Tag Archives: business

Question the Media!

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“Critical thinking” is the antidote for “truthiness” in our public life.

As the quality of our local newspaper here in Wickenburg declines to the point that it’s not worth spending the ten minutes it takes to read each week, I found “Skepticism: The antidote to ‘truthiness’ in American government and media” by Roy Peter Clark on Poytner Online a very interesting read. In preparing for an appearance on Oprah, he made a few notes, including this one:

4. Join with others in your community to analyze how you are being served or disserved by your local news media. As famed editor Gene Roberts said about one newspaper: “You can throw it up in the air and read it before it hits the ground.” What does your community need in the form of coverage that it is not getting? Who owns the news companies in your community? Are they in the news business to serve the public or to maximize their profits?

Or push the agendas of certain special interests?

Okay, so I added that last bit. But the point is, a newspaper should provide the news. All the news that matters to the public. Every side of every issue.

The current situation in Wickenburg’s local newspaper affects me directly: for the past three weeks, I’ve been mentioned in articles in the paper, but I have yet to be interviewed by a “reporter.” Tell me: how can a serious journalist write about a topic without speaking to the people who are making it newsworthy?

I’ll tell you how. When it isn’t in their best interest or the interest of their publication to objectively report all sides of an issue.

(A side note here: Lately, a large number of people in Wickenburg are outraged by the one-sidedness of the local newspaper. It’s gotten to the point that many people have cancelled their subscriptions. (Bravo! My husband and I did this well over a year ago and the only thing I miss is the regular supply of newsprint for the bottom of my parrot’s cage. I especially miss seeing his random bird droppings on photos of particular people here in town.) Some of them have even gone so far as to write letters to the publisher explaining why they are canceling. (I doubt that those letters will appear in the Letters to the Editor pages, which are the most popular pages in the paper.) Others have pledged to let their subscriptions lapse or simply stop picking it up on newsstands. Will this revolt by the people help? Probably not. If their finances begin to feel the pain of lost subscriptions, I’m sure one of the special interests they support will step up with a bailout. Quietly, of course. That’s how most Good Old Boy transactions are handled in this town.)

Mr. Clark adds this little bit of wisdom:

5. Look for role models of candor and accountability, people in public life who have proven to be reliable over time. Look for folks within a movement or political party who have the courage to speak, on occasion, against the interests of their own party.

Or against their government or town?

Frankly, Mr. Clark’s article has a lot of good advice — especially these days, when the media is spending more time manipulating public opinion than objectively reporting what’s important in the world around us. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Doing Gigs

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It has its ups and downs.

By “gig,” I mean a helicopter rides job. You know — like at a carnival or air show.

At Robson's Mining WorldFlying M Air makes approximately 20% of its money doing helicopter rides at outdoor events. These events, which range from small-town celebrations (Robson’s Mining World (see photo), Yarnell Daze, Old Congress Days) to county fairs (Mohave County Fair) to full-blown air shows (Thunderbird Balloon Classic and Air Show) are probably the hardest work I have to do. Not only do I have to arrange the event with its management and ensure that I have a safe landing zone nearby, but I have to get together a ground crew of reliable, amiable people to handle money collection, passenger briefings, and loading/unloading. And then I have to do the ups and downs.

I’ve been fortunate in the past to find two good local teams to help out. Darlene and Dave live in Wickenburg and have helped out on two events so far. John and Lorna live in Maine but spend their winters here in Wickenburg and have helped out on winter events for the past two or three years. And of course, I always have Mike, who oversees the whole ground operation.

The ground crew is just about as important as the pilot in this kind of work. They need to be responsible, alert individuals who pay attention to what’s going on around them. We do “hot loading” at these events — that means the engine is running while people are getting on and off the helicopter. That means the rotors are spinning. While the main rotor isn’t much of a concern — it’s spinning 10-12 feet above the ground where it’s not likely to hit anyone walking nearby — the tail rotor is a major concern. It’s spinning back there at head level and even though there’s a guard and warning signs on the helicopter, it’s still possible for someone to walk into it. I need my ground crew to make sure no one walks behind the helicopter at any time. I want my ground crew to use physical force if necessary — grab the guy! — to keep a person from walking back there. Not everyone is prepared to do that.

