August Newsletter! The TAPING RECORDER August 2007 News from & about Sight into Sound Celebrating 40 years of Turning Sight Into Sound http://www.sightintosound.org CHALLENGES July certainly turned out to be full of challenges as the operations staff struggled to keep the radio reading service on the air. We had an outage due to phone lines disconnected in the phone closet, and then our master mixing board decided to give up the ghost for a while. It was pasted together with baling wire and duct tape but now has been properly repaired. And this has also given us another item to put on our list when we go request capital money. That board is only five years old, yet the parts are no longer available. It is certainly challenging keeping up with technology, and not only the computers! Thanks to Jim Martinez and his crew for their hard work during these trying times. LABOR DAY We will have reduced hours for the Labor Day holiday. On Monday, September 3, we will be open from 7 a.m. until noon. We hope that you all have a great holiday, as we observe summer passing once again. GOLF EVENT Bill Brown (volunteer reader and voice of the Astros television broadcasts) will host our first-ever golf day benefiting Taping. It will be held at the Longwood Golf Club on November 2, 2007. You can go to our website and sign up. Remember that you can be a sponsor as well, or if your company would like to do that, sign them up. Join us for what will be a great day of fun on the links! LIGHT THE CANDLES We find ourselves late again (and don't think that we will miss this fact on our editor's performance review). The volunteers who celebrated their birthdays in July were: 07/02 Yvonne Chu; 07/03 Dick Hokenson; 07/06 Jim Seitz; 07/07 Diana Mitchell; 07/10 Julian Silverblatt; 07/11 Susan Boggio, Martha Murphee; 07/12 Cynthia Franzetti, Andrew Waddell; 07/15 Cheryl Donaho; 07/19 Michelle McCarel; 07/20 Peter Tsan; 07/22 Linda Reneberg; 07/23 Bettie Bishop, Gordon Guillory; 07/24 Rene Ibarra; 07/27 Mary Pederson, Ted Pfister, Betty Woelfel; 07/28 Cindy Houghton; and 07/30 Fran Sanders. And our volunteers celebrating in August are: 08/01 Clem Blum; 08/03 Phillip Page; 08/04 Marc Sherman; 08/05 Bette Douglas; 08/07 Jeremy Hasson; 08/14 Norris Jackson; 08/15 Brent Burks; 08/18 Gwen Hieger; 08/20 Hanna Lewis; 08/23 Becky Medley; 08/29 Chris Kiersted; 08/30 Anna McLean; and 08/31 Jean Frey, Sue Hanks. We hope you all had great birthdays! And if your name was supposed to appear in either the July list or the August list and it didn't, please let any staff member know. RUNNING FOR A REASON--THE HOUSTON MARATHON Once again, Taping has been selected as an official charity of the Houston Marathon (an all encompassing term including the full marathon, the half marathon, and the 5 kilometer walk/run). If you are a runner, we want YOU! You can contact Carol Pierce at 713-622-2767 or by e-mail at cpierce@sightintosound.org, or you can even look for us on September 20, 2007, from 5 to 9 p.m. at the kickoff party in Sam Houston Park in downtown Houston. And here is something else to think about. Would you like to be part of a group that walked the 5k together to raise money for Taping? If this sounds like fun to you, let Carol know and we'll get a group organized. Or would you prefer to yell? Our hoopla station is at the marathon halfway point in West U. in front of City Hall. We need volunteers to help staff this station and make noise for the runners as they parade by, so let Carol know. CANDY? A few volunteers claim they just do it for the candy, but this brings up a question. Do you have a favorite that you would like us to stock? Can you tell us where to get it? Some types of hard candy are difficult to find, so if you can help with locating your favorite, we would appreciate it. LEAVE 'EM LAUGHING Here is a bit of philosophy for you to contemplate: At a Philosophy Society Meeting, Philosophy Professor: It's best to split your investments between stocks, bonds, and precious metals. Participant: I don't get it. Last week you told us everything in life is connected. Now you are telling us to hedge our bets. Philosophy Professor: Well, that was Zen and this is DOW. RLB