Community service work is certainly good for the soul but it can also lead to unexpected and deeply appreciated recognition.

In my volunteer work for non-commercial, listener supported Divine Mercy Radio here in Raleigh, I help the radio station with programming and production work.

Last week, EWTN Global Catholic Radio honored Divine Mercy Radio with their Crystal Microphone Award for Best Top of the Hour ID from among the network’s amazing 350 Catholic radio affiliates.

This is the project for which we received our recognition:

Tags: commentary, community, radio, radio imaging, raleigh by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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It was quite an honor to be the first guest in the new studio of the “Guys Who Do Stuff” Podcast, which we recorded a few weeks ago. Yes…I got to go to a REAL podcast studio, none of this phone stuff (which, of course is fine).

The podcast is produced by co-hosted and produced by Joe Woolworth and Josh Manning, both who live in the Cary, Raleigh, Durham North Carolina area where I am. Joe owns a web, media and business strategy company called Relevant Media Solutions. Josh is a media producer (web, photography and film) at his company called Jerico 7.

Joe Woolworth, Co-host of Guys Who Do Stuff Podcast

So as media producers, Joe and Josh are story tellers and through their podcast, they tell stories of unique small businesses and the people that run them. I believe the idea is that no matter how unique the business featured in the podcast, there are universal threads that run through each story and those threads are applicable to any business. By guests talking about the successes and challenges of their businesses, listeners can apply  the business and life lessons shared to their own lives.

How I got involved was just me networking, completely unaware of this podcast.

Josh Manning, Co-host of Guys Who Do Stuff Podcast

Because I’m still meeting new people (having only been in Raleigh Durham for coming up on 3 years) I was reaching out to local marketing and media people on Alignable, a locally focused business networking site. Through that site, I’ve been setting up some Starbucks marketing meetings with folks (similar to my Bagel Marketing back in Buffalo, NY but Starbucks is closer to my house, hence the name I just coined sitting here writing this blog post). I’m focused on folks in my Town of Cary, North Carolina (CARY = Containment Area for Relocated Yankees or Can’t Afford Raleigh Yet).

So I see Joe’s business on Alignable and I either emailed or called him and invited him to Starbuckies for a coffee and a chat (well, I do hot chocolate, not coffee, but it’s in the same cup as the coffee so people think I cool…fooled ’em again!) As we talked, Joe decided I would be a good guest for the podcast…or the guest he had scheduled had died…one of those two things. Anyway we talked.

What did we talk about? Easier probably to identify what we didn’t talk about but to try and summarize it we spoke about my start in voiceover, the University of Dayton, working with kids at home, Tony Stark, Spiderman, the Marvel Universe, co-working spaces (BTW in that part of the podcast, the co-working place I used was called HQ Raleigh…so embarrassed I blank on that name, sorry HQ Raleigh), then Wegman’s, the Gig Economy, Canada, getting the business, working in your underwear, greenways and parks, In-And-Out Burgers, Shake Shack, residuals, picking RDU, restaurants, Ernie Anderson, Mary Tyler Moore, The Partridge Family, Bruce Miles, D.B. Cooper, Mel Blanc, Looney Tunes, acting, Grover, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and after that, I forget.

The podcast has a fun, informative, light-hearted feel to it that makes the listen seem shorter than it is.

Now this co-working space where Joe and Josh have built their podcast studio is pretty awesome. It’s called Vibe and it’s a co-working community inside the Cary Towne Center Mall in Cary, NC. I’m not sure how many co-working spaces you’ve been in…I’ve been in more than a few.Many co-working spaces are very corporate…kinda steel and cold in tall office buildings…or they try and be too UNcorporate…and it’s too country, college-dormy. Vibe Cary is right in between for small business people, micropenuers who want professional and comfortable where you don’t feel like you should wear a tie but you probably don’t want to wear your ripped t-shirt and look like a slob either. Professionally casual. That’s my take anyway. You can get a membership or use it by the hour; you can get a private office or use a meeting space or, yes, record a podcast!

A great experience at a great place with great hosts. Thanks for including me.

Tags: podcast, podcast episodes, podcasting, raleigh by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Volunteer radio host and station voice Peter K. O’Connell with Chief Engineer Keith Flanary broadcasting Diocese of Raleigh Bishop Zarama’s blessing of Catholic 540-AM Divine Mercy Radio on July 9, 2019

So here’s another cool thing I got to do on the radio.

As I’ve mentioned, I volunteer at a Catholic radio station (WETC-AM) in Raleigh Durham, NC (the whole station is run by volunteers). I do their production and programming stuff – which isn’t too heavy a lift because the station carries mostly network programming and the Chief Engineer programs all the spots into the computer. I just voice and write stuff and produce it as well as producing voice work from other volunteers.

