The Last One on the Block

You would think that as someone who has an advanced degree in a fairly technical field (acoustical engineering) and who works for a technology company (a loudspeaker manufacturer) that I would be on the bleeding edge of what is hot technology wise. You would be wrong...

MBH, now he is out there on the ragged edge. If it is new and still in alpha testing stages he will be the first person I know to have it loaded onto his computer, in his pocket, strapped to his backpack, or connected to something. He will then proceed to get to the bottom of what makes it whirl, whiz, and sometimes wheeze. Take podcasting. As you may remember, MBH recently became the proud owner of a new, shiny Ipod Nano. Within hours of owning his new toy, he had downloaded not only music but his first podcast. For weeks now, he has been listening to a biography of Alexander Hamilton, enjoying "NerdTV", and listening to Michael Feldman explain the latest headlines in a way only he can. All while walking to work and on the T! He has been after me to get "with the programme". What does he mean! I would still be running my Powerbook G3 on OS7.6 if I had my way! But, last night, at 10:30pm, I finally caved in and decided to see or rather hear what all the fuss was about. So, with our day settling down, I set about to download my first podcast, the NPR weekly food podcast.

One of the reasons I'm reluctant to be on the cutting edge with so many things is upgrading is always a hassle. Of course, this had to be no different. MBH directed me to find the "podcast tab" under advanced in my Itunes. "What podcast tab?", I asked. "The one right....What version of Itunes are you running pray tell?" "I don't know, what ever came with my Ipod", I replied. SIGH was all MBH could muster. He was ready to turn out the lights and I had decided that I couldn't wait until morning to leap forward not one, not two, but THREE versions of Itunes. After that little task and three restarts on my Dell laptop, I was ready to download my podcast. Or so I thought. I connected my trusty 20Gig Ipod to my laptop and up popped the window informing me a firmware upgrade was available for my Ipod. "Nothing is ever easy! You know, it will be my luck, that when I do this, all my music will be gone", I whined. "What type of voodoo do you practice woman. You sure you have an engineering degree because I have never met anyone who is so afraid of upgrading stuff as you are", MBH said with an exasperated tone. "Do you want me to do it?" he asked tentatively; half afraid I would say yes. "No, because you know if this upgrade DOES blow away all my music I'll be pissed and that wouldn't be fair. Besides, I need to know how to do this". About 15 minutes later, I had a nice new updated Itunes AND Ipod and I was all set to download my first podcast. MBH fell asleep as I happily searched npr.org, pbs.org, Itunes, and podcastalley.com looking for food and travel podcasts. I downloaded anything and everything that struck my fancy. I was out of control and loving it. At about 2am and I had over 6 hours of podcasts on my Ipod.

Only problem was, I was now too tired to listen to anything I had downloaded. I'll let you know how it all turns out as I'm planning on listening while I bake holiday cookies and candies later today. Typical me, last kid on the block...