MWGblog

I don’t talk about it much but back in 2000, I ordered a 550 Maranello from the Ferrari factory. Membership in the 12 cylinder club is unique. It was a life goal and I felt good about achieving it. At the same time, some friends bought me an infant size racing suit for my first born. As an F1 fan it was a perfect gift. The car has since been sold, but each of my 3 boys has had his picture taken in the Ferrari driver’s suit. For Father’s day I received them all mounted with the suit – awesome!

Thank you to my wife and children.

Saturdays in our neighborhood are mostly about swim meets for those with children under 12. Having three boys in that range, two that can swim and one learning to walk, we spend our Saturday mornings at the pool. Here are some quick pics I grabbed using a Canon 40D and my 70-200mm f/2.8L lens of the boys during the freestyle event. Nick (7) is above and Will (5) is below.

After each Baptism we have pictures taken of our boys in their “dress” clothes. We also have one taken in a Ferrari driving suit given to me by some great friends when our first, Nick, was born. The Formula 1 fan in me loves these photos. Ferrari flag is from a factory visit to Maranello.

I’ve never been big on talent competition shows like ‘American Idol’ etc., but when I saw my wife watching this clip of Susan Boyle on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ I couldn’t help but pass it along. Never judge a book by its cover. Great way to give your morning a lift with an inspiring video.

Update: It has been quite a week for Ms. Boyle and more proof of how powerful New & Social Media are.

I’d like to congratulate my business partners in GrapeRadio for having been named finalists for the third consecutive year in the category of Video Webcast by the James Beard Foundation.

Here is our James Beard Award nominated video:
The Art of Blending.

In addition, we have also been selected as a finalist for an award in the Audio Webcast or Radio Show category.

Here is our James Beard Award nominated audio show: Thomas Jefferson and Wine.

The James Beard Foundation Awards are the nation’s preeminent honors for culinary professionals. More than 60 awards are given out each year in the categories of cookbooks, restaurants, chefs, design, graphics, broadcast media, journalism, and achievement. Nominees and award winners are selected by their industry peers, with more than 600 culinary professionals involved in the voting process.

We were honored to have won in 2008 with our video Stewards of the Land.

Thank you to all of our fans who have given us such great support over the years.

For those that follow this blog, you know that last year I completed the Orange County Sheriff’s Academy to become a Reserve Deputy Sheriff. I serve, among many other duties, primarily as a member of the Technical Rescue Team, part of the Search and Rescue Unit. (Technical Rescue – think ropes, rappelling and hoisting folks out of tough spots.)

I’ve had friends ask what is a Reserve? I thought the poster image above summed it up nicely and decided to post it so I can refer to it in the future. Reserves are duly sworn law enforcement personnel who have trained to serve in a Law Enforcement capacity but do so as a volunteer. Usually comprised of people who enjoy their current careers but are looking for additional ways to serve their local communities. It also happens to be a lot of fun.

Doing some research on AdWords and found this video. Thought it was a good basic explanation.

Brian Clark, a great friend and partner in GrapeRadio.com was involved in a horrible car accident in Central California last Friday. He is currently in the ICU and has received in excess of 13 units of blood and platelets.

Many of you know Brian as a core member of the Grape Radio podcast, recipient of the 2006 Podcast of the Year award and a 2008 James Beard Award.

Along with myself, Brian is also a member of the Orange County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team. He is the kind of guy who is always there, ready to help others in their time of need. As a member of our team he responds to calls at all hours of the day and night to help people he has never even met. I hope that we can return the favor.

When asking, “What can we do to help,” the only thing that his wife has requested was for us to give blood. A blood drive has been planned for Wednesday, March 18, from noon to 6pm. For local folks the information is below. Due to limited time slots it is important to have everyone make an appointment on line.

If the 18th will not work or you are out of the area, please contact your local American Red Cross or http://www.givelife.org where you can also donate. If you participate, please email me and let me know or post a comment below. It will be great to tell Brian how many people donated blood on his behalf.

We always hear about the “podcast community”, I would like to show the power of our network.

How you can help:

• Donate (Wherever you can)
• Link to this post. Tweet and Re-Tweet about it, Facebook, whatever your platform may be.

While flowers are nice, blood may save the life of a loved one.

Any help towards this cause is greatly appreciated.

Please keep Brian and his family in your prayers.

Thank you in advance!

Michael W. Geoghegan

Note: Blood Drives aren’t so much about donating for a particular person as much as donating in the name of a person to help support a critical system in saving lives. So donate wherever you can and let us know so we can add it to the tally.

Brian Clark Blood Drive

When:
March 18th
Wednesday
Noon to 6:00

Location:
Tustin Hospital
14662 Newport Ave
Tustin, CA. 92780
Tel. 714. 669-5881

Sign Up:
http://www.givelife.org
Use sponsor code: THMC

*If you are out of the Orange County Area and wish to locate a place to give in your area, please visit http://www.GiveLife.org

Last Friday, the Los Angeles station 97.1 KLSX FM Talk changed formats to some low cost top 40 programming stuff like you get everywhere else. This was the former home of Howard Stern, his morning slot having been taken over by Adam Carolla. Working from home, I’m not a morning drive time person and have heard Adam’s show at most 5 times. But this is not about morning drive time shows.

Interestingly, this morning Adam Carolla released his first podcast. No ads, no requests for money or donations, just him doing his thing. No big news there – “known celebrity/personality releases podcast” is not ground breaking and Adam Carolla is not hurting; he has plenty of other projects and his contract continues to pay him through the end of 2009. What I appreciate is he gets podcasting from the get go. His show is genuine. He even admits to being a bit nervous (all podcasters have been there.) He dishes some dirt, complains a bit and just plain talks to you about what is going on, like a friend would. That is the power of podcasting.

Prior to podcasting how could this have happened? In past years he would have had to go hat in hand to multiple stations to get someone to LET him back on the air. All the time being silent so as to demonstrate he is a “good boy” and not upset the radio gatekeepers at potential future stations. The beauty of podcasting is: if he can keep an audience guess who will be asking him back. (And yes – morning radio pays way more than any podcast opportunity in existence.) Maybe someone will pick him up, maybe he’ll move on to some of the other projects he’s been working on. We’ll see.

No idea how long lived this will be or what will come of it. That’s not the point. Maybe he tries to make money at it or maybe he decides to quit it tomorrow. The point is while he still wants to talk to an audience he values anyone who wants to listen can. No one has to grant him permission to do it or dictate who, what or how it has to be done. For those of us who have been there from the beginning, that is everything podcasting has always been about.

You can find his podcast here.

About a week ago we tried an experiment on our Podcast Academy site where we posted an entire transcript of one of the hour long presentations from the New Media Expo. No particular reason we picked the one we did, in fact we had already posted it once before, it was just a quick and easy one for the transcriber to pull a copy of. Although we’re all podcast fans, it’s important to keep in mind that making the content available in a variety of formats helps us all reach a broader audience.

I’m curious if anyone has any feedback. Is this a helpful tool if we continued to provide them?

I saw the advantages as:

• You can link to specific quotes on the transcript pages.
• It increases the relevance of content rich presentations for search.
• Allows presenters one more way to provide their presentations.
• All around good resource.

Obviously there is some cost involved (actually a significant cost) if we continue to do this. No big secret, if you see the pages, we deployed some ads. So we’ll continue to monitor our test to see if it is economically viable on a mass scale for all 153 hours of audio.

Meanwhile, if you like the transcript idea I’d appreciate you thoughts.  Here’s the link to the transcript post.

Thanks to Paul Colligan for the nudge to test this.