much better, but rickety. At one point in last Friday's show, neither CD player would play, so until I could change that result, I augmented the spoken word with my duck call and a whistle in the shape of a satyr. Who knew that one day I would channel Steve Allen?

Our full computer array is not up yet, but we're working with a notebook computer the size of a very large makeup compact on which I switch among tabs for news, weather, traffic, and show prep.

There is much more glass in Master Control here than at Radio Ranch. Thus, the "Radioquarium."

More details at facebook.com/WCLV's Queen of the Morn, and on twitter.com/queenofthemorn.