Cream Cheese Pound Cake

I am going to start this post by saying, Who puts 3 cups of sugar in a cake? Seriously, this thing was just full of sugar.

Knowing how scientific America's Test Kitchen is, I did not want to alter the recipe, this first time.

Yeah, silly me, I probably should have. I have since found some recipes that use 2 1/2 cups of sugar. I would continue that thought and just use 2 cups.

Otherwise, it is dense and good...but make sure you beat the heck out of it, to incorporate the cream cheese.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake (From Cook's Country ATK)

Yield: 1 bundt cake

3 Cups (12 oz) cake flour
1 Teaspoon salt
4 large eggs plus 2 large yolks, room temperature
1/4 Cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 Cups (21 oz) sugar
3 sticks unsalted butter , softened
6 oz cream cheese, softened

Adjust the oven rack to middle position and preheat your oven to 300F. Grease and flour a 12 cup bundt pan. Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Whisk eggs, yolks, milk and vanilla in a 2 cup liquid measuring cup.

Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat sugar, butter, and cream cheese on medium high until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and very slowly add the egg mixture until incorporated (batter may look a bit curdled). Add flour mixture in 3 additions, scraping down the bowl as needed. Give the batter a final stir by hand.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and gently tap it on the counter to release any air bubbles. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 80 to 90 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway in the baking time. Cool the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes only. Longer than 15 minutes, and it may be hard to remove from the pan. Remove the cake from the pan and let cool completely, about 2 hours. The cake can be wrapped with plastic and held at room temperature for 3 days.

Serve with sweetened strawberries and whipped cream.

My Brother Michael

Many, many years ago, I was a young angel. Young angel was into books (as is old angel).

There was no such thing as Young Adult books at that time, but there were gothic and contemporary mysteries. There were several authors who my sister and I read and one of them was an author who wrote under the name of Mary Stewart.

Wiki explains the genre that she wrote under. "Mary Stewart was a British novelist who developed the romantic mystery genre, featuring smart, adventurous heroines who could hold their own in dangerous situations."

That was the very thing that attracted me, the fact that the heroine could hold her own in dangerous situations. Even then, these themes attracted me. If the girl fainted, I was so out of there. :-)

One of my favorite Mary Stewart books (and there are just so many of them, that I refuse to list them all) was "My Brother Michael".

It took place in Greece and as a matter of fact, it was not the only one that did. The English authors seemed to have a love of Greeks... :-)

I fell in love with Greek men and to this day, wish that I could travel there...but, oh well.

The thing that comes to my mind and brings this all back to the forefront of my consciousness, is when I hear things like Persephone, or Hermes, or Hades, for that matter. All these years later, the words in the book spoken by the hero, resonate in my mind. He is in an amphitheater and he recites these lines from Sophocles' Electra:
Hades, Persephone, Hermes, steward of death, Eternal Wrath and Furies, Children of gods, Who see all murderers And all adulterous thieves, come soon! Be near me, and avenge My father's death, and bring My brother home!‎

The hero was searching for his long dead brother and so the words were important to him, too.

I find it so funny that something so very far away in my life's journey, is still able to come back to me, at the drop of a name.

Oh, BTW, check out the price of the paperback and yes, the photo is of my book, lovingly kept all these years. I couldn't believe that I could put my hands on it, within seconds of beginning a search for it. I don't think I have touched it for decades.

Our Gym

My Water Post For Today.

The last one for the year...so how about New Year's Resolutions?

My Husband and I spend several days a week going to Aqua Fit Class. We have several instructors and enjoy the time with them and with the lively group of, mostly, women who frequent the classes.

This is what I consider "My" gym. This is Golden Valley and the pool is better, the lockers are better and the showers are much better. Yeah, can you tell I am not thrilled with the Valencia gym. :-)

Different teachers go about the class in different ways, my normal Saturday teacher is really into cardio and jumping and sometimes that can get to be too much for me...but I persevere.

Another teacher is from Boston and she makes us do the Boston Marathon several times during the class. We always laugh.

A third teacher, (according to my Husband) makes them do things like Square Dancing in the pool. He shakes his head, but does it every time.

No matter what, we both feel better when we manage to exercise and are glad our club offers these classes to its members.

I am sure I would never have stuck it out for the past 6 years, if all I was doing was swimming lengths of the pool for an hour.

I love the water and hope you enjoy the view of the pool.

