I walked along the Great Lake near our home in the Market Common District of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and wondered how many others were doing the same thing I was doing?

Oh, sure, there were quite a few people walking, which was technically the same thing, but not quite.

Some were running, others were on bikes, a few were even sitting on the benches along the paved path.

It was a rhetorical question, how many others are doing the same thing, because there was really

no way to know. I've previously talked about one of the reasons we moved to South Carolina

from Maryland was to live in a place that allows for a more naturally active lifestyle.

The weather is warmer and it's so much easier to walk out our front door and go for a walk,

run, or bike ride, and we're enjoying this. This move also lets me work at home for the first time

in my life. It's ironic that while so much of the

world started doing this when the pandemic broke out, I continued doing my job on site at the radio

station. That part of my life didn't change until we moved. Now I have a home office and studio

and love this new way of working.

As I walked along the lake, I was wearing my Aftershocks headphones listening to a radio station in Florida.

Now, I suspect no one else was doing that, but it still really wasn't the heart of my question.

The following week, I would return to Maryland

to lead our team through our on-air spring fundraiser. A significant part of the revenue

for my radio station is provided by our generous listeners. We do run commercials, but not many.

Listener donations allow us to provide a better experience for them.

As you can imagine, there's an art and science to fundraising. I won't bore you with details,

but every fundraiser is different and requires a tremendous amount of planning and flexibility.

I'm responsible for both, and it's always extremely helpful to hear other stations

doing their fundraisers. It allows me to reverse engineer what they're doing and the response

...