After nearly 35 hours on the air this long weekend, the Pepsi House is over. I started it a couple years ago and truly believe it to be such a great cause. The organizations we give the money to buy Christmas presents for children whose families can't otherwise afford them. While so many kids this year are asking for things like video games and toys, these kids are asking for winter coats, boots, jeans...things most other kids take for granted.

A couple things really touched me this year, to the point where I was nearly brought to tears.

A woman came by last year with an envelope. She handed it to me while I was on the air and kept walking. By the time I had opened it to see what she had left, she was gone. $1000 cash. This year, the same woman came by and again handed it to someone and kept walking. How selfless this woman is to not even wait around for a thank you. She believes in the cause and doesn't need the acknowledgment that she's doing a good thing.

Saturday, a man came by to donate. I said thank you as he handed me the money. He said, "no, thank you. You guys thank everyone but yourselves. Thank you for being here, doing this." I tried to respond but really just stumbled through it. The sincerity in his voice was so awesome. I don't do the Pepsi House because it makes great radio (in fact, studies show we lose listeners during things like that), I honestly do it because I think it makes a difference. I fight so hard day after day to make it happen, sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. To know that one person, one stranger who has no stake in this promotion, sincerely appreciates what we're doing really makes it all worthwhile.

Sunday, the smallest donation made the biggest impact. A man, woman and their probably three year old son walked in the entrance directly in front of us. The boy walked ahead of the parents, up to our table, looked up at me and slid a dime across the table as his parents watched from behind him, obviously proud. The scene was almost too much to handle. How amazing it is that these parents have taught their child at such an early age to help people less fortunate than themselves.

I said so many times on the air, "every penny helps." That little boy's dime will forever help me fight through the BS and remember the good things we do. As long as I work in radio, wherever I go, I will put on The Pepsi House. I hope you will come out and support us next year. And to everyone who came out this year, THANK YOU. I want you to know you will forever be appreciated by me and by the families you've helped. To the staff of Bull Country and ZFun, thank you for giving your time; for hoosing to give up time over your Thanksgiving weekend to help families in need. Thank you to everyone who helped and to everyone giving back this holiday season and throughout the year.

Oh ya, $4,806 will sure put a lot of presents under the Christmas trees this year.

Thank you!
Ryan

2nd Row plus meet and greet.  The strange thing is, I wasn't going to go to the concert but SOMEHOW, 5 days before the concert, a pair of 2nd row tickets opened up.  Also, I was told meet and greet just wouldn't happen.  Actually, I was told twice by person one and twice by person two.  Then, without instigation, person two e-mailed me to say there would be two meet and greet tickets waiting for me.  I do have to say that person two was affiliated with Josh Turner.  She said she tried but it was just too late.  Then fate stepped in and made it happen.  It's kinda crazy, really.  Oh ya, a girl claiming to be Taylor Swift sent me a message on Facebook saying to tell Carrie hi for her.  I'll pretend it was really her...that makes the whole thing just that much more surreal.

Shania and Mutt Lange are getting a divorce.  It wasn't quite a Tim and Faith marriage but they LITTERALLY made beautiful music together.  Sad day.  When the hits stopped, so did the marriage.

My computer is driving me CRAZY!!! Something went wrong a couple weeks ago and after A LOT of time spent trying to fix it, I decided to buy a new hard drive. It seemed like a good idea actually because the drives I have are the older, slower IDE drives and this allowed me to upgrade to a SATA drive. I finally got the drive and set aside some time today to install Windows on it and after waiting forever, it finally SEEMED to work...followed by the Blue Screen of Death. Turns out you can't install Windows on a SATA drive without either a floppy drive (WHO HAS THOSE ANYMORE?!?!) or a slipstream install. "What's a slipstream?" you ask? Well, I had to ask myself the same question. To avoid technical jargon, it involves a lot of time and CD burning...something my computer also decided it didn't like doing anymore as of late. SO, I'm going to have to burn the CDs at work, bring them home and install. Then, MAYBE I can finally get my computer working. All I want to do is watch Lost, something that apparently can't be accomplished on Linux (which is a WHOLE OTHER frustrating story). UGH!!! I'm quitting for the night to watch American Idol at Kady Pop & Travis' place.