(A side note here: one of the ways I help protect people from the tail rotor is to park with the tail rotor away from where people might be. In other words, I park facing the crowd. Then there’s no reason to go around the back of the helicopter. This may seem like common sense, but it’s amazing how few helicopter pilots don’t stick to this rule. They’ll park facing into the wind (because it’s easier for them) or park facing a runway (for reasons I don’t begin to understand). Having attended the Robinson Factory Safety Course twice, I clearly remember the story of a Long Beach mishap that occurred primarily because the pilot parked with his tail rotor facing his passengers. I’d rather learn from other people’s mistakes than my own.)

I also need a money person who is friendly and a good sales person. I once did a gig with a real wimp taking the money. She just stood there, waiting for people to come up. She spoke in a whisper and did nothing to convince the people who walked up to her table that what they really wanted that day was a helicopter ride. I think that if I had Darlene or Lorna at the table that weekend, I would have taken at least 30 more people for flights. That’s more money for the business and less time sitting on the ground, spinning, waiting for passengers.

The ups and downs are my part. I generally do 6-8 minute rides, but we’ve recently had some success with 3-4 minute rides. That’s a lot of takeoffs (ups) and landings (downs). The challenge here is that I’m usually working in a relatively small space and often have only one way in and out. Obstacles include other activities (I won’t fly over a fair or gathering of people), buildings, wires, fences, and trees. So every takeoff is a maximum performance takeoff and every landing is a confined space landing. And one of the two may be with a tailwind. While I don’t mind taking off with a tailwind (up to 10 knots seems to be okay, depending on my load), I don’t like landing with one. And cross-wind operations are always tricky, especially if the winds are gusting. My goal is to make it look easy no matter what the conditions are, to assure my passengers, through experience alone, that they are in good hands.

With all this comes huge responsibility. Not only do I need to make the ride fun for my passengers, but I need to make it safe. A mishap — even a small one — would be a very bad thing. I think of myself as an ambassador for the helicopter industry. What I do might be the only helicopter operation some of my passengers ever witness. I want them to tell others how good it was, how safe they felt, how much confidence they had in their pilot. And — oh, yes — how much they want to do it again.

I know it’s my experience at the Grand Canyon back in the summer of 2004 that made me pretty darn good at doing ups and downs. At the GC, we operated in very challenging conditions — high winds in the early season, hot temperatures in the mid season, and low visibility in the late season. Although we never operated in unsafe conditions, we certainly operated in many conditions that the average pilot would not normally fly in. The flying was highly restricted, requiring certain takeoff, flight, and landing paths. You couldn’t for example, change your approach to landing just because the wind had shifted; you needed to wait for the tower to change that path. And when you’re operating at high altitude (the airport was 6300 feet) with full loads (I often was within 100 pounds of max gross weight), you learn how to handle power and milk the system for what you need. My goal on every flight was to make every single landing perfect. Of course, I wasn’t able to do that, but by aiming for perfection every single time, I got very good at it. I took that experience away with me and use it on every flight I do.

Now compare this kind of work to a Sedona day trip, like the ones I do from Wickenburg and the Phoenix area. I meet the passengers myself, give them a safety briefing, and load them on the helicopter with the engine off. I then start up, warm up, and take off. The flight is about an hour and neither flying nor navigation require much skill. I point out places of interest and enjoy the scenery with my passengers. Then I land at the airport, cool down, shut down, and escort my passengers to the terminal for whatever activities they have planned. A few hours later, I do the same thing to return to our starting point. As far as real “work” is concerned, a charter has very little. And the revenue is based on flight time, so I’m guaranteed a certain amount of profit for each flight.

Gigs, on the other hand, have a ton of work and a very unreliable revenue stream. When things are going well, I can indeed make more per hour than I can with a charter. But I should, shouldn’t I? I have a lot more work to do (all those ups and downs!) and need to cover the expenses of my ground crew and the gig itself. And there’s always the gig that goes bad — like the Spring Break gig in Lake Havasu I tried two years ago. I took a bath on that gig, losing over $1,600 in ferry time, permits, fees, and hotel costs. Live and learn — but ouch! That one hurt.

But hey — that’s what I signed up for when I started this business. And I still get a lot of pleasure out of taking passengers for their very first helicopter rides.

