When I first got my driver's license I quickly made a tradition out of road trips, long and short. I lived on Long Island back then, and any crossing into New York City meant a long trip: not stopping until I got to Florida (I certainly wasn't stopping in the city, LOL). For these long interstate trips I adopted the title RRR&R: "Roads, Rest, Radio & Relaxation." Yes, Radio. I loved scanning the Radio and TV stations of other cities when my parents drove me through them. Now that I could go where I wanted and use my own radio the bandscans became a big feature of my road trips, if not the point.

Now that the DXing hobby is back so is this aspect of my road trips. I celebrated the 12th anniversary of my driver's license, "Asphalt Day," with a trip across the state to West Palm Beach. I echoed my 2009 achievement of driving US 17 from beginning to end (FL to VA) by driving FL 80 from beginning to end (Fort Myers to West Palm - okay, not as impressive). This is my second trip since becoming a DXer again, and my second trip with the new portable television. Unlike Atlanta , though, I stopped at several points to scan for stations. These are stations I'm targeting from a hundred miles away, so it's nice to see them ahead of time. (Especially those that don't show call letters, such as the one in the picture.)

As money gets less tight in the next few years I expect to be making regular trips across Florida. Then the longer trips will follow: RRR&R 2014 to Canada, perhaps? I'll be sure to bring a good antenna. :)

Thanks to my publisher, Grace (pictured with me), I had the opportunity to attend Dragon*Con this year. Simply put, this is a large sci-fi/fantasy convention held each year in Atlanta. In fact, it's many conventions rolled into one, including horror, anime, real-life science, and even "skepticism" (we backward religious folk know what that translates to). I'm not sure if skepticism is a genre of fiction now or what, but I did note that religious work was almost completely unrepresented. The two of us were there to see if Splashdown Books could change that.

The imbalance between skepticism/religion wasn't so surprising. As Christ has been pushed out of scientific circles on the one side, and the fanbase has become more agnostic on the other, it was only natural for the sci-fi/fantasy community to throw all things godly into the "myth" box. The recent work that is Christian is a far cry from being attractive to these audiences (why oh why is Ayn Rand on my Top Novels list and nothing Christian?). A big part of this problem is that 18-34 males (plentiful at Dragon*Con) are not a target audience for big Christian authors and publishers, even supposedly sci-fi/fantasy ones. I've read that work. Now I know how people feel when they try light beer.

There was a ray of light on the second day of the convention, when they had the parade through the streets of Atlanta (awesome in itself). There was a group called Fans for Christ, which I'll provide a link to . They're basically there to show the convention-goers that not all believers are so quick to judge. Christians can be into High Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, Anime, even Goth culture without compromising our faith. (Never been involved with goths myself, but one of Grace's other authors does write to that audience. Shucks, here's another link .) They even invited me to a church service right at the convention on Sunday. I'd already made church plans with a local friend, but just the thought of a church service being held at the Con warmed my heart.

Actually, the skeptics probably had a service too. Just replace the Bible with On the Origin of Species, and "God lovingly created" with "Nature lovingly created", and they're good to go. ;)

This was my first convention since, I suppose, going to car shows when I was a kid. I didn't know what to expect and there was certainly enough to keep me busy. In the end, I got to soak in maybe a fifth of it. I suppose I'll be back sooner or later; sooner if Splashdown is involved. That aside, as an author, I'm not sure I got that much out of it. I don't focus on marketing, don't care who is selling oodles of books (unless I like the books), and aren't willing to pay $40 for someone's autograph. The atmosphere in general, though, I did value. I could feel the creative energy there. It was enough to make me wonder about the conventions in South Florida. Perhaps a day trip to one of them would be a good investment.

Just to think... All these people could become Caffeine readers! :D

Two-year gap aside, the Audio/Video Component Archive is this website's oldest feature. Numerous short listings were created for model numbers back in 2000, and carried over when the AVCA changed formats and ultimately went to a true database in 2006. The more popular listings were expanded and redone many times over this period, while obscure stragglers weren't touched. Until this week there were many entries not linked to others, little-to-no info or even a year listed, some bearing a "Listing Coming Soon" message. Well, "soon" has arrived. I've finally finished going over all these scattered 1980s and 1990s model numbers. My first full sweep of the database.