If you're reading this, you may have already noticed I put a new song on my profile.  It's ME :-)  I want your HONEST opinion.  Advise?  Criticism?  Pancakes?  Anything.  Give it to me!

Who wants to see Iron Man on Friday night...or maybe Saturday?

I haven't written many blogs lately which means I haven't updated my preferred list in a while.  If you want to be part of my preferred list (ie if there's a blog you can't read but would like to), just ask and I'll take care of it.

I can't complain about some of the cool stuff I've done here, like haging out and singing with Bucky Covington a couple nights ago.

I don’t really know what to write about but I was going through old blogs and noticed how little I wrote last year.  So, I resolve to start writing again.

You may have heard, my birthday is coming up.  Jen and I are going to Seattle for the weekend in celebration.  If you reside in the Seattle area and would like to partake in the festivities, please let me know.

I’ll write more later.

I have SOOOO many things to blog about but this is cool and I can post it quick.  Check it out if you like things that are good.

http://www.cmt.com/videos/sugarland/209852/life-in-a-northern-town.jhtml

I just sent a message to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (well, not to them...but to someone on their campaign).  Here it is...The Clinton one just changes it to her, she, Clinton...

As a voter in my mid-20s, I feel I often commit the same offense as many others my age...not getting educated about the candidates.  With that being said, I'd like to know where Senator Obama stands or what he plans to do about the following issues.

Iraq:  Does he have a specific exit strategy?  If not, what steps does he plan to take to organize one?

Health Care:  Does he support Universal Health Care?  If so, what will the steps be to implement it?  Is his plan similar to another country or does he support something new?  In either case, why has he made that decision?  Also, does he support any type of NATIONAL legislation against smoking in public places...or when children are present?

Immigration:  What are his plans regarding immigration?  Will his health care plan also cover immigrants?

Environment:  What type of support has he offered or bills has he supported to lower our dependency on oil and create a healthier environment?  What are his plans for the NEAR future?

Education:  Though I do not believe our schools are as terrible as some would have us believe, I do see a lot of room for improvement.  What does he want to do to improve the quality of our public schools?

I sincerely appreciate the time you (whoever you may be) are taking to respond to my questions.  I hope it will give me a better understanding of Senator Obama and help me make a more informed decision both at the Idaho Caucus and in the national election.

Thank you,
Ryan Chambers
Ryan@RyanChambers.net

If you haven't heard, Jen and I (along with a few friends) are going to Las Vegas this coming Saturday through Wednesday.  In preparation, we will be renting the TV show Las Vegas and watching as much as we can before we leave.  I love the show but really just recently got Jen into it.

Also, we're looking for deals and suggestions on what to do while we're there.  We're planning on two shows, riding the rollercoaster at NY, NY, going to the Adventuredome at Circus, Circus and going to the dolphin habitat at the Mirage.  Otherwise, we could use some suggestions.

Money is a slight concern but I figure I need to try not to worry about it because it's really my first REAL trip there (other than the night we spent there on our way back from LA) since I was 14.  We're going to try not to gamble much because we know how that always end up.

Wish us luck!

We've got a TON of it.  In my parking lot, there is snow plowed as high as the cars next to it.  We've probaby gotten 9-12 inches in the past week.  My question is:  is we KNOW there is snow on the ground and at work we have the steepest possible driveway, WHY can't we get someone to plow before 2pm?  It's pointless to wait until everyone is already AT work...and half the staff has already left (or tried to in our news director's case).

Moving on to my recent trip to LA, I have to discuss airport security.  Since when is it a requirement to take off a sweatshirt?  When going through security, I now have to take off my shoes, belt and sweatshirt.  I don't take off that much on a first date!  Also, there's been a sudden influx of those little convenience stores selling bottled water.  How can they prohibit taking bottled water through security?  If that remains true, the convenience stores should be prohibited from making a profit on bottled water or sodas.  It's rediculous that they are making a killing, selling water for $2.00 because of the SUPPOSED security risk.