The Executive Director of Divine Mercy Radio, Cecelia Flanary, invited the Bishop of the Diocese of Raleigh, the Most Reverend Luis Rafael Zarama, to come to the station and bless the studios, equipment and volunteers. Pretty cool for a Catholic radio station only on-the-air for 5 months to get a visit from the Bishop. Remember, the Catholic 540-AM radio ministry is a lay apostolate, not owned or operated by the Diocese. This was a great kindness for the Bishop to share time from his crazy-busy schedule.

Naturally when I heard about this, I opened my big mouth and said we should broadcast the event live on the radio.

So we did.

Radio station volunteer Peter K. O’Connell interviews Bishop Luis R. Zarama of the Diocese of Raleigh as the Bishop offers his blessing on the station and volunteers of Catholic 540-AM Divine Mercy Radio, WETC Wendell Zebulon, North Carolina on July 9, 2019.

The reception began at 6:00pm with the Bishop scheduled to do his formal blessing at 6:30pm. I estimated we would be on the air for about 45 minutes if we started at 6:00 and my timing worked out about right. From the many folks attending the reception, I pulled out from the party some of the Board of Directors who have been with the station almost since the beginning…or since the beginning, to talk about the history of the station.

These were among the many folks who deserved to take a bow for their tireless efforts (which are on-going) on behalf of this station.

Then at around 6:25, Bishop Zarama arrived and I asked the station organizers to please bring him over to our broadcast spot so we could have an brief on-air chat. He was great…smart, thoughtful and very kind. Many thanks to the Bishop for sharing some time with us. His comments during the blessing were terrific and it ended up being a great broadcast (not because of me) that was part of a very special evening.

Plus there was free food, which is how most people in radio get paid anyway!

Tags: commentary, radio, radio imaging, raleigh by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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No, despite their annual, horrible, embarrassing losing record, this professional voiceover talent is NOT giving up his primary allegiance to his boyhood team, the Buffalo Sabres. Evidently he IS talking about himself in the 3rd person (what a diva).

But my Buffalo Sabres are gone for this hockey season. Long gone. Like mathematically eliminated sometime last February gone.

However, in my new hometown of Raleigh, NC, the Carolina Hurricanes are playing the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals tonight. And I am supporting the #Canes quite fervently for two reasons.

1. Boston…almost anything Boston
2. Don Cherry

Boston I think is pretty obvious…Bruins are a Sabres rival. Patriots are a Bills rival. And the Red Sox…well just never mind, point made.

Don Cherry may not be as clear to everyone but it’s not because he was, at one time, the Bruins Coach.

See old Don…and I mean old and foggy Don…took umbrage (which I guess he does professionally…he’s a professional umbrager) at the Carolina Hurricanes creating an on-ice celebration after their many wins this season AND after the other team has left the ice. Fans love it but old Don says teams can’t entertain after the hockey game is over. It’s a professional sport, he claims…did he not hear about the hockey shoot-out rules?

Don went on Hockey Night in Canada (a show I grew up watching in Buffalo, NY and part of where I got my love of hockey) and called the Carolina Hurricanes a bunch of jerks. Here’s the video.

So as soon as I saw THAT…this life -long, Sabres only and always fan, made the decision to support the Canes by buying the BRILLIANTLY created “Bunch of Jerks” t-shirt produced by the Hurricanes. The Carolina Hurricanes have sold THOUSANDS of these shirts (3 of them to the O’Connells –  we will be wearing them tonight).

Much to his disappointment and likely painfully humbling to Cherry (which he of course would never admit), his comments inadvertently totally rallied the Carolina Hurricanes hockey troops worldwide. The Canes now have my support…unless they play the Sabres and then screw the Canes…it’s all about my Sabres then.

So YES, I want Don Cherry and Hockey Night in Canada to come to Raleigh for a Conference or Finals game…we will wear our shirts and scare the paisley out of old Don Cherry.

Tags: buffalo, commentary, raleigh, silliness by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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So you’re saying to yourself: ‘Peter, you are a voice talent, you’ve voiced a part in a video game, you’ve done character voices your whole life! How is the Raleigh Supercon your first ComicCon?’

The answer is: ‘I don’t get out much.’

None the less, today I went to my first ComicCon…well, bigger than that, it was a SUPERcon (had to make up for lost time).