I'm not saying coverage is complete for all those years, not even close. Although I am much more optimistic now that I'll get there. First I have the listings for 2000 and later, where many "Listing Coming Soon" messages can still be found (these have only collected dust for months, not years). I hope to be done with 2000-2008 sometime next year. Ultimately, I decided, I will move beyond my "Beta to Blu-ray" goal. But before that happens I'll work to fill in more 80s and 90s listings. The AVCA will keep me busy for a while yet.

I knew that even after I stopped DXing the hobby would stick with me. 2008 was my last season logging distant TV stations, the year before the FCC snuffed out America's analog signals. At the time I wasn't interested in DXing the new digital system, and along with a few other reasons I decided to have a grand finale and bow out . Now it's been four years and my disdain for DTV has cooled into a grudging respect. I've tried to pick up other hobbies to fill the void, but I just couldn't stay away forever. As of this week, I am a DXer again.

Like Hollywood when they make movies based on comic books, I decided a "reboot" was best. My stats go back to zero, the channel lists remade, and I even opted for a brand new logbook rather than reopening the old one. What was "Project Wildwood" until 2008 is now "Project Clermont" (like Wildwood, named for a not-too-far-away city of license), and though there are still analog targets out there, my focus will be on digital. (Not saying I won't try for Mexico again, though.) All that carry over will be the records that were set: Now I can beat 1,386 miles!

Money is a little better than before, so I'll allow myself a little splurging to get a decent antenna (which has to fit on a screened-in lanai, uggh). The DX/Radio Page will be pulled out of hibernation by the end of the year, adding a second Fort Myers page. I'll also be reinstating my WTFDA membership.

I'm not expecting it to be the same hobby as before. The complaints from before, such as lookalike station logos and the digital cliff being too strict, are still there. But I shouldn't let that get in the way any longer. Digital does offer something analog didn't: PSIP. Maybe it'll be harder to get a picture, but once it decodes I'll immediately have the station's call letters and other info, rather than waiting until the top or bottom of the hour for an ID that may never come. And when I can get those IDs, I'll record them on tape as before. I look forward to getting my feet wet!

Today I cross into the next decade of my life: my thirties. I haven't made the fanfare on this site I did when I turned 25... maybe I'll do that again at 50. But this birthday at least earns a blog post.

So what can I say about my twenties? It's the decade I wrote Wake Up! Pro. It's the decade I graduated college and moved to Florida to start my career. It's the decade I was inspired to write my first novel, then to start another. My address changed four times, my phone number twice, and my car twice . My home on the internet didn't go anywhere, but it certainly has evolved over the last ten years.

The move from New York to Florida when I was 23 was the biggest of these changes. I had already planned a move to FL by the time I graduated college , but hoped to get New York on my resume first, and to use the higher pay to get rid of my student loans by the time I was 27 (an optimistic estimate, bumped to 29 if I got my own apartment). The Lord guided me elsewhere in the end, and not only have I sucessfully settled in Florida, but I've made it my home state. Seven years after the move, New York is merely a place I used to live and still have family. Even what I miss (Robert Moses' parkway system, the LIRR...) I look on more as elements of my childhood than my adulthood.

Two versions were written of Wake Up! Pro , the alarm clock software I first released on egrabow.com in 2004. I was 20, in my junior year of college, when I declared "Computers for the Liberal Arts" as my minor and took a course in Visual Basic programming. I was hooked and kept writing programs after the class had ended. Version 1 of Wake Up! Pro was the eventual result, and writing programs began to take a lot of my time. Version 2 was made soon after the move to Florida, but the bubble was bursting and none of my other ideas were catching on. The last version, 2.5, was released when I was 25 (hey, how appropriate!), and a different form of writing would eclipse Visual Basic soon after.