Mary Did You Know

I was in Church a few weeks ago and this song, "Mary Did You Know", was sung for the Communion song.

It really affected me (as it would for almost anyone who is a mother) and stayed with me most of the day. Enough that I looked it up on Youtube and found several performances of it.

This one spoke to me the best. Probably because I (a female) was the one singing it all day. :-)

If you have a minute, check it out HERE.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Apples and Onions

If you are keeping track of what produce I am getting in my box, the Butternut Squash was a huge part of it.

I saw several shows which featured Butternut squash being roasted with vegetables, usually apples and onions and I did a query. I came up with this recipe (click the title below).

It seemed easy and I had all the ingredients.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Apples and Onions

Ingredients

1 large onion
2 Fuji, Honeycrisp, or Jonagold apples
20 ounces pre-cut butternut squash (about 4–5 cups of 1-inch cubes)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Kosher salt to taste
20 grindings of black pepper or to taste
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup dried cranberries
¼ cup toasted almond slivers or sunflower seeds (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Cut the onion in half, and then slice each piece crosswise into ½-inch strips. Place on a large rimmed baking sheet covered with parchment paper or foil (dull side up). Set aside.

Using an apple corer/slicer, cut the apples into eighths, and then cut each wedge into 3 or 4 chunks. Add to the onions along with the squash cubes. Add the oil, thyme, vinegar, salt, and pepper to the baking sheet and toss well.

Spread out in a single layer, and bake for 30 minutes or until the onions are golden and the squash is tender when pierced with a fork. Remove from the oven. Sprinkle with the cinnamon, dried cranberries, and nuts (if using). Toss lightly and place in a serving dish.

My comments on this recipe, are as follows:

I used half shallots and half onions.
I used fresh cranberries, instead of dried.
I used pecans, instead of almonds or sunflower seeds.
I added a little brown sugar, when I added the pecans and cinnamon. I let the ingredients cook another 15 minutes after the addition of the last ingredients. The recipe does not show that.

Otherwise, it was prepared as directed. My family chimed in after the meal and said some of the ingredients were slightly overdone. The reason why, was that the squash took 2 hours to cook. Maybe it was because it was so large? I have no idea. So next time, I intend to precook the squash in the microwave, to get it close to soft. Then, maybe the whole thing will be done in 30 minutes, or so.

Otherwise, it was excellent and my family loved it!

So How Was Your Christmas? ( 2014 Edition)

So this was what dinner looked like last night.

We decided to cook some of the produce that is clogging up my refrigerator. :-)

I had found a recipe for Butternut Squash, Onions, Apples and Cranberries and I decided to try it out for this holiday.

It was a major BIG HIT! Yay for me and for healthy eating!

Recipe to follow in another post.

In order to get rid of some of the cabbage, my Husband made a big bowl of coleslaw and we had that with dinner.

We finished off the few potato pancakes from last Saturday's Hanukkah meal and barbequed some New York Strip Steaks.

All in all, a decent meal.

In other things...THIS is what woke me up in the morning.

My cat had made a mess in the bathroom and yet she STILL wanted breakfast first!

The nerve of Makenna. :-)

I hope your Christmas started out better than mine.

Christmas Eve Dinner 2014

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.

Here is a laid back Christmas Eve dinner. It was just the three of us, so we had the normal, but nothing extra.

Calamari, mussels and fried shrimp was on the menu this year.

I cooked the sauce the night before and only had to make the spaghetti and the fried shrimp. I managed both tasks in a half hour and dinner was at the usual time. I considered this a miracle, since my son and I had met friends for lunch in Chinatown.

All was good and after a busy day, very welcome.

An Office Christmas Party 2014

Here is a glimpse of our Office Christmas (Holiday) Retro 1960's party.

I am strictly on my cell phone camera, so the quality of the images are lacking...but you get the idea.

There were some decent hors d'oeuvres, cheese spread and crackers and of course different desserts.

There were 2 kinds of wine being served and water. I took the water.

Lots of little presents were given out in the raffle and I won lunch at a food truck. That is worth something like $10. Not bad.

Our 2nd in command was in charge of the event, because our President was sick. He had flown back from England on Thursday to attend the event and got sick while in transit. I felt so bad for him, since this is his absolute last Holiday Party.

Our 2nd in command acknowledged Link TV's 15th Anniversary that happened just a few short days ago and it was interesting to hear some of their past history, about how they had a short time to get on the air and they had problems getting the shows in house. We just know their present, not their past.