On Blogging

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Maria Speaks Episode 32: On Blogging – Looking back on three years as a blogger.

This episode covers my thoughts on blogging: why I blog, my personal history as a blogger, and the future of blogging as I see it. The transcript for this episode can be found on my Web site, www.aneclecticmind.com.

And sorry about the nasal sound of my voice. I’m just getting over a cold.

Transcript:

Last month, I celebrated my third anniversary as a blogger. Well, I didn’t really celebrate anything because I really didn’t think about it then. But I realized today that it had been more than three years since my first blog entry. A little research found that entry online in my current blog: “iBlog.”

Why I Blog

I am a writer. I’ve been a writer since I was 13 or so, in the days when I worked on stories and a novel while sitting at the desk in the room I shared with my sister. I’ve probably written billions of words by now.

The way I see it, there are two kinds of writers. Well, three:

  • The first is the person who writes because of that need to write. The person who, like me, started at a young age and got hooked on it. But for whatever reason, they did not pursue a career in writing.
  • The second is the person who doesn’t have that need to write but writes for a living. Copywriters, business people who spend much of their time writing reports, tech writers — those might be some examples.
  • The third is the person who needs to write and writes for a living.

Through hard work, an understanding of the writing business, and a good dose of luck, I’ve managed to join that third group of writers: I write because I need to write and I’m fortunate enough to get paid for it.

Writing is like an addiction for the people who need to write. They can’t go more than a day or two without writing something. And that’s where blogging comes in. It’s the perfect outlet for writing whatever you want, whether it’s a description of how you spent your weekend (Days in My Life), your view on current politics (Deep Thoughts), a narrative about your hobbies (Flying for Pleasure, Writing for Pleasure), or a discussion of your work (Flying for Hire, Writing for a Living).

And that’s why I’m a blogger. It gives me the opportunity to vent (so to speak) the words and thoughts that are in my mind.

My History as a Blogger

Back in October 2003, I got started as a blogger using a blogging client called iBlog. It was an interesting tool that was very easy to use and didn’t require a bit of HTML or programming knowledge. I’d create blog entries on my computer, using a WYSIWYG format. When I was ready to publish, the software would create all the pages and links and upload them to a Web server. They were static pages — that means they existed in plain old HTML on the server until I replaced them with new pages.

I liked the software, but as technology moved forward, I ran into its limitations. The author of the program — it’s shareware — was busy with work and couldn’t spend the time needed to rework his creation and add features. I decided that it was time to find another solution.

I played with Blogger and actually built two podcasts that used it for an engine. (I even wrote an eBook about it.) But Blogger had a lot of limitations, too. I wanted something I could get under the hood to change, something I could tweak forever, fine-tuning the appearance and functionality all the time.

The answer was WordPress. I decided to install it on a Mac OS X server in my office. It was a chore and a real learning experience. But I always get a certain feeling of satisfaction when I work my way through a tough task and succeed.

The first big challenge (after getting WordPress up and running on the server) was to import my 300+ iBlog entries to my new WordPress site. That required exporting all entries as an RSS feed, modifying the entries to be WordPress compatible, and importing them into the new blog. I did this over time, in batches. I still have about 50 entries to import, but they include photos and require a lot of work. Frankly, I’ve been too lazy to do it.

Once the content was online, I reworked the blog to merge it with my personal site and my book support site. That posed some organizational challenges: to keep my work separate from my blog but both of them in the same place. I’ve gotten complements on the site’s organization from several people, so I think I may have done a good job.

Now, with the work mostly done — other than the tweaking, which I do occasionally to fine-tune the site — I’m free to write. I never stopped, of course. The site has been building itself slowly but surely, with 5 to 20 new entries a week, depending on my schedule. These days I’ve been pretty busy, so I’m not writing as much. But I still try to get a post in each morning, as I sit drinking my coffee, listening to my parrot run through his repertoire of words, phrases, and weird sounds.

The Future of Blogging

Over the past few years, I’ve seen blogging change from its original purpose — a personal online journal — to a commercial phenomena. People are blogging for money, splashing advertisements all over their sites. Companies are starting blogs to advertise their own products and services.

