Long Hours and Finally Using My B.A. in Journalism

I’m not tired. I’m miles past tired. This evening was the third school event evening and the second yearbook photo shoot. I should have driven home after the shoot, but I couldn’t end the week without a brief pilgrimage to CompUSA and dinner at In-n-Out. So with Leo Laporte’s podcast keeping me company through the long hours, it dawned on me that I was actually doing the journalism that I’d been working toward for years.

I mean, there are parts of my life that are completely out of balance or are missing altogether, but somehow this business of pushing my kids to create this book is really becoming a powerful force in my life. It makes the long hours somehow exciting. We’re creating something. It scares the shit out of me, ye ol’ fear of failure. But, I don’t think about that. I’m just trying to keep a handle on what stories we’ve covered, who is working one what, and getting over the next unknown. I guess I didn’t realize that this is very much like what it was like when I was teaching video journalism to 5th and 6th graders and running a video TV news program five years ago.

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The Past Year Has Been A Pretty Crazy Year

I can hardly wait to see what is in store for all of us in 2007!
Merry Christmas,
JBB

Xmas Shopping

“All I wanted was a gift card from Amazon.com, but all I got was a giant thing of chocolate.” Overheard from passing teenager at a trendy mall.
Is it a bad sign that I never bothered to ask my semi-sometimes-significant other her sizes? It just dawned on me that if I were to willing to risk dealing with the whole clothing thing that I wouldn’t even know were to begin. Shit. Merry Xmas to me. Damn. 061220-2000

Do As I Say

She’s smart, she’s beautiful and she becomes completely distracted and thrown off track by any cute boy who happens to come within her line of sight. Oh yeah, she is also a student of mine and she comes to me at least once a day to ask me “what does it mean when he says this….?” I consider it an honor to help this young person navigate the bullshit and confusion of early adolescence. Of course, I can’t help but notice the irony that I have spent many a night or weekend wondering the same thing for myself with my own cutie, “What the hell does it mean when she says this..?” What is that saying? “Do as I say, not as I do.” I guess I’m hoping that someone else can benefit by my own stupid mistakes of making the wrong assumptions about what my lover happened to mean when she said… whatever. Of course, I know that every generation has to learn the same damn lessons for themselves. And hopefully we all come to the point where we realize that life is just too damn short for bullshit and people who can’t walk the walk after dishing out all the bullshit talk. JBB

Sleep

“If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep” Dale Carnegie

Kevin Rose Spills His Guts about Apple iPhone

The buzz continues as former Tech-Tv personality, Kevin Rose, gives specific details about rumored Apple iPhone on his video podcast, Diggnation.

Another Podcast-Friend…

I don’t know how you cope with the day to day pressures, I don’t know that my life could be any busier or the demands on my time be any greater. It only makes sense, given how much my life is driven by technology, that the little respite that I find in my daily life comes by way of a little technology phenomenon called podcasting. Podcasting is basically a form of Internet radio.

One of the things that makes podcasting so different from TV or even commercial radio is that almost anyone can produce a “show” and there are no real limits on how much time a podcast host time can devote to any given subject, so they tend to be much more conversational, almost approaching a two-way mass-media conversation. I started listening to podcasts around the time that Tech-TV went “off the air” so I just thought that this was cool to have another venue to connect to that was about the technology world. What I didn’t anticipate was that bringing Leo and Amber and Tom and Molly and Veronica and a host of others into my life on a daily basis was going to generate such a strong sense of community and emotional attachment as it has.

For the second time in exactly two months this has been devastatingly brought home to me when I heard this evening that the body of CNET Editor James Kim had been found. He and his wife and two young daughters had been reported missing November 25th as they were returning to the San Francisco area after visiting family in the Pacific Northwest. Several podcasters broadcast the story and information about the families last known whereabouts and the story eventually made the front page of the CNN.COM. Two days ago Kim’s wife and two daughters were found safe by a helicopter search team near where their car had become stuck in the snow on a back road they had taken, attempting to reach the Gold Coast area of Southern Oregon. Two days before they were rescued James had left his wife and daughters in the car to get help on foot, but never returned.

I grew up watching the Vietnam War on TV and I know that every day somewhere in the world another human life is being snuffed out. Even when I’ve saw the horrible footage of the tsunami that swept away hundreds of lives in Southeast Asia, somehow it didn’t really reach me. But every day for the past week I’ve clung to news on how the search was going, and felt a really sense of fear as the days ticked by and the family remained lost. Previously I’d downloaded the podcasts James had done with co-host Veronica Belmont, but hadn’t listened to many of them. It strangely became important to me that I play back the year’s worth of recordings they’d done on MP3 news and tech happenings. I can’t explain this connection that I feel with these strangers whom I’ve never met, but there is something about this conversation that makes these loses all too real and all too painful.

Maybe it’s my own unrealized wanting of family and little ones and the desperate attempt of a father to save his family and children combined with dozens of stupid little conversation seemingly overheard of james giving his review this this technology gadget or gizmo. There just so much less “the wall” put up between the media personality and the viewer when it comes to podcasts than there is in TV or commercial radio. I do not know these people, but I am very very sad that a good man and another podcast-friend has been lost and will be so greatly missed. Life is just too damn short to live with any less passion than James had for his family. JBB

Music: In Memoriam: James Kim, 1971-2006 from the album “CNET TV: My Playlist” by CNET.com

Apple’s Rumored “iTalk” Cellphone

The big buzz for the upcoming MacWorld Expo in San Francisco is all about the rumored Apple cell phone. In typical Apple fashion it’s not enough for there to be a rumor but there’s an incredible “concept video” that’s been bouncing around the web called “iTalk.”

There were a number of enthusiastic comments attached to the video saying that if Apple came out with this thing they’d be willing to buy it for thousands of dollars. Those who know me know that I’ve been pursuing the perfect PDA/PIM combination for years. As much as I love my Palm Treo 650 and as much as it is so much better than anything I’ve had before, I have to say that I’d be willing to drink the kool-aid. Of course, none of this is even doable given Verizon’s tendency to wait years before adopting new technology and the fact that rumors indicate that this is a SIM card technology which won’t run on their CGMA cell network. All I can say is.. Shit! JBB

Walkin’ to Church

I did something that I don’t know that I’ve ever done before. I walked to church. Now that I think about it, I don’t know how this worked as a kid. We were expected to walk to school, which was further away, but always drove to church. Of course, we were always running late and there were five kids to herd to church, versus the fact that we all trickled off to school at different times, so I guess piling into the car was a necessity. Then as an adult I have yet to live somewhere with an ol’ country church with the white picket fence just around the corner. At least until now…

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Amazon & Christmas Lists

So, back in the day, when I was but a little dude hoping and wishing for that mythical great Christmas morning I would write long and exact Christmas lists. I don’t know how any of that worked for you, but for me it was a complete and total waste of time because no one ever read the damn thing when considering what to get me. Thus my Christmases were all about socks and underwear and not anything that I’d painstakingly recorded in my meticulous lists. Ugh, bad memories…

So what’s a geek to do? Well, I have my own associates’ link to the online mega-store Amazon so if you are thinking of making any online purchases this year please feel free to go to Amazon using my link and I’ll get a small referral fee for your purchases. This doesn’t add to the cost of your purchase and, depending on how much of your purchases, Amazon tends to cover the cost of shipping. Besides books and DVDs and headphones, I’ve bought running shoes, hydration waist-packs and other stuff related to running. So, having survived black Friday and Cyber-Monday, it’s time to check-out what Amazon has to offer and make all those list-makers in your life happy. JBB

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