RSSCasting a Net
March 27th, 2006 | View Comments
I got my iPod as a graduation gift from my parents. I asked them for an iPod after getting thoroughly frustrated at trying to run carrying a portable CD player. That was the summer of my first attempt to train for a 5K.
Long-time readers may remember that that ended after I threw out my back and wound up literally unable to walk for a week, which was quickly followed by recurring injuries to both ankles (the tale of that was, of course, toasted during the changeover to pMachine).
Forced to make a choice between training for a 5K or playing Ultimate Frisbee because my body clearly was not wanting to do both, I opted to play Ultimate Frisbee. Yay team sports!
So my iPod didn’t get much use that summer, since I’m not really one of those walk-around-while-plugged-into-your-headphones types. Sometimes I do, but mostly I forget that I can. Sometimes it’s nice for the days I walk to/from school, a walk that takes me about a half hour, but most of the time I’m perfectly happy being lost in my own thoughts.
Running is a little different, since having music with a strong beat helps me pace myself and helps me keep my feet moving on the many, many uphill stretches around my neighborhood. Plus I’ve thrown a few songs into my running playlist just for their contextual humor value, namely “Breathe” by Michelle Branch and “Breathless” by The Corrs
My iPod got more use last fall when I once again started to train for a 5K, but that also trailed off since the 20GB model I have is really too big for running–I’ve been eyeing an iPod Nano for that reason–and since I acquired a running buddy and it’s kind of weird to be plugged into your iPod instead of talking to the person running alongside you.
What finally got me to pick up my iPod and start beating it to death like every iPod owner should was the discovery of podcasts, starting with Tim Gunn’s Project Runway podcast.
About a quarter of the used space on my iPod is now devoted to Podcasts, mostly of the knitting variety. I love and adore Cast-On, by Brenda Dayne; I gave KnitCast a whirl before deciding the format wasn’t for me; and I’m currently giving It’s a Purl, Man a try.
In the non-knitting realm, I also subscribe to The Onion Radio News and I’m giving Chub Creek a try, having thoroughly enjoyed Dave’s guest hosting stint on Cast-On.
I won’t say that I haven’t been tempted to try my hand at podcasting, because I have. Part of me thinks that podcasting may be a more natural medium for me than blogging, while part of me thinks it would be an exercise in self-humiliation.
At any rate, I’m not going to do it any time soon because I’m never going to get my PhD done if I pick up another hobby; I’ve found that I can have at most two serious hobbies and still get work done and right now they are knitting and playing volleyball; after volleyball season is over (basically, when the semester is over), I plan on re-vamping my long-neglected web design sites.
But even so, I can take lessons from the podcasters that I’ve been listening to. Lessons on how to walk the line between airing stuff that is not suitable for public consumption and strangling your own self-expression–a line that I do not walk particularly skillfully. Lessons on managing creative exhaustion. Lessons on generosity and the human spirit.
If and how these lessons might manifest themselves on this site, I don’t know. But they’ve got me thinking.
In the meantime, I’ll keep listening. And if you have comments about this site or what you’d like me to write about, I’d like to hear those too. 
Yvonne posted this on March 27th, 2006 @ 5:23am in Blogging, Navelgazing | Permalink to "Casting a Net"
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1. Jane » March 27th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
I podcast as part of my “educational marketing” approach. I only do a short 10-15 minute segment and it already takes me 2 or 3 hours just preparing the script and recording and editing (I do it all). You’ve got to really love to do it and have a purpose for doing it to stick with it. I’ll probably continue podcasting but it will be nice to have podcasting become part of an educational “business model.”