Although I will be the first to admit that I talk about my books and articles and flying services on this site, those topics are not my primary focus. They’re part of my life and, like most of my life, they become blogging topics. But I just can’t bring myself to splash all those Google ads all over my sites. I’m not in this for the money. The little ads that appear at the bottom of some pages on my sites are just my attempt to raise cash to pay for this blogging habit of mine. (Please feel free to click one or two on every visit. ;-) )

But it saddens me that blogging has become so commercialized. That some bloggers are using this form of communication solely to gain wealth and fame — or try to. That some bloggers are irresponsibly spreading inaccurate information in an attempt to sway public opinion. That the media is spreading falsehoods by quoting blogs as news sources. That some blogs (like some podcasts) are simply another form of advertising to sell products and services in a world that’s already so full of advertising that it invades every part of our lives.

I don’t know what the future of blogging will bring. But I do know the future of my blogging activities: the same as the past.

I blog because I like to blog. I need to blog. And whether my words are appreciated or scorned, I’ll just keep blogging.

How to Wash a Helicopter

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It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

I washed my helicopter today. It isn’t the first time I’ve done the job and it won’t be the last. I don’t like doing it — it rates right up there with washing Alex the Bird’s cage. But it has to be done periodically to keep it looking nice for the folks who spend big money to fly in it.

Take a moment to consider the task. The helicopter is about 32 feet long from the front of its cockpit to the end of its tail. (Or 38-1/2 feet, if you include the main rotor blades, lined up front and back.) It’s twelve feet tall, from the bottom of its skids to the main rotor hub. The surfaces are painted aluminum and Fiberglas and Plexiglas. Few of the surfaces are flat.

Over the past two years, I’ve developed a technique for washing the helicopter. I start by pulling it all the way out of my hangar so it’s parked in front, on its ground handling equipment. I get a bucket of warm (or hot) water from the airport terminal (I don’t have hot water in my hangar) and add some car wash liquid detergent. I like Rain Dance, but I had some other “spot-free” stuff that I used today. I make it all sudsy with the hose. Then, after making sure all the doors and vents are closed, I get down to business.

The first task is spraying down the tail section, from the end of the main part of the body to the tail rotor. I use a spray nozzle on a hose. Power washers are not allowed and some people think you shouldn’t use a hose spray nozzle either. My response: how are you supposed to rinse it off?

Once it’s wet, I start at the very end and work my way forward with a car wash sponge and the warm soapy water. It’s the kind of sponge that’s spongy on one side and a bit rougher on the other. I use the rough end on the leading edges of the horizontal and vertical stabilizers and the tail rotor blades to remove the dead bugs that have accumulated there. They usually come right off with a little elbow grease. I need to climb a ladder to get the top of the vertical stablizer. I use an 8-foot ladder that I keep in my hangar for preflighting the main rotor hub. While I’m doing this, I’m checking all the screws and rivets and the tail rotor’s pitch change links, looking for weird stuff that I might miss on a preflight.

Then I rinse where I washed and rewet the forward part of the tail cone. I do a lot of rinsing. Unfortunately, unless I wash the helicopter an hour or two before sunset, I have to wash it in the sun. The Arizona sun likes to dry things very quickly. That’s not a good thing, because the water has a lot of minerals in it and it tends to spot when it dries, no matter what kind of car wash detergent you’re using. So I keep it wet until I can get it out of the sun.

I continue washing and rinsing and checking screws and rivets, moving forward on either side of the tailcone until it’s all done. I make sure I wash off the strobe light and antennas back there, too. Then I move the helicopter back into the hangar a bit so the part I just washed and rinsed numerous times is now in the shade and the rest of the helicopter is still outside.

Now I’m up to what I call the R44 butt. It’s a panel that covers the rear end of the fan scroll at the back of the engine compartment. It gets coated with a white, kind of greasy film. Car wash soap cannot remove it. So I get out what I call R44 Butt Cleaner. It comes in an orange spray bottle. I spray it all over that panel, as well as at the bottom of the tailcone near it, which also gets that nasty film. I spray so everything’s coated. Then I get out a shop rag and wipe the film right off. This stuff works great and I’m thinking of repackaging it and selling it to R44 owners as a specialized R44 product at three times what I paid for it.

Although the panel is all shiny when I’m done, that’s not good enough. I want to wash off every trace of whatever that junk is. So I spray it down and continue with my wash, rinse, wash, rinse routine.

