We (especially Marcie) spend a huge amount of time and energy restoring our farm to the native habitat that was here before settlers came. I spend a little time talking about where we get the seeds for that project along with some other prairie-farming tidbits.
GC028 – Prairie seeds and the farm
October 22nd, 2006GC027 — Politics: the polls have me perky
October 15th, 2006Usually I read you the polls and scratch my head. This time I read the polls and express hope that maybe we can do something to change the policy direction in Washington.
GC026 — Radio Stories
October 2nd, 2006We visited Richard at Northland College this weekend and I was honored to be a guest on the award-winning Tea Time at 12 radio show that he co-hosts with his friends Kevin and Dan. I realized after my guest-shot was over that Richard really wanted me to tell old-geezer stories about my community radio days. So I decided to put of few of them in this here Geezercast instead — maybe Rich can play them on WRNC some time to make up for my mistake.
GC025 — Ray’s Song
September 25th, 2006Ze Frank has all us Sports Racers (check out The Show to find out more, or if you’re really into it check out his whole site — well worth the journey) mashing up a cool vocal track by a mystery guy named Ray. There are some interesting issues that have arisen now that it’s looking like Ray is an inner-city black preacher in St Louis who has trouble with Jewish people. I play the tracks I made up, and explore those issues, in this podcast.
Click here to download this 12 minute podcast
Click here to get the first (big-band, swing) version of Ray’s Whipass tune
Click here to get the second (power R&B) version of Ray’s tune
GC024 — Richard’s good decision
September 18th, 2006Rich pulled a boomerang fish act and headed back to Northland College after two miserable weeks at George Washington University. I think he did the right thing and spend this Geezercast exploring the difference between a good decision and a bad outcome (along with embarrassing Richard all to heck, which is my duty as a parent). Along the way I talk about sunk costs, “Blink” and why I think sometimes we put too much emphasis on “toughing it out” when in fact you shouldn’t — a lesson that applies to business as well as personal decisions.
GC023 — My “why I don’t like municipal WiFi” rant
September 17th, 2006This is a longer-than-normal GeezerCast ’cause I’m trying to encapsulate why I’m not keen on municipal WiFi projects and I couldn’t quite fit it into the normal 10 minute slot.
One of the things that has me bugged is that these projects don’t look like they’ll ever make money. I went so far as to post a financial model out there on the ‘net. Let’s do a little open-source financial modeling here and get these numbers out into the light of day instead of in the heads of the Voodoo consultants who are making lots of money walking cities down the primrose path.
If you don’t like my (wildly unprofitable) model, fix it! I’d love to be proven wrong — but right now it looks to me like we’re not solving the digital divide, we’re distracting ourselves from the real issue of open-access networks, and we’re putting cities on the hook for some very expensive project failures down the line.
So there! 
GC022 — Geezercast goes video AND audio this time
September 4th, 2006It may not last, but I’ve decided to try doing a video version of Geezercast along with the audio version. This one’s about time-machines, the hassles of video blogging, a great speech by Salt Lake City Mayor Anderson plus a few other odds and ends.
Click here to download this 8.5 minute podcast
And here’s the link to the Youtube-video version of this podcast
GC021 – Bug in the ear, pedophiles and Nashville Democrats
August 21st, 2006Summer’s winding down and the Geezercast quotient is rising as farm activity starts to move indoors. A few things in the NY Times caught my eye — a story about pedophiles that paints a perfect road-map for people are looking for support in that activity (I’m wondering whether the author really realized what he was doing) and another piece about how song-writers with Democratic political points of view are being shut out of country music (with implications that make me grumpy).
Not to mention the story of getting a dang bug caught in my ear. How can you resist all that??
Geezercast 20 — Music, Madison and etc
August 14th, 2006Well, the farm party is over, fall is in the air and I have a new keyboard to play with. So this is a Geezercast showing off what the new gizmo can do, which leads to reflections about the Mifflin Street Block Pary in Madison, WI of all things.
Geezercast 19 — Bio-fuels
July 24th, 2006More erratic-ness in the Geezercasting. Dang I’m having a good time this summer, but the poor old podcast is being neglected. This one’s about bio-fuels — which I think are completely nifty, but will present you (my unborn grandchildren) some interesting problems to solve. So here’s a letter forward in time, letting you know that I’m thinking about ya.