I heard a good explanation of it all.  A boy had...something in his bag he wanted to bring with him that security had confinscated.  He asked his dad, "can we pay extra to bring it?" to which the dad responded, "no, there's no negotiating with them."  How true!  Elderly women are getting patted down, we can't bring water with us, we strip down...all because we don't want to get in trouble with the fucking airport Nazis!  At what point do we say ENOUGH?!  We are afraid to complain these days because speaking out can get you put in prison without a trial because refusing to take off my sweatshirt makes me a possible terrorist threat!

Next time you buy a ticket, look at what you're actually paying for.  Probably $50 of your ticket goes for fees implemented after September 11th.  So they take your money, they take your time and they take your dignity all in the ALLEGED name of security.  It's all horse shit and a way for the security companies to make money, which in turn makes Bush money.  Most people these days aren't afraid of terrorism, we're afraid of being accused of being a terrorist.  All it takes is that one security guard, who probably didn't pass the 9th grade to say you weren't being cooperative.  You get pulled out of line and put in a room.  Hours later, once you've had time to get really pissed about the situation, someone comes in to "discuss" what happened.  You get pissed, tell them it's all rediculous and to let you the fuck out of there.  They tell you you must now pay a fine (an amount of their chosing).  You stand up and tell them to go to hell.  Someone grabs you and pushes you back into your chair.  You push him away.  You get detained for attacking an Agent of the Homeland Nazi Initiative.  Somewhere you're now labled as a threat to national security and at the very least are never allowed to fly again.

I'm just getting more pissed off so I'm going to stop now.

"Like the town in Alaska?
No."

If you haven't seen or heard of the movie Juno, you need to.  I'm officially declaring it one of my FAVORITE movies.  Witty dialogue, a good soundtrack and a good actors.  What more do you need?  Seriously, you will NOT be disapointed.

First, congratulations to Taylor Swift, who has taken the 1 spot in the country this week with Our Song.  If you don't have the album yet, I think you're the only one.  I'm hoping for Picture to Burn as her next single...but there may be one before it.  We'll see.

Carrie Underwood just released a new song and I've got to say it now before I've heard it too much and get too used to it...it is my FAVORITE Carrie Underwood song to date.  It's a DEFINITE country song that ALL women will LOVE...and being so emotional myself, I also LOVE it.  I know it goes without being said for her but this is a DEFINITE 1.  Also, it takes balls to release a song right now, right when stations are starting to freeze playlists (ie not add anything new until after the holidays because of all the Christmas music changing their music logs).  Well, only Carrie could take all that into consideration and be in the top 40 the first day of release.

Finally,  my Holiday Extravaganza has begun.  It started Friday with a Christmas party at my house, followed by the Steve Shannon Christmas party on Saturday.  This Friday is Travis' Graduation Party, followed Saturday by my company Christmas Party in Pullman.  The next weekend will be spent in Boise for Christmas with my sisters and brother and back up here for Christmas with Jen's family.  I leave Saturday the 29th for LA with my parents, my cousin's birthday and New Years.  We'll take a weekend off and head to Vegas the 12th - 16th, staying at the MGM Grand (if you want to come, you are SERIOUSLY welcome to.  It'll be fun).  The 17th of January through the 29th of February will be spent recovering (with a trip to Seattle and a trip to Portland thrown in) followed by Nasvillle for the Country Radio Seminar, with performances by Luke Bryan, Jason Michael Carroll, Bucky Covington, Jake Owen, Taylor Swift, George Jones and MANY MORE, including recording artist showcases from Sony BMG, Capitol Nashville, Curb/Assylum Records and the Music City Jam, presented by  the Academy of Country Music.

So, we have a VERY busy schedule coming up.  Luckily we've finished paying for most of it.  If you have a specific weekend you'd like to see us in Seattle or Portland, please let me know.  Also, if you want to join us in Vegas, we'd REALLY like to have you there.  Round trip plus hotel is under $350 for four nights.

That's all for now.  I'll try to make this a little more regular.  Merry Christmas!!!