Next are the skid pants. That’s not what they’re really called, but it’s what I call them. The skids are the long black things that make contact with the ground when the helicopter isn’t flying. There are four legs that attach the rest of the helicopter to the two skids. Each leg has an aluminum fairing. That’s what I call skid pants. Their front, rounded sides get full of dried bugs, which I usually scrub off with warm soapy water and the rough side of the sponge. Today I used bug and tar remover with a brush.

I do the back end of the body next, along with the back windows. They’re “bubble” windows that kind of bulge out so passengers can stick their heads out a bit and look in all directions. I use the soft side of the sponge; they don’t usually get very dirty.

Washing a HelicopterNext is the mast, which has a cowling over it. The front, rounded side of the cowling is completely covered with baked on, squished on bugs. It’s bad, mostly because it’s so darn high off the ground that I need a ladder to clean it so I only clean it when I wash the whole helicopter. I used bug and tar remover with a brush on it today. Not a good solution, but it did work. I have to move the ladder and climb up either side of the helicopter to wash it all properly. Then it’s rinse, rinse, rinse and move the whole thing back a bit more into the hangar.

The front bubble comes next. It’s usually pretty clean — after all, it is the window I look through when I fly, so I wash it before just about every flight. The area under it — including the painted area around the landing lights — is another story. The bugs are really stuck there. On a whim, I decided to try the R44 Butt Cleaner. Would you believe it worked? No scrubbing required, either. Of course, I still had to wash that junk off, so I did double duty. But it is the cleanest it’s been in a while.

After a good rinse, I move the whole helicopter back into the hangar and begin the drying cycle. I use towels. I have a bunch of towels that are pink because I consistently wash them with red shop rags. They’re my helicopter and car wash towels. I use them to dry the whole helicopter, from the bubble back. The tailcone is usually just about dry by the time I get back there, but I dry it with a wet towel anyway, just to prevent the spots from setting in.

No, I don’t wash the main rotor blades. They’re drooping about 11-1/2 feet off the ground and are very difficult to reach to wash properly. I’d have to climb to the second to the last step on the ladder, which I’d have to reposition four times for each blade. It’s a ton of work and I get very wet, with soapy water running down my arms as I reach up. And I simply can’t deal with the ladder thing.

It’s kind of funny, because I had a perfect technique for washing the blades on my old R22. Those blades weren’t nearly as high up. I’d drive to the airport in Mike’s pickup truck and back it up, perpendicular to the helicopter, aligned with the mast. Then I’d turn the blades so one of them was lined up right over the bed of the pickup. I’d climb up in the bed of the pickup with my bucket and sponge and wash the blade, top and bottom, scraping all the dead bugs off the leading edge. Then I’d climb down, spray the blade to rinse it, and rotate the blades a half turn so the other blade was over the bed of the truck and repeat the process. Another wash and rinse cycle and I was done. One time, I even waxed them.

Unfortunately, the R44 blades are so high off the ground that I’d need a ladder inside the bed of the pickup to use the same method. And that’s not something I’m ready to do. So they go unwashed until their 100 hour or annual inspection. The guys who do the maintenance wash and detail the whole helicopter for me, including the blades.

The was job takes a good hour. It goes faster with help — one person can rinse while the other washes and it gets done very quickly. Then it’s usually still wet when we dry it off.

If I have time and it isn’t too hot, I use some spray wax to finish it off. It’s sold as RV cleaner/wax and it does a nice job, as long as you use it in the shade. It dries too quickly in the sun. I don’t usually do the whole helicopter. It takes too long. Instead, I start with the painted surfaces in the front and work my way back. I usually run out of steam before I get to the tailcone.

I didn’t wax it today. I ran out of time and had to get it out on the ramp for a flight. It sure looked good out in the sun, all clean and shiny.

Although I don’t like to wash the helicopter — primarily because it’s so much work and I always wind up getting dirty and wet — I’m glad I do it. It gives me an opportunity to look over the entire ship closely. I once found a loose screw on the mast cowling and have never forgotten it. Now I check every screw, every rivet. There hasn’t been a loose screw since, but if there is, I’ll find it.

Podcast Stuff

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Maria Speaks Episode 31: Podcast Stuff.

