A Commuter Rediscovers the Joys of Podcasts

According to Google Maps, my drive between home and office is 27.5 miles with an estimated elapsed time of 43 minutes. Estimated total in the month of September: 1155 miles and 30.1 hours.  In addition (according to my records), last month the little blue car also travelled 180.1 miles between buildings in the course of performing my job.  I'm sure that there are others who commute more, but that is still quite a bit of driving.

Growing tired of news, talk, music, and especially commercials I have recently been driven (pun intended, I guess) to break out the old iPod classic,

my old TransPOD FM radio tuner (designed specifically for the original iPod Shuffle),

 and the wonderful technology of audio podcasts.  I had been a heavy-duty podcast consumer for quite some time.  I had enjoyed it a great deal, but somehow I "fell away".

 It might have been the result of something as simple as loaning my mini-phono to mini-phono cable from my car to someone else in the family and it not getting returned promptly.  Even small things like that can interrupt the habit and get one back to listening to commercial radio.

There is indeed a "activation energy" that needs to be put into consuming podcasts: sync the iPod with the laptop, remember to bring the iPod to the car, and take the time to hook the iPod up to the audio system (yes, even when you are running late). Listening to the radio requires little to no activation energy--just turn one knob.

Nonetheless, in the words of Randy Quaid in the movie Independence Day (and again pretty recently according to this news story ) I say to those tech podcasts :

          " Hello, boys! I'm back! "

My favorite podcasts that feed my inner geek are from IT Conversations.   These episodes are recorded from various O'Reilly and other technology-related conferences that are held around the world.  Am also starting to listen to some of the TEDTalks podcasts.  I would likely never take the time to sit down and specifically listen to things like this, but it is pretty easy (and ultimately very enjoyable) to let my iPod help me pass the time while I'm driving.

No hotel, airline, and restaurant bills associated with this learning, either.  Free is good.  My only question now is whether or not I can put these items down in my professional development record.