With active kids, and my older kids spread out all over the country, I do a lot of traveling. I really dislike flying…not so much the actual part in the airplane, but all the crap that goes on at the airports before, in between, and after flights. Honestly, I have better things to do than stand around in lines waiting for somebody else to get their act together.
So, much of the traveling that I do is via car. This past weekend, we drove up to see my daughter Laura play in her final college home soccer game. She attends Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, IA. If you have a kid thinking about college, have them look into BVU. While it’s a small university (under 1,000 undergrad students), the amount of interaction with faculty, opportunity for out-of-classroom learning, and generally the awesome nature of this little gem of a university is out of this world.
I do know of what I speak, as we’ve had one daughter graduate from the University of Notre Dame (8,000 undergrad students), Laura’s twin sister is attending the University of Colorado – Boulder (almost 30,000 undergrads), and we have another daughter attending Maine Maritime Academy (just under 1,000 students). As you can tell, student body size was not an important factor in their college decisions. Nor was proximity to home. Not by a long shot.
Back to my point, we drove up to BVU early on Saturday morning. It’s a full 7 hours of driving, not counting any stops, so we were in the car for a while. I usually make the drive alone, but this drive I had three passengers on the way up there. Because of the early morning start, they slept the vast majority of the drive.
I’ve made this drive many, many times…enough that I could probably record the GPS’ cues of when to turn, what to watch for, etc. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the voice for it. Some people have faces for radio…I have a voice for silent movies. 🙂
The 14 hour round trip is pretty typical for me. It’s about 15.5 round trip to Boulder. We drove to Greensboro, NC for the USATF Junior Olympics this past summer and that was 38 hours of round trip driving. The drive to Notre Dame takes 24+ hours round trip.
As you can tell, I spend a lot of time behind the windshield.
Fortunately, I developed a habit a few years ago that really makes the drives go faster. Back in the old days of cassette tapes (kids, ask your parents…they’ll know what they are), I used to check out books on tape from the library. As time went by I started to listen to books on CD. Then books on my iPod.
But lately, I’ve upgraded to listening to podcasts. If you’ve never listened to a podcast, just think of it as a single topic radio show that you can listen to anytime. You don’t need an iPod to listen to podcasts, although that’s my preferred method. You just need some way to play back the digital sound files that comprise a podcast. You can play them on a computer or any MP3 player. You can even write them to CDs and play them in your CD player.
The universe of podcasts contains something for everybody. I really do mean everybody.
My interests are pretty varied. I spent several months listening to all the episodes of Pottercast. If you are a fan of the Harry Potter books or movies you ought to be familiar with this podcast. While I listened to many episodes while I was driving that summer, I also listened to them while I was mowing our 14 acres.
I spent months listening to the SQPN podcasts on a number of subjects. Because I have this habit of listening to the first podcast through the newest, I was able to hear the evolution of Father Roderick’s heavily Dutch-accented English evolve into his flawless, almost Midwestern-US accent that he has today.
I’ve listened to The Dave Ramsey show, Duct Tape Marketing, Kim Komando Live, MuggleCast (another Harry Potter podcast), Simple Life Habits, 48 Days by Dan Miller, Stars Wars podcasts like crazy, cooking podcasts, all sorts of fitness shows, even The Accidental Creative.
I’ve also listened to episode after episode on organizing, photography, yard work, and home repairs. Too bad the last one didn’t stick with me too well. I’m still kind of challenged in that area.
But the important thing is, I spend a lot of time in the car, and there is only so much music you can listen to. Don’t get me wrong, I love music. And if you think my taste is eclectic in podcasts, you would die looking at my iTunes. My kids die when the Polka music rolls out. Same with the Yodeling. I just don’t understand the problem.
So after the music fades and it’s time for something different, I start a podcast. Or several.
Right now I’m working my way through three podcasts The Audacity to Podcast, Smart Passive Income, and Beyond the ToDo List. If you’re into productivity stuff, the latter two are amazing. The first one is more about the business of podcasting and the nuts and bolts of that industry. I’m not podcasting yet, but you never know…
So why does this matter to you? Well, think about the time that you spend in the care, especially time that you spend alone. Anything more than a few minutes is worth examining. What if, every once in a while you did something to enhance your learning while you were driving. It doesn’t have to be hours and hours of driving through the dullest scenery on Earth (Western Kansas qualifies there). It could be a 15 or 30 minute trip somewhere, or even better a daily commute.
What if, instead of listening to 30 minutes of radio, 10 of which is filled with commercials for things you don’t want to buy, you listened to a podcast about one of your passions? There is so much you can learn about. So much fun stuff.
Podcasts have a whole bunch of cool attributes. You can pause them and not miss anything. You can scroll back if you missed something. There are virtually no commercials. They are almost all free. The folks who create podcasts are really, really excited about what they are doing, and it shows in the quality of the information the present.
So, here’s my thought for you. Why don’t you try a podcast? The easiest way to find them is through iTunes. Just go to the iTunes store and select Podcasts. Then search for something that interests you. Do you have an interest in knitting? There are a couple dozen podcasts. Making chocolate more to your fancy? I found 25 episodes. Seriously, you can a podcast about almost anything.
So what do you think? Want to give listening to podcasts a try?
