Let's Help Hurricane Victims

I am not alone in the profound sympathy we feel for those whose lives have been forever changed by Hurricane Katrina.

I urge all who read this to seriously consider what you personally can do to help. Go to the American Red Cross website and donate money. You can also find out about where you can go to donate blood.

Another website you can head over to is the Salvation Army.

Alternatively, you can call 1-800-HELPNOW.

Finally, pray.

This is a tremendous opportunity for us to unite for a common good.

WWLTV News Updates for New Orleans, Louisiana

Frequent updates on what's going on in the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.

WWLTV.com | News for New Orleans, Louisiana | Local News

JIMM Podcast 7 - Driving Home - 20050830

Episode 7 of Journey Inside My Mind takes you on the way home with me, southbound on Interstate 75; for the first 30 minutes of the drive anyway. Like episode 6, I did this live, in one take, after lining up the audio tracks beforehand.

Here's what happened:

• Driving through the remnants of Hurricane Katrina
• James Lileks - Que Sarod Sarod
• NanaCast (episode 5) - more to come soon
• James Lileks's Bleatophany - audio files, incl. Star Trek mixes
• Headrush - Less Than Beautiful
• Balancing podcasting with other responsibilities in life; how to make producing one in the least amount of time as possible - am I using the best software?
• Great features of the Podsafe Music Network
• Looking forward to working from home the next two days
• Mike Chappelear - What Is This Moment?
• Plans for a future JazzCast
• Connectivity issues
• Praise for OurMedia.org and archive.org
• Adam Curry's show organization software
• Journey Inside My Mind archives - begin at January 2002
• Jessie Commisso - Run Away With Me
• Geocities website - Dan's Domain

As always thanks go out to the folks who help make this possible:

• Audacity
• 
• OurMedia.org and their partnership with the Internet Archive
• Anyone else I may have left out

Please leave me a comment (guidepost) or send me an e-mail to let me know what you think!

JIMM Podcast 6 - Humorous Clips - 20050829

Mood: pleasant
Listening to: my sixth official podcast

I decided to do something different in episode 6. I did this show in one take after lining up all the other sound tracks. It wound up being around 14 minutes long.

Here's the breakdown of the show:

• "Journey Inside My Mind" Theme
• PSA - "National Baked Bean Month"
• James Lileks - "Yeagh" (the Howard Dean sound bite from the 2004 presidential campaign)
• Commercial "Elvis's Last Phone Conversation"
• PSA - "Champagne"
• Matthew Ebel - "Trees"
• Commercial - "PA Announcer Degree"

Special thanks to James Lileks for his permission to use "Yeagh" - the Howard Dean mix - it's still funny one year later. He's done some other sound files that I look forward to including in future shows.

PSAa and commercials came from I Love Wavs.

As usual thanks go out to the folks who help make this possible:

• Audacity
• 
• OurMedia.org and their partnership with the Internet Archive
• Anyone else I may have left out

Please leave me a comment (guidepost) or send me an e-mail to let me know what you think!

JIMM Podcast 5 - 20050827 - NanaCast

Mood: sleepy
Listening to: my fifth official podcast

Episode 5 of Journey Inside My Mind is the first of what I'm going to call "NanaCasts". In this episode, my daughter Keisha and I interview her Nana, aka my Mom about what it's like living near San Francisco, California. Along the way we hear some great music from the .

Here's a breakdown of the show:

1. Teaser (0:00-0:14)
2. Theme (0:14-1:47)
3. Intro/1st Segment (1:47-6:21)
4. Stingray - "Last Night" (6:21-10:41)
5. 2nd Segment (10:41-13:59)
6. De La Vega - "Breathe" (13:59-19:30)
7. 3rd Segment (19:30-24:17)
8. Hotrod Cadets - "Not the Only One" (24:17-27:51)
9. Show wrap-up (27:51:28:08)

As usual thanks go out to the folks who help make this possible:

• Audacity
• 
• OurMedia.org and their partnership with the Internet Archive

Please leave me a comment (guidepost) or send me an e-mail to let me know what you think!

FACTOID: My Mom is the Official Mom of Journey Inside My Mind!

