Granite Mike?

Where is Mike Ball, the New Hampshire radio talker?

Several emails have asked what happened to him. After he disappeared from WGIR, no one locally seems to know where he went, but many seem to miss him.

Over at Wizbang! we find, in part, the lament:

I wrote before about Charlie Sherman, the failed TV sportscaster who now fancies himself a talk-show host. In order to accomodate Sherm, the local radio show dumped an excellent guy named Mike Ball and let Sherm in to stink up the place.

Sherm knows he stinks. That's probably why they don't take phone calls from listeners. When a talk show doesn't take callers, they're either too egotistical to think that anyone else could contribute anything of value or too frightened that the callers will show them for the chumps they are. In Sherm's case, it's probably both.

If you know where this MB went, pass it along.

Health Care Mike

Out in Irvine, California, Allergan, Inc. has F. Michael Ball as executive vice president and president, pharmaceuticals. His bio on the company site includes:

Born in Canada, Mr. Ball was educated in the U.K. and U.S. before receiving his BSc and M.B.A. from Queen’s University in Canada. He is the former President of Syntex Inc. Canada and Senior Vice President of Syntex Laboratories USA, where he served on Syntex Corporation’s Management Committee. Mr. Ball has over 20 years of international health care experience in the marketing and sales of pharmaceutical products. He joined Allergan in 1995.

Two Too Similar

Michael Ball's last stand seems to have been in Uncle Louie's Restaurant in Norfolk, Virginia. In the race for the Virginia House of Delegates, our guy just barely lost to Paula MIller.

According to the report of the restaurant battle, their debate showed too much similarity. We may never know whether his adversary's recognition as a TV talking head swung the voters.

At Uncle Louie's, he stressed the huge increase in state spending and taxing in the previous decade. His big pitch would be that he would oppose such profligacies. That apparently wasn't enough.

Midget Landing

In Chippenham, U.K. Garston Farm has a tiny airstrip in a farm field. Call Mike Ball "at some stage prior to departure" for permission to land.

The town and Garston Farm are in Wiltshire.

The airstrip is very bucolic, enough to note that the landing is by "Rwy 09 approach through the gap between trees."

When you are ready, call Mike at 01225-891284 or 0790-1755312.

The greeting includes, "All visitors to our airstrip are extended a warm welcome, (provided prior permission received), and the kettle is always on in the caravan!"