The plaques you see to the left of her, are some of our 50th Anniversary acknowledgments for KCET. The State of California, The City of Los Angeles, The County of Los Angeles and of course, our new home, The City of Burbank, all got on the bandwagon. Nice of them.

So, all in all, a wonderful afternoon.

My 9th Order From Abundant Harvest Organics

Two weeks went by real fast and I seriously thought about canceling this week. Since there is a break for Christmas and for New Year's, I didn't think I should do it. So we are really stocked up on produce.

Here is what came in my box this week.

10 Red Apples (3 came in the box and then they had a box filled with extra, so I took 7 more to make an apple pie for Hanukkah.)
4 Granny Smith Apples
3 Black Spanish Radishes
1 head Broccoli
1 incredibly huge Cabbage
1 bunch of Chard
Herb Bouquet (a little bit of a lot of herbs)
Red and Green Lettuce
2 ears of Popcorn
5 Shallots
2 Sweet Potatoes
Winter Squash (which this time is Butternut Squash)

I still have those huge radishes from the last box, so I have watermelon radishes and now black spanish radishes. Don't ask...

The pie was made tonight and being the apples were small, it took all 10 (actually 9 since I threw one out) and then I added 2 more gala apples for the pie.

The sweet potatoes will probably be made for Christmas dinner.

The Butternut Squash, probably for the New Year's dinner.

Not sure what to do with the chard this time.

Granny Smith apples will go in our salad.

Cabbage, will make cold slaw and who knows what else.

Broccoli, no problem there. It will get eaten.

The herbs will get dropped into my cooking over the next few weeks.

Lettuce for salad and the popcorn I will attempt to pop, for a snack, maybe New Year's Eve.

That's it for this box.

San Diego Sunset, Take 2

My Water Post For Today.

Back to San Diego's Mission Beach (for my friend Theresa).

This photo was taken at the same time as one from a few weeks ago, which you can revisit, HERE.

A totally different vibe, with the dock and people.

I hope you enjoy it.

Mass of Renewal by William Gokelman and David Kauffman

I have been back for a year and going to my normal Church, St. Kateri and yet I still don't have the feelings I had, when I attended services at St. Mary's, the Church in Oswego, NY.

One of the main problems I am having is that the mass that I attended in Oswego was performed by the adult choir and they were spectacular. The prayers that we sang were so wonderful and somehow the songs that used to be just fine with me, are a bit lacking now days.

It is a sad thing and so I thought I would let you hear what the choir in Oswego sang. I sent an email to the Church and found out, for a friend, what the songs were so I could let her hear it. I went searching on the Internet and found this. It is called the Mass of Renewal and the prayers are all similar in style.

The part that I remember best was the Holy Holy Holy prayer (known as Sanctus), before the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Advance the video to 4:30 minutes in and you can hear that very prayer, done masterfully, by this choir. I would leave the Church each week singing this prayer.

I hope you enjoy as much as I do.

It Wouldn't Be Christmas Without Capitol Records

We went to a movie in Hollywood, the other day.

Instead of getting off the freeway at Highland, for some reason, we instead decided to get off the freeway at Vine.

This put us right next to the Capitol Records building. Now, if you were me, would you pull over for a few photos?

Yes, I did indeed do exactly that and I thought the photo came out nice.

We may not get snow in Hollywood, but we do have Capitol Records, ringing in the season every year.

It just wouldn't be the same without it.

Beet Borscht

As I mentioned the other day, more beets came my way in my produce box. So what to do? Beet Borscht is a favorite of my Husband and so I decided to try to make some. As it ended up, I did a piggy back with Matzoh Ball Soup that I needed to make. I took half the broth for the borscht and I saved the produce that they requested be trashed, for my soup.

It worked out perfect.

Beet Borscht

Ingredients:

1 (1 inch thick) slice bone-in beef shank (I used chicken breast bones)
3 quarts water
1 onion, chopped
1 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 bay leaf

3 cups diced peeled beets
2 cups chopped cabbage
1/4 cup white vinegar, or to taste
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 cup sour cream, for garnish
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, for garnish (if desired)

Directions:

1. Cook beef shank in a large soup pot over high heat until browned, about 3 minutes per side; add water, onion, carrots, celery, and bay leaf to the pot, bring to a simmer and cook until meat is tender and falling off the bone, about 4 hours. Strain broth and discard solids.
2. Combine beef broth, beets, and cabbage in a large soup pot; cook, stirring occasionally, until beets are tender, about 30 minutes. Reduce heat to low; add vinegar, salt, and black pepper. Use an immersion blender to liquify the beets. Cut them up smaller, before using the blender.
3. Serve garnished with sour cream and dill.

