Back in Fort Collins one day later, I wanted to offer one last reflection about the Bonner Springs trip. Like I said a few posts back, the trip back home always seems longer than the trip there. It was largely due to the lost anticipation of the concert, along with the realization that the hassles of work, school and the "to-do" list are early awaiting our return.
This trip was no exception, and while we employed the same "Podcast" strategy to help pass the time, things didn’t work out as well as we could have hoped. Most notably, we ran out of content with 2+ hours of driving left. While we theoretically had enough content loaded in the playlist to last us the trip home, our impatience combined with our need to censor certain shows resulted in multiple skips.
Our original intention was to listen to completely new PodCasts, but we modified the plan to incorporate reliable favorites, mixed by the "Shuffle" option on the iPod. This produced our "return home" Podcast list:
Daily Breakfast #122
Urban Coffee #39 – STOPPED EARLY
Tips from the Top Floor – #127
Daily Breakfast #123
AirFerg – 5/28 – STOPPED EARLY
Daily Giz Wiz #73
ShashDot Review 5/31
Daily Source Code #395 – STOPPED EARLY
Manager Tools – 5/29
Cnet Buzz Out Loud #239
Mike Tech Show #68
Daily Source Code #396
The Word Nerds #64
Daily Giz Wiz #74
Boagworld Web Design Podcast #36 – STOPPED EARLY
Cnet Buzz Out Loud #238
Slashdot Review – 5/30
Daily Giz Wiz #72 – STOPPED EARLY
As I said, the "old faithful’s" delivered on quality content, but we we weren’t stingy on the "skip" button, and we used it where appropriate:
Urban Coffee – Sorry, but this was off-topic, crude and couldn’t hold our interest – skipped and removed from Juice.
AirFerg – It had it’s moments, but they were few and far between. We couldn’t understand the role of "Shelly" on the show. Did they drop her voice clips post-production, or is "Shelly" even real?
Daily Source Code – It was riding the fence with us all throughout the trip (which is why we skipped 395 and not 396). Contrary to constant praise from listeners on the show, Matt and I aren’t big fans of Adam’s wife, Patricia being on the show. She’s a nice person and all, but when she has the mic the show is suddenly about "nothing" (and not in the Seinfeld "nothing – the boring "nothing"). 396 was good because it was just Adam, and actually relevant for a change.
Boagworld Web Design Podcast – This Podcast is typically good, but the fluxuating volume levels on the PodCast made it impossible to listen to on our FM Transmitter. Rather than placing our finger on the volume knob, we hit "skip" instead.
Daily Giz Wiz – This is another fence-rider. The concept of the show is actually good, but the problem is that the hosts spend more time talking about anything but the daily "Giz". When a 14 minute show is 12 minutes longer than it needs to be, it’s not a bad sign. You guys talk every day, would it be too much to ask to not banter so much on-air?
At that point we virtually ran out of PodCasts. We had a few episodes of Keith and the Girl, but we bagged them, due to vulgarity fears. We also had a Comic Geek Speak X-men III review, but because Matt had not seen the movie we skipped it as well.
Overall we failed in our "Podcast-only" road-trip, but we gave a good solid effort. Plus I’ve picked a few new Podcasts from this trip that I’m excited to now subscribe to: MP3 Insider, Manager Tools, The Word Nerds, and Mike Tech Show.
Now to look forward to upcoming trips: Glenwood Springs (5 hour drive) next weekend, Orlando Florida in 10 days (but flying)…