It was during my first Florida-to-NY vacation (a reversal from the earlier ones), when I was still 25, that I began my career as a novelist (it somehow seemed appropriate to start it on Long Island, at a point when I'd been experiencing nostalgia for the old place). I thought of novel writing much like the computer programming it replaced: a story running in a person's imagination, designed by the author, needing to 'run' just right. The last five years saw this book go from outline to publication . After putting some extra promotional work into Caffeine I began my second novel , The Day The Rain Came Back, last month.

Rounding out the important events we get my first job in television when I was 23. The DXing hobby which originally inspired that career had resurged here in Florida but would not survive 2009's digital TV switchover . At age 26, the last entry was made into my logbook , and coincidentally I was promoted to Director that same week: the inspiration falling away just as the career was taking off.

My plans for the next ten years seem to pail in comparison, but how much of our lives do we really plan anyway? I expect the work on my next novel to intensify over the next several months. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to release The Day The Rain Came Back, its predecessor will have picked up an audience that will jump to read the new work. Caffeine may yet have a film based on it! Student loans, which have had a massive economic impact throughout my twenties, will be paid off in a few years. Lord willing, I will be reacquainted with the concept of "disposible income" during my thirties.

Heck, I'm still in Nielsen's 18-34 demographic. So what am I going on about? It's not like I'm really getting older or anything. ;)

London is certainly indulging itself in 2012. The ol' queen turns 60 (or maybe that was her reign) and then they'll have the Olympics in a few months. Union Jacks galore!

Here across the pond I had my own little opening ceremony. Today I began the writing process for my second novel, The Day The Rain Came Back. Hopefully I will have a completed first draft by the end of 2012, and I plan to have a progress bar up well before that (tracking first draft, then revisions). The outline still has holes and there is no estimate of word count yet. Caffeine was the same way when I started typing it. Some details just can't be filled in until an author gets to know his characters. I'm excited to be back at the keyboard. It's hard work. It's rewarding work.

I decided to commemorate this day for DRCB as I had for Caffeine five years ago. In 2007, I drove out to Orient Point, NY to type the novel's first paragraphs (I'd already moved to FL, but was in NY on vacation). Long Island's north fork was an interesting place that I hadn't been in a while. So, what interesting place could I visit from Fort Myers to type page one of this novel? I know, how about Lee County!

My local friends might be scratching their heads right now, since Fort Myers is already in Lee County. So I shall be more specific...

A few years ago I shot a beach wedding in Boca Grande. I noticed on the map that most of the barrier island belonged to Lee County, even though I had to drive deep into Charlotte County (almost all the way through it) to get there by road. This makes Boca Grande a "practical exclave" , unless one has a boat or really feels like taking a swim. Since there's a small branch of the Lee County Library there (it's too hot to type outdoors), I decided to type the first scene there. I took some time to explore the town afterward, noting the odd combination of Lee County road signs and Charlotte County businesses, such as a branch of the Englewood Bank & Trust, with all phone numbers bearing Charlotte's 941 area code instead of Lee's 239. It's also the only place I've seen in Lee where beach parking is free! :)

So yeah, that's my geopolitical oddity of the day. Any excuse for a mini road trip.

This whole week I've been posting clues about DRCB on Caffeine's Facebook Page . Click "Like" to find out what hints I dropped, and to keep up with it's progress.

This last year has been an eventful one for my first novel . There were a lot of new edits ahead of its November re-release, then supplimentary material to support the commercial Splashdown version: three features for other people's blogs , the trailer on YouTube , and even "director's commentary" that I hope to release in the future (for the novel, I mean, not its trailer). Finally, there is the film treatment in progress. With the Lord's blessing, Caffeine will have a movie based on it. This is the first step toward that goal.

The process of writing my second novel, The Day The Rain Came Back (DRCB for short), is proving much rougher than Caffeine's had been. Perhaps because I raised the bar on myself. Progress stalled last July and I determined that I needed another approach to the story. The aforementioned work for Caffeine's release made sure DRCB wouldn't get any more time in 2011. Finally, though, those clouds are clearing and I can't wait to get started. Such excitement is definitely a good sign.

