When I was a kid I thought it would be cool to be on the radio as a disc jockey. My dad was into CB radios back then and he had a decent set of walkie-talkies that he let me borrow to play with. Walkie-talkies are not all that powerful. They might have a range of about one block if you’re lucky. But that was fine by me; I was on the air.
So I dragged out an old turntable from the attic and got my collection of 45 RPM records, all 10 of them, and started my new radio station from my bedroom. This was in the 1960s, so I had songs by Peter, Paul, and Mary and the Beach Boys. I played them on the air for any close neighbor who may have had his CB tuned to channel 11. There probably weren’t any, since my dad got no complaints.
When I entered college, one of the few extracurricular activities I signed up for was to be on the college radio station. It could get out no more than about 10 miles on a good day. Still, that was a far cry from the one-block range of my old walkie-talkie radio station. I would spin records once or twice a week, for a couple of hours. When I was a junior, a couple of college friends and I even started the stations first daily newscast.
My career goal was to teach science. I made up my mind when I was in the eleventh grade that I wanted to be a science teacher. So there was never any doubt that I would pursue that career. But my fall-back plan was to also get my broadcasting license and apply to be either a disc jockey or a newscaster. It’s a good thing I got into teaching my first year after graduation, because none of the broadcasting opportunities panned out.
A few years ago, however, a new type of broadcasting was invented. And it didn’t really have anything to do with a radio station. After the invention of the mp3 player, Apple Computers came out with the de facto standard of portable music players, the iPod. But iPods and other mp3 players can play more than just music. Some can now play video as well, but they all can play voice-only mp3 files. In other words, if you can speak into a microphone, you can now create an mp3 file and upload it to the Internet.
These voice mp3 files that are meant to be played back on an iPod are called podcasts. So now, anybody can create their own radio show. Podcasts have been around for a few years, but last week I decided to start my own.
Some people use their podcasts to play an instrument, or sing. But most podcasts are used as a medium to give your opinions to anyone out there who will listen. People find podcasts by subscribing to the show, much as they would subscribe to a blog. The iTunes software, that comes with iPods and can be downloaded off the Internet, has thousands of podcasts on every conceivable topic. Many of them have video. Mine doesn’t.
I use my podcast to discuss the opinions I express in these columns. Since I just started podcasting, I have been creating one every day. Later, I’ll cut back to once a week when I get caught up with everything I want to say.
Anybody who is interested in checking out my podcast can just search for my name on iTunes. If you don’t have an iPod, you can go to my feed site at Wilstar.com and click on the podcast link.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Forty Years and Still Writing
It recently occurred to me that it has been 40 years since I wrote my first newspaper column. I was 15 at the time. And this year marks the 15th anniversary of my first regular Over Coffee column.
My first Over Coffee column appeared in Edinburgh’s Tricounty News in March, 1993. I had been working part time for that weekly for a couple of years, contributing some news stories and editorials. But in 1993, I decided to quit my miserable job babysitting inner-city teens at Job Corps and start a new career in local journalism.
The title of this column, Over Coffee, is not exactly original. It isn't that I couldn't come up with anything new or different if I wanted to. It's just that I wanted to take the opportunity to continue a tradition started by one of my predecessors in the newspaper business, someone to whom I owe much of my present interest in newspaper writing.
Long-time Edinburgh residents probably know the answer to this. Who had a column of the same name in another Edinburgh newspaper about 40 years ago? And what was the name of that paper?
The name of the newspaper was The Edinburgh Daily Courier. Yes, it was a daily back then. Francis and Sarah Otto owned and published that newspaper until the middle-1960s. The Courier was sold to the Franklin Evening Star, which later became the Daily Journal. Bill Hale became the editor. It was Hale who gave me my first shot at writing a regular column for the newspaper.
I was interested in the weather back then, as now. I was only a sophomore in high school, but Bill came over to my house and took some pictures of my "state-of-the-art" weather instruments (such as a rooster wind vane, a large empty can with a ruler for a rain gauge, a window thermometer, and a cheap barometer).