Some truths before I begin:

• I am not a gamer
• I don’t have that much interest in Sci-Fi outside of Star Trek (loving almost all iterations) and Star Wars (and really only the first three movies)
• I know Dr. Who’s Blue Phone Booth was important to the story but never watched an episode so I’m not cool (but you knew that I wasn’t cool already 🙂

So admitting all this, I might have lost lots of points with some of my friends and could have risked my admittance this Con had I said this before today.

In spite of the fact that I never got into video or on-line gaming and sci-fi stories personally, I appreciated the interest that they generated, which is part of the reason I wanted to go to a ComicCon. Plus, like I said, I’m a character voice actor – I knew I’d find something of interest to me.

Buffalo didn’t really have a Con of note. Raleigh, on the hand did. So it was off to the Raleigh SuperCon I went this morning.

What follows are some of my observations that may prove entertaining to those of you who have been to a ComicCon or enlightening to those of you who like me (before today) have never been.

• Many bigger Cons take place on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays – Saturdays are likely among the busiest days and just after it opens is really busy and you shouldn’t go then…cause the lines are long then, like around the block long (find shade or you will sweat, which I learned the hard way)
• If you have Uber in your area, try and take it – it saved my bacon from dealing with crazy traffic around the venue and annoying parking
• People attending the show were nice – normal, not weird; I wasn’t expect weird people but some people who haven’t been to Cons think everybody there is kind of wacko….no they generally aren’t (and yes, there are always exceptions)
• I could only identify about 1/3 of the costume characters walking around (again, because I don’t follow the genres) but I really appreciated the creativity that everyone showed in their costume design and makeup
• Clearly, everyone who wore costumes (Cosplay) were so happy to be out in their wares and among their people; it made me happy for them
• While there are sessions on various topics and game rooms, I didn’t do any of that; I went right to the show floor
• The show floor consisted of autograph alley (with all sorts “celebrities”) and then hundreds of vendors selling comic book, games, posters, costumes and every knick knack you can think of having to do with every character, story line, logo etc you could imagine (and other stuff you didn’t know existed)
• The show floor has lots of interesting things to see but I didn’t buy anything…many others did, I am quite sure
• What made the show fun for me was catching up with my fellow voice talent Greg Houser (who I believe I first met in 2010 or 2011 at VOICE in Los Angeles); he’s been a voice talent in anime titles including “Evangelion”, “Ikki Tousen”, “One Piece”, “Shiki”, and “Tales of Vesperia” — he was signing autographs and presenting a seminar at Raleigh SuperCon

The question is whether I would recommend someone going to a Comic-Con based on this experience. Short answer: yes.

I think it was especially important for me to attend because I was NOT and am not a Sci-Fi or gamer person. However it’s good to be exposed to and event like this and enjoy the experience. Raleigh SuperCon did a nice job and I’m sure if a similar Con comes to your area, you’ll have fun too.

Tags: animation, character voices, commentary, raleigh by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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People are nice. Mother Nature, sometimes not so much.

People have been calling and texting us during the weekend and in these past few days making sure we are OK in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, which started last Friday and moved up the east coast over the weekend. Many states were hit but it seems North Carolina got more than it’s fair share of damage. Worse, fatalities here are in the teens and may still rise.

Our experience was misty rain all day Friday. Significant and steady rain ALL day Saturday (around 5″ in Cary to a high of about 9″ in Wake County, where we live). Sunday was sunny, cool and breezy, like nothing ever happened — Mother Nature’s way of clearing up the atmosphere.

We did not see much TV over the weekend so we didn’t see how the national news was portraying the storm in our area. It seems much of the talk was about eastern North Carolina so I can understand people’s concerns about us. We are in Cary, NC, just outside of Raleigh.

As you can see by the amateurish graphic (made by this amateur) we were on what turned out to be the safer side of the storm. But as you can see, safe by not much. People nearer to I-95 and east were hit much harder and some rivers have yet to crest but will almost assuredly to do so, causing still more damage in those areas.

Knowing that hurricanes are much more damaging than Blizzards (especially in areas built to combat and recover from blizzards like Buffalo) doesn’t prepare you for the uncertainty that hurricanes bring. Indeed, the weather folks were often citing the hurricane’s ‘cone of uncertainty’ — which follows not only the expected track of the storm but also a significant area around the track where the storm could unexpectedly alter its course.

We are fine and we are glad. But we are also thought-filled about the folks to the east, STILL dealing with mess, destruction and even death. It’s just another day for us.

Not for them. Not for a while.

Here’s one place you might be able to offer some help to those folks who need it in eastern North Carolina.

Thanks for checking in.

Tags: buffalo, commentary, nc, raleigh by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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