As a painter starts with a fresh canvas, brimming with potential, so does a novelist. The latter, however, paints a portrait in far more than two dimensions. You don't get a single scene or character to portray, but an entire universe: limits beyond even film. And I like my stories big. Short stories and such just aren't roomy enough to really flesh things out from multiple angles. A novel can be as long as it needs to be.

Work on DRCB resumes Monday, the writing stage itself on June 1. There is little I can keep from my 2011 work, but this is okay. The old work helped me sort out the direction the story needed to go. It wasn't for naught.

Stay tuned. Don't forget to "like" Caffeine's Facebook Page , where I will track the progress of The Day The Rain Came Back.

In the wake of version 28.5's launch (on March 31), I've been continuing to work on the site. When I get started I have to force myself to stop, and it looks like that time has come. Here's what has changed during this month:

• The original traffic counter from version 28.0 has been revamped. Some of the links on the TIS Page were getting stuck in place among other problems. The new system is more reliable.
• The Audio/Video Component Archive has undergone some improvements behind-the-scenes. The visible changes are a different drop-down "Category" menu and the lack of "Last Updated" dates. The standard measurements (HWD in inches, weights in pounds) are being replaced with metric ones, since a lot more of my source material and visitors are from (insert literally any country besides America). It makes no sense to convert measurements one way just so my users will have to convert them back.
• Speaking of the metric system, the temperature bug on EG Prime only displays Celcius now. I wanted to keep both, but wunderground.com's new bugs don't work very well that way. A Florida state flag has also been added to the US one. I consider myself a full-fledged Floridian now. May as well show it.
• Also on EG Prime the date now tracks UTC as well as Eastern Time. If it's the same date (as it is 20 hours a day), you'll only see one date displayed. If you check between 8pm and midnight (Eastern), it'll display both. EGrabow HD officially operates with UTC, BTW.
• Finally, there are the gaps in EG Mobile getting filled in. The only one left is the Audio/Video Component Archive, which will be branded "AVCA Mobile". I'd hoped to launch it this weekend, but it needed to wait a few days.

And with that last item checked off the list egrabow.com will slow down in its development again. I have another novel to write, after all. But your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. The next time I roll up my sleeves and increase the version number, I expect it to end with a ".0": a full overhaul. I'm grinning already.

• Oh yeah, and new business cards!

Welcome to the new version 28.5. Okay, most of today's changes were cosmetic, but there is some more tweaking planned during April. This blog now has its own button on the top, and the Video page is also back on there. Removed were my Wake Up! Pro page, which I'm trying to phase out, and EG Prime, which was redundant. Clicking on the new "EGrabow HD" logo will take you there.

If you're scrolling all over the place on your phone screen to check out the changes, I've got good news for you. EG Mobile is now up: it's EGrabow HD on your phone. I'll be working to iron out the rough spots over the month of April.

One feature I'm eager to launch is AVCA Mobile: the Audio/Video Component Archive on your phone. If you spot a 1990s CD player in a thrift store, for instance, the AVCA can help you make an informed purchase.

If you have any questions or comments about the main site or the mobile site, contact me .

I present the new logo for EGrabow.com. It will be rolled out with version 28.5 of this website, March 31.

The outgoing logo was rolled out in 2009, replacing 2005's, which itself replaced the original 2001. Each were meant to go four years before being changed again. This four-year mandate then became one of my cancelled policies later that year . I still like the 2009 logo and decided to change it to something I could use indefinitely.

As you can see, there was much I kept. The 2012 logo keeps 2009's font and "HD" branding, which has grown on me. It is based on different shades of the same color, which makes its use more flexible. The icon is gone and the "E" was made more distinctive in its place. This allows the letters "EG" to be used alone as an alternate logo. The design of the "E" is meant to resemble the side of a highway marker, which I'm planning to make EG's address bar icon. Yes, highway themes are still prolific here. :)

The version update will include some changes to the site's graphics, but it will all be familiar. A bigger change will be the launch of EG Mobile. There will be much work to do still, but I wanted to take the step of actually launching my mobile site. It's been on the to do list for over a year.