This episode marks my return to Maria Speaks after a two-month break. It covers my change in podcasting technique, a new video podcast I just created for Flying M Air, and the podcasts I subscribe to.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Maria Langer. Welcome to Episode 31 of Maria Speaks: Podcast Stuff.

I just spent the past three hours redoing the Maria Speaks podcast. I used to publish it with Blogger and FeedBurner. Now, since my personal Web site is blog-based using WordPress, I cut Blogger out of the picture. It took me three hours to create or modify blog entries to embed my thirty existing podcast entries on this site. Well, twenty-nine. One of them covered an eBook I no longer distribute, so it didn’t link to it.

I developed this new method of podcasting — new to me, I should say — to reduce the amount of work required to publish a podcast and keep all podcast information together. I used to use a WordPress plugin called podPress, but I removed all references to it and disabled it today. Keep it simple — that’s what I decided. And the technique I worked out is relatively simple, utilizing an existing WordPress blog and FeedBurner. I wrote about it in an article to be published soon by Informit.com. When it comes out, I’ll link to it on the Aritcles page of my Web site and create a podcast based on its content.

For some reason, my “Maria Speaks” podcast has more subscribers than ever. That makes me wonder, since I haven’t released a podcast episode since September, and that episode was a bit more commercial than I like. This time last year, I was releasing one or two episodes per week. I ran out of steam last December and have been releasing them far less frequently. Still, my subscriber numbers have been climbing steadily. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it did convince me to release more content. The way I see it, when all these new subscribers start getting the new content, they’ll either like it and stick around or not like it and leave.

In the meantime, I started a new video podcast in October for my helicopter charter company, Flying M Air. I have literally thousands of photographs taken throughout the southwest, in places I fly to. I also have photos taken by my husband and by professional photographer and Bigfoot Hunter, Richard Noll.

Rick accompanied me on a test run of Flying M Air’s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure. The deal we struck was that in return for all all-expense paid trip, he’d let me share copyright on all the video and still images he took. While he has the ability to sell these images as stock photos or use them in other projects, I have the ability to use them in marketing material to help sell the excursions and in articles I plan to write for publication about the trip. It was a win-win deal. Richard took lots of pictures from the air, which is something I simply can’t do while I’m flying. He also took video images with something a few clicks better than the little Canon digital video cameras I have. I’m still going through the over 1,000 still images and 3 to 4 hours of video he left on my MacBook Pro’s hard disk before departing back to the Seattle area.

I decided to turn my library of photos into video brochures for Flying M Air’s tours, charters, and excursions. The result is “Come Fly With Us!” (subscribe), which currently has three episodes. Another episode will be released Monday. (That’s one of the good things about my new podcast publishing technique; I can schedule a publication date and time. This makes it possible to record several podcast episodes at once and release them periodically over time.)

Part of the learning experience for creating this new podcast was finding legal music to play while the images were showing. I wasted a lot of time looking. Some sites promoting “royalty-free” music for podcasts required that you buy the songs to use them. That wouldn’t have been so bad if the songs were sold at iTunes prices or even a few bucks, but they were asking for $25 or $39 dollars per song. I use each song on just one video podcast episode and plan to release new titles once a week until I run out of material. That music was simply over my budget.

The much hyped GarageBand.com promised royalty-free, free downloads music. But the vast majority of artists didn’t allow free downloads of their songs. And since I was looking for relatively mellow instrumentals — you know, mood music — I had trouble finding what I wanted there in the first place.

I finally wound up on MagnaTune.com. I heard about it during an interview with the site’s founder, John Buckman, that Miraz had referred me to. MagnaTune predates iTunes by about two weeks. Although it has a limited number of artists on board, it offers very reasonable licensing of its music for podcast use. I’ve been getting tunes for my “Come Fly with Us!” podcasts from MagnaTunes since then and giving credit to the artists at the end of each video. I hope they sell some music.

