When 2013 is all said and done, it will have been quite the eventful year for me, including turning 40, writing a book, winning Twitter, and attending my first WordCamp San Francisco.
Sandwiched into all of that was some not-so-minor health issues which I’m still going to be dealing with for a few more months to come. In late September, just after WordCamp Baltimore, I had to have my thyroid totally removed because it had grown too large and gross to do me any more good.
I think I know a little about how Vladimir and Estragon felt. It seems all I’m doing right now is waiting for news. And waiting. And waiting.
Take WordCamp San Francisco. I submitted my speaker proposal back in April. Submissions were due May 1. For some reason (and I could be wrong about this) I thought we were supposed to hear yea or nay by May 15. It’s now mid-June, six short weeks before the camp itself, and as far as I know, no speaker applicant has been informed as to whether they were accepted or not.
No sooner had WP Daily lamented the fact that WPCandy hadn’t posted a new article in over a month, WPCandy responds in force by publishing four articles in a 24 hour span.
WP Daily’s piece went on about some of the other ventures of Ryan Imel’s that seem to have gone dormant as well. I’ve never met Ryan, and he wouldn’t know me from Eve (well, he might recognize me from my gravatar), but it seems to me that he might be the victim of his own success. When you build a site, and a community, that people rely on, it can be hard to continue to live up to expectations.
So I’ve been using DAR.fm for a couple of weeks now, and things seem to be going fairly smoothly. At first, there was a few seconds of overlap between one part and the next, but now that’s even gone away and aside from a quick stutter, one part rolls nicely into the next without Mr. Tony and gang repeating themselves.
At about the same time as WTEM ESPN980 decided that it would delay releasing its unabridged podcast of The Tony Kornheiser Show for twenty-four hours, David Pogue of the New York Times released his podcast and column spotlighting a little something called DAR.fm. What is it? Nothing less than a way that YOU can help free Mr. Tony, at least for yourself.
UPDATE: See below for Mr. Sapienza’s latest reply
I thought I’d share my email exchange with Chuck Sapienza, programming manager for ESPN 980:
My original email:
Why are you now delaying podcast releases for 24
hours?
I try to listen to The Tony Kornheiser Show live via internet stream, but AS I HAVE A JOB, sometimes I’m in meetings or otherwise not at my desk between 10 and 12.
Because on this point, I’m completely narcissistic, here’s my email that Mr. Tony read on today’s show:
I’m no doctor (I was actually a history major in college), but from the description of your symptoms you clearly have sweating sickness. Extremely fast acting and most often fatal, several outbreaks in England killed thousands of people in the 15th and 16th centuries before human beings developed a natural immunity to it. But you’re so old you may not have that immunity yourself. If I were you, I’d go to a doctor quickly so he can start with the leeches.
I gotta give a lot of kudos to my new (well, newish) favorite sushi joint, Rolls n’ Rice (Congressional Plaza, Rockville). I come in a lot for lunch during the week, but a few weeks ago I brought my entire family there for dinner. My 5 year old son is easy; he loves sushi already and had no problem chowing down on avocado and New York rolls. But my 2 year old daughter is a bit more picky. She only likes things that are sweet or deep-fried, and preferably both at the same time. But I asked the waiter if they could make some chicken tempura, not normally on the menu, and they did for a very reasonable price. Both Sammy and Sasha loved it.
Okay, I get it. It’s tough times financially for governments as well as people. And for whatever reason, Gene Cranick of rural Obion County, TN didn’t pay the requisite $75 to the city of South Fulton to allow South Fulton firefighters to save his home. (No one was hurt, fortunately, but four pets were killed in the fire.)