So Much Audio, So Little Time

This morning, Keisha and I talked with my Mom, aka Nana, on the phone, which we hadn't done in quite some time. I recorded almost 60 minutes of our conversation for use in future podcasts. I won't expect, however, someone who listens to the podcast to listen 60 minutes of our conversation in one sitting.

So I'm breaking it up into smaller segments and into multiple podcasts that you'll be able to check out soon.

In fact, you can look for the first "Nanacast" sometime early tomorrow morning.

JIMM Podcast 4-Romantic Movements

Mood: glad
Listening to: my fourth official podcast

The topic for episode 4 of the Journey Inside My Mind podcast is Romantic Movements, an original collection of poems I wrote back in high school. But these do not comprise the majority of this podcast. Nope, most of it is original music from the PodSafe Music Network.

Like movements of a classical music piece, so are the chapters comprising this podcast. Check out the artists and other links related to today's show:

Show Segments:

• The Reverse Engineers - Mercury in Retrograde. That song has a definite Police/Rush/Peter Murphy flavor.
• Chapter 1 - Confession
• Todd Martin - She Knows
• Chapter 2 - Pain
• Common Ground - Take on the World
• Chapter 3 - Passion?
• Julie Gribble - Little Bit Lonely
• Chapter 4 - Worship?
• Slackstring - Stranded
• Chapter 5 - Fear
• De La Vega - Someone Else
• Chapter 6 - Reunion
• Jennifer Helane - Trying
• Chapter 7 - Permission

A special note about the "Permission" segment:

• Ambient sound samples provided for free by F7 sound and vision
• 30-second sample from the introduction of "On the First Day" by Marriott Jazz Quartet - gotta play this in its entirety for a future podcast!
• Tenor sax sample provided courtesy of: "contemplatin G Maj 16beat 90.wav" by simondsouza

By the way, here's the link in case you want to read "Romantic Movements" while you're listening:Streams of Consciousness: Romantic Movements.

As usual thanks go out to the folks who help make this possible:

• Audacity
• 
• OurMedia.org and their partnership with the Internet Archive

Please leave me a comment (guidepost) or send me an e-mail to let me know what you think!

8 Sept 2005 Update: The Reverse Engineers tell the Story Behind the Song - Mercury in Retrograde in their podcast.

How to Know When You're Driving Too Fast

This picture came in the e-mail today:

JIMM Podcast 3 - 20050823

Mood: excited
Listening to: my third official podcast

I'm feeling really tired. I've been spending so much time consumed with these podcasting episodes that I haven't been getting enough sleep. It's hard to sleep when I'm so fired up about this new phenomenon.

The topic for episode 3 of the Journey Inside My Mind podcast presented itself naturally this afternoon:

In this back-to-school episode, I interview my wife Jennie and my daughter Keisha about how things have been going on the day before Keisha starts first grade. You could say that Keisha is excited, but you'll want to hear it in her voice.

Along the way, we listen to some more music, chosen for this special occasion from the Podsafe Music Network:

• Play Time Is Over by A Step Behind and
• Wake Up by the Butterfly Catchers

As usual thanks go out to the folks who help make this possible:

• Audacity
• The Podsafe Music Network
• OurMedia.org and their partnership with the Internet Archive

Please leave me a comment (guidepost) or send me an e-mail to let me know what you think!

The Day Before Second Grade

Keisha and I went out for lunch together this afternoon, and I had a chance to find out what she thinks about the upcoming school year:

Journey Inside My Mind Podcast #2

Mood: humorous
Listening to: my second official podcast

I'm slowly getting better with this podcasting thing. I have just uploaded the second "official" podcast of Journey Inside My Mind - this time it's 20 minutes long (wanted to play that additional song):

I've updated the theme to include some aptly-placed sound bites. In this podcast

• I share some jokes I've received via e-mail;
• We listen to a great song by Andy Zipf entitled "Lie to Yourself";
• There's a special message about this blog (echoed from an earlier audio post);
• I relate a story that allegedly happened to a drunk marine who decided he wanted to eat whether the restaurant was closed or not*; and
• We get to hear the podcasting anthem "On a Podcast" by Cruisebox, the "squeaky clean version"

Thanks again to the folks who helped make this possible:

• Audacity
• The Podsafe Music Network
• OurMedia.org and their partnership with the Internet Archive

Please leave me a comment (guidepost) or send me an e-mail to let me know what you think!