Speaking of music, if you’ve been listening to Maria Speaks for a while now, you may have noticed that I changed the “theme song” for this podcast. The reason: I had a one-year licensing agreement with FreePlay Music for the old tune, Floater. Last year, when I bought that license, it cost $25/year, which I thought was reasonable. When I went to renew, the price had gone up to $100/year. I guess they decided to cash in when podcasting took off. That’s above my budget for a free podcast that doesn’t even earn any advertising revenue, so I decided to find a new tune. The new tune is is a segment from a nameless bit that I got off a public domain music CD I acquired back in 1996. I spent about an hour yesterday going through the one thousand plus songs on that CD set to pick this one. I’m not sure how much I really like it, but I do need something for my opening and closing credits.

The main topic of this podcast episode was supposed to be a quick discussion of some of the podcasts I listen to regularly. So let me dive into that for a few minutes.

I want to start off by telling you what I don’t listen to. I don’t like podcasts that mix discussion and “Garage Band” music. For example, I used to listen to a podcast about words hosted by two guys who seemed to guess more about word origins than actually research them. They’d pick few words or phrases and do a 40-minute podcast about them. The way they’d stretch out that podcast is by inserting a few Garage Band songs into it. Trouble was, their taste in music was nothing like mine, so I found myself having to fast forward through the music filler to get to the discussion meat. Fast forwarding is not always easy when you’re listening on an iPod and driving in traffic. When I realized that the content I was interested in wasn’t that good to begin with, I dropped the podcast. Ditto for the writing podcast some woman was doing. I wasn’t listening to hear music. I was listening to hear content. If the content was music related, the music would make sense. But it wasn’t and it didn’t.

In general, I don’t listen to music podcasts at all. Finding new music is low on my priority list. So if you you think you might find some tips for new and exciting music podcasts here, you will be disappointed.

What I do like listening to is podcasts that can enlighten me, teach me new things, or make me laugh with intelligent humor. I listen to podcasts primarily when I’m driving or flying, although I do have a i-Fusion speaker thing that makes it easy to listen when I’m working in the kitchen, making dinner or tidying up. So if I can be trapped in a place doing a relatively mindless thing and listen to something that’ll expand my horizons or make me laugh, I’m pretty happy.

That said, here’s a brief summary of some of the podcasts I listen to. You can find links to these podcasts on the transcript for this podcast. Go to www.aneclecticmind.com and click the Podcast link in the navigation bar to find it.

First on the list are a handful National Public Radio (or NPR) podcasts. There are 355 of these podcasts and I’ve tried at least 20 of them. I listen to five of them regularly.

  • NPR: Story of the Day is a daily selection of a story from NPR’s programming. These stories are wide-ranging in topics: business, war, travel, entertainment — you name it.
  • NPR: Business Story of the Day is a daily selection of a business story from NPR’s programming. Stories cover anything business related, from Silicon Valley news bits to global oil production information and lots of stuff in between. It keeps me informed about the business world.
  • NPR: Satire from the Unger Report is a weekly podcast of satire by Brian Unger. It’ll make you laugh — and think.
  • NPR: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! is a weekly radio quiz show about the news. It has a panel of three celebrities (no, not the kind in People magazine) and call-in contestants. The questions and answers lean toward the comical, so the show is extremely entertaining.
  • NPR: Sunday Puzzle is a weekly podcast of word games with an NPR host, Will Shortz (of the New York Times), and a telephone contestant.

I’ve tried other NPR podcasts, but eventually lost interest in them. And as I prepared this list, I noticed a bunch of new ones to try out. So I might report on some additional podcasts from NPR in the future.

I also listen to American Public Media (APM) Future Tense. It’s a great podcast with short episodes about technology topics.

I listen to three PBS podcasts:

  • American Experience is a podcast with short episodes about historical topics. Recent episodes included the Gold Rush and New York.
  • NOVA is a podcast of brief stories from the NOVA science television show.
  • NOW is a podcast of rather lengthy stories form the NOW news television show. Sometimes the stories interest me and I listen to them. Other times, the stories don’t interest me and I just delete them.

I also watch a NOVA video podcast, which I find excellent. It combines science information with video and still images in a 2 to 3 minute podcast. I like some episodes so much that I save them as movies on my iPod so I can show them to others.

Speaking of video podcasts, I also subscribe to a number of others:

  • GARY-PAUL TV is a video podcast of weird stuff published by Gary-Paul Prince of Peachpit Press. My favorite episode, which I’ve saved as a movie for future viewing, is “Drinking and Driving Texas Style.”
  • Comedy Central: Stand-Up is a video podcast of stand up comedy segments. I only like about half of these, but the ones I like arae really good, so I keep checking in.
  • National Geographic Video Shorts are short video segments from National Geographic television shows.