I ate some, enough said. It was good.

How Cool Is This: Pins For Our Shows

KCETLink has many shows that are put together and aired on our combined stations. The other day I saw pins made up for each one of these shows and it made me think of writing a post about what we have and what we are (productions wise) now days.

One of them, of course, is SoCal Connected. We have been airing that show and others like it, for over 20 years. News stories, that vary between hard hitting investigative journalism, to human interest stories. We have so very many awards for this show and it makes us happy to provide this service to our community.

Artbound is next. It started as a web only voting system that pitted one possible story against another. The one with the most web votes, got produced on a quarterly basis. Now days, there are other subjects that have been added into the brand, including MOCAtv.

Artbound Presents: Studio A. A spin off of Artbound. Concerts and interviews with the performers, shot right here at KCETLink studios. Minimal production, which means the shows harken back to the old days of KCET.

Border Blaster is a continuation of a show, World Music, that aired on Link TV, before they combined with us. It is the best of international music, combined into a half hour show.

The last one we don't actually produce, but we air it. It is called City Walk and it is shot all around the United States, showing how people get out and walk. My favorite one of the first season, was walking on the High Line in New York City. It makes me want to check that out someday.

It is nice that we are busy now days.

Happy Hanukkah 2014

Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate.

We managed to get a small dinner going last night. Potato Pancakes, Matzoh Ball Soup, chicken, steak (both left overs from Sunday) and Broccoli. It was good enough for a mid week dinner. We will make more on the weekend.

I like the set up I put together this year. My son has been using our dining room table every night and so I decided to remove the photos that normally grace the credenza in the front bay window and instead, make a Hanukkah display.

I thought it came out very nice.

Since the dining room table is being used, I put the Hanukkah tablecloth onto our everyday table in the kitchen.

That looks good, too.

Sometimes different is better. :-)

Celebrating Our First Day Back Together

My final post about returning to California after my semester in New York.

Here is a crappy cell phone photo of my Husband and I after he picked me up at the airport. We stopped at Saugus Cafe to get something to eat.

In spite of all the flying I did in the snow and the length of time traveling that day, I think the two of us look pretty darn happy to see each other.

So glad to be back home.

Oswego Lighthouse In A Snow Storm

My Water Post For Today.

This was taken the Sunday before I left Oswego. We got quite a lot of snow that day and I wanted to test my snow tires and so I drove down to the water, in the midst of the storm.

I know you can't see much, but you can (if you look closely) see the infamous Oswego Harbor Lighthouse, through the snow.

As I mentioned yesterday, today is exactly 1 year ago, since I left Oswego.

This Is What I left Behind, One Year Ago

Tomorrow it will be exactly 1 year since I flew back to Los Angeles and in honor of that one year anniversary, I am going to spend a few days showing off some photos that you (hopefully) did not see last year.

This photo was taken just a few days before I left. It may have actually been the day I brought the car over to Walmart to load it onto the car carrier.

All I remember about that time was that I was packing the car and there was snow on the ground. Not much, thankfully, but enough to make the job just a little bit harder.

My car still thanks me for getting her back home to California. :-)

Zucchini Chard Muffins

What to do with Chard?

I have no idea, so once again, I went looking and found THIS interesting recipe on All Recipes Website.

Ingredients:

cooking spray
3 tablespoons butter
5 slices bacon, diced
3/4 cup diced onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
8 chard leaves, stems removed and leaves thinly sliced

2 cups shredded zucchini
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup finely shredded Swiss cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Generously spray 12 muffin cups with cooking spray.

2. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat; add bacon. Cook gently until bacon begins to curl, 3 to 5 minutes. Add onion, garlic, and chard leaves; cook and stir until chard has wilted, stirring occasionally, 5 to 8 minutes.

3. Transfer chard mixture to a large bowl; stir in zucchini, eggs, salt, and black pepper. Add flour and baking powder; mix until flour is evenly distributed and moistened. Stir in Swiss cheese. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin.

4. Bake in the preheated oven until edges of muffin turn golden brown, about 20 minutes.

My feeling and my son's feeling is that it tastes like a cross between muffins and quiche.

