Little girls like to pretend that they're getting married. Here a few pictures where Anna is dressed up as the bride. The other day the girls were visiting their friend Lena. Lena had recently been a flower girl at a wedding. Christine was able to take these nice pictures of the girls with Lena. As the father of two little girls, I do hope that the "real" wedding days for the two of them are several years away!
Interesting...
I decided to add a section to the blog where I write about various things of interest. While I have done some of this lately, I thought that I would add this to the blog.
Podcasts
A few months ago I discovered podcasts. While podcasts orgininated from their use of ipods (digital music players produced from Apple). Since I didn't have an ipod, I had thought that their would be a problem playing the files on my mp3 player. I found Podcast Alley and realized that most podcasts are in in mp3 format, so they can be played on your computer, mp3 player, or in your car (if your radio is so equiped). Podcasts are webcasts where some kind of content (music or otherwise) is stored and available for download. Some of the more common file formats are mp3, acc , wma, ogg.
How do you find podcasts? You can search online for podcasts but you might want to start with a podcast directory site (such as Podcast Alley). You could also search at Del.icio.us and see what other people have bookmarked for podcasts. At Podcast Alley they have categories including music, history, education, travel, family & kids, technology, and several others. On their homepage you'll see their top ten podcasts for the month. These are the podcasts that have the highest vote count for the current month. If you "Pick a Podcast Genre:" or "Search for a Podcast:" (both are found in the upper left-hand corner of the homepage) you'll then find a listing of podcasts that meet your selection criteria. These are then ranked by popularity. If you click on one of the listings it will expand and you'll see a description of the podcast. If you then click on details it will bring you to where they keep that particular show within their site. From here you'll see all the shows that they have on their servers that are available to for download. Also closer to the top of this page you'll have the ability to go to the webpage of the podcaster that posted the podcast.
It is the content that is the interesting part. As I'm sure many of you have heard, content is king. At Podcast Alley I found shows on the Beatles, history, politics, celtic music, science fiction, vintage radio shows, and a whole host of other topics. Bertone Beatle Bonanza is a show done by a dj in Florida on the Beatles. His podcasts are kept here and you can find his blog here. I started listening to Dan Carlin and his Hardcore History and Common Sense. Hardcore History is done about once a month and he discusses people and events in history, it is different than you remember history in high school. Common Sense is Dan Carlin's show on American politics, he is politically independent and presents things differently then you might expect to hear from the right and the left. I've been very impressed with Celtic Folk Podcast. I had thought that the show wasn't being made any longer only to discover that they just hadn't been updating their shows on Podcast Alley. This show is done by a Scotsman living in Kentucky. He does a show about celtic music, so you hear variations of the fiddle, bagpipes and so on. In the science fiction area I have found shows about Star Trek and Star Wars. From the Trek area I enjoy Look At His Butt, Make It So, and the Jefferies Tube. Look at his butt is done by two female fans from San Francisco with some occassional adult themes that might not be appropriate for young listeners they're often funny and infomative. Make It So is done by some guys in the UK, they do some of the discussions that you would expect from a group of Trekkers. The Jefferies Tube is also an interessting Trek podcast. Before television grew in popularity, there used to be radio dramas that the whole family would listen to. Some of the programs that were broadcast included Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, the Shadow, the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger, the Adventures of Superman, Fiber McGee and Molly, just to name a few. Botar's Old Time Radio has several podcasts of these vintage programs. Harry Potter has several podcasts dedicated to all things Potter. Christine has been listening to Harry Potter Prognostications (their blog is here) in anticipation of latest movie and the last book.
Through aggregators or by subscribing it is possible to be notified when there is a new episode of one of your favorite podcasts. I have dabbled a little bit in this but haven't mastered it yet. So I hope that you have a look into the work of podcasts. Who knows maybe you might even find that you'd like to try to make one yourself!
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