* By the way, here is the link to the post containing the Navy Summary of Mishaps

The Official Superblessed Blogger

I had wondered where Ganns had been. Apparently I haven't been searching hard enough.

Nice pics of him and his family in the header.

Something Exciting is Coming

If I dotted all the i's and crossed the t's, I should have the first official podcast of Journey Inside My Mind uploaded pretty soon.

Journey Inside My Mind Podcast #1

Mood: ecstatic
Listening to: my first official podcast

Folks, this must be what it feels like - on a much smaller level - to give birth. This is the first "official" podcast of Journey Inside My Mind - 10 minutes long! Sure, I've done audio posts here and there, but this one at least sounds more professional:

I've even got a theme! In this podcast

• I share a little bit about my blogging history, including other blogs I've spun off of this one
• We listen to a wonderful song by Jennifer Helane entitled "Nice"
• I describe some of the more unique aspects of Journey Inside My Mind; namely Guideposts, the Mooch List, and what it means to be an Official of this blog.

Now, for some props to those who helped make this episode possible:

• Audacity
• The Podsafe Music Network
• OurMedia.org and their partnership with the Internet Archive

Please leave me a comment (guidepost) or send me an e-mail to let me know what you think!

Interviewing Keisha - Part 4

In this last part of my on-the-road interview with Keisha, we arrive home, talking about checking in on a neighbor yesterday:

It's important, especially in severe weather, to look out for your neighbors. Yesterday the weather began really hot, sticky, and humid. Then it changed as the afternoon progressed. We wanted to check on her, since she is elderly and lives alone, to see if she's doing okay or needing anything:

Interviewing Keisha - Part 3

Continuing my interview with Keisha, as we're driving home from church, on Cross County Highway. A little bit of jesting about how she's going to spend her money, leading into a discussion about the weather today and yesterday's storms:

At the library Keisha, Jennie, and I were on the computers when lightning struck nearby, causing the power to go out momentarily. After we left the library, we drove to get some food and, upon arriving home, we saw that there was no power in our apartment complex. How we handled these circumstances and more in the audio post below:

Interviewing Keisha - Part 2

In part 2 of my interview with Keisha this afternoon, we're on Cross County Highway, we get the correct spellings of her baby dolls' names, among other things:

In addition, she shares about a commercial she saw on TV yesterday about My Scene dolls. I found out that there are 'earplugs' available for them. Some more about Keisha's money on this audio post, too:

Interviewing Keisha - Part 1

While driving home from church this afternoon, I decided to interview Keisha about some things. It took a series of posts:

In this first part, we talk about a clothing swap we had at church, Keisha picked out an outfit for one of her baby dolls. As it turns out, one of her dolls has exhibited some strange behavior:

Broken Things

In this audio post I read another original poem about dealing with perfectionism:

You can read the full text of this poem at Streams of Consciousness | Broken Things.

Rejoice in the Lord Always

As I mentioned in my previous audio post, I was up last night, playing with Audacity. I took a song out of our church songbook, cut a few tracks, mixed it together, and created the audio file, which I've tentatively stored on my GeoCities website:

I say tentative because I'm limited on free space over there, and I may need to remove it from that location in the future.

The song associated with this post is designed to be sung in a round, which you'll undoubtedly hear. It's one that we sometimes sing in the children's ministry.

A bit of warning: I'm not a professional singer; nor do I play one on TV. I've never auditioned for a reality show; nor do I intend to. I say that because, not only with the strain in my voice from being awake throughout the night, it just sounds off a bit. To be true, you'll hear that from the other songs I'll post in the next few days.

The fascinating thing for me about this is to hear myself singing different parts at the same time.

Let me know what you think!

I Have the Audacity!

In this audio post (I know - I guess Audioblogger is back up, huh?), I share about my overnight experiences/experiments with a program called Audacity:

Let's just say I didn't get much sleep. I'm definitely having an ADHD moment here with my new toy.