It wasn't great...but it wasn't bad either.

Some Rain Fell

It ended up being just a few inches, but the rain was most definitely welcome last week.

We are expecting some rain this weekend, maybe even today. We shall see if that pans out.

It is always so challenging when it rains. People don't know how to drive, the roads are full of oil...but hopefully, we are past that now.

Glad to hear and see the rain.

May we get much more.

Traditional Oatmeal Cookies

It has been years since I made these. So long, that I had to find them on the Quaker Oat Website.

Oatmeal Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 Cup(s) (2-1/2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
3/4 Cup(s) firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 Cup(s) granulated sugar
1 Egg(s)
1 Teaspoon(s) vanilla
1 1/2 Cup(s) all-purpose flour
1 Teaspoon(s) Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon(s) ground cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon(s) salt (optional)
1/4 Teaspoon(s) ground nutmeg
3 Cup(s) Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)

If you want, add 1 cup of raisins or 1 cup of nuts

PREPARATION:

Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl, beat margarine and sugars until creamy. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg; mix well. Add oats; mix well.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8 to 9 minutes for a chewy cookie or 10 to 11 minutes for a crisp cookie. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack.
Cool completely.
Store tightly covered.

Pointe Decorations: A Tale Of Two Years (with a look at a 3rd)

This stark decoration is this year's lobby at The Pointe, the place where I work. Each year it is slightly different. Well, this year it is extremely different.

I have been here for the past 3 Christmas seasons and I just took a quick look at our first year in our new home. You can see it here in THIS post, from 2012.

It was lovely and it incorporated the theme of blue for Hanukkah and trees for Christmas. Not to say they cheat the Jewish holiday, they did have a Menorah, both years. It sits on the guards desk and counts the nights of Hanukkah.

I gave it a post HERE.

This next photo is a close up of the tree from last year. Sorry I did not get the full effect of the lobby. I was late to the game last year, arriving on 12/16. I did manage to take a few close up photos, for my Facebook page and I was particularly mesmerized by the red and purple balls which were extremely beautiful. I fully expected to see the same thing this year.

Well, obviously, I was wrong about that fact.

The man changes everything, all the time. The flowers in the beds outside our building and the bushes get pulled, dead or not. I should not have expected different for these decorations.

It must be nice to have money to burn...

I really miss this tree from last year. Sigh...

My 8th Order From Abundant Harvest Organics

Here we are on the other side of the Thanksgiving holiday and once again, a box has arrived from Abundant Harvest Organics. Here is what I got this week.

2 Apples
8 Bartlett Pears
3 Beets
Huge head of Broccoli
1 bunch Celery
2 Shallots 18 leaves of Chard
1 head of Lettuce
7 small Heirloom Potatoes
3 Watermelon Radishes
1 bunch Rosemary)
2 Winter Squash (Acorn)

First up, I cooked the broccoli and added garlic and olive oil to it. (My Mom's recipe)

The potatoes became red, white and blue potato salad. I had some blue ones left over from 3 weeks ago and bought 4 red ones, to get this together. The some celery will end up in there, too.

Chard is in a muffin called Zucchini Chard Muffins. More on that, another day.

Apples and Pears go into the fruit salad, as usual.

The lettuce (hopefully with less sand this time, will be in salad this week.

Looking for another way to make the beets, though I can always roast them again.

The Watermelon Radishes, I have no idea what to do with. :-)

That's it for this box.

Some Geese In Phoenix, NY

My Water Post For Today.

I was looking for a water post for next week and I came across this one, that I took at the canal lock in Phoenix, New York.

I thought it was serene and peaceful and if you remember me talking about this day, it was frigid! You can see that post, HERE.

Don't ask me why the geese are sitting in the cold water, but they did the same thing in Lake Ontario. Basically, right up to the time I left town.

I hope you enjoy.

Advent 2014

This is my church, St. Kateri, last Sunday. I thought they did a beautiful job of dressing up the church for Advent.

The actual advent candles are up at the front, but on the side, so they are not visible from this angle.

They used the baptismal area, to hang all these ribbons and I was really impressed with the look. Impressed enough to walk to the end of the church to take this photo during the final prayer before Holy Communion.

“Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

Still have trouble remembering the words to the new prayer, but I am getting better at it. :-)

Makenna's First Time Seeing The Tree This Year

She was taking her late morning/early afternoon nap when we started the tree process.

