Sunday Morning Selfie

Welcome to my weekly check-in and weigh-in life and lifestyle journal. My name is Joe Bryant and I am a Seattle area Broadcaster and Teacher that made a New Years resolution to take a quick photo and hop on the scale every Sunday in hopes that looking at my previous week and my week ahead will help me make good decisions as I work to overcome obesity and prevent the medical issues that being overweight can cause. Thanks for visiting my page!

March Madness and My Charmed Life

As I reflect on my week and the entire month of March for that matter I can see a problem. Usually I wait and tell you my weight later in the blog but lets get the numbers out of the way early today. 

This morning my bathroom scale reads 224  pounds. That is a three pound loss from last week and the lowest number I have posted this year! BUT it is also only about three pounds from where I was at the beginning of the month. I look back on my month and realize that life really got in the way of my serious focus on weight loss.

Between travel, teaching, meetings, adding ten hours a week of coaching badminton etc. I have only made it in to 30/10 Weight Loss For Life in Renton once so far this month and my lack of progress making the scale move reflects that.

While I have “maintained” pretty well all month, the 220’s is not the weight I want to level off at. My goal is to be under 200 lbs and it is going to take some serious dedication of following the 30/10 meeting and eating schedule to get me where I want to go.

 Using life events for missing weigh-ins is a convenient but poor excuse. Am I the only one who can find all sorts of noble reasons to justify veering off a proven path of good health and weight loss? Do you do that as well?

That has been my March Madness. I will now put myself on the accountability line and say that by the end of this month I want to take off those “final four” pounds, break thru the 220 barrier I am stuck at currently, and never look back!

Now to the charmed life part.

 I don’t want this to sound weird like I think I am special or anything but I have always felt that God has blessed me beyond belief. I have had too many great things happen in my life and come my way for it all to just be by chance. Someone is looking out for me, guiding my decisions and pointing me in the direction of success and personal fulfillment more often than not. This week has been a great example of that.

 When the Bob Rivers Show ended I fully expected to continue entertaining a morning drive audience and carry on the tradition of personality radio in Seattle that Bob, Spike and I were lucky enough to do for 25 years. I thought I would be the host at KJR, be welcomed back at KZOK, get a gig with another station or whatever. This did not happen and I never really understood why because, I don’t want to brag, but I consider myself pretty damn good at what I do.

 I knew the business climate in radio had changed but was baffled why a guy who had won for 25 years in Morning Drive was not offered to continue employment in the market where he had helped build a decent audience.

 I tell my students, family and anyone who will listen that everything happens for a reason and I truly believe that. Somebody knew that if I had found another gig in commercial radio I would not have been available to take my current job teaching Broadcast Media at Mercer Island High School.

 Being a teacher and GM of KMIH 889 The Bridge is so fulfilling in so many ways that there is no doubt THIS was what I did 25 years of radio to prepare for. THIS is where my most important work begins. My legacy as a Broadcaster and Morning radio host is a good one. But that career was just prep for the life changing work, my life and the lives of many talented students, that I am doing now. If this all sounds too much like bragging and self- importance you may want to stop reading because it is about to get way worse. 🙂

While my current career is not nearly as fulfilling monetarily it comes with an abundance of accolades and they have been coming hot and heavy this week.  

Thursday evening many of my students and I traveled to Mercer Island City Hall to be honored by the School Board and City with official proclamations to our greatness for winning the Golden Microphone national awards earlier this month in New York City. The MI Girls Basketball team were also honored for bringing us the first state title in school history. Go Islanders!

Friday Morning, before the ink was hardly dry on the city proclamations, 24 of us boarded a school bus and traveled to Gig Harbor to compete is the Washington State High School Radio Awards and Conference. (Special thanks to my wife Kelli for chaperoning).

 There we sort of dominated, earning 16 individual awards including the coveted Overall General Excellence Award which makes us, for lack of a better way to say it, the State Champs of High School Radio! I knew we were the best station on the dial already but it is nice to make it official.

 But as far as blessings and excitement go these were just the precursors to what I was honored to participate in last night.

My whole deal as a teacher is to provide my students with opportunities to pursue their passion and none of my kids have taken advantage of and completely seized the opportunities that have come her way more than my Program Director Leah Raissis.

Leah is a brilliant programmer, excellent interviewer and great student but what she is above all else is a SERIOUS Rock Star. Having met hundreds of them I consider myself sort of an expert in spotting talent and my hunch about Leah was proven 100% correct last night at The Triple Door.

We participated in Play it Forward 7, a benefit to raise much needed funds to keep music in schools. My job was to give a speech as a public school teacher asking for donations and Leah, along with her little brother Zane’s job was to show what incredible musical talents can come from keeping music in schools.

 I guess we all did our jobs well as almost $100,000 was raised and the TOTAL highlight of a highlight filled evening was when Leah sang “Straight On” backed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers in Heart by Heart.

 Sitting in my favorite club with Leah’s parents, watching her bring the house down fronting a band consisting of legendary players like Steve Fossen, Michael Derosier and Randy Hansen, was perhaps my proudest teacher moment in a week that had been packed with them.

I actually could fill a book with incredible things that are happening for myself and my students. I could tell you the story of my Special Ed. student who got third in state for best interview thanks to a great discussion with Alan White who was the guest honored last night for his upcoming RRHOF induction, or my 9th grader whose thoughtful editorial on the death penalty won best in state, or my boys that do basketball play by play so well the judges have proclaimed one to be “the real deal” (and he is) , but enough  bragging for one week.

If you have made it this far thanks for putting up with me. This blog is a weekly look at my life and this is the way life is at the moment. And looking at the week upcoming I am guessing I will be doing a bit more bragging next week.

Tomorrow Harmonica legend Lee Oskar will visit the school to inspire my students and appear on 889 The Bridge at noon  with PD Leah. I gave her a harmonica a few months back and said it will either be the silliest gift she ever received or will change her life. She seems to be taking to it and I look forward to hearing her get an on air lesson from the WAR co-founder that gave us Lowrider, Why Can’t We Be Friends, Cisco Kid, The World is a Ghetto and so many other classics.

 If you have not tuned us in, downloaded our app or sampled KMIH, tomorrow at noon would be a great time to do so. We can be heard worldwide online, at 88.9 in Seattle or just search “KMIH” in your favorite App Store.

I truly feel my first career was there so I could meet great people like Bob Rivers, Alan White and Lee Oskar and connect them with students that can learn, be inspired, and pass on the legacy of quality music and broadcasting done with passion to the next generation. Once again I apologize if this sounds too braggadocios or self-important. This is simply my charmed life and I feel blessed to be leading it.

And to top things off my Badminton girls beat my Alma mater Newport !!! (one game out of 11. But THAT is an accomplishment as Newport is now a Badminton and AP Math genius factory)

Next week my girls have three matches so if we could win one of those and I could shave off those Final Four pounds its going to be a great way to close out March!

Here are some photos of the week and watch for incredible performance videos from last night of Leah performing with Rock legends and her band Exapsos coming soon. Until next Sunday ! Cheers, Joe