He did a story on me and my interest in the weather. That kicked-off a regular daily feature which included my hand-drawn weather map of the United States and a forecast. It was 1968; I had no computer to produce digital maps. I actually drew a U.S. map freehand every morning.
Occasionally, I would even write an article to accompany my forecast and map. One of those articles, complete with diagrams, was called The Anatomy of a Thunderstorm. It was also picked up by The Republic in Columbus, Indiana.
Bill wrote a daily column in the Courier. He called it Over Coffee. And to think, he had to come up with something new and different EVERY DAY!
A few years ago, I was digging through an old chest of drawers that belonged to my late Aunt Ruby. She would keep almost everything I produced back then. I noticed several old yellow newspapers, advertising milk at 69 cents per gallon. They all contained some of my original newspaper material. I hate to think my style hasn't improved, but they really were not too bad for a high-school kid!
For several years, until the paper folded (and, no, I don't think I had anything to do with that), I continued to provide the daily weather forecast for Edinburgh. I wrote my forecast and drew my map every morning after I got dressed and would slip my copy underneath the door of the Courier office on my way to school. And in the afternoon, it would be in the paper, as if by magic.
Anyway, that is the origin of this column. I offer a thank you to the late Bill Hale for the start, and for the idea. Have a cup on me, Bill. But I still prefer decaf.
My first Over Coffee column appeared in Edinburgh’s Tricounty News in March, 1993. I had been working part time for that weekly for a couple of years, contributing some news stories and editorials. But in 1993, I decided to quit my miserable job babysitting inner-city teens at Job Corps and start a new career in local journalism.
The title of this column, Over Coffee, is not exactly original. It isn't that I couldn't come up with anything new or different if I wanted to. It's just that I wanted to take the opportunity to continue a tradition started by one of my predecessors in the newspaper business, someone to whom I owe much of my present interest in newspaper writing.
Long-time Edinburgh residents probably know the answer to this. Who had a column of the same name in another Edinburgh newspaper about 40 years ago? And what was the name of that paper?
The name of the newspaper was The Edinburgh Daily Courier. Yes, it was a daily back then. Francis and Sarah Otto owned and published that newspaper until the middle-1960s. The Courier was sold to the Franklin Evening Star, which later became the Daily Journal. Bill Hale became the editor. It was Hale who gave me my first shot at writing a regular column for the newspaper.
I was interested in the weather back then, as now. I was only a sophomore in high school, but Bill came over to my house and took some pictures of my "state-of-the-art" weather instruments (such as a rooster wind vane, a large empty can with a ruler for a rain gauge, a window thermometer, and a cheap barometer).
He did a story on me and my interest in the weather. That kicked-off a regular daily feature which included my hand-drawn weather map of the United States and a forecast. It was 1968; I had no computer to produce digital maps. I actually drew a U.S. map freehand every morning.
Occasionally, I would even write an article to accompany my forecast and map. One of those articles, complete with diagrams, was called The Anatomy of a Thunderstorm. It was also picked up by The Republic in Columbus, Indiana.
Bill wrote a daily column in the Courier. He called it Over Coffee. And to think, he had to come up with something new and different EVERY DAY!
A few years ago, I was digging through an old chest of drawers that belonged to my late Aunt Ruby. She would keep almost everything I produced back then. I noticed several old yellow newspapers, advertising milk at 69 cents per gallon. They all contained some of my original newspaper material. I hate to think my style hasn't improved, but they really were not too bad for a high-school kid!
For several years, until the paper folded (and, no, I don't think I had anything to do with that), I continued to provide the daily weather forecast for Edinburgh. I wrote my forecast and drew my map every morning after I got dressed and would slip my copy underneath the door of the Courier office on my way to school. And in the afternoon, it would be in the paper, as if by magic.
Anyway, that is the origin of this column. I offer a thank you to the late Bill Hale for the start, and for the idea. Have a cup on me, Bill. But I still prefer decaf.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
New Dedicated URL
Well I finally decided to give my blog it's very own URL. So if you are a regular reader, or want to become one (hint, hint), please point your browser to...
http://ReadJerryWilson.com
...and be sure to bookmark it!
http://ReadJerryWilson.com
...and be sure to bookmark it!
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