By the time she came out to look for food, the tree and the lights were up. I had taken a break and was sitting in the family room with the family, when she walked by. She went into our kitchen and I just KNEW she was going to check the tree out next. Our 4 rooms are in a quad shape and that means you can walk around in circles.

Well, that was exactly what she was doing. Walking from the living room, through the family room, kitchen, dining room and finally back into the living room area, where the tree is now set up.

I grabbed my cell phone and watched her. She did not disappoint, she made sure I was not going to yell at her (the photo you see in this post) and then she went over and sniffed it, for the first time this year.

Yes, she is now very happy and sits under it. Her favorite thing to do.

Peter Pan Live

My personal opinion of the event...not worth the effort to watch.

This is a girl (me) who grew up with Peter Pan on her nursery wall. I am not a stranger to Pan.

Somehow, I did not find it interesting and I did not find the fact that it was broadcast live, worth much of anything.

The flying was cute and probably the only thing you marveled at. Since they did manage to not knock into each other and get hurt.

All in all, a fail...but I am not the demographic they were aiming at...or at least, I think I was not the demographic.

By Ken Levine reviewed the production and seemed to be a bit more generous then I. You can check it out, HERE.

CSULA EcoCar 3 Team Gets A Check From GM

I have been seeing different schools in the EcoCar3 Competition holding large checks recently. So I asked my son if they too had gotten one.

Yes, he said and the picture had been taken the week of Thanksgiving.

So I was not surprised when I saw this photo come up on Tuesday of this week.

There he is, my son, holding this fake check for $20,000 from GM. Well, they did get the money, but I don't think they cashed this check. :-)

As he said to me, GM has pledged $10 million to each team, so what the heck is this? A photo op, of course.

Enjoy it son.

Purple Mountains

We are getting a bit of rain, this week. That makes this photo even more precious. I can't see these mountains, currently.

One of my favorite things about the Burbank area of the San Fernando Valley, are those very mountains that come alive, as the sun goes down.

I was glad I looked up the other day and caught them in full purple mountain glory.

One of the perks of moving to Burbank.

A Savvy Programmer

At the recent APT (American Public Television) Fall Marketplace, awards are given out to stations in different categories.

As a general rule, we don't win awards, since our market is not New York or even San Francisco. Those are the rating powerhouse cities.

This year, we really started to make some awesome changes, integrating Link TV's best programming into our schedule (shows like Borgen and Arab Labor). We also have put our best programming up on Sunday nights. As Bohdan (our programmer) says - counter strength with strength. We can't win against Downton Abbey, but we can definitely put a dent in the Sunday Primetime, week after week. Foyle's War, Father Brown, Inspector George Gentley, Vera, Rosemary and Thyme, Scott and Bailey and DCI Banks are some of the shows we rotate through those hours. Not all of these shows are distributed by APT, but some of them are. The remainder are BBC Worldwide. We also have a huge hit with the APT distributed show, Doc Martin. We have a total lock on Thursday's ratings, with this show and have for 5 years. Our viewers can't get enough.

All this means that we have 2 days a week that are awesome, Monday with New Tricks does well, Tuesday with Death in Paradise does well, too. Recently, we decided to go after the night of no ratings...Saturday. Instead of airing Pledge shows (which bring in some money, but do not get any ratings), we took the best of the week and we air them back to back. No money involved since the shows are within the 7 day rights window and amazingly, it has been a success for us.

I guess that APT took notice in our increased numbers, because we somehow won the Savvy Scheduler of the year award for Primetime!

A 54 percent increase in our ratings (of APT shows). We are still hurting with our ratings since we left PBS, but we are definitely moving up, rather than down.

Yay!

The South Platte River In Downtown Denver, Colorado

My Water Post For Today. (another from my Husband's camera)

You may remember me mentioning the North Platte River, in my talk about our train trip through Wyoming.

If you click the link, you will see a shallow river with lots of mud in it. Well, here is another part of the Platte River, this one is the South Platte and it runs right through Denver's LoDo (Lower Denver) District, right next to Union Station. That is where we saw it.

When we were in Wyoming we had no idea that the North Platte river we went over way north of the state of Colorado, joined together with the South Platte in Nebraska and became the Platte River. As I mentioned before, it then joins the Missouri River, which enters the Mississippi River just above St. Louis. According to what I just read, Denver Colorado is the largest city that the Missouri (via the Platte) travels through.

I hope you enjoy.