I also used to enjoy a video podcast called CockpitCast, which showed video out the front window of various commuter jets as they landed at airports in western U.S. cities, but there hasn’t been a new release in a long time, so I don’t know if the pilots are still doing it.

Another aviation podcast I enjoy is Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase. Betty is a flight attendant who loves to travel. She brings along her tape recorded and gets stories from other flight attendants, pilots, and people at the places she flies to. The stories are great but the audio quality is pretty bad sometimes. Still, I think it’s worth a listen. My favorite story? The one where a passenger who died of natural causes during a flight was not declared dead until after the flight was more than halfway to its destination.

For tech news and info, I’ve been trying two Wired magazine podcasts:

  • Wired Magazine is a podcast of short pieces from Wired magazine columns.
  • Wired News is a podcast of short news stories from Wired magazine.

I also subscribe to Slate magazine‘s Daily podcast, which includes interviews about Slate’s online pieces as well as audio versions of some of Slate’s online pieces. It gives me a chance to “read” Slate without having to visit the site. Of course, I only get a small portion of the thoughtful gems available online. I used to subscribe to Slate’s Explainer podcast, but have given it up because the topics weren’t all that interesting to me. You might like them, though, so check them and out see for yourself.

I subscribe to the WordPress podcast because of my interest in WordPress software. I admit that I’ve downloaded all episodes and have listened to just three of them. I think the podcast is good, but I have to be in the right frame of mind to listen to them.

The same goes for the Podcasting Underground podcast. Good, informative stuff, but I have to be in the mood to listen to information about podcasting.

For politics, I listen to a pair of real left-wingers. Sorry, but I am not a conservative at all, neo or otherwise.

  • Real Time with Bill Maher is an hour-long podcast of Maher’s HBO television series. He does an interview and then discusses one or more current political topics with a panel of three that usually includes one celebrity entertainer and one political figure. His panels always include someone sitting on the right, so both sides are represented. While I don’t agree with everything I hear, I like to hear the various viewpoints on current political topics. New Rules is a much shorter podcast that includes just the New Rules he lists at the end of his show.
  • MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a collection of Olbermann segments from his MSNBC Countdown television show. Olbermann is a Bush basher — do doubt about it — and it amazes me that he says some of the things he says. It’s a real example of the First Amendment in action — if Olbermann said these kinds of things just once in a place like North Korea or Iran or Iraq under Saddam Hussein, he would have been shot dead for treason. But in our country, we’re allowed to voice all kinds of opinions. Olbermann’s aren’t the kind that’ll ever get on Fox News. My favorite bit? The count of times our president said “Stay the course” after Tony Snow told the press he’d only said it eight times. Classic reporting.

I also started listening to Penn Jillette’s weekday radio show on FreeFM, PennRadio. Penn Jillette is the big, fast-talking guy from the magic duo of Penn and Teller. An atheist (his Nevada license plate is the word “ATHEIST”) and libertarian, he definitely has some non-standard views of politics. But he also covers non-political topics. I don’t enjoy all of Penn’s podcast episodes — I probably delete about half of them without listening to more than a few minutes — but I like enough of them to keep my subscription. One of my favorite episodes was his interview of Phyllis Diller (who I didn’t even know was still alive). Ms. Diller had some fascinating stories to tell and I was especially touched by Penn’s patience when her memory failed her more than once during the interview.

And finally, one of the first podcasts I ever subscribed to, podictionary. This daily podcast, with 2 to 5 minute episodes, discusses the origin of a word or phrase. A weekly digest version is also available. Many, many thanks to Charles Hodgson for his dedication to the subject of word history.

Now you know what I’m listening to. What are you listening to? Share your comments and suggestions with me and other listeners by posting your comments on the transcript for this episode. Go to www.aneclecticmind.com, click the Podcasts link in the navigation bar, and scroll down until you find the “Episode 31: Podcast Stuff” entry. Or just use the Search box to search for the number 31. Then use the Comments link at the bottom of the entry to read other people’s comments and add your own.

And as always, thanks for listening. More later.