Another change is that I'm retiring the "egrabow_NTC" branding. My blog will be called just that: my blog. It will also get it's own button in the top navigation bar. My NTC account on LiveJournal, which never got use beyond reposting this blog, will close. The RSS feed goes with it.

As always, your comments are welcome.

This message appeared on all EGrabow.com pages on 1/18/12

I've suspended service on EGrabow.com until Thursday. Thousands of websites, most notably Wikipedia, are blacked out today in protest of two bills being considered in Washington: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Before I apologize for the inconvenience, I offer you one thought: What if some conglomerate can shut down your favorite websites, including this one, over vague accusations and without due process?

You wouldn't see messages like these on thousands of websites, but legalistic ones declaring the IP address has been seized by the government. Less variety. Less innovation. Less freedom.

I'm not harping specifically on SOPA/PIPA. It's expected to fail. And why tire yourself out on one bill when lobbyists are already writing the next? I joined this protest to recognize that the internet is one of democracy's greatest tools. The barriers to starting a website, your own dot-com, are well within reach of the individual, and the internet has blossomed under that system. Just like radio a hundred years ago, businesses will be founded and gov't regulations created. These things aren't bad until they start to run together and kill innovation. What is the state of radio today? Conglomerates everywhere copying off each other. And entrepreneurs seeking to compete in that market find the barriers to entry have become unreasonably high.

Freedom is not some game that can be won. The media establishment is trying to bend the law farther in their own interests, companies running on 20th century models trying to stop the 21st from taking over. Of course there should be copyright protection so they get return on their investments, but what they have is already more than enough. It's hurting the little guy.

Sorry to get political. The founders of this nation didn't mean for Washington's bickering to effect our day-to-day lives, but as government power expands so does politics. Now the future of the internet lies in the hands of technophobe lawyers who don't understand what they're passing (remember digital TV?).

Our government could do a lot better.

- Ryan Grabow
- Content Creator, Proud Owner & Webmaster, EGrabow.com

The last time I did a comprehensive update on my local AM/FM/TV lists was 2006. I'd just settled after the move to NY and was again an active DXer. I was also still trying to create a regular shortwave listening schedule. Now, NY is out of the rear view mirror, DXing is dormant again, and everything good on shortwave has decided to stream online instead. 2006's lists just don't apply anymore.

Of course, media changes quickly. The forced switch to digital TV occured in 2009 and I've had to look up the new RF channels over and over again since. It'll be nice to put those on the list. And radio is legendary for format changes, in six years half of that list has changed.

Anyway, here are some highlights:

• Fort Myers has its own News station, albeit part time. Not news-talk, which are everywhere, but around-the-clock news on 1200 AM. After listing to WCBS and WINS in New York for years, this is a welcome discovery, especially since Fort Myers seems to have the only one in Florida. ;)
• No analog TV stations remain. Until last year, there were still a few spanish-language LPs. They are now "LDs": low-power digital.
• WSMR in Sarasota was taken over by the University of South Florida and is now all-classical music. The signal is a little tough but listenable in the car. At home I can just stream it.
• There is an itty-bitty 1 watt FM translator a mile north of me, it repeats a local Christian music station (it's location is actually the station building itself, the main transmitter being 10 miles away). I've spotted a few dozen translators between here and Tampa, and almost all of the them are for Christian stations.
• Most "News-Talk" means Sports-Talk. The AM band is still crawling with them. And FM is still crawling with country music. Yee haw... Nope.

With the list mostly done I'll be changing some of my radio presets (I like to keep them consistent between devices). There're plenty of stations to go around. Something new I'm trying to do is integrate online streaming stations, especially TV, into my lineup. Since giving up cable I've done pretty well between the off-air stations and video sites online, but I'm trying to find proper 24/7 broadcasters that are (legally) streaming over the internet. Perhaps I can make myself miss cable less if not outright replace it. I don't believe all TV should be on-demand. Sometimes I just wanna sit down and channel surf. :)