• Audioblogger
• Audacity

Insert Caption Here

Got this in an e-mail:

No Audioblogger, Some Workplace Humor, and a Taste for Fish

Get ready for the following:

• No Audioblogger
• Some Workplace Humor
• Feelin' Fishy

No Audioblogger

Audioblogger appears to be down. I haven't been able to call in for the past couple of days. When I've tried to go to ListenLab.com, I get no answer.

Some Workplace Humor

We have a new client coming on: Interior Building Systems, or something like that. Anyhow, the name gets shortened to IBS, which also happens to be the acronym for a digestive disorder.

Now whenever someone inquires about the company, specifically which individual is taking care of them, the question will be something like, "Who handles IBS?" or "Who has IBS?"

I've already forewarned that employee. Yuk Yuk.

This is not meant in any way to make fun of people who have IBS; I just found it ironic that the acronym of a company also stands for a medical condition.

Let the comments begin!

Feeling Fishy

Lately in our home we've been having a taste for fish. Last Sunday afternoon we were going to go to this place on Libery Street near Race Street (or is is Vine?) in Cincinnati to get some. Jennie and I went on a date about a month or so ago, and we went there. The place is called Alabama's. Superb fish. Yum.

We went there on Sunday only to find that the place was closed. Then Wednesday before our Midweek service at church, we stopped by Long John Silver's and got some fish. That was really good.

Last night I went back to the same Long John Silver's and got some more.

Now it's getting close to lunch time, and guess what I'm thinking about having for lunch?

Do You Remember Me?

In this audio post I read another original item I wrote in December 1993 entitled "Do You Remember Me?"

To read "Do You Remember Me?", head over to "Streams of Consciousness | Do You Remember Me?"

The Phone Rings

In this audio post we take a detour over to one of my other blogs and read and original poem:

To read the original poem entitled "The Phone Rings", head over to the corresponding post at Streams of Consciousness | The Phone Rings.

Encouraging News from Mom

My Mom, who, as a matter of fact happens to be the Official Mom of 'Journey Inside My Mind', recently received some good news. Check out what she has to say: Me, Myself, and I: SSD Decision

And Now for a Very Important Message

It's time I bring you this important message:

At the WonderPark

Mood:alert, somewhat
Listening to: crowd of people
Eating: mall food court food and a Venti Starbucks Cafe Mocha

This audio post also has the text directly below it:

I'm blogging from the WonderPark, which is inside a (formerly Forest Fair Mall). It reminds me of a place we used to go to in Dayton called Magic Castle. The big difference is that they have rides in here. Seriously. There's a bumper car area and an indoor roller coaster.

And then there's these two internet stations. The computer is a Compaq FP7317, and it looks like everything is in the "monitor". Pretty cool stuff.

After Keisha has ridden the roller coaster a couple of times, we're going to head upstairs to bigg's to get some kitty litter and, maybe, a blender. Both of those items are unrelated in their intended use. Thought you'd like to know that.

Jake's Enthusiasm

Taking our dog Jake out for a walk this afternoon prompted me to leave this audio post:

Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency - Lists

Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Lists

I've read several of these lists. They are just too funny!

Potato - JOKE ALERT!

Mood: fantastic
Listening to: coworkers on the phone
Reading: Marriage Dynamics class materials
Eating: Snickers Crunch candy bar, two cups of coffee, and a Moo Tube
Watching: Matchstick Men

Now for the joke:

Not long ago I met the waitress of my dreams.

About halfway through dinner I called the waitress over and said, "Ma'am, this potato is bad."

She nodded, picked up the potato and smacked it. Then she put it back on my plate and said, "Sir, if that potato causes any more trouble, you just let me know."

Attracting the Cat

In this audio post, I share about something Keisha did yesterday to try to get our cat to spend more time in her room:

Car and Driving

This audio post is the first part of catching up with my memory. You may recall that yesterday I listed some things I'd wanted to post about. Here are some recent thoughts on our car and driving:

If I Had My Own Pensieve...

Mood: a little sleepy
Listening to: my own thoughts
Reading: just finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Eating: chocolate cake a coworker brought in
Watching: Just Married with Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy

Some notes to myself for later blogging:

tired car
Friday driving delays
Winton Woods
Library incident
Guitar in class
Marriage seminar
Just